Lyrics, Part II

Side B of the album, selected lyrics:

Love That You Lost
The agnostic-alien break-up song

When the aliens came, did they ask you your name?
were you wearing your grandmother’s dress?
and as they handed you down in a long wedding gown,
shoes in your hand and your hair all a mess,

Did they take you outside,
did they make you a bride
and take you along, girl, to choke on the stars?
While the blood stains your teeth
and you lie underneath of the avenues trembling with cars.

When you call there’s no one there
you will fly through thin air
and the hogs eat your eyes
and you’re covered over with flies.

What was ever the cost of the love that you lost?

The little green men on the ship,
They will ask you to sip
on the wine that flows down by the sea.
And they’ll whisk you away at the end of the day,
and leave you whirling around through the trees.

And it’s all just a dream, nothing’s quite what it seems
when the aliens they sing you to bed.
When you finally wake, you will turn and you’ll shake,
wondering why there’s this bump on your head.

In the long morning hours as you trample the flowers
in the dark as the roaches look on.
You’ll look up at the sight of the oncoming light.
It is all that you’ll know until one day you are gone.

Wrong Side
Which side are you on, boys?  which side are you on?

You will find me on the wrong side,
looking for a way out.
You’ll take it down and take it on a ride.
I know what this is all about.

So sing your song, sing it high.
Let yourself feel like you have the upper hand.
Sing your song, if you’d like.
but it ain’t ever gonna change this land.

You will find me on the wrong side,
trying to reason with a ghost
If everything is living up to lies,
your faith it finds you choking on your host.

You will find me on the wrong side,
I can’t be governed here by fear.
Tell you baby, that we have tried.
but we ain’t no winners here.

If I am late to the party,
of drunkards who are looking out of place,
understand that all I’ve stood for has all but been erased.

Dargha Dalanash
Filk music

’twas the bravest of the souls,
Dargha Dalanash the bold,
Captain of the Traigan Gold.
went forth through the million stars
to a planet very far
past the nebulas and quasars.

He was sent from Delphinor,
to that grand and farther shore
with a great weapon on board.
To make ruin with a gun of this wicked planet at the sun,
in a routine extermination.

The Delphinorians, we had pride
in the gun that laid inside
the might spacecraft that Dargha flied.
It could lay a planet bare to waste
while we went without a trace
of a people we thought disgraced.

And very soon, he did arrive
and he gazed down with his eyes
at this human breeding hive.
He saw a lass who was so fair
in the golden hills down there
“What a lovely alien girl” he declared.

Then he looked at the wheel of his good ship
and he knew that he could not be so cold.
and as those words he did croon,
and his eyes still in a swoon,
he shot the cannon at the moon.

And as the moon in fragments lay,
he did quickly speed away,
as the sun came up that day.
For the fairness of a girl
on the moor with amber curls,
beauty saved another world.

So that’s the story of the bold
Dargha Dalanash whose soul
Was pure and right and whole.
who saved a world that we abhorred
because his gracious heart did soar
for the girl of the moor.

When I Go
The beauty of drunken remembrance.  Or, the bittersweet farewell.

When I go don’t keep me under your anger.
cause I will be buried on the road out of town.
all that’s left to go six feet under
is the dirt from that burial ground.

I remember her undressed in the mornings,
and how the sunlight used to flow through her skin.
the mornings where you think that you’ll never die,
so you live life again and again.

When I go, I will go peaceful.
When I go I will catch the very last train.
If you miss me while I’m out on the road,
think about me and whistle my name.

She said when the worms come to get us that day,
we’ll be on a bright ship out at the sea.
and nothing can harm us out on the water,
and nothing can harm her, and nothing can harm me.

So we drink tonight to each other’s sweet memory
of all we had ‘fore I crossed the divide.
If they tell you that I’ve never felt love before,
tell them, baby, you’ve seen that I’ve tried.

I’ll brace you from the cold
of the chill wind you used to know.
your smoke-filled eyes all line in gold,
just love me, love me when I go, and I will go peaceful.
When I go, I’ll catch the very last train.
If you miss me while I’m out on the road,
think about me and whistle my name.

Empty Image of the War
The Crimean War in Russia was the first war of modern journalism.  This song is kind of about Roger Fenton.  Kind of.

Walking in the cannonfields of the Crimean war,
he takes a few shots and he’s rooting for more,
he’s digging his snout for truffles in the ground.
He could trade out for silver at the general store
and form up a negative of the night before.
and follow them down south to meet the cannon sound.

He’s the man who is there at the end of the brawl.
He’s the ghost in the photo at the end of the hall.
He’s the empty man in the midst of it all.

He grew up dark in the old Lion’s home,
with Rotarian sisters who wouldn’t leave him alone
and their siren song of absence stained his heart.
So he drank some whiskey at the Dog and Bone,
Left to find a woman who would crawl and moan
and he swore to her that they would never be apart.

Their flesh torn on a thresher’s wake,
he realized his long gone mistake
and asked the Christian assembly to forgive him of all of his sins.
But a passing writer said “Son I’ll give you a break
all that I ask is that you just forsake
Everyone you have ever called a friend.”

So the train left to carry him through,
and the cossack trails, well they vanished too
and he filmed the insurrection from the mines.
and he burnt his cabin that he built brand new,
dropping cannonballs down the chimney flue,
and he took a picture and he lay down in the vines.

(Once again, all lyrics copyright Chris Steude, 2010)

Lyrics, Part One

By Request, I’m posting lyrics to all the original songs on the album.  This is the first batch.  All lyrics copyright Chris Steude 2010.

Margo and Karen

In a dream I had, Margo Kidder and Karen Carpenter were lesbian lovers who took their own lives, rather than be victims of their fame.  Yeah, my dreams are weird.

Margo and Karen stood naked in the street,

trading heads with each other and waltzing through the lanes.

As they traded off the soles of their feet,

while in the flames they were smothered,

a million ants still crawling through their brains.

They will stay here so in love, with all the guidance from above.

The spotlights bearing down from high,

so smile little girl, and wave us all goodbye.

Margo and Karen drink coffee in the hills,

their taping pictures on the cartons.

They’ll spend their days in bed.

As the coffee drips and spills

as they watch the purple martins,

They ride away from the islands they have bled.

They will stay here so in love, with all the guidance from above,

The spotlights bearing down from high,

so smile little girl, and wave us all goodbye.

Margo and Karen are in the valley tonight,

Gold knives shine in both their hands.

They’re as thin as razor wire.

Together in the moonlight, they both will take their lives.

and light will fall down on the lowlands

in the sleepy-eyed legless empire.

Weeping My Blood

Our Protagonist is a nervous young man, trying to not be self-defeated by his own fears as he approaches our heroine from across the room.

If your beauty was gone to the well in the dark, would you still just keep soldiering on?

And you’ll want to embark–There’s a flood at the dawn–loading all you have left in the ark.

And I hope that you love me, cause I love you too,

if for no other reason than there’s nothing to do.

And I hope that you love me, cause I love you too,

and I’m tired of weeping my blood over you.

You ask me to dance me to dance so your mother may see, nervously watching with furious glance.

But it can’t bother me cause I wait in a trance without wasting to move my feet.

Sleeping daughter abide:  Though your mother may sing one day you’ll lay your worries aside.

Then the arrows won’t sting, your skin’s like a hide, you’ll be proud you can’t feel a thing.

But you sit there and cry, you are breaking the necks of all the birds in the sky.

Are we cursed by the sex where we crumble and die giving up while still trying to protect.

Decadent Man

Sleep peacefully for the moment.  The moment won’t last, but that won’t matter.

I sleep in the skin of a decadent man.

With the soft flesh of Maggie to keep me warm.

If I only could rest my lips on her hand,

and take a breath from her careless form.

The wine drifts upward into my brain.

I spit out my bones at a hole in the floor.

and the one thing I hold won’t keep me sane

with her eyes hanging over the door.

I kiss your hand.

I kiss your cheek.

and I fall into your arms asleep.

Her hair is all cobwebs and silk on my chest.

She carries my scent in her lungs.

and I lay my head down on her breast,

and softly hum a song unsung.

I kiss your hand

I kiss your cheek

and I fall into your arms asleep.

When she will die, I never can tell–

Til all of the world will run dry.

And I will hold her through all of her hell,

and feel her drift up to the sky.

I kiss your hand.

I kiss your cheek.

and I fall into your arms asleep.

and you fall into my arms asleep.

and we fall in each other’s arms asleep.

Here Come Rapunzel

Ever seen a woman so sexy it hurts?

Here come Rapunzel with her dirty hair, looking for her man.

She got her dress up high and tight and she’s dancing to the band.

Here come Rapunzel watch the way she moves, she’s shaking it all over town.

She’s the only kinda woman that moves like that and she’s gonna let her hair down.

Here Come Rapunzel.

Here Come Rapunzel with her great red eyes, filled with briars and thorns.

If she ain’t a woman who makes you feel good, my boy you have never been born.

Here come Rapunzel in a fiery crash–Cherry Red Chevrolet.

She’s gonna walk a mile or two into town just to drink and listen and sway.

Here Come Rapunzel

Here come Rapunzel with a drink in hand–Even a lady gets lonely.

But if she sends you out wandering in the waste,

just remember she don’t love you only.

How I Came to Build My Home Beneath the Roses

or How To Construct a Failure By Heart

The scar on my leg, it reminds me of you, whenever it folds and wraps around my skin.  When I awake to the light of the dawn, I loosen the wires and I spin.  The scar is long; it stretches up to the knee.  It’s as red as the rim of your long-tearful eyes.  And I think of the day that I chased you down in the garden filled up with flies.

You ran along in a cotton dress, your mouth filled with hemlock, azalea, and ash.  With your deep water eyes and your hair in a mess, you trembled whenever you spoke.  And you traveled past the high hedges alone.  Barefoot, I followed you blindly up higher.  But when I felt the blood run down my leg, at my feet lay a trampled briar.  And withered around it, there grew a red rose, as precious as the first morning glow.  And I planted a seed in the rich, black soil and waited for a new rose to grow.  And one day the rose grew a hundred feet high, reaching for the heart of the one I adore.  I built a home in the shade of its arms, where the vines grow all around the door.

Seaside Tower

Never trust the grand gesture if you can help it.  What was that about best-laid plans?

He loved her so dearly, but he was afraid that she would leave

to seek out foreign lands beyond the grey sea.

so he built for her a high tower so she could see

all the lands beyond the horizon.

Stone upon stone was laid snugly in its bed.

He lavished on his workers wine and sweet bread.

This is to be the finest tower, he said.

For he built it for his beloved.

And she told him, you don’t have to build such a thing.

I will be here with you for summer, winter, fall, or spring.

All you must do is sit there and sing

and I’ll stay by your side forever.

But the great stone monument grew higher every day.

The fattened workers were slow and they made great delay.

and he squandered his father’s wealth on keeping them paid

until years passed and the tower was still building.

He spent all his hours pacing and watching the stone

leaving his beloved to sigh all alone.

and he worried she might never see this new home

that he built for her honor and glory.

and she told him, I cannot wait for such a man

who will not give up on his ill-fated plan.

I am leaving you to travel onto foreign lands.

And she parted, leaving only her roses.

His tower now a shadow, finished up into the sky.

Would not give an answer to any of his cries.

So he climbed the tower to the tallest height

and stared forlornly out to the sea.

Immolation release 01-02-10

On January 2nd, 2010, this long-gestating CD will have its release.  I’ve been working on writing, recording, and pressing this project since July of 2008.  I am honored and grateful to have had so many people work with me on this project over the past year and a half, and it feels good to finally be able to send it out on its own two legs into the great wide world.  It’s a concept album of sorts, or maybe more of a song cycle, but they are all drawn from two traditional folk songs (also recorded on the album), “Lady Margaret” and “Fennario”.  Both of these songs have been widely covered over many years, so I sought to find what it was about these songs and others that draw from such ancient roots that appeals to so many.  It’s about the nature of the many-splintered arms of folk music and how the same song could hold layers and layers of meaning.

The Concept

Fennario and Lady Margaret serve as source material, and each of the 12 songs that fill out the record are based off of a single verse of one of the two songs.  Words, characters, themes, and echoes of the songs appear in the new songs, tying them together into a single fabric.  Lady Margaret and Sweet William, the two principal characters, move through this little pocket universe showing the changing faces of the tragic love affairs in the original two songs.  Or something like that.  In any case, there’s love, war, desperation, peace, futility, pain, release, and more contained there in the midst.

Track Listing

1.  Lady Margaret (Traditional)

2.  Margo and Karen

3.  Weeping My Blood

4.  Decadent Man

5.  Here Come Rapunzel

6.  How I Came To Build My Home Beneath the Roses

7.  Seaside Tower

8.  Fennario (Traditional)

9.  Love That You Lost

10.  Song Z

11.  Wrong Side

12.  the Ballad of Dargha Dalanash

13.  When I Go

14.  Empty Image of the War

I hope that anyone who can make it out January 2nd to Snug Harbor, will.

Chris Steude

“Bones Kednig”

Reverbnation and elsewhere

Hey folks,

Just wanted to post to you that you can find Skeleton Kednig elsewhere on the web at http://www.reverbnation.com/skeletonkednig  If you have found me here through the CD’s, then feel free to check out the facebook page and be a fan.

the Solitude Session

 

 

 

The Solitude Session EP was recorded in a powerless cabin in Trust, North Carolina the evening of April 7th, 2009 on a Boss BR-600 4-track recorder.  All songs were written the day of the session.  Due to the nature of the recording device and speed, a few pops and crackles of the open fire or the stream outside the cabin can be heard.  The self-produced EP is the first release of Skeleton Kednig, anticipating the upcoming “Immolation Stories” CD to be released in the fall of 2009.  My mission was to write and record an entire 7 song EP in one night.  Some of these songs come from light-hearted places, some from dark, all seeking to fit snugly into the Skeleton Kednig “progressive folk” sound, while only using guitar and vocals.

1.  “Icebreaker” – Inspired by the frozen surface of the Linville River Gorge.  It’s about achieving those little moments that change things forever.

2.  “Beautiful” – Some women light up rooms.  Sometimes these women can show a cynical man a good heart and change his mind.

3.  “Radio Radio” – Joy Division meets Nirvana.  Stream-of-consciousness apocalyptica.

4.  “Stranger Christian” – about my grandfather and namesake who died before I was born.

5. “All of Your Days” – The smack of the childhood trauma.

6.  “Jukebox” – A diatribe against mindless performance.  Alternately, a love song.

7.  “Yankee Sunsets” – The false lure of the North and the noble decay of the South.  About the push/pull of geography and the myth of going somewhere to “find” oneself.

 

The EP is available for 2 bucks wherever I may be performing.

Chris Steude