NEW RELEASE
How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars by The Weather Station
KURATED NO.141: PART 1: The Music
Marsh
The year was unrelenting
We argued all the time
I obliterate your positions
And you know just how to obliterate mi
Online, we talk
Or say we talk, mute and block
I should turn this thing off
I know I should give it up
So I took a walk down the road
And at the bottom of the hill
A little river overflowed
And a swamp in the eddy had filled the ditch
With bullrushes and reeds
Black water puckered with bodies
Water striders, mosquitoes pierce my jeans
Try to really see the beauty
The blue and green
And light green
And yellow green
And blue green
And grey green
And red green
And muddy green
But all I can see today is black
Like the new moon sky
Like when you close your eyes
Those stars don’t guide you anywhere
But there is no other there
No any other anywhere, but here
Now it falls, the first tear
And when they hold the election
This argument may end
But everything depends on it still
If we don’t argue, they will
I can’t even watch the starlings fly
When I know I can’t count even on this
Tangle of grasses
The chance is this
Everything balanced on a kiss
Penetration of peel and pith
A body puckers the surface to take a breath
Endless Time
[Verse 1]
It’s only the end of an endless time
I wake up in my own bed
The curtain open wide
To let in what light
The sky has to offer today
[Verse 2]
It’s only the end of an endless time
They don’t put that in the paper
You won’t hear it on the news
But we knew
And it’s just like a sunset about to begin
[Verse 3]
Maybe at first you can’t believe your eyes
The sky all lit in colour and light
It’s just the same as right before you left
We would stay up late
Your head on my chest
[Verse 4]
We were still in love and the sun went on
Making flowers from the mud
We could walk out on the street and buy roses from Spain
Lemons and persimmons in December rain
All of our lives, it had been that way
[Verse 5]
But it’s only the end of an endless time
They don’t put that in the paper
You won’t read it on the news
You have to use your eyes
And it’s so painful how everybody lies
Nobody tells it straight
They try so hard not to meet your gaze
We can still walk out on the street and buy champagne grapes
Strawberries and lilies in November rain
It never occurred to us to have to pay
[Verse 6]
But it’s only the end of an endless time
We laughed so much, we wore lines around our eyes
You can see it in that picture of us from long ago
How we changed
And it happened so slowly, we couldn’t even say
I gotta find that picture, I want to look again
I used to think that I could see everything
That met my eyes
Taught
In another life, I might trust you
In the way I cannot in this one
My t-shirt was wet upon my back
As you insisted you’re so kind to me
You tell me, so it must be so
But in another life
I might reach out to touch and feel only calm
‘Cause I learn what I am taught
But I learn what I am taught
And the body is beyond thought
And so
Close your eyes
Go ahead and pretend
It is how you see me best
I brush the water from my skin
And I walk straight back in
To the river I was swimming in
While the swallows go on singing
All the same songs that they always did
Ignorance
I was woken up in the early morning, after my flight
By a sound I could not grasp, I did not recognize
Running like water, two toned, and tangled
Like a briar holding many sounds all at once
“It was a magpie,” you told me as you handed me a coffee
The black and white bird you see in city parks
And you pointed out the window, looking straight in at me
A black and white bird sitting on the fence
I thought about the man who called it a magpie
Confronted by the great expanse of his ignorance
He wanted to name it, to detain it forever in that small phrase
It seemed likе a shame to give it a name
But thеn again, I don’t understand anything the way I’m supposed to
I drag every river for meaning, scrape my hand on every ceiling
I never know what to say or not say
What to honour or betray in any given day
But I never got used to the sound of the magpie
It set my skin on edge, it called like a child
Like a dog, like the wind caught in a fence
When we talked, it interrupted
And I would never know what it meant
To Talk About
[Verse 1]
I am lazy, I only want to talk about love
I know there is so much I should try and say
But we lay in bed and leave it unsaid
I’m tired of working all night long
Trying to fit this world into a song
[Verse 2]
I am lazy, I only want to talk about love
What good are words if not to try and and get across
The river that ascends me every time we touch
And obliterate all the distance I get so tired of
[Verse 3]
I am lazy, I only want to talk about you
I spend all day with people who don’t think the way you do
When I’m tired of unravelling all their endless kinds of truth
Oh I only want to talk about you
[Verse 4]
I am tired, I only want to lie beside my lover tonight
When therе is too much midnight to ever exprеss
To listen to his breath
And to lay again my head on his chest
[Verse 5]
I am lazy, I only want to talk about love
Sometimes it feels like the only thing anybody wants me to speak of
Nobody wants to drag themselves through the endless ruins of
All there is in this world that is not love
Stars
How is it that I should look at the stars?
Drove out in the desert in a rental car
And I climb up on the roof and lie in wait
For my eyes to adjust for some peaceful state
When I was a child, my mother’d send me outside
On a moonless night to see the light
Cast out in some ancient storm
With a woolen blanket to keep me warm
So overwhelmed by the beauty of the sky
How could I not be?
But how should I look at the stars tonight?
At a million suns? None of them mine
Nowhere up there is a place likе this
Not one waterfall, no river mist
I fеlt dizzy, my chest clenched cold and tight
It’ll be 2020 tomorrow night
From Salton City, I hear fireworks go off
As though they’re celebrating all another year has cost
Or is it carelessness?
Send another star into the sky
Only to watch it die
Fall across the black in a shining arc
I swear to god, this world will break my heart
Song
I woke up thinking of a song that I could write
A song to pull the dream up from my night
All day I felt so light
And wild color bled along the road
In the fields and fences as we drove along
I was thinking of my song
And what I’d place inside, if I could bury light
In something I could write
Would it explain to you this white moon
Hanging high above the motel room?
The last gasp of longing that I stretch my hand towards
As though to steal from the moment some souvenir of words
I woke up thinking of a song that I could write
Sway
You came upstairs in a rush
Your headphones on
You had to play me this song, you said, I had to hear it
The music struck me strange
But when the drums came in, you swayed
Turning back to me, laughing
And I move too
I move too
I move too
To undo some static in the air, the mood I was in
The mess there on the stairs, the mess left in the kitchen
The ways I will never know you
And how you may never know me
Our many if only’s
I move too
When I watch you move, too
I want to move too
When I watch you dance
You fling your hands, you laugh and laugh
High above thе street, nobody gets to see you dance like this but mе
When you sway, I sway, and if I could love you more
I have not yet found a way
Sleight of Hand
Pretty tired of this sleight of hand
Do you think I don’t know the difference?
Do I not deserve the real thing?
Matches that do not light a fire
And candles that do not burn
Only flicker on in the cafes at night
I have tried to be good
I only ever wanted to be understood
I thought it was kind that I should play along
And when they light the sign, I applaud
But I’m pretty tired of this bait and switch
I don’t wanna have to smile when I open my gift
And there’s nothing inside it
You never wanted to be good
You nеver really wanted to bе understood
You wanted to be the one who held the cards
And for me to watch you draw the king of hearts
But I’m pretty tired of this sleight of hand
The king is queen and the queen is jack
And I am meant to be laugh, to be glad that you fooled me
Loving You
John Southworth & Tamara Lindeman
When you give your love
You give all your love
You have held me up
When I was not feeling strong
It’s enough
You don’t have to do so much
I can help you too
Loving you
That’s what my heart’s supposed to do
Now I have broken through
I’m closer to loving you
In my life
I’ve lived beside the border line
Now I have broken through
I’m closer to loving you
Loving you
I’m on my way to loving you
Now that I’m well and able to
I’m on my way to loving you
Now that I’m well and able to
I’m on my way to loving you
I’m on my way to loving you
