Get all 8 Elmer and the Ceramic Trees releases available on Bandcamp and save 35%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of We were Beautiful in August, After the Before, Who's Your Entertainment, Isolation Masquerade, California on a Toothpick, Maps of Outer Space, SaturdayNight Satellite, and Elmer and the Ceramic Trees.
1. |
Rattlesnakes
07:34
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Silly conversations
Where do their echos go?
The city's dying twilight
Like silk on raven skies a wintered glow
Faces fight to find their features
Providence has cursed their blood
Just stay clear of well-lit places
You'll catch a fever lying naked in the sun.
There's murmurs in the ground
And trumpets in the skies
Weaving melodies of doom
That dislocate my eyes
And the vines ascend through cracks
Of the street's we'd called our own
They parody our veins
And reclaim our tired bones.
Shimmy and shake
I can never catch a break
The hours get lonely
They slither by like rattlesnakes
Tremors in the treetops
Awake the morning star
Seven thousand laughing angels
Cast their silhouettes across the dawn
The masters of the skyline
Humbled down onto all fours
If the silence gets too painful
Just imagine there was never sound at all.
As the weeks turned into miles
I gazed upon a beach
And all the ones I'd loved
Had been buried by the sea
The titans of the Earth
Could not roll back the tide
So I dug into the dirt
And held to what was mine
Shimmy and shake
I can never catch a break
The hours get lonely
They slither by like rattlesnakes.
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2. |
Viral Daydream
04:37
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Built by the clock
I've got friends with loose change
No holes in my socks
I can't complain.
(Viral Daydream)
And the Martians are invading
I can't keep them from my space
And their poetry's degrading
But they won't say it to my face
And the streets all change their colors
All the houses change their names
We'll be friends in summer weather
But winter's scars will still remain.
How do you wake up from a dream?
Blood for a raft
(Great men sit on mountains of gold)
Mean Monday blues
(Exquisite wine and comfortable shoes)
These hands are not mine
(Is this what I'm dying for?)
Only the bruise.
(This club is not for you)
(Viral Daydream)
We were beautiful in August
Magnificent in May
But our tragedy was sudden
As our comedy was lame
Our millennium in autumn
Will soon fall the way of Rome
In the shadows of its ruins
Lies a misplaced sense of home.
How do you wake up from a dream?
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3. |
Cherry Blossum Lane
04:04
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Walking stupid through the clouds
Out on Cherry Blossum Lane
I'm fearless like a lioness
I am roaring into space
Life's an accidental kiss
Left untold until it flees
And I don't feel like myself anymore
Whatever that means
Whatever that means.
You and I took different paths
Out to the seance on the lake
We count our hopes in the seeds we plant
Because the dollar signs were fake
Starry love
Oh! My stars above
Don't ever leave me to my feet
Because I'm in love with everyone
But this small talk leaves me beat
And I just want to sleep.
I caught a glimpse of the better world
And I have never been so sad
The amber dawn assembled agelessly
Over the angelic ivory sand
I held the Earth in its rotation and I pushed the other way
It bore me down like an elephant
Now I'm falling out through space
I think I've lost my face.
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4. |
Who's Your Entertainment
05:05
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Snowflakes spin and fall like drunken dancers
Hey, commando, this evening has been canceled
And the assassins laughed
As you felt for your hands
They were wired like a suitcase bomb
And your breath was cold and your neck was red
And they'd shout
There's a fire in the middle of the town
So put your medications down
Let it murder you before you let it out
And I said who's your entertainment now?
Blameless impressions of the living
They bled what you'd offered to give them
So why don't you stake out your claim to fame
You can call it personality
Why can't I fold
Why can't I just leave this crowd
There's a fire in the middle of the town
So put your medications down
Let it murder you before you let it out
And I said who's your entertainment now?
How could you lead me to the edge of the plane
To let me wander when I couldn't walk straight
But it's all left me but the longing and the doubt
And I said who's your entertainment now?
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5. |
Imaginary Stars
03:54
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Pacing underneath the porchlight
Hoping for a better spring
It's warmer than it was last year
We'll wait and see what June will bring.
The ghosts are in the backyard
Playing hide and seek again
I'm plucking petals off the sunset
Until nightfall comes to free my head.
And all I want is to bang my drum
And go outside and play
How's it feel to be the scum
That you pretend to hate?
But it's not that important
Think of something new to say
It's not that important
We're all imaginary stars today.
But no one ever feels that good
And no one's felt this low
You can live a decent life
When you just stay at home
You can sleep in Saturdays
And brace for Monday's wrath
Burn your eyes on TV screens
Or perfect your daytime act.
But it's not that important
Think of something new to say
We're not that important
We're all imaginary stars today
We're all imaginary stars today.
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6. |
Blue June
04:09
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Seaside, seasick, star-punked lovers
They carve their names out under the covers
Secret seconds now eloped
With eternity by stone
Blue June came
They knew it was over
A poet birthed with a flip of her shoulder
And the hours illuminate
All the faults in their embrace.
And the blues are gonna bite you bad on Monday
When the screen door slams
And all the animals go running
Roots entwined
Stems grow untangled
They catch the sun
At separate angles
As springtime's lover's suite
Drifts softly out of key.
Blue June came
They knew it was over
Their summer strains
Long walks turn shorter
And the phone calls of the past
Come haunting as they crash
And heartbreak stains on wrinkled sheets fade slowly
Scrub them off with bleach with the hand she once was holding
Slowly.
And heartbreak stains on wrinkled sheets fade slowly
Scrub them off with bleach with the hand she once was holding
How the ghost of something ended becomes so holy
Slowly.
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7. |
You in Red
04:03
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Home is wine
Grows more delicious with time
And the longer you're away
The more you wished you might have stayed.
Lying in the grass with the shadows of the clouds
Planting thoughts in my mind that can never leave the ground
Arkady sighs and gently sets me down.
Dandelion dreams simmer sweetly in the sun
Spitting kisses in the wind
Holding secrets in my lungs
I could win the west if Monday never comes.
But maybe I'd just like to hold the view
Of your glow in the shine of the afternoon.
And the road through my life
Although it may wind
I find it brings me back here
Every single time
To where the sweetness of summer
Hangs on youth's untamed breath
You in red is so hard to forget
You in red is so hard to forget.
Never figured out a way to stay
Never figured out a way to stay
But even if I could
The fruit would over-ripen and the twilight be too understood.
The fall came on too soon
And every setting sun has gotta turn and face its light on the moon.
And the road through my life
Although it may wind
I find it brings me back here
Every single time
To where the sweetness of summer
Hangs on youth's untamed breath
You in red is so hard to forget
You in red is so hard to forget.
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8. |
Ocean Garden
05:36
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I slip into the quiet sounds when I can't sleep
Let the radio noises and distant voices carry me
To someplace I can't lift my head or feel my toes
To my ocean garden take me deep where no one goes
'Cause I can remember the fog of the morning
Rolling through my mind
The beauty of nothing and the infinite all-thing
Held in balance by the tide
Sensations of floating with no way of knowing
The bounds of space or time
So can you hold my line?
Horizons bend by whim of sea at distant shores
And I can hide from my worried mind in liquid roars
Fractured light through waters weeps to depths untouched
By the atrocities that taint the surface up above.
No skylines, no byways
No cities, no highways
No trace of human law
No property values or power craving the vacuum
In my coral castle halls
Just a river of rainbow becoming around me
Of creatures great and small.
So can you hold my call?
I dreamt I was a fish and I could stay
And I knew the land no more than night knows day
And my world could bloom and breathe
Down in the belly of the sea.
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9. |
American Spring
03:40
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At the edge of the forest
The last piles of snow
Broke into tiny rivers
From the grip of the cold
Her hand soft and warm
She rubbed on my cheek
Our eyes met in silence
We'd no need to speak
Our eyes met in silence
We'd no need to speak.
We lay on our backs
With our shirts in the mud
Through the freshly-leaved trees
Watched the sinking spring sun
Our lips locked in an innocent
And childish love
That freed us from fear
And it freed us from want
It freed us from fear
And it freed us from want.
When the sun sank beneath
The curve of the Earth
The golden prairie grass was no different than the dirt
My eyes opened up
As our lips pulled apart
And I was alone
And cold in the dark
And I was alone
And cold in the dark.
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10. |
After the Before
04:28
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I awoke in a strange and melancholy lull
All the voices I'd known seemed to rattle around my skull
I leaned over the sink and I turned it into the sea
Still I couldn't take my eyes off you
Just a touch too much
Now I cut at the sight of the things we'd loved
Goodbye is where I live
Goodnight I won't forget
And I've swung through the trees
In daylight sepia toned
All the fumes of July burrowed deep inside my nose
And at the bottom of a crescent-shaped pool
I dreamt I was the sun
But I could never shine that bright for you
Just a touch too late
Have I slept through the cracks
In the gorgeous path you'd laid?
Goodbye is where I live
Goodnight I won't forge
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Elmer and the Ceramic Trees Janesville, Wisconsin
Conceived in the summer of 2012 by Janesville, Wisconsin singer-songwriter Robbie Haas, Elmer and the Ceramic Trees blend the lush melodies of bands like The Beatles and Big Star with the doom-and-gloom pop of The Cure and Echo and The Bunny Men, the driving rhythms of New Order, and the big choruses of Bowie and Arcade Fire to form a style of indie pop that is at once harrowing and gorgeous. ... more
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