Get all 5 Austin & Elliott (Christopher Elliott and Lisa Austin) releases available on Bandcamp and save 10%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Sorry State, Chris Elliott, Truth That Hurts, Cradle and Crow, and 13 Songs Plus.
1. |
Hercules and Einstein
03:48
|
|||
|
Hercules says to Einstein, “I’m no genius.
I’ve been beaten-down and destroyed but not defeated.
Have you seen Japanese sky fall?
Listen, Al. The bomb burned their shadows onto the walls.”
“Hercules, I can see their shadows haunt your features
From Olympus to Berlin in your black t-shirt.
You got the muscle, I got the crazy hair.
Let’s rock some Amadeus with my fiddle, pull up a chair.”
“Like you play with the bow, Al, my father played with lightning,
Silhouettes of the enemy vivid, storm cloud striking.”
“Hercules, the form of a woman can make you spin.
A gentleman holds his lady like a violin.”
“I’ve seen Troy burn in their beds, I’ve seen Mars burn masses,
But it’s the shadows burned onto walls that torture my conscience.”
“Look at old Ludwig there, his hair messy as mine
Composing strings, deaf therefore divine.”
“Reaching out from a blasted wall, the shadows hug the air.
I step where they wrap their arms so somebody’s there.”
“You need help, strong man, love when the days begin.
Sleeping next to me she sings like a violin.
Sleeping next to me she sings like a violin.
You need help, strong man, love when the days begin.”
Hercules and Einstein at a loss for words,
Heaven alive with the hum of hummingbirds.
|
||||
2. |
Save Them All
03:17
|
|||
|
“Ready, aim, fire,” commands the admiral.
I show no respect
Lowering my firearm
As I stagger down the deck.
Torpedoes missing us
Strike the dolphins in the deep.
Shrapnel strikes the albatross.
So-called killer orcas sleep.
“Save them all,” you say.
“Save them all.”
Sweetheart, once you taught me care
For creatures great and small.
You did not grieve for the generals
But their horses when they fall,
The camels struck by steel,
The hatchlings torn from trees,
Every crow cut down when bullets stray,
Spiders crushed by armies.
“Save them all,” you say.
“Save them all.”
“Sorry, sweetheart no,
You’ll never save them all.”
If fire, flood, and drought
Sink the ship and we go down
I lament only the fact
That rats and deckhands drown,
For the brown-eyed bat should fly,
And the squid should dance and swim.
Swaggering, the admiral hollers “fire.”
I turn and aim at him.
“Save them all,” you say.
“Save them all.”
“Sorry, sweetheart no,
You’ll never save them all.”
Ready, aim, fire.
|
||||
3. |
Christmas in Vegas
03:20
|
|||
|
It's Christmas time in Vegas, and the parties are in swing.
I'll be there by the punch bowl not saying a thing.
When I get the courage, I'll mingle with the crowd.
Sorry if I spill my drink and laugh a little too loud.
If you ask me for the time I'll tell you I don't know.
My watch is fifteen minutes fast and an hour slow.
I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus, but that affair will end
cause I also saw her kissing Santa Claus’s friend.
There's eggnog on the slot machine, cocaine instead of snow,
Prostitutes in Santa suits--ho ho ho.
Sorry, man, I don't know when the girls start the show.
My watch is fifteen minutes fast, but it's also an hour slow.
It's Christmas time in Vegas, and the bartenders are glad.
The only happy people are in love or raving mad.
In the desert sand man has made himself a paradise
Where everything looks heavenly under the neon lights.
|
||||
4. |
Babies and Bills
03:34
|
|||
5. |
Turn It Around
03:49
|
|||
|
You can turn around and say what you want
However awful
If you’re artful:
Turn it around.
Even a choir of believers in your worth
Singing your praises
Never phases self-hatred.
There’s must have been something in the air,
There’s must have been something rare
To make the world work out this way.
You can turn around and tell me what you think
About the end game
In the left lane—
Turn it around.
You can take a step, you can make a choice
Whether to kick things or to fix things.
It’s confusing.
Turn it around.
Turn it around.
There’s must have been something in the air,
There’s must have been something in the air,
There’s must have been something rare
To make the whole wide world work out this way.
|
||||
6. |
Sorry State
02:24
|
|||
|
There’s no home state,
No foreign state,
No rogue state that dares.
There’s no red state,
No blue state,
No head of state that cares.
It’s just a sorry state,
A sorry state, a sorry state of affairs.
There’s no deep state.
There’s no escape
From our state of despair.
There’s no state of rest,
Just a state of flux.
No real estate to spare.
Sorry state of disrepair.
Sorry state of war I declare.
May there be states of grace
Between the states
Of emergency out there.
It’s just a sorry state,
Such a sorry state,
A sorry state of affairs.
|
||||
7. |
Yellow Arch Angels
03:30
|
|||
|
The diehard romantic had never planned
To become sole proprietor of a flower stand
Selling foxglove bound up with a rubber band.
Between funerals and weddings he nets forty grand.
Oh, arranging the seasons,
Yellow arch angels, and Elysium.
Springtime he sends rockrose to Mary’s room.
Summertime Heather’s white hydrangeas bloom.
Autumn Ruby dreams of amaranth perfume.
Winter comes to nothing but mistletoe and doom.
Oh, arranging the seasons,
Yellow arch angels, and Elysium.
The widower survives importing merchandise.
He cultivates birds-of-paradise.
Oh, arranging the seasons,
Yellow arch angels, and Elysium.
|
||||
8. |
||||
|
Shostakovich kept a toothbrush in his coat
To take with him to jail in case the KGB
Locks him in a cell to meet the Man of Steel.
Shostakovich kept a toothbrush in his coat,
Composing terrified because a symphony
Got a bad review from the Man of Steel.
Shostakovich kept a toothbrush in his coat.
Officials in the hall made certain every note
Exalts the Common Man and obeys the Man of Steel.
Sorry darlin’, your kid could be Beethoven or Stalin,
Sorry darlin’.
Shostakovich kept a toothbrush in his coat.
In a secret drawer he stashed away the scores
Of trios and quartets that condemn the Man of Steel.
Sorry darlin’, your kid could be Beethoven or Stalin,
Sorry darlin’.
Hey! Hey!
Sorry darlin’
Darlin’, your kid could be Beethoven or Stalin,
Lincoln, Ho Chi Minh, or Haydn,
Bin Laden, Mendelssohn, or Lenin
As in Vladimir, Caligula, or Stalin.
Sorry darlin’.
Sorry darlin’.
Sorry darlin’.
Shostakovich kept a toothbrush in his coat. Hey!
|
||||
9. |
Strike a Match
03:12
|
|||
|
Strike a match, it won’t go out.
Strike a match, it won’t go out.
See it burn, see it burn.
Strike a match, it won’t go out.
Strike a match, it won’t go out.
The flame returns, the flame returns.
It comes and goes.
Single love is a burning thing, single love is a burning thing,
Hot to touch, hot to touch.
Single love is a burning thing, single love is a burning thing.
It’s too much, too much.
It comes and goes.
It comes and goes.
Married love is a dying thing, married love is a dying thing.
Rake the coals, rake the coals.
Married love is a dying thing, married love is a dying thing.
The embers glow, the embers glow.
It comes and goes.
It comes and goes.
It comes and goes.
Strike a match, it won’t go out.
See it burn, see it burn.
|
||||
10. |
All True
02:44
|
|||
|
Miss Nolan’s bookmobile with four crooked wheels
Rocks and rattles through.
It ain’t all for the best, it ain’t all good,
But it’s all true.
Us bums in detention flip with fascination
Through centuries of news.
It ain’t all for the best, it ain’t all good,
But it’s all true.
Pioneers headed West. Miss Nolan’s not impressed
With a high IQ.
It ain’t all for the best, it ain’t all good,
But it’s all true.
Glory never got off the ground.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to put you down.
I’m just thinking out loud, thinking out loud.
Pterodactyls were destroyed by an asteroid.
I wonder if we’re doomed.
It ain’t all for the best, it ain’t all good,
But it’s all true.
When I ask her what to read she recommends a mystery
With conflicting points of view.
It ain’t all for the best, it ain’t all good,
But it’s all true.
Glory never got off the ground.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to put you down.
I’m just thinking out loud, thinking out loud.
|
||||
11. |
No Dumber
03:05
|
|||
|
I have heard it said that everything has been dumbed down
And we are getting dumber.
I wonder.
If it's true, there must have been a time when things were not as dumb
And we were smarter.
I wonder.
I don't know,
But I don't think so.
I have heard it said that things were better
When we farmed the land and cooked with fires.
I wonder
If it's true that things were better
In the age of virgin queens and serfs and squires.
i wonder.
I don't think so.
It won't get worse.
It won't get better.
We're not dumbed down.
We're as dumb as ever.
The good old days happen never.
I have heard that history was made by giants
And we're standing on their shoulders.
I wonder
If the giants were not giants, they were scoundrels,
And we are none the wiser.
I don’t know.
Maybe so.
|
||||
12. |
Left Hand Path
03:37
|
|||
|
She’s sick and tired, full of regret.
She can’t read her phone, but she ain’t dead yet.
Her husband’s gone, children moved.
She’s just about ready to try something new.
The preacher calls it wrong. The kids call it weed.
The doctor says, “Clara, it’s what you need.
Just inhale, and the pain will pass.”
Now she calls it her happy grass.
It’s never too late to take the left hand path.
It’s never so grim you shouldn’t laugh at that.
Put on your party hat.
She’d never given peace a chance
With their long hair and stupid hippie dance,
But now she grooves to a different drum.
She understands where the hippies were coming from.
She sings along with the radio.
She makes up words to the songs she doesn’t know.
She smell flowers. She grows salad greens.
She draws and paints images from her dreams.
The choir master disapproves.
His wife and daughter battle booze.
One night he drank too much red wine
And crashed his car into the church’s bingo sign.
Lord save us all from demon alcohol.
Let the path lead you astray.
Now Clara’s got such an appetite
She gets up to snack two or three times a night.
Her homemade brownies sure taste good.
She shouldn’t take them to the bake sale
Or maybe she should.
It’s never too late to take the left hand path.
It’s never so grim you shouldn’t laugh at that.
Put on your party hat,
Put on your party hat,
And take the left hand path.
|
||||
13. |
Last Fine Lady on Earth
03:18
|
|||
|
Gentlemen beckon. Handmaidens call.
I step down the stairs like the belle of the ball,
Lovely, refined, noble from the birth.
I am the last fine lady on Earth.
I am the last fine lady on Earth.
Spiderwebs lace the dark chandeliers.
Violins rest on orchestra chairs.
Weeds in the punchbowl, clutching my purse,
I am the last fine lady on Earth.
I am the last fine lady on Earth.
Sunrise hangs a golden medallion.
Sunflowers blaze in a congregation.
Sundown unfurls crimson.
Indigo rolls through the ballroom.
Pale figures twirl in top hats and tails
Longing to court, serenade, and regale,
But they’re just a dream. Haunted and cursed,
I am the last fine lady on Earth.
I am the last fine lady on Earth.
I am the last fine lady on Earth.
|
||||
14. |
Conquer Time
03:13
|
|||
|
On the bridge a young man and a girl
Whispered as if love would last forever,
“I'll love you till there's tigers in the pines,
Till the lion and the lamb lie down together,
Till the blue fish swallows the ocean,
Till the moon comes rolling down the mountain,
Till seconds stop, and the moment is our own.”
The bells in the church yard chime,
“Love, love all you want.
You cannot conquer time.”
The bells in the church yard chime,
“Run, run all you want.
The river rushes by.
The river rushes by.”
The echoes of the chiming seemed to say,
“Your love is doomed, doomed to be forgotten.
Your love is only harvest on the vine.
It either goes to wine or else goes rotten.”
A given moment belongs to no one.
Huddled close the couple couldn’t listen.
In need of silence, I hurried down the road.
The bells in the church yard chime,
“Love, love all you want.
You cannot conquer time.”
The bells in the church yard chime,
“Run, run all you want.
The river rushes by.
The river rushes by.
The river rushes by.”
|
||||
Austin & Elliott (Christopher Elliott and Lisa Austin) Montague, Massachusetts
Partners in harmonizing from Western Mass. Also, solo Christopher Elliott releases.
Contact Austin & Elliott (Christopher Elliott and Lisa Austin)
If you like Sorry State, you may also like:
More From The Levee
by Chris Smither
supported by 4 fans who also own “Sorry State”
i love everything chris does! i love the pain depth and light of his soul - purchasing digital copies of already owned cd's just to show my support on bandcamp :)
go to album
I Used To Be Sad & Then I Forgot
by Mr. Alec Bowman_Clarke
Alec Bowman perfectly captures the dark soil under the pastoral world of British folk with this collection of melancholy originals.
go to album
The Edge of the Land
by Katie Spencer
Spencer's indie folk sophomore album was recorded live in the studio over the course of two days.
go to album
such bad things happen
by Levi Fuller & the Library
Turbulent indie rock from Levi Fuller & the Library that has the snarl of hardcore and the knotty meter of math rock.
go to album
Our Blood Is Red
by Luke James Williams
Emotive acoustic balladry from this UK musician with heart on sleeve and hushed arrangements.
go to album
A Place Like Home
by Mr. Alec Bowman_Clarke
The new EP from Scottish songwriter Alec Bowman_Clarke goes deep, setting vulnerable lyrics to gentle melodies & stripped-back arrangements.
go to album
3ingle
by Jason Lytle, Little Wings, Kramies
A trio of songs from indie rock veterans, “3ingle” showcases their songwriting skill with pared-back, acoustic arrangements.
go to album
