Swing Lo Magellan

Dirty Projectors Swing Lo Magellan Lyrics
1.Offspring Are Blank

There was a single one, then there were ten
With time made a hundred and a hundred million
You came and spoke to me; I saw your face
Your words were like raindrops from a storm in a vase
Each generation different
He was made to love her
She was made to love him
And their offspring loved them
And in the marriage of eagle and snake
The parents are fertile but the offspring is blank
The fire rages all through the night
The flame is contagious, but the heat feels alright
Can't recognize our poverty
He was made to love her
She was made to love him
And their offspring loved them
There is a darkness I feel coming down
And shadows that lengthen from the sky to the ground
And a silence that can swallow sound
He was made to love her
She was made to love him
And their offspring loved them
He was made to love her
She was made to love him
And their offspring loved both of them


2.About To Die

If the search has been long and futile and brutal
And if you squint trying to reconnect the bosom of your hood rum
love (hey baby)
You reach out and into the absence and gasping
The vastness grabs you like an alien embrace
Your face to it's face
No end and neither beginning you're spinning
Your breathless orb but in a dark and hateful star
An evil world
Where would I ever be without you?
How could I hope to seize the tablet of values and redact it?
Foolish I know but I'm about to die
About to die

Your life must surely be ending and trembling
You realize you never lived a day at all (Wait)
And it's all your fault (Wow)
It all seems unspeakably vile and while
You wretch the memory above, you understood
The vandal lies into his hood
Where would I ever be without you?
How could I hope to seize the tablet of values and redact 'em?
Foolish I know but I'm about to die
About to die

Look there the goblins dressed up like a wound
Mutants are vagrant and hateful
Look there the mirror a zombie stands staring
Vacant and glaring pronouncing your name
As you're saying

About to die

Where would I ever be without you? (No fucking clue)
How could I hope to seize the tablet of values and redact it?
Foolish I know but I'm about to die
About to die

About to die

You're already dead

But you're about to die

(Damn, you got it)
(Alright awesome)


3.Gun Has No Trigger

If you had looked, you might have just seen them
Stretched in the background
You'd see the oceans swell
And the mountains shook

You'd see a million colors
If you really looked
Now quick the night draws near
Her curtain spreads quicker
The safety's off

But the gun has no trigger.
If you had looked, you'd be no one's coward
Distance, justice, power
You'd glimpse the password

You wouldn't need the book
You'd own both slave and master
If you just had looked
But now the banks all closed

And nothing gets bigger
The crowd will yell
But the gun has no trigger.
If you had looked, you might reconsider

Or just maybe you already have
They watch you sleeping
You watch their garbage cook
You'd weep a bowl of tears
If you had looked

But now the gate comes down
The pangs are growing dimmer
You hold a gun to your head
But the gun has no trigger


4.Swing Lo Magellan

Last night all my attention
squinting westward at the sunset
with a map and a compass
when a man reached up said something

there against the sky,
a ball of light
too invisible to give itself
to the naked eye

On the shore people yelling
in their eyes a great reflection
in the grid aware their position
unconcerned with intuition

There can never be
no sympathy
from that wilderness
so let it be
arrested

Swing Lo oh Magellan
nine by six or eight by seven
poster sent in all at the border
of what you attempt while you ignore

I saw my frame in a ball of light
all drowned in doubt and shame
I knew that I had lost my sight


5.Just From Chevron

Where she collapses into the shore
Pump a light bottle down, ask her for more
There a man lay dying in ice
Gasket had busted out
Pinned him like a vice
As the sun sank into response
A friend knelt down, listened,
to his dying words as he froze

Tell my love, don't mourn too intense
I'm going down to her, great good expense
Now the air is quiet and still
Wish I was back home
in the knell of the hill
Don't think I won't try
When I close my eyes
Whatever the people will drive,
That's what I will survive

All of my friends,
My enemies too,
Live in the shadows
of the dirtiest fuel
Burns the land and
its paper to ruin
While wind's always
whistling an infinite tune

Don't think I won't try
When I close my eyes
Whatever the people will drive
That's where I will be live
Don't think I won't try
When I close my eyes
Whatever the people will drive
That's where I will be live
That's where I will be live.

Now so long, he whispered softly
Closing his eyelids
with his face furning grey
When the workers cleaned up the spill
Sent the man home to his
knell in the hill


6.Dance For You

I ran across cyanide plains
Mind like a prison cell
But feet untethered and sane

I wondered out, homeless and sad
No thought of where I go
Or how I ever get back

There is an answer
I haven't found it
But I will keep dancing till I do
uh, uh, uh

I boggied down gargoyle streets
Searching in every face,
For something I could believe
I never knew what Congress is
I wanna feel the breath of a force I can not ex?lain

There is an answer
I haven't found it
But I will keep dancing till I do
uh, uh, uh
Dance for you
Dance for you
Dance for you

There is an answer
I haven't found it
But I will kee? dancing till I do
Dance for you
Dance for you
Dance for you
Dance for you
Dance for you
Dance for you
Dance for you
Dance for you
Dance for you
Dance for you
Dance for you


7.Maybe That Was It

If you saw the surface rip and bloom with rot
Some part doing what some other part will not
Maybe that was it
If you saw a shadow rise above the hiss
Iridescent and pretend anonymous
Maybe that was it
If you saw a weapon that so smoothly transfixed
Cylinders of language pounded into bricks
Maybe that was it
If you saw an animal in hard retreat
Hundred parasites all burrowed in deep
Maybe that was it


8.Impregnable Question

if there is ever the impregnable question of why?
what did or didn't pass?
it would help to seek comfort in destiny
but i really don't, we don't see eye to eye
but i need you and you're always on my mind
whether there is or isn't any position
you care if i take or i don't
i will always hold what what we shared so long
to be the only love, and though we don't see eye to eye
i need you, and you're always on my mind
through time, and through many a situation
we both look forward, side-by-side
we have shared it all, we have both stood tall
what is mine is yours, in happiness and in strife
you're my love, and i want you in my life
you're my love, and i want you in my life
you're my love, and i want you in my life


9.See What She Seeing

Mornings I wake up hung over
Lower than mornings before
I don't know memories tortured *
Or maybe what I deserve
Lonely and forgotten in the frozen world
Scorned in my desire
Ignored by all the girls
I need someone to comfort me

Whose hair is whipping (wide open)
Whose mouth is smiling (wide open)
Whose eyes are shining looking at me and
I can see what she seeing

Everywhere I go I see her
Everywhere I look she disappears
Every time I think I've found her
Just what I've found is unclear

So onward through the murk and the uncertainty
Sifting through the days patient and carefully
Always to get to where she is

Her hair is whipping (wide open)
Her mouth is smiling (wide open)
Her eyes are shining looking at me and
I can see what she seeing

Yeah yeah
I can see what she seeing
Yeah yeah
I can see what she seeing

But you can't see me

Tell me the way to the orchid
Tell me the way and I'll be there
Give me a day to go forward
Give me your hand and we'll go there

Forward through the clover and the bergamot
Shoreward to the gulls and to the guillemots
Horizon alone among the wind

Her hair is whipping (wide open)
Whose mouth is smiling (wide open)
Her eyes are shining looking at me and
I can see what she seeing

Yeah yeah
I can see what she seeing
Yeah yeah
I can see what she seeing
Yeah yeah
I can see what she seeing
Yeah yeah
I can see what she seeing


10.The Socialites

I think she's the prettiest lady I've ever seen
Her hair it has meaning and volume and such a shine
Sometimes, I think maybe I could go and talk to her

Her eyes, they look lonely for all way yeah and inner
Oh baby, it's such a lie to act so nice
Will never begin to let you in
They'll act surprised, apologize
We'll never let on the face you wear is wrong

I'm gonna try combing my hair in a thousand ways
Maybe he will notice and maybe look my way
Oh baby, the other guys who act so nice
Will never begin to let you in
Stars in their eyes, they'll apologize
We'll never let on
When you meet someone real

But they don't know where I'm going
It's not impossible to show her
To show it, to open up
A socialite to act so nice
We'll never begin to let you in
They'll act surprised, they'll a?ologize
Won't ever let on, the face you wear is all wrong

I'm glad they're the ones on the other side of the glass
Who knows what my spirit is worth in cold hard cash
Oh baby


11.Unto Caesar

I live in a new construction home
I live on the strip behind the dealership, yeah
I live in a greenhouse and I am getting wasted, yeah

Temperature rising
I can feel it all the way down
And what hits the spot, yeah, like Gatorade?
You and me baby, hittin' the spot all night

Up in the light of the high Temecula sunrise
High Temecula sunrise
High Temecula sunrise

Definitely you can come and live with us
I know there's a space for you in the basement, yeah
All you gotta do is help out with the chores and dishes
And I know you will

Rest assured, comfortable
You have nothing, the face of earth will be white
And after all, yeah, all of it
Indian paintbrush and a couple of brown finches

Right there in the light of the high Temecula sunrise
High Temecula sunrise
High Temecula sunrise

I welcome the new construction roads
I see that my silhouette is golden, yeah
I know the horizon is bright and motionless
Like an EKG of a dying woman

Far away from the light of the high Temecula sunrise
High Temecula sunrise
High Temecula sunrise


12.Irresponsible Tune

With our songs, we are outlawed
With our songs, we're alone
but without songs we're lost
and life is pointless, harsh, and long.

In my heart, there is music
In my mind is a song
but in my eyes, a world
Crooked, fucked up and wrong

Sing all day
Record and play
Drums and bass, and a guitar
Will there be peace in the world,
or will vile winds always own the truth?

There's a bird singing at my window
and it's singing an irresponsible tune
An irresponsible tune