Get all 12 Yoko O.K. releases available on Bandcamp and save 15%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Cat Music, House of Hidden Life, People Pleasing, Immediacy, Tight Little Ship, Menahan Tree, Lilly Lafayette (2008 double-album release, 2 of 2), How To Stay Amazed (2008 double-album release, 1 of 2), and 4 more.
1. |
Bad Luck Bill
03:01
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Badluck Bill gave me a notebook
(doot doot doo, doot doot doo doo)
I burned it in the backyard
(doot doot doo, doot doot doo doo)
Now his luck is sweeping sideways
(doot doot doo, doot doot doo doo)
In my ears and out my heart
(doot doot doo, doot doot doo doo)
Nothing's sweet when we're retreating
To our separate boroughs with our
Separate rooms and separate attics
Don't think about anything romantic!
You're as perfect as I want it
You're as pretty as they come
Listen and keep quiet, you're
My audience of no-one!
I'm sitting crouching on a stoop, wearing my pajama pants, three pm in the afternoon.
I really wish you would miss me a small fraction of how much I don't think that I miss you.
Badluck Bill gave me the finger
(doot doot doo, doot doot doo doo)
I burned it in the backyard
(doot doot doo, doot doot doo doo)
Difficult, dating a singer
(doot doot doo, doot doot doo doo)
Yeah, I think it's really hard
(doot doot doo, doot doot doo doo)
Working on it this time from the
Bottom up on the way back
We saw the city and I touched your
Arm in all the best places
I knew it on the platform
Where we said goodbye, I'm keeping it up
Telling myself stories, saying
I'm not dead, I'm writing again!
HEY! I'm sitting crouching on a stoop, wearing my pajama pants, three pm in the afternoon.
I really wish you would miss me a small fraction of how much I don't think that I miss you.
I'd be sad when you would leave before you had to go.
Now I'm screwed 'cause I don't believe in anything, although...
I did Badluck Bill a service
(doot doot doo, doot doot doo doo)
I shot him in the backyard
(doot doot doo, doot doot doo doo)
Now he's only cursing yard cats
(doot doot doo, doot doot doo doo)
We are better off apart
(doot doot doo, doot doot doo doo)
They think I'll end up the guy with the
Trash who rides the train from end to
End but how did he turn from a
Baby to another thing?
I try and keep my head above the
Water and my paper dry
While I kick and hold a pen
This is all I ask of them!
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2. |
Hierarchy Island
03:03
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You attribute so much meaning to a polygon drawn on the earth
Political lines dictating our lives
Gone overboard giving second-rate advice
San Francisco starts to dance
Offers me a second chance
Never seen a perfect thing this side of the movie screen
And nothing smells of show and tell
Like my weeks have these days
On Hierarchy Island!
Swimming with the summer youths
Ponytails and photo booths
Sunburned skin and sun-bleached hair
Soft guitar sounds in the air
Sandaled feet and stomach tans
Flower-patterned beachwear
Lay the towel in the sand
Hierarchy Island
Come on
Don't talk
Don't breathe
Don't shock
Who won?
Don't sneeze
Be clean
Beach scene
Ocean liner
One survivor
It's a ferry that we ride
Hair blowing to the left
The sun starts to warm my insides
One of these fine mornings, at break of day
I'm going home on a cloud
But don't let nobody hear what you say
'Cause going home's not allowed
One of these dull afternoons you'll wake up and you'll realize
You never wrote a thing in your life
These are prints of former selves
Undone by small Penelopes
Working evil little elves
Unravelling your histories!
(chorus)
These are all the dead songs that I ever wrote
These are all the silent letters that I ever spoke
You didn't have to stay with me to kill me in my sleep
You didn't have to talk to me, you shouldn't have made a peep
A single week in Mexico
New York's a hundred years ago
And much, much farther, distance-wise
Than miles and miles of friendly skies
This island is my enemy
It's made a human mess of me
This island isn't my land
It's Hierarchy Island!
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3. |
Bronxy Marie
02:37
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You should have been able to tell right then
I can't stop when I know what's best
The layers were peeling in yellow paint piles
My room became a dusty mess.
Who knew about you? I don't think I knew
The summer rain ruined the wall.
None of my bedroom furniture warned me
About you or rainstorms at all.
Bronxy Marie, you're down by the river
But how can your bronx garden grow?
With songwriters singing under your trees
Like vegetables all in a row.
Can you tell me which one of us is living
The correct American dream?
It seems that you cannot even discern
A smocking stitch from a straight seam.
Either way, it's a fabrication
A quilt that your grandmommy stitched
She's sewing the states onto the outlined nation
A comfort that no one sleeps with.
The last bitch was born when the first one was done.
Because of this action the battle was won.
The last bitch is sure that the first one is numb.
She's wailing and moaning from under my thumb.
I'm squeezing a flashlight in between my teeth
It's because of this that I'm able to see
Your bitch is a devil with an angel's grin
She's waiting for you on the head of a pin.
Bronxy Marie, you're down by the river
But how can your bronx garden grow?
With songwriters singing under your trees
Like vegetables all in a row
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4. |
Maniacal Mechanic
02:38
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You've got it,
The smooth cold surface I've been seeking
Glossy Exterior
You're tall, with a good jacket
And a hat that doesn't match it
Your hair thrown back and forth, back and forth, back and forth
Yeah, hang out with me
If you're not busy
I never got to do it right
I was too broken when we tried
I was too broken when we tried
I never got to do it right
I never got to do it right
I was all broken when we tried
Do you ever think of me
When the right girl turns around
When she dances like a frantic
When she dances like a clown
Do you ever think of me?
Maniacal Mechanic
When the chicken pulls your leg
Only asking for its egg
Without making any noises
On the dance floor, in your bed
Do you think of me instead
Do you think that I enjoy this?
It's shocking, the way you snub all my attentions
Before I can even unfold
And you know that I've got it,
A mad crush on your written word
I know all of your secret codes
As anyone in love with the already known must know,
You're just a stupid machine
And I am somewhat obscene
You're just an adding machine
And I'm a somewhat obscene teen mean thing drama dream queen
Do you ever think of me
When the right girl turns around
When she dances like a frantic
When she dances like a clown
Do you ever think of me?
Maniacal Mechanic
When the chicken pulls your leg
Only asking for its egg
Without making any sound
When you spin her body round
On the dance floor, in your bed
Do you think of me instead
Do you think that I enjoy this?
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5. |
Mother's Day
03:51
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We tried to leave by walking through each other, we got combined.
The bobby pin jumped ship from your hair into mine.
We'll stand on the corner, for a whole hour
It's about time that we found each other
Spin through space on Mother's Day.
If that's what I wrote down then that's what I recall.
A dream's a dream, three stories tall.
Stop singing about it, I don't have to pretend I care
What some bitch from you know where
Is doing coming over here.
So remember me just how I was
Recall how constant I could be
For now I'm filthy with distrust
I flicker inconsistently.
And if you're on the poster, then you're in the band
We're on the beach, we're eating sand.
This is the most to say that I've had for some time.
The richest I've been, finding dollars in my mind.
But what can I spend these words that I write on?
Songs for a boy, filtered through a siphon?
Melodies so thick you think you can bite them.
How many actors can see
through an act, and how many
Are singer-songwriters waiting
For something momentous, something
Delightful and ridiculous
And is there any more than this?
Watching your life on a flat screen
When you are only 17?
We tried to leave by walking through each other, we got combined.
The bobby pin jumped ship from your hair into mine.
Let's make a new project, better than objects,
I'll bring the color, you bring the logic
Let's not waste another day.
They'll remember me just how I am
Recall how constant I could be
For now I'm flaky as a crust
And cherish inconsistency
And I don't want to be myself now
I only want to be you
That's why I try and kiss you all the time
It's why I try and bite you too
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6. |
Spoke On A Wheel
02:31
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do you ever wake up from a daydream or a nap and wonder if the whole last few months have
been a delusion, a product from your mind so worn away by the endless cycles that it finally snapped
and you were left living this amazing dream? what if one day the damage disappeared,
would you be happy or stuck in the same old rut? are you in that rut right now?
and i don't care if i'm just part of an era as long as i don't know.
and i don't care if i'm a spoke on a wheel as long as i don't know.
i don't care if i'm in the same rut as always as long as no one tells me so
if no one tells me so, then i'll be fine.
has it ever occurred where you said a word or a phrase, and it set off an internal alarm like a bomb,
a product of a heart so torn apart, but the experience made sure you'd be okay,
and you were left living this amazing dream? a sunny old paradise it would seem,
and nobody cares if it's real or not 'cause it feels like a steal and i like it a lot
just let me live, just leave me be
don't feed me nothing from no tree
leave my heart inside this jar
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7. |
Me And The Major
03:22
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8. |
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9. |
Video Games
04:23
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Bit into half of a chocolate CD
Never tasted quite as sweet as ice cream
A sweet tooth that could only be pulled in summer's chair
There's no such thing as forever
Twenty-one was boring, twenty-two was better
Didn't even know till today this was there.
I'm so self-contained like a quicktime
Feet out in front, arms limply to the side.
I always liked getting hurt
Being face-down in the dirt
I must miss being a baby
I'll tell you a story
Till I lose you to video games.
Have you tried to see through the city?
The ghosts and the glory days peer through the past
Sense them wandering aimlessly
Warning us that nothing lasts.
No matter how much I think you'll like something that I like
There's always the off-chance that you'll hate it to death
And if I think you think I know what you're thinking
It's usually true you're worried about you
Drown your sorrows in the drinking
It's a common thing to do
Who do I think I'm portraying?
Who am I to advise you?
Advertising places you don't want to go
Telling you things that you might already know
I said maybe I'd rather marry a city
Than a boy who doesn't know what to be
I'm so self-contained like a quicktime
Feet out in front, arms limply to the side
Why don't you listen to me?
I haven't talked to anybody
I think it's time to go crazy
I haven't talked to anybody
Since I lost you to video games.
125th St and its vertical signs
Bizarro 34th St clapping in time.
125th St and its vertical songs
Bizarro 34th St humming along.
I lost you to video games.
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10. |
Way To Go
03:25
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You say that you love me
Well I wanna love you too
But I'm too hung up on a
boy with nothing to do
But smoke pot, and be stupid
Let's smoke pot and be stupid
So I can forget about
him and hang out with you
Let's hang out, and be dumb
So I won't forget about you
I'll be your silver surfer
Your most stellar co-worker
Do it for a whole year till
The day I die
Be your super sister, your
Cuckoo co-conspirator
You won't love me, mister, by
The day I die
Why why why not try try try today?
We were out at the bar
Being stupid and young
And I had a cigarette
Boy, was that really dumb
He walked in, and you left
And I was happy
But now I'm a puddle of
Stupid, young and silly
I think that I might like to cry today.
Oh, oh, oh, we will hold hands!
But only under the table
And I will be your soup of the day
And you can be my label.
I'll bug you till you love me
You will remote-control me
You'll pilot all my dreaming
Until I waken screaming
"What could be a better way to go,
Than losing your life at a Dream Bitches show?"
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Yoko O.K. California
Yoko O.K. / from NYC, lives in SF
New EP with Dibson T Hoffweiler, "CAT MUSIC" out now!
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