We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Longboat Oar

from Songs For Cold by The Electric St. Lucy

/

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more. Paying supporters also get unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app.
    Purchasable with gift card

      name your price

     

  • Buy the Full Digital Album

lyrics

Staring out over a land now barren from my slouched stance on the deck, I was spent. I couldn't waste another second stuck in a rut the way I was, so I hollered for a change of course instead: too many hours spent aiming sail for the ruins and the wreck, so I set the skeleton crew to lash me to the post as I began to make pretend that you were dead. I was astounded by how simple it was to convince myself of it.

In my head, I set a blanket by the marker I'd made for you, and I threw myself at the foot of this man-sized monument with a likeness derived from a single shaky memory snuffed to smoke by a thousand midnights between now and then, and ever since, I saw a specter in you whenever we spoke.

With a quaking cry, I carved marble for the one I lost and I carved more for the one who never was, and I let him die. I sunk him down, down in the deep, and he never stopped or looked me in the eye and I never said whether or not I... and we never sang a breath of a goodbye.

I laid down all our letters and sketches and wept for some months. I completely lost my mind. I walked out into traffic with the blinders and the headphones on, looking for a way home I knew I'd never find. Made it back hours later to burn my guitar. With the last bit of skin shed, I began to build myself back up again: I felled lumber for stronger struts, unwound strings untouched, armed and ready to sense in the wind a start for a new story, something to test my arms with all the rowing it would bring.

The longboat oar still hangs above my fireplace with its strong rope and beautiful inscriptions from when we needed one another, and on my weaker days, my fingers still climb to trace their graceful forms (the way the old songs get tangled up in my branches now and again),

but I can always hum another tune, and when the winter comes
there'll be beautiful, beautiful kindling once it's less important to remember how it all was back then than it is now to stay warm.

credits

from Songs For Cold, released June 1, 2018
D. Bargteil - bass
J. Holland - ambient cymbals
C.A. Napolitano - voice, guitar, synths

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

The Electric St. Lucy image

The Electric St. Lucy Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

The musical life and times of an aspiring something-or-other in Pittsburgh, PA.

Working toward something new and better to share here, slowly but surely.

contact / help

Contact The Electric St. Lucy

Streaming and
Download help

Report this track or account

If you like The Electric St. Lucy, you may also like:

Bandcamp Daily  your guide to the world of Bandcamp

On Bandcamp Radio

Featuring Riley Pinkerton (aka The Rat Queen) from the theatrical NYC rockers, Castle Rat.
listen now