1. |
Every Fragrant Creature
04:34
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Now to every fragrant creature, I have to say:
“I am the finest singer Fate has tossed our way.”
My only wonder and crumb of comfort:
We are weak and getting weaker –
Every fragrant creature.
The only woman I want has been gone for months.
Each time I stand up, twenty things happen at once.
A low-key affair: she never was there,
And I would often leave her
For every fragrant creature.
There lurks a fault, a happy thought,
A cry for authorial intrusion:
I tell these kids of the Music Biz
“Line up according to evolution.”
I fill my days finding new ways
To disappoint my mother.
And every fragrant creature.
I twist the knife deeper
Into every fragrant creature.
David Safran / Anchorhold Music. ©2013
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2. |
Council Rings
04:10
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She’s 31 and tried to run
For local city council.
He’s 29 and well past time
To leave his parents’ household.
Their childhood starry; they got in early
What now is barely present—
Beds and poisons and adult choices
Was the high point of adolescence.
They both seem to find erotic bliss
Pretending that it’s 1996.
Baby, take off your crisp white blouse, your skinny black slacks.
Baby, come sing some Elastica to me.
Baby, let’s pretend we’re too young, let’s reenact
All our long-buried North Shore memories.
Her life, her love: the Rotary Club.
His life is just misguided.
A gift, a plague, reserved for age:
The past trots alongside them.
The love she gave his seventh grade
Is what he wants near thirty:
To hear her say, with amused dismay,
“You still look twelve, don’t worry.”
They both take some comfort from this:
Pretending that it’s 1996.
Baby, take off your crisp white blouse, your skinny black slacks.
Baby, come sing some Elastica to me.
Baby, let’s pretend we’re too young, let’s reenact
All our long-buried North Shore memories.
And they both seem to find erotic bliss
Pretending that it’s 1996–
When they’d meet at Rosewood Beach; meet at the Braeside stop;
The car beneath Port Clinton Square abandoned;
Upon a stone council ring in Jens Jensen Park;
And next to City Hall inside the timber cabin.
Baby, take off your crisp white blouse, your skinny black slacks.
Baby, get into your bight and baggy jeans.
Baby, let’s pretend we’re too young, let’s reenact
All our long-buried North Shore memories.
David Safran / Anchorhold Music. ©2012
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3. |
The Men She Loves
03:18
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Again, again, she leaves you.
She says, “We can’t be together.”
She says, “I really can’t see you
While looking for someone who’s better.”
And you think about their faces,
Think about the men she’ll love,
And all of the embraces
She’ll crawl in and out of.
You’re craving – craving! – for your sister.
Hardly a day without a scene or secret:
She’d sink back into a chair and whisper,
“Come on, Davey, let’s see it!”
And you would think about their faces,
Think about the men she loved
And all of the embraces
She crawled in and out of.
And after loving her so much,
Peering at her over the wall.
It just takes one slow touch
For the pleasure of it all –
When you think about their faces,
Think about the men she loves,
And of the embraces
She’s crawled in and out of
You dream about men’s faces,
Dream about their belts hitting the floor
And all her new embraces
And all the men she had before
You think about their faces.
Think about the men she loves.
David Safran / Anchorhold Music. ©2012
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4. |
Strokers & Sleeves
04:33
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Life continues: foreign menus
And a dose of adrenalin.
This adult being is floor to ceiling:
A fear of food and medicine;
I’m strikingly good at arrogance;
My life’s rebuilt with none of the guilt,
But the same embarrassments.
Strokers and sleeves, sleeves and strokers.
My loves are these, they never get older.
My loves are these: strokers and sleeves.
Life’s just slow. Some plus points though:
Day-to-day anger and chest pain.
But I found a fan base; I looked in the wrong place—
‘twas not in the world but the bed frame.
The truth is, it’s simple
Connecting with people.
It’s the definition that’s lacking.
Strokers and sleeves, sleeves and strokers.
My loves are these, they never get older.
My loves are these: strokers and sleeves.
I’m still quite pleased, still quite proud of
The things we’re expected to grow out of.
David Safran / Anchorhold Music. ©2015
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5. |
Bottomless Darkness
04:00
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I’m sinking more deeply into myself. It’s true:
Though I pay to get in, I’ll pay to get out too.
My on-again, off-again goddess,
Something I have longed to do:
To gather my bottomless darkness
And share my bottomless darkness with you.
I toiled through desire, and I gave it my all.
In love, the only talent is to know how to withdraw.
To her deranged romantic partners
On a campaign to win her head:
Try to find her bottomless darkness,
Win her bottomless darkness instead.
There’s no one left to prey on or harm us,
And since I only live to love thee:
I give you my bottomless darkness,
Bottomless darkness you always give me.
The whole thing is there to see-
Bottomless darkness:
I set myself up for this.
David Safran / Anchorhold Music. ©2012
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6. |
Human Failings
05:04
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I’m tall and I’m complex.
I’m learned above my sex.
The wives of my friends all love me.
A defective male, at most
I’m inept or brave or both–
With an ear for prose and puffery.
I'm too little known, but I’m never ignored.
I don’t know what failure looks like anymore.
My songs are so strong and focused
They pass mostly unnoticed.
Everything smells of the lamp now.
Still, I’m resilient and free.
But resiliency
Is just embarrassment tamped-down.
I see the height of my powers; I see the forest floor.
And I don’t know what failure looks like anymore.
Your rock'n'roll commuter
He sits with a recruiter
Who is asking what he's done the last decade.
He never doubted his talent;
He took money from his parents—
His influence not down but delayed.
Half his CV is bogus,
A drift into psychosis.
He struggles when asked about his strengths.
But when asked what’s his weakness
He feels a great uniqueness,
Then talks about his deficiencies at length.
I’m tall and I’m complex.
I’m learned above my sex.
The songs of my friends play in the grocery store.
And I don’t know what failure looks like anymore.
Anchorhold Music. ©2015
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7. |
There Goes a Schmuck
04:28
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Beauty rolled through you so quickly:
Had it when you were seventeen,
With an enviable tan at thirty,
And a handful of nights in between.
And like all ruins you look best by moonlight
And moments in the day when you feel stuck.
Is it: there goes a man or there goes a schmuck?
You dream of old loves lately.
You misremember the past.
That’s not bravery, baby –
That’s saving your own ass.
And like all ruins you look best by moonlight
And moments in the day when you feel stuck.
Is it: there goes a man or there goes a schmuck?
What you’ve learned from growing older,
Yes, the only honest fact,
Is that you now brush forward
What you used to slick back.
And like all ruins you look best by moonlight
And moments in the day when you feel luck.
Is it: there goes a man or there goes a schmuck?
David Safran / Anchorhold Music. ©2011
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8. |
Certain Tired Words
02:56
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“Karen went to the store.”
Lovely way to start a song.
Lines I used to abhor
I now consider strong.
You have the greatest mouth in music.
There’s pride in your voice as well.
You are untouched by your times, but know this:
You are touched by everything else.
You don’t slide towards desperation.
You never really let on
That you hate your generation,
And you’re afraid of the next one.
But out among the Muses,
There’s no dispute, I’m sure –
A nearly perfect verse is:
“Karen went to the store.”
David Safran / Anchorhold Music. ©2012
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9. |
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He’s got wonky teeth and pillowy lips
And eyebrows thick and flowing;
He’s got a gift for belligerence;
And hair–not gone–but going.
He’s got glaring faults and something to say.
He’s quite enjoyable in a sort of growly way.
“We’re probably not going to fuck,” she says.
But truth is hard to come by.
So with a grim smile, he asks his friend
Just who she wants to fuck, and why.
Half the time she loves this man,
She wants so much to please him.
To step outside herself again
For entirely selfish reasons.
“We’re probably not going to fuck,” she says.
But truth is hard to come by.
So with a grim smile, he asks his friend
Just who she wants to fuck, and why.
Her sexual past, it’s simply a list
Completely detached from happiness.
His sexual past, for what’s worth,
Is completely detached from life on earth.
“We’re probably not going to fuck,” she says.
But truth is hard to come by.
So with a grim smile, he asks his friend
Just who she wants to fuck, and why.
David Safran / Anchorhold Music. ©2013
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10. |
Something Like Delight
03:52
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For many years you’ve come this way:
All with the winds and when you please.
I tried to raise a storm today;
I missed your height, your moods, your face.
I don’t love your elusiveness,
I love when you pervade and, true,
That more bewildered men must guess
About a woman they love, too.
But you escape and I exalt,
So I ask before you leave here:
That you never stop finding fault,
Or stop finding virtue either.
Oh, you give me
Oh, you give me
Something like delight.
David Safran / Anchorhold Music. ©2012
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11. |
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I have no talent for happiness,
Or anything that takes places outdoors.
You’re irresistible to men, and yet
What you most want is ignored.
But this old romance that we do,
Long-loved or mishandled,
It gives us something to cling to
When everything’s in total shambles.
I feel like beachfront property
Sliding into the ocean.
I worry about wealth but honestly
I worry more about erosion.
And I count each breath and need you:
My first serious love and handful.
You give me something to cling to
When everything’s in total shambles.
There’s healing in my wings, too.
Or, rather, half-healing, half-scandal.
I give you something to cling to,
And everything is in total shambles.
I count each breath and miss you.
I imagine you with some man now.
And he comes to life again with you
When everything’s in total shambles.
David Safran / Anchorhold Music. ©2013
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David Safran Chicago, Illinois
David Safran is a writer, musician, and producer.. A noted figure in Chicago's music scene, Safran has attracted acclaim for his "boundary-breaking tunes" (WNUR) and dark, provocative lyrics "spike[d]...with humor" (The Chicago Reader).
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