Awake Like Sleep
(CD)
Ba Da Bing! (USA)/
Alice In Wonder (France)
October, 2001/ January, 2002
1. "These Days"
2. "Made"
3. "One True Song"
4. "East 5th Street"
5. "Past Four Corners"
6. "I Will Fall To Meet Her"
7. "Ash Rising"
8. "Sleep Right"
9. "Sun Way Off"
" Awake Like Sleep " can be downloaded in its entirety at emusic .
What Greg Weeks had to say about his album:
"Though Awake Like Sleep is a conceptual work, it is threaded together by the emotional state I was in while writing seven of its nine pieces. "Made" and " Ash Rising" excepted, these cuts were born out of the depression and frustration that resulted from continual, chronic hand and arm pain (amongst other ailments) which made it all but impossible to write or play music on the guitar. A low period all around, I had moved into a microscopic apartment in the East Village, where I battled hallway-shitting pets, sloping floors, breezeless heat, and the putrid stench of the decaying tenant below, all the while reeling from the gnawing fear that my primary means of catharsis was no longer accesable. One fall evening I slunk past an upscale junk shop specializing in 50s kitch, only to find a child's toy organ out front and listed for sale. I tried it out, fell in love with the harmonium-like wheeze of the thing, and absconded with it into my room. From that point on I wrote almost entirely on the shit-brown instrument, adorning it with Warriors cut-outs and random scraps of sentiment.
The resulting songs were unsurprisingly grim; droney little screeds on death and hopelessness -- the emotional terrain I mostly succeeded in hiding from friends and co-workers. Pretentious-sounding or not, I was writing straight from my heart, and wasn't in any way interested in sugar-coating or demystifying the material. I desperately wanted to move away from self-absorption in my lyrics, yet found myself unable to do so. My music is me, and there is no escaping that fact.
After a while I headed into the studio to begin tracking, but the sessions were unsuccesfull. The chord organ just wasn't workable as the basis for an entire album. So, at the end of my rope, I scrapped the project and left it for dead, all the while wondering if I'd release another album at all. Some time later, it ocurred to me that I could take a different approach; that, by enlisting friends to play the main parts, I could enlargen the original idea and rework the songs for larger forces. To shorten this tale, that's exactly what happened. Though I ended up playing a large number of instruments on record, it was thanks to the talents of three or four of my musicianly friends that the project came to fruition. Chief among those friends, I should mention, is Jesse Sparhawk, the single most important contributer to the record.
And so you have it, the story in the shell of a nut. One word about the cover art. I froze my nuts off lying in that snow! But it was worth it. Steve Rose did an amazing job, don't you think?"
"These Days"
All stuck sitting in a row/
friends and faces all I know/
will they crumble by my hand/
or will they pull me through/
These days they wither on the vine/
come young children so divine/
harvest me your memories/
and warm my holiness
"Made"
A silence a sway/
a gesture a wild sashay/
can make your today/
and then take it all away/
They made us this way/
for what they can never say/
sent us on our way/
it's useless to make them pay/
Holding ground
"Just live for today"/
'least that's what they try and say/
they say "Pay, pay, pay/
and we'll take your pain away/
Holding Ground
So much for today/
so much for the days of May/
so much is passe/
please just make it fade away
"Past Four Corners"
Further, further down the stairs/
further from the air/
all four corners won't get you there/
I will, I will see the end/
I will beat again/
despite all forces, and cosmic plans
"East 5th Street"
Down South, where the earth is cold/
and skies, the trees scaffold/
unwelcome evidence/
provokes our best defense/
We hum, but we speak no words/
in hopes that our fears will burst/
and spray us heaven towards/
a welcome last repose/
how long can it last?
"One True Song"
Rise/
to meet the dawn/
oh and sing/
the one true song/
Endless tacts/
entry contracts/
will burn your soul/
a bible black/
Some/
will try to hide/
oh some will run/
their ins outside/
before they'll rise/
to meet the dawn/
oh and sing/
the one true song/
Oh Lord/
where will we hide/
now that you/
have taken sides?/
I want to sleep
"I Will Fall To Meet Her"
When darkness settles in/
find dark thoughts begin/
crowding in again/
seems I'm growing thin/
In this hollow town/
find I'm slipping down/
in constant turnaround/
life without a sound/
Why does time softly dissintegrate/
those whose lives quickly degenerate/
Outsiders shine their lights/
set fires in the night/
while insiders die of fright/
and dissapear from sight/
Bleeding out, soundlessly slipping in/
thawless kiss, doubling back again/
Over and over/
I will fall to meet her/
she is my familiar/
ghostly aspiration/
Under pale gradations/
dreaming into azure/
dripping red and tincture/
under pale gradations/
Why does time softly dissintegrate/
those whose lives quickly degenerate/
Bleeding out, soundlessly slipping in/
thawless kiss, doubling back again
"Ash Rising"
All the little ones are waiting/
for the one to call them out/
silent in the fields they're shaking/
pinching so as not to shout/
When will we rise?/
Ash silently rising/
We are on the side of evil/
tell us does it hurt to breathe/
down here we are kept in secret/
loneliness our sole belief/
When will we rise?/
Ash silently rising/
Cradled in the arms of midnight/
swollen and serenely bare/
will the hour of atonement/
find us feeling barely there/
Ash silently rising
"Sleep Right"
Sleep while/
others howl around you/
eyes quiet/
show them how to be/
Breed them vile/
Turn down/
smile and let them feel/
your life/
what it means to lie/
Selflessly/
My line/
bleeding out and shaken/
disguised/
bringing down the dream/
You're not to blame
"Sun Way Off"
We broke for air/
and found no air was there/
searched grand designs/
but no signs did we find/
We watched the road/
drift slowly beneath our heels/
and passed a match/
between our oil-soaked clothes/
Sun lay, some way off/
Down through dragged days/
cut clean our memories laid/
outside to dry/
past eagerness to try/
We engineered/
anti-climax and demon-seed/
and prophesied/
our own unsung demise
Sun lay, some way off/
And try as we may/
in some silent way
to rise in the night, and spent/
to cool out the day/
We scurry and hide/
beneath our designs/
while all of our hopes, lie crushed/
they churn with the tide/
Yet with stars in our eyes/
and the tide at our sides/
we cave from the cold/
and angle our heels towards the sky/
And finding our way/
to endings we say
"You may know me now but today/
is only today"/
We dissapeared/
from the darkness we once feared/
We dissapeared/
into darkeness we once feared/
Sun lay, some way off
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