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What the Boat Gave the River

by Mark Berube

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1.
Now, we put our good feet in the boat then, we try to cross the border tonight we're looking for another... place to go now, the waves start to give us roll and rock then, we start to tear up our passports 'cause we want to start looking for another... place to go now, we're ducking in the shadows of a hungry coast guard's spotlight then we make it clear then we make it clear oh, we're looking for another... place to go don't think just row... I can see a little place over there in the distance it might not be the type of place that we expected we left the ashes on the fire back home to burn out but brought the matches our doubt couldn't steal from us and we know and we know... that we're looking for another... ya ya ya ya ya
2.
I hear raindrops on the roof tops looks like the clouds have learned to swim I hear my neighbours heating spoons with the hate they feed to their blood they're looking for drug lord saviours but all they find are jesus band-aids now the mayor talks to microphones with a smile glued to his face he says he's really quite sorry, but say it ain't so... so yeah, some people move as they please and some move naturally now my neighbours live in graveyards and that mayor lives in a minor key but I've been across this country and every graveyard looks the same the roses just lose their colours but they never lose their names and I hear the ghosts whisper say it ain't so... and yeah, it's easy to forget the sound of plastic violins those songs that move up on the charts sounding like teenage masturbation there you might find the gods of denial some use to hone their discipline like priests that chain their loins to innocent little propositions as the congregation pleads say it ain't so... childhood's for hitch-hiking among the trees and under the sun where the dawn never breaks too early and the days never feel too long I remember a choir one Sunday morning singing songs about joy and peace the policemen put their guns down that day as Nelson Mandela was released but I heard the racists say it ain't so...
3.
We Go Down 03:02
We take the train downtown from the suburbs we get off at the central station where the squeegee kids question our apologies we go down where do we go? we go where strobe lights play and our eyes start to hunt for smiles and good teeth and we do our best to create apologies we go down where do we go we go down... down below we don't wanna think about... tomorrow then our eyes get weak and we feel like a tall Napoleon and we do our best to avoid apologies as we go down where do we go we go down... down below we don't wanna think about... tomorrow bap bap da da da da... down below
4.
It's cold on the streets tonight as we walk from place to place the blue halo of TV screens hit the sidewalk and the side of your face you say this used to be the capital now it's just a town of neon signs you say innocence is for those who believe that the guilty just didn't pay at the door and you say "where, did it go my hometown's halo" so you look under the soles of your shoes and say "yes yes yesterday's got nothing to lose" taxi driver's making conversation says he was a doctor in Lebanon now he's got four kids and an accent and Montreal in February then he drops us off at the corner says "may god be with us always, everyone has a price to pay but you don't realize how much some of us have to pay" I say "where, did it go my country's halo" so I look under the soles of my shoes and say "yes yes yesterday's got nothing to lose" yes we've read the bible it's one of the best stories I've read a good story's like a shaman that can make us believe in anything but every shaman has a twin the kind that leaves families broken where one tries to hold up a light the other claims that there's was stolen they say "where, did it go my father's halo" so they look under the soles of their shoes and say "yes yes yesterday's got nothing to lose"
5.
Tie me down to the Caulfield line you won't have to hold me down just tie me down to the Caulfield line 'cause that train's gotta be stopped somehow This ain't no time for waiting now this ain't no time to pray 'cause the train that comes down the Caulfield line once took the Romans away tie me down and strap the chords and take my hand yes tie me down I feel the train in the cold rails now morse code on my skin my bones on stones, my eyes are closed and I hear the call of the Caulfield Line One hand holds a photograph the other holds a flame and the cling and clang of steel and love and wood and man on the Caulfield Line tie me down and strap the chords and take my hand yes tie me down Yes, tie me down to the Caulfield Line you won't have to hold me down just tie me down on the Caulfield Line 'cause that train's gotta be stopped someon tie me down tie me down and strap the chords yes tie me down
6.
Alarms Pt. 2 04:38
Now it's been three days since I stole mom from the hospital I know there's some that won't forgive me but it's what mom couldn't ask you to do her life was tubes and medication that only helped her hold off the pain before I took her in the night I went to buy her lots of morphine and now I hold her hand as I try to help her go clear But I can't do this alone the needles shake in my hands I need you here to hold me steady as she leaves us now but won't disappear and now she holds my hand as I try to help her go clear now she lays her body down her lashes sweep her eye lids closed and unleash my mother's ghost her wrinkles leave one at a time like the pain that lead to a crime that I was asked to commit mama it's okay....
7.
Downtown Toronto 14 shows from home the bar is looking empty there's no pay phone I can find the microphone's been beaten the stage is carpet red it's raining on Young Street and there's puddles in my head I'm thinking about your face and how I'd hold you on the corner and steal you in some doorway of a store that'll be closed til the morning looking down the highway my focus window-framed the signs just change their colours and the towns just change their names the streets have been beaten I'm given beer and bread it's raining on Young Street and there's puddles in my head I'm thinking about your face and how I'd hold you on the corner and steal you in some doorway of a store that will be closed til the morning these bars are full of pictures papparazzi pictures framing all the fruits of tragedies cocaine and a bombshell winking at the camera as the night falls I wait til the morning downtown Toronto 14 shows from home the bar is looking empty and there's no pay phone I can find
8.
I see you standing on the street you don't have anywhere to be you're looking at the billboard and you're playing with your hair and you're reading all those lines and you believe they say stand up don't put your hands up and never shut up and plant your flowers on the stones now you're standing in the square policeman tells you to beware there might be devils lurking, people cheating posers weeping but you really really just don't care never thought you'd see New York now you never can ignore all the footsteps walking, people talking crows cawing, knocking at your front door they say stand up don't put your hands up and never shut up and plant your flowers on the stones if you make a man your saviour you'll start digging his grave if you make a man your prophet then you pay him with your problems you'll just make him your own slave we're cooking things up on the stove we hoist the rags up on the poles we're feeling young we're feeling blunt we're know we're not the only ones that's planting flowers on the stones (aware of grammar problem) so stand up don't put your hands up and never shut up and plant your flowers on the stones
9.
Minus 17 04:01
Oh it's, minus 17 below and falling I can feel the ice in the air oh oh oh oh oh oh oh I saw it, coming in the way that the wind was throwing all the garbage cans around and spilling all our dirty laundry in the street now I just don't think that I could ever go back to when the neighbourhood was clean and in a coma Now the shadows, we've been keeping locked away in closets are running all naked down the street oh oh oh oh oh oh oh the cold brings a little bit of life to our cheek bones and snow laughs under our feet as we trip on all of our dirty laundry I just don't think that I could ever go back to where our closets were full and noisy there's no way that love can hide forever beneath human scars
10.
we're counting all the windows that line our city streets we're counting all the cracked ones and the dream catchers there we're writing all the letters that will never be returned we're lighting all the dreamers that forget how to burn tonight, we open our front doors tonight, we step out on to the prison's dance floor tonight, we pull down all the flags and wrap up our innocence in shiny plastic bags you spread out your curtsy before my drunken eye you pull up on your skate board and say "can I give you hand" that day was important that day I won't ignore when you opened up your window but you shut your front door and I put you in my pocket and you fall to the street and you say you like the devil but we're the nicest guys you'll meet Tonight, we open our front doors tonight, we step out on to the prison's dance floor tonight, we pull down all the flags and wrap up our innocence in shiny plastic bags .... Barber Shop Part 2 "I've never seen the pyramids" This is what I told Sara, my companion I'd picked her up as a hitch-hiker approximately 3 years, 7 months, 21 days, and 9 hours approximately Her response was, "go buy a postcard of those triangles in the sand and send it to yourself with a message reading "wish you were here" It's been three years since we left the place where we'd already paid that moment when the jump of your heart is equal to the weight of your body on the ribcage of another One day, she told me that her mother was born on May 8th, 1945 the day the radio turned drawn cheeks into arched smiles the news cascading through the crowds and fields as the european guns were dropped and diplomatic pens covered in dried blood tried once again to share ink she says our kids will look at those two world wars like those of Alexander, Napoleon, or even Shakespeare the victors as rockstars held on the stages of our imagination like armed marionettes wading through the glory of stardom and the poison of nostalgia We were driving on the outskirts of some small Canadian town the kind of town that's cradled by the CBC and tough like an abandoned teenager she turned on the radio some faint music sorted its way through the static and confusion of Alzeihmer speakers but the melodies stopped short of selling us courage so she turned it off Instead she put in a different album she explained it was a collection of the songs of a man who when his hands had been broken by soldiers after a September 11th military coup in his country in the 1970's he mustered a song that sang like spit-in-their-faces glory before they riddled his ribcage with 44 bullets and tossed his body into the street the jump of his heart fading in the cadence of smoke our tires carried us through that small Canadian pre-alarm clock town the doors were locked, from the liquor store to the barber shop the windows blinded to the passing lights and his voice came through the speakers like broken glass throwing its shards at fear as the oncoming headlights swept across the dashboard like unknown flags blowing in the wind --- the barber shop is closed --- I think often about New York and the effect pop songs have on small villages in Northern India and how that day in Times Square a few years ago dumpsters orchestrated a horror movie in my head as protectors of the peace scared the courage out of us and blanketed us with the possibilities and maybes of violence but did stop something from happening now my great great aunt was diagnosed with Tuberculosis before the cure had been found now her reality had nothing to do with the probability of maybe she was quarantined to the grainery on the family farm and her father moved the family piano so she could play it when she played her Irish dancehall, classical exercise the sound resonated up through the wooden walls as her family listened in from the outside until one day the hammers no longer hit the strings I grew up knowing this story and I remember as a kid imagining her on the floor of that grainery she inspired the idea that scales are the teeth of beauty and that sometimes a song can help you accept the grave or make you feel like you were born on May 8th, 1945 so I asked Sara again if she could explain to me what is the story of what the river gave the boat she said don't worry, some things float and some things don't and the ones that don't, well, they're kind of like a glory that doesn't have the grace you'll find in a small town that knows it will never be abandoned then she rolled the window down to the let the morning in I sat beside her the music coming out of the speakers became quarantined to my ears like the sounds of sara's hallelujah on my ribcage at her moment of glory ..... we're looking for that woman we're looking for that man we don't believe in music that needs a hospital we're looking for your jesus we're looking for your allah we're looking for the gandhi version of the holy fatwa we're looking for pinocchio at least he stands out in a crowd we're looking for the dreamers that can sing this fucking loud tonight, we open our front doors tonight, we step out on to the prison's dance floor tonight, we pull down all the flags and wrap up our innocence in shiny plastic bags

credits

released September 18, 2008

Mark Berube - piano, voice, accordion, glockenspiel, banjo, prepared piano, electric guitar.
Jesson Moen - bass, acoustic guitar, voice
Marie-Michelle - cello, voice
Patrick Dugas - drums, percussion, voice

All songs written and composed by Mark Berube.
Produced by David A. Sturton and Mark Berube.
Engineered by Kevin Gault and Lucas Fowles.
Arrangements by the Patriotic Few (and extra help from Matthew Rogers on "Say It Ain't So" and "Yesterday's Halo")
String arrangements for Alarms Pt 2 and Minus 17 by Matthew Rogers.
Horn arrangements for Til the Morning by Matthew Rogers.
Mixed by David A. Sturton and Kevin Gault.
Mastering by Ryan Morey.
Album cover design and layout by Robbie Roberts.
Recorded at DNA Studios. Montreal, QC. March-June 2008.
This album is dedicated to Lloyd Wesley Hanna (1923-2007)

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Mark Berube Montréal, Québec

Montreal based singer/songwriter. Band includes Kristina Koropecki (Cello/Autoharp/Voice)

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