Get all 5 Kick Ptarmigan releases available on Bandcamp and save 10%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Solutions To A Non-Problem, Slow Death Tone & Regulator, ShelfStock 2011: A Holiday Compilation To Benefit Harvest Share, Trihornasaurus, and Feelgooderie.
1. |
E Song
03:24
|
|||
|
She’ll be fine.
She’s never caught around the building with her murals on the side
of the girl she left behind.
They’re supposed to be the girl she left behind.
They shared a futon, it’s fine, she didn’t really need space
alone the hard nights.
After everything, how could she say “no” this time?
It was the wrong time.
It could have really been sweet.
Not under these sheets.
She could have stayed.
She’s always there to lift her up the next day,
but in the wrong way.
When he left he left his sense and said he’d never look down,
he left a legend, yeah he thought he’d left it all over town.
But I can tell he’s going down.
If she’d believed in all the vows they’d made of peace of mind
then she deserved to hit the highway, deaf rapport on her side.
I hear they made her leave her wardrobe behind.
I guess she’s naked at heart.
I guess she made it to the coast, unwelcome on a stranger’s couch,
she’s welcome under the stars.
I guess she’s hollow inside,
I guess I lost her, guess I followed her for nothing,
and I’m stuck where she abandoned her car.
I guess she’s naked at heart.
It was the wrong time.
It could have really been sweet.
Not under these sheets.
She could have stayed.
She’s always there to lift her up the next day,
but in the wrong way.
I guess she’s naked at heart.
I guess she made it to the coast, unwelcome on a stranger’s couch,
she’s welcome under the stars.
I guess she’s hollow inside,
I guess I lost her, guess I followed her for nothing,
and I’m stuck where she abandoned her car.
I guess she’s naked at heart.
|
||||
2. |
Nuclear
03:27
|
|||
|
The pipe’s all rust, but I’m still here;
the hollow bones and veins.
They’re sexy, that’s why I’m still here,
just trying to hear about me and my guns.
And I can’t see the end too clear,
but I pronounce it nuclear.
What’s one more dead animal to me?
There’s a lot of things in nature I don’t need.
There’s no strategic target on the sea,
and no collateral damage means no harm will come to me
or the overbredth of jellyfish that welcome back the beasts,
decommissioning the dragnets.
I can’t believe who’s side you’re taking here.
Maybe he ran off and died,
but I don’t really need that deer,
I mean
what’s one more dead animal to me?
There’s a lot of things in nature that don’t bleed.
I’m thinking about buying a boat,
‘cause you and all my friends live far away,
each on a different coast,
and there’s no strategic target on the sea,
and no collateral damage means no harm will come to me
or the overbredth of jellyfish that welcome back the beasts,
decommissioning the dragnets.
The pipe’s all rust, but I’m still here;
the hollow bones and veins.
They’re sexy, that’s why I’m still here,
just trying to hear about me and my guns.
And I can’t see the end too clear,
but I pronounce it nuclear.
|
||||
3. |
Monster Maker
06:05
|
|||
|
She was informed, oh she got told.
She acted out her centerfold.
She’d exercise her baby-set.
She sweated out her epithet.
In a floor-length skirt that isn’t hemmed,
the bare thread sweeps the dirt,
and where she stands she blends.
In a floor-length skirt that isn’t hemmed,
she laid down in the dirt,
her brand new flesh to spend.
She sits in newspaper,
garbage collages with her blouse.
Upholstery mingles with her mixed up mane.
Her dress is growing roots trying to get her fares worth on this track.
She spent a pound of flesh to ride this train.
Some eyes of stone, she settled home.
Oh dust, the months she’d spent alone.
Well, she braced south, oh she got bold.
She’d taste-test doubt, her tea got cold.
In a floor-length skirt that isn’t hemmed,
the bare thread sweeps the dirt,
and where she stands she blends.
In a floor-length skirt that isn’t hemmed,
she laid down in the dirt,
her brand new flesh to spend.
She pondered ends, she passed the time.
She won’t assert, oh, why should I?
Her perfect, sterile double blind.
Let’s time decide who lives or dies.
In a floor-length skirt that isn’t hemmed,
the bare thread sweeps the dirt,
and where she stands she blends.
In a floor-length skirt that isn’t hemmed,
she laid down in the dirt,
her brand new flesh to spend.
She sits in newspaper,
garbage collages with her blouse.
Upholstery mingles with her mixed up mane.
Her dress is growing roots trying to get her fares worth on this track.
She spent a pound of flesh to ride this train.
|
||||
4. |
||||
|
Hear you breathing inside,
on this carnival ride,
oh these lights seem so bright, to adjust
your menzizi blues
have an aura removed
see your silhouette move, to adjust to me too.
There were pictures of you I could buy.
There were prizes all novelty sized.
There’s no crime at the carnival, crime at the carnival,
and we’ll never make it outside.
I can’t breathe, I can’t sleep, I can’t eat.
I’m helpless, believe me.
You can keep me here.
See your halogen eyes,
smiling back into mine,
just a measurable size to adjust
to the carnival glow,
making saints of us both,
in my mirrored eyes shown, to adjust to me too.
There were pictures of you I could buy.
There were prizes all novelty sized.
There’s no crime at the carnival, crime at the carnival,
and we’ll never make it outside.
I can’t breathe, I can’t sleep, I can’t eat.
I’m helpless, believe me.
You can keep me here.
I can’t breathe, I can’t sleep, I can’t eat.
I’m helpless, believe me.
You can keep me here.
|
||||
5. |
Mud Huts
03:57
|
|||
|
I hired your dad to do a painting
of a photograph I took
of a lighthouse, bares the switch, an angry sea.
Unruly rocks to discipline
the keeper’s warned to keep within
but there’s a figure in my painting in between.
And I hang the painting in my mud room
where the man’s about to die
in oils, forever, where my home receives its guests
where I dress to meet you,
up against the wall,
for whatever disaster,
it’s the only time you call.
But I never want to tell you you have beautiful eyes,
even I have beautiful eyes.
It’s never calm on your horizon,
trepidation to your size,
but your eyes are all that come to mind.
Your boring eyes.
Have they heard of infrastructure,
will their skyscrapers collapse
where they were built to test the limits of the land?
It’s abusive of the soil,
stripped for artificial growth,
without the backing to stay turgid with our capital.
I almost hope I fail prediction,
it’s getting harder to rebuild,
and they were due for good decisions, I would guess.
All the homeless in Asia with
bricks to be laid, but their
bricks are all fired of such
limited clay.
But I never want to tell you you have beautiful eyes,
even I have beautiful eyes.
It’s never calm on your horizon,
trepidation to your size,
but your eyes are all that come to mind.
Your boring eyes.
|
||||
6. |
Last Cigarette
03:27
|
|||
|
I’m a man of some skill
with a knife in my jeans, and a penchant to heal.
With advice in my will, so you’d know that I knew when I’m gone
you’d be around still.
And I’ll sing you to sleep
any time of the day
and you’ll wax and you’ll wane
and you’ll swell with the sea
take a nap at midday, like a joke
when I know you’ve got somewhere to be.
And my eyes won’t get better forever,
I forget what’s important to see.
And I breathe fire,
I taste sweet, so sweet.
I’m a rocket fuel flame.
I’ve a warhead, that streamlines my moped.
I take half the time on mistakes.
I’m efficient, yeah, everyone’s glad when I came.
I’m a talentless boy with a garden
that’s four foot by two, and it’s rotten, because
it’s too damp at the roots, oh, it’s shallow and wide,
and it’s good for a meal that’s got nothing inside.
And my eyes won’t get better forever,
I forget what’s important to see.
And I breathe fire,
I taste sweet, so sweet. So.
|
||||
7. |
Where I Put My Hands
02:46
|
|||
|
She pinned the seams, up close to me.
She held the needles in her teeth.
Pins and needles, in her teeth.
Close to me.
We’re on a schedule, I’d really help her out.
But she drew blood, she drew blood,
she drew blood, she drew blood.
And where (where)
I put my hands (I put my hands.)
and where (where’s safe)
to point my eyes, they’re on her side, she’s working.
On any dais, I’ll work for free, I work for free.
Make and mending soulless clothes, to be close to me.
She drew blood, she drew blood,
she drew blood, she drew blood.
Am I fit for her dress?
She thinks I am, I said she thinks
that I’m fast, I’m impressed by the steel
between her teeth.
And where (where)
I put my hands (I put my hands.)
and where (where’s safe)
to point my eyes, they’re on her side,
And where (where)
I put my hands (I put my hands.)
and where (where’s safe)
to point my eyes, they’re on her side, I keep them to myself, keep them to myself.
|
||||
8. |
In Any Language
03:14
|
|||
|
Little girls who dream in black and white, with hundreds of names for the grays.
Grown ups grown up colour blind, ‘cause colour don’t get paid. You’ll compose
a love pop song for shock and awe, for shock and awe.
What you’d appreciate, what you made, what you’d erase.
I struggle to make myself heard, you lob off the tip of my tongue
and poke through, the world’s no less lowly in Arabic.
Poetry isn’t better in Arabic
Physics isn’t better in space
Business isn’t better in Cantonese
not for me.
Little girls raised on calamine, incorrigeably unphased.
The senseless says he’d learned to sign, but what has he got to say?
You’d compose
a sober psalm for the fifth imam for shock and awe.
What you’d appreciate, what you made, what you’d erased.
I struggle to make myself heard, you lob off the tip of my tongue
and poke through, the world’s no less lowly in Arabic.
I struggle to make myself heard, you lob off the tip of my tongue
and poke through, the world’s no less lowly in any language.
|
||||
9. |
Pretentious Jeff (Head)
04:09
|
|||
|
Colour in the dark parts first, hide the highlights.
Scribble in hard, hard, hard
No composition here to light the room
or draw your eye
From nowhere to nowhere
To gone
Was he sweet? Well, that’s sweet.
Was he fair? Eyes like a breath of fresh air, but not too fresh?
Were you lost in his songs? His sounds?
You said you never heard any like his before.
Do you miss your boyfriend’s fake British accent?
I bet.
You’re amazed he fills in the stage, when you’re empty.
Et son esprit qui tourner le couteau dans la plaie.
To you each, you fill in his sheets in every home de couer insourmis.
Draws your eye from nowhere to nowhere
To gone.
Gone
Was he sweet? Well, that’s sweet.
Was he kind? That’s kind of hard to believe.
Did the heat of his words begin to feel like
You were hearing through the wall
From the hall of your home.
Where you could hear your boyfriend’s fake British accent,
I bet.
Was he sweet? Well, that’s sweet.
Was he fair? Eyes like a breath of fresh air, but not too fresh?
Were you lost in his songs? His sounds?
You said you never heard any like his before.
Do you miss your boyfriend’s fake British accent?
I bet.
|
||||
10. |
Carbon Monoxide
02:59
|
|||
|
I don’t really feel like
I’d have to choose between
who’s riding on my shoulders
and who’s burning in their sleep.
‘Cause I have shoulders wide enough for two,
And my best bet’s that I could carry you.
Carbon monoxide, you’re
A skyscraper of some kind,
There’s hundreds in this town.
A pillow fort is built for fun.
You turn the photographs face-down.
You stay. Could you stay?
‘Cause I am like a carnival, and you’re multivitamins.
Your ounce of prevention has me tasting my own medicine.
You could be a little less, so I could have some more.
‘Cause you live in the real world
And I’m just some kind of metaphor.
But I have shoulders wide enough for two,
And my best bet’s that I could carry you.
Carbon monoxide
I have shoulders wide enough for two,
And my best bet’s that I could carry you.
But carbon monoxide wasn’t cheating on you, too.
|
||||
Kick Ptarmigan Parry Sound
Kick Ptarmigan, having recently devoured local greats the Spins, are set to record their third album this year. They play a
unique hybrid of hair metal and doo-wop that sounds suspiciously like indie folk/rock.
Comparisons to Leonard Cohen, Violent Femmes and the Barenaked Ladies have been met with confused stares.
... more
Kick Ptarmigan recommends:
Oceapur 9
by Pistol George Warren
Great rock and roll from Sudbury ON
go to album
Hope You're Fine
by Mundy's Bay
Only a single, but a great pair of songs.
go to albumIf you like Kick Ptarmigan, you may also like:
15 years into their career, the Toronto indie rockers sound sharp and ebullient as ever.
go to album
This posthumous record by the lead singer of the Tragically Hip, containing both electric & acoustic takes, showcases his songwriting gifts.
go to album
The Toronto quartet transcend their jangle-rock trappings on their ambitious third album.
go to album
Montreal indie-rock mainstays combat tech-age ennui with a rowdy return to form, catharsis enabled through catchiness.
go to album
