Unlovely

The Ballroom Thieves is Martin Earley, Devin Mauch and Calin Peters

Produced, Engineered and Mixed by Jerry Streeter
Additional Engineering by Ariel Bernstein

All songs written by Martin Earley and Calin Peters except Pendulum, written by Calin Peters
All songs arranged and performed by The Ballroom Thieves and Ariel Bernstein

Additional performances by:
Darlingside (Don Mitchell, Auyon Mukharji, Harris Paseltiner, David Senft) || Vocals on Track 1
Annika Earley || Vocals on Track 2
Marion Earley || Vocals on Track 2
Brian Graham || Saxophone on Tracks 2, 3, 7, 8
Kirsten Lamb || Upright Bass on Tracks 3, 5, 11
Don Mitchell || Septavox on Track 1
Abigale Reisman || Violin on Tracks 3, 5
Phil Rodriguez || Trumpet on Tracks 2, 7, 8
Éveline Rousseau || Harp on Track 4
Bowie || Barking on Track 6

Recorded at Hearstudios in Camden, ME
Additional Recording at Great North Sound Studios in Parsonsfield, ME, Dimension Sound Studios in Jamaica Plain, MA, and at home in Maine

Mastered by Joe LaPorta at Sterling Sound in Edgewater, NJ

Artwork: “vague à l'âme” by Hélène Delmaire (2017, oil on canvas)
Art Design by Charlie Wagers

Unlovely

I took the blue out of the news today 
(Wore it like an overcoat)
Wrapped it around me 
And it shields me from the thoughts that people think they need to say 

Standing in line for the riot
(Just another sunny day)
Found a couple birds who sing 
Of tethered friends and broken wings 

We waited
(waited and waited and waited and waited) 
So we got ourselves a figurehead
Unlovely

It’s a lie we have to listen to you
You’re out of time
Step out of line

Reading your mean eyes through a million little screens
Now we’re living in the house you built
The faucet leaks, the roof is caving in

All our troubles learned to stretch their limbs
They’re climbing up your gate
They’re running through your walls
Oh don’t they whisper you to sleep?

I wore it like an overcoat
Though it was just another sunny day
We waited 
Now bye bye babies bye bye 

Tenebrist

I’m on the corner
Of hope, fear, and desire
I’m the sum of what I’ve done
Which is to say I’m really no one

Show me the evidence
Cause I can’t see what you can sense
This old jukebox is busted
I’m too tired to be trusted
Better sing yourself to sleep

I am your charlatan
A two-way mirror to my following
I’ll still be ringing in your ears 
Long after every coast is clear
And all the lights are low

We all muddy the water
To make it seem less shallow
And if our grief grows like a shadow
In the morning that’s alright
We need the dark to know the light

I am the color of forgiveness
I am the shape of what is wrong
And time, our likely hero
Always there but never here, though
Just sits waiting for himself

In The Dark

These must be the colors of returning
And this must be the way the darkness tastes
I heard it long before I ever listened
Like hearing a hailstorm from the bottom of a lake

Tell me where do my eyes go when they’re not on you?
And where is my voice when I don’t call your name?
The moment is far too brief for all of this waiting
So come watch the earth turn with me, and the daylight change

How can we wake without question when all of the world is burning?
Suddenly all on our way and at once so far
Lying awake like the morning might take us where words can’t follow
Waiting to find our way in the dark

Can you hear the light grow from its shadow?
Can you count the days? They all fall away
We let the morning rise over our worries 
Just one bright sheet of moonlight, few nights past the full

Homme Run

I told you twice
I don’t play nice
This isn’t fucking baseball

If you set my house on fire
We can watch yours burn down too
And if you don’t like it, darling
This is all bad news for you

The words
All of these words
They’ve all come up empty, haven’t they?
Why don’t you have the right things to say?

Anyway
Done 
I’m done climbing broken ladders
In the tower of your doubt
Listening for permission
Done being the one without a mouth

I told you twice
I don’t play nice

Don’t Wanna Dance

This is what it feels like to win
I dance with all the hours of the night again
Spending all my hard earned blood on temporary things
This is what it feels like to win

Twigs and bones
My wild mind just don’t know how to have a home
She brings me truck stop souvenirs from every fucked up place she goes
Tender twigs and lonely bones

Lift the needle from the table
If you don’t wanna dance
Lift the needle from the table
If you don’t wanna dance
It’s an ordinary price to pay to stand up tip-toe on the razor blade
Everyone gets cut

Maybe I just came here too soon
I spilled some water and it all began to bloom
I didn’t come here just to break my quiet voice and make you swoon
Maybe I just came here too soon

Begin Again

I want to be a poet too
Fit as many flowers in my mouth as they do
The readiness is all I need
And I can pack up pretty easy

The ceiling breathes a sigh of smoke
Stares at me and waits ‘til I choke
But I don’t

Begin again

Longer the day
Shorter the night
I know I can’t stay
But I still think I might
Bury myself under everything
And just begin again

I am every woman I have met
A hundred horses running in our chest
If I could still dream
Or I could see in the dark
Would you show me your face
Could I see who you are while you

Take the rest of me
Bury me
Just begin again

Vanity Trip

Here I am, I’m a man in a million
So get used to the strange and estrange the familiar
I’m here to take your money (give it up)
My words, well they all sound the same
I don’t carry laughter through the flame
Just a spill of color (and dumb luck)

But it’s getting harder not to see myself up on the tv
It’s getting harder not to see myself up in the clouds
Ain’t nobody ever mention anything that could save me no more
I won’t wait by your door

It’s a global stage
With a narrow spotlight
Shining like a diamond on my vanity trip
Love is a number you can torture and twist
Your heart is a muscle the size of your fist
You never risk your life, still end up losing it

Cause I’m living
Living on my own time baby
Living on my own time now
Ain’t nobody else who could save me no more
I won’t wait by your door
Less a lion than the liar that the people always took me for

I am the helix in the hangman’s noose
The shepherd’s a wolf and the wolves are loose
Born a million men, but I will die as one

You better run, run, run

Roll The Bones

Roll the bones
Let’s see how far our money goes

Spin me round 
Who knows when our good luck runs out
I don’t mind if you don’t mind
We come alive just past the edge of the midnight

I wanna drink until we both forget the downside of an early death

You’re still worried I might show my tell
But I never will

Count my sins
Tell your mother, tell the reverend
And I’ll sin again, and again, and again
Dive in, I’ll show you where the river ends

I wanna swim until we both begin to feel the weightlessness sink in

You’re still worried I might show my tell
But I never will, never will

My time, it never would have come 
If you’d left me standing

Pendulum

Sober with sleeplessness
Or drunk upon the mist I kiss
Do I dare to simmer while the water boils over

Bursting at the seams
These stubborn dreams befall their feeble sea legs
Like trying to take it easy on an ancient roller coaster

While it's begging me to wait
I just don't have the patience
Some tangible escape
No clock can bear allegiance

Bolder than these woes
A house of poems keeps us locked and loaded
Courage cringes bitter and it comes out in a whisper

But I am breathing air you're breathing out
Your mouth is always quicker
I'll come to watch my hours
Burning faster than the liquor
It slips right through my fingers

While it's begging me to wait
I just don't have the patience
Some tangible escape
No clock can bear allegiance

What do I find?
Time doesn't really care about me

Don't thrust these days to their nights too soon
Say it twice
Give it room

Love Is Easy

The road is not a home
Except for those who live to roam
And those who live to roam don’t need a home
Except the road
I’ll take my time ‘til time takes me
I’ll change my mind whenever I please
Believe me, I don’t need to be more than alone

Darlin loving you is such an easy thing to do
It’s such an easy thing to do
So let me do it

Bide my time writing rhymes and wrongs
What if the right rhymes don’t come by anymore
And then flooding come the years
With all the youth of spring in tears
And still your doubt that noisy engine labors on and on and on

The hours keep their minutes
And the weeks still have their days
And nothing ever changes
We are knee deep in 
This avalanche we’ve made

For Hitchens

I was born in the right country
Where we choke on the smoke of wildfires past
We, the counterfeit heirs to the wide and weeping edge of the world
We are long past the day when we stood in the light

We are torn, we are wild
Syndicated reverie
With a delicate eye to define the horizon
All in our rags and rising

Why do you let them lie to you?

We’re alive, we’re a live wire
Welcome to the light on your face
Ready or not we keep walking

These days
If you yell loud enough
The lie rings true

So don’t let them lie to you

You’ll be born in the right country
You will learn that silence is not bravery