Burning Up

by Sister City

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1.
04:50
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2.
03:36
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3.
04:16
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4.
03:25
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5.
04:24
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02:28
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02:57
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8.
03:28
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9.
02:54
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10.
04:01
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12.
04:31
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about

This is the first CD. I wrote it between July 2006 and February 2007. I recorded it from March 2007 to July 2007. It came out on April 29, 2008 and I still have 400 professionally pressed, shrink wrapped copies sitting in my basement that you are quite welcome to buy.

Donations over 5 dollars get you a physical copy! The booklet looks great. I promise!

credits

released 29 April 2008

tags

tags: indie punk rock Philadelphia

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about

If you enjoy Sister City, you’re probably struggling to reconcile a few things. Maybe you like indie rock, but your beard is lackluster. Singer Adam Linder’s beard and mustache do not connect. Maybe you love punk music but struggle with how to integrate it into your real life. Singer Adam Linder once wore a Rancid shirt under his dress clothes to a Bar Mitzvah. ... more

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Track Name: White Boy Blues
Don't blame me if I talk about the weather
It's all that I can get my head around for now
It seems these days that nothing's getting better
I read it one last time, and I burned her final letter
It's raining now, I heard tomorrow will be wetter

There's a house on my street, I think it's been abandoned
And the grass grows tall and brown, ashamed it's standing
But I think it's great how it stands up straight
In defiance of unyielding fate
At some point things are going to get too heavy
The hurricane is going to break the levy

Through the crashing of the thunder
I can barely hear myself sing
But the white boy blues, they never meant a thing
And I�ll blame it on the lightning
For making me blind
To the positive people and positive things
That I fail to recognize

So file this under cliché
A boy and his guitar
I've taken extra special care
To ensure you enjoy this time of ours
It's filled to the brim with introspection
And a biting tone to match
All the metaphors and references
That no one but me will catch

There's snow on the ground
And it hasn't been this beautiful since March
Things were looking up then
I hope that maybe now they'll start
I've been working hard
To find that means to an end
Cause recently it's been too hard to pretend

So file this under cliché
A boy and his guitar
I've taken extra special care
To ensure you enjoy this time of ours
It's filled to the brim with introspection
And a biting tone to match
All the metaphors and references
That no one but me will catch
Track Name: Disclaimer
I'm an old b reel
I'm that broken record with no appeal
But I spin around
Scratched and repeating that same sad sound
Till you go insane
And you cover you ears to stop the pain
And the temperature is dropping down
You're freezing to death and you want out

I've been
Making plans, breaking promises, and gaining fans
So I'd like
To make one last statement
My final list of demands
I'll keep it short, I'll keep it sweet
It won't take long, soon you can leave
My last request, my final plea
Promise you won't take this seriously

Oh but where have the months gone?
I haven't been conscious since December
And it's been at least twice that long since I felt hopeful
And I'd drink myself to death
If I wasn't so opposed
But it's hard to keep convictions
When you feel this god damn cold

I've been
Making plans, breaking promises, and gaining fans
So I'd like
To make one last statement
My final list of demands
I'll keep it short, I'll keep it sweet
It won't take long, soon you can leave
My last request, my final plea
Promise you won't take this seriously

Oh, but where has the love gone?
I've wanted to quit this since I can remember
Stomp out the final ember
Track Name: Lonesome, No more!
I've been thinking again
About how I tend to fade out
Like the stars in the sky
When there's too much light down on the ground
I disappear without a trace
In shame, I try to hide my face
Cause when asked to do something great
I blend into the crowd

I've been sinking again
In that dangerous part of my mind
The one where hopelessness, envy
And self deprecation reside
And it pulls me in like I've stepped in sand
And each thought I have is a marching band
Discordant notes, but with a soldier's stance
And so I fight this war

I've been lying again
To myself and my friends for some time
I've been playing this game
Where I take a name I get assigned
And I flail my arms, but speak no words
I hear guesses, saying "I'm not sure"
But when the game is over, and it's not my turn
The charade rages on

I've been smiling again
To strangers I meet on the street
Each one has a story
A scarring that makes them complete
And as they board their bus or ride their train
I wonder if I picked their brains
If I would find out that we're all the same
A people out of love

I've been singing again
To the dismay of a couple of men
They say they've seen it before
And I'm looking for pity again
I know I may not break into new ground
But I'm sure I'm making honest sounds
So don't pigeonhole me with that goddamn noun
Yeah, keep your adjectives away

Now I'm waking up on tile floors
And I rest my back on wooden doors
And I've laid my head down here before
So it's here I'll call my home
Track Name: The Basement Manifesto
Sometimes it's better underground
There's less chance that I'll be found
For if they find me, they'll decry me once again
And I wouldn't show my face
No I would never leave this place
For there's a danger with no shape and with no shame
I wouldn't go outside
No I would never risk my pride
The earth would still spin, and the sun would stay in the sky
The earth would still spin, and the sun would stay in the sky

So forgive me if I seem
Like I don't want to be seen
It's the truth, there's no real underlying meaning
And I will not cast a shadow
It doesn't matter though, cause I know
There's six more weeks of winter, bleakness either way
So I think that I will stay here till it's safe

It's days like this there's a pain inside my head
And It's a miracle I make it out of bed
There's just certain people I
I don't think I can supply
With common courtesy, with patience, or a smile
And I'm having to do without
The kind of respect we're taught about
If you have nothing nice to say, then shut your god damn mouth
If you have nothing nice to say then shut your god damn mouth

So forgive me if I seem
To speak in the obscene
There's just a point where tolerance tends not to mean
Anything at all
Like that phone number you never called
When your only friend turns out to be the wall
Live together, stand alone, you'll fall

It's days like this
That there's no passing of time
And each breath that leaves my throat
Could leave me dying
When the cold becomes too much for me to bare
And it takes more strength than I've got for me to care

So forgive me if I tend
To exaggerate the extent
Of my self-loathing and all of my regrets
It's just it seems so real to me
It's like I'm writing an autobiography
But the ending I have yet to figure out
I just hope that I'll look back and say I'm proud.
Track Name: Sunday Crossword Challenge
My lips are always chapped this time of year
So I don't open my mouth, I don't let the words come out
But the sorrys keep slipping, my lips keep on cracking
As I make love to my conscience, my badly broken ego
I step outside without a jacket on
It's colder here in Rockville
More harsh than last December
I think about the way things were last year
I see my breath and watch it disappear

I'm finding that I'm tired more and more
That I'd rather not go out, don't want to talk about
The things that keep me up when there's no light
In words, they're wrong. In melodies, they're right
I find it hard to keep my promises
I make them in the night time, by the morning I've lost hope
Like the priest confirming things he'll never know
I never water any seeds i sow

I've been feeling like a poet recently
So I craft all of my sorrows into metaphors and similes
And I do my best to avoid hyperbole
I'm trying to retain some meaning

I've been wanting to get some things off my chest
So I've waited like a vulture, waited for my prey
And it scurried along in the shape of a song
I started it last weekend, I finished it today
And it said all that I needed it to say
So to test it out, I fed it to my brain
I'm still waiting on the test results
The outcome of that survey
But I hope that everything will be okay

I've been feeling like a poet recently
So I craft all of my sorrows into metaphors and similes
And I do my best to avoid hyperbole
I'm trying to retain some meaning

But it's all that I can do to be
Positive on days like these
When my knees are weak from shivering
But I swear I'll do my best in days to come

I've been feeling like a poet recently
So I craft all of my sorrows into metaphors and similes
And I do my best to avoid hyperbole
I'm trying to retain some meaning
I'm trying to retain some hope
I'm trying to retain my sanity
I'm trying.
Track Name: The Wrong Words
I'm bored.
I think I'll start a revolution
If I can get up off the couch, and into the street
I'll throw a brick through the window of a coffee shop
And cause a scene in the middle of a parking lot
I'll Kick and punch and scream
Start letting off some steam
Or just yell at my TV.

But the sad truth is
I don't care
Enough to leave my bed
I can never sing the perfect words
They get stuck inside my head

On the tip of my tongue
I can never say the right words
So I put them in song
But I'm no closer to getting my point across
I can't articulate myself
As well as I would like
After years of practice
I've found out that I may as well just try

In hopes one day I
Might write that perfect ending line
Of poetry to set me free
From the confines of reality
This broken record that I tend to be
Track Name: The Right Words
Don't worry we've got plenty for you to do
Don't feel inadequate, there's every reason for you not to
We'll serve you from your head to your feet
Like the king of this third world country
We appreciate your generous gratuity

On nights like this when the stars are looking down
They twinkle red and blue then they fade out
I think they disappear because they just can't bear to see
Our dishonesty. But it's so easy

I'm bored, I think I'll write another song
To get across my frustrations with the world
I'll make a rhyme about how I think that I am burning up
And advertise to the world all my private thoughts
I'll make me a CD
But I'll make no no apology
I just call 'em as I see 'em
Track Name: On Wearing White
It was so much clearer with my eyes closed
It made sense in my head
I woke up this morning with a headache
And I wished that I was dead
When I looked outside, It was raining
The sky would flash like cameras
Recording us
The contact print was devastating
The exposure's off, this cannot be
What's wrong with our society?
We fear our god
Set those in bondage free

And it's not the fact we're shameless
That we tell our children lies
There is no beard at a wooden desk
Checking sins off in the sky
If it's not the blacks, the poor, the Jews
Or the Arabs or the gays
Then what pray tell is the reason
It's been raining for forty days?

It's us my friends!
We're the reason why this place has gone to hell
We fight over fiction and storybooks
It's impossible now to tell
If we've gone too far
Shed too much blood
Caused damage we can't repair
In the name of god
When the rapture comes, will we have been prepared?

I'd scream this from a mountain top
Or from the city streets
If I could find an audience
You damn well bet I'd preach
To you on your knees
You don't have to agree
With the heathen's word, from an infidel
With a one way ticket straight to hell.
Track Name: Irony, Illiteracy, and Indifference
Sometimes it gets freezing
That's the irony in summertime
The temperature's been dropping since you left
I swear, the weatherman is in on it
He tells me that I should be warm
So I turn this cold I feel
Into my sad excuse for an art form

So pardon me
My ideology
And my despondency for now
I'm like a car whose battery has been run down
I'm stuck in neutral, so push me up this hill
I can't make the rest of the way on my own
Because I'm never going home

I'll take a dive off the highest jump I can
Just so I can feel alive again
Just so I'm not feeling dead
And I'll do 90 down a residential street
Just to see if I can still feel anything
Can I still feel anything?

You had finally taught me to read
But the books here are written in another language
That I can't decipher for my life
And my friends like books
Cast me dirty looks
From their place upon their shelf
Disapproving of how I spend my time
Just worrying about myself

So pardon me
My anxiety
And my tendency to disagree
I've been one big cliché the past couple months
I haven't lived the way I should
I've been worrying too much about myself
But that's not what life's about

I used to think that I'd
Rather walk out of my life
Than walk out of my house day after day
And while I'm not going to deny
That I still feel like that from time to time
Recently it's easier to say I've been okay
Track Name: Slapstick
In pen I draw an x
On each successive day
And I find myself amazed
Each time I turn the page
I write these words in pencil
So I can change them at a later date
Cause unlike the night-to-day cycle
My thoughts aren't concrete
And I never know what I should say

All I've got is what I can see
But my vision is lacking
There's a reason I'm wearing these glasses
And I've flirted with misery
Our friendship is closer than anything I would have wanted
And my blistered god damn hands
Won't play these chords anymore

Last night as I was driving home
I finally realized
As I was singing along, at the top of my lungs
To "Play Crack the Sky"
That there is no way to change the past
There will always be those wrongs and those lies
But if I want to change my future
Then today's the day I'll have to start to try

But I'm a formula
Add one part acoustic
Some poems, depression to taste
Just like an orchestra
The trumpets are playing loudly
One step out of tune
And my blistered god damn vocal chords
Won't hit these notes anymore

And I thought about going overboard
More than once
I almost tore that life vest off
But I'm here today
On that calendar, I'll turn that page
And in pen I make another cross
Track Name: Burning Up
It's the happiest day of the year
And I'm still alive
But I don't know how
And I couldn't tell you why
For the first time in a long time
I can finally say that I'm glad
To be breathing and feeling
Tonight made the world not seem as bad

This is the story
Of half a year of my life in a nutshell
Though it's badly cracked, I am still intact
And I've been healing well
This is a warning
A reminder of just how cold it can get
My fear of regret
If I ever let this happen again

I was waking up
And cursing the hands on my clock
And I was breaking up
My nights are so bland and my days taste like chalk
And I was burning up
I thought I might freeze; I was down on my knees in surrender
But now I am fixing up
I've put it the effort, and now I feel better than ever

I was burning up
I thought I might freeze; I was down on my knees in surrender
Now I'm all fixed up
And I swear I am better than ever
I swear I am better than ever
But I never stay better forever

But this just wouldn't feel right
Without a song of hope
And I'll be damned
If I end on a minor note
And in four more bars
This will all end where it began
These white boy blues
And this clichéd guitar in my hand