We Have Zero Maids

by Jerome Rankine

We Have Zero Maids Cover Art
  00:00 / 00:00
1.
03:36
lyrics
download
2.
03:11
lyrics
download
3.
02:40
lyrics
download
4.
02:36
info
download
5.
03:36
lyrics
download
6.
02:25
lyrics
download
7.
03:17
lyrics
download
8.
03:15
lyrics
download
9.
04:21
lyrics
download
10.
03:38
lyrics
download
11.
02:24
lyrics
download

about

This album was recorded in my Harlem apartment throughout 2008. Brighter and more synth-heavy than its predecessor, it explores a layered and detailed sonic space. This version has been polished slightly, and the tracks have been reordered, but the dense digital chaos is still very much intact.

credits

released 20 November 2008
All words, music, instruments and production by Jerome Rankine
Recorded at The Den in New York
Gently remastered in 2010
Original release available on iTunes.

tags

tags: dense digital rock experimental pop electro acoustic electronic indie pop rock Minneapolis

license

All rights reserved

feeds

Feeds for this album, this artist

about

squint your ears right

contact / help

For help with downloads, click here.

For all other inquiries, click here.

Track Name: Covered in Soldiers
All the things left unsaid
Start to burn in his head
And it goes off like a bottle rocket

All the words there on tap
Never poured, never drank
Are the ones that you can never forget

Maybe there’s just ice cream is his songs.
Maybe there’s just lightning in his bones.
Or are you in it for the cloak and dagger?

My my my

(whistles!)

But his heart’s filling up
With the sparks from the drums
Took the two to make one
And the knot’s come undone

So why are your shoulders
Covered in soldiers
Relax just a bit

Maybe there’s just ice cream is his songs.
Maybe there’s just lightning in his bones.
Or are you in it for the cloak and dagger?

Cloak and dagger

Stabbing you senseless with his rapier wit
He steals the spotlight while he’s hiding from it

My my my
Track Name: Gun Science
We were waiting for help to arrive
The fox he told me we’d run out of time
The signs we were waiting on
Had all been kidnapped for ransom
The science of a loaded gun
Is just to point it at someone

It’s not fair.

The night’s afire with hard lullabies
The fox, he sings as the hawks toe the line
The signs we were waiting on
Had all been kidnapped for ransom
The science of a loaded gun
Is just to shoot it at someone

Who’s right there.

While we’re waiting for lies to unwind
The fox distracts us with his sleight of hand
The signs we were waiting on
Had all been kidnapped for ransom
And the science of a loaded gun
Is to shoot bullets through someone

I’m not scared.
Track Name: Kisser
Got the arm 'round you
Pulling close on you
Nice and soft and that's all that you want
From me

Bus is not coming
The mall is closed, honey
And it's raining. One's all that I want.
One is all that I want from you, girl.

It's getting late for it.
Still we wait for it.
Pregnant pauses. That's all that you've got
For me

Sweat it out, let it in.
Say the words and we both win.
When I want you, that's all that you want.
That is all that you want from me.

You got the feel of a soul feeling so in doubt
Giving the raindrops something to cry about
You know the drill, you're too old to be holding out
Let's just go home if you want to be so devout
You want to say that you know what it's all about
You'll turn to me with your chin up and eyelids down

Got it right in the kisser.
Track Name: The Gears
For seven years she’s settled
For the hollow man
She’s digging out from under
With her own bare hands
She’s been holding her breath for all that time

Why should she trust one
When the last one
Painted rivers on her cheeks
For all to see?

The spoiled and ruined promise
Made for fertile ground
She plants her flowers on it
As the sun peeks out
She’s been under this cloud for all that time

Maybe the next one
Will be someone
Who can cure her soul’s disease
For all to see

And she’s back at the polls again
Crawled in the old machine with her hammer out
We knew she’d be
Back in the gears of it
The flaws and the old belief
That’s been hanging on for all that time

For all to see
Track Name: Mt. Penitent
When you say that in front of me
it just leaves me all scatterbrained
And you ask if I'm falling out
But I'm not, I will stick around

Why react with uncertainty?
Get wasted!
Stagger out, stumbling.

And it's such a simple thing
We're making out of us.
All the hours we flicked away
When we switched to imported tastes

Why react with uncertainty?
Get wasted!
Tumble 'round tumbleweed

and you plant your flag over it
but you won't stay too long
'cause it's all for the dogs

all the trite sentimentalists
crying from iron lungs
they're all going to rust

And it's such a simple thing
Zipped the coats and then started up
Polaroids of us on the crown
Took a drink and then started down

Why react with uncertainty?
Get wasted!
Stagger out stumbling
Track Name: Luckiest Man Alive
Every day you decide
To put red in your eyes
But you do it in style alright

And it’s easy to say that experience pays
But you’re running away alright

The cyclone tears right through
Your fine tuned defense

And the ladders we climb
Going side to side
But we do it in style alright
And the skeptic in me
Can relent and believe
If you tell me that we’ll be alright

The cyclone tears right through
Your fine tuned defense
The long shot, the sweet spot
Do these not exist?
The cyclone
It tears your defenses right through

The cyclone it tears through it
The sad song you make do with


You say that the screen’s too big and
(You say you want it you ought to come get it)
You say that the summer’s slowing
(You’ve got to show that you always come through in the end)
You want to be De Beauvoir then go do it
(The cyclone it tears through us)
You write a song and it always sounds better to you
(The cyclone it tears through us)
You say you want to be set up, and compensated
(You see the dollars and cents, so come get it)
You say you want to be the luckiest man alive
(You’ve got to take it my friend; they won’t give it to you)

Good luck
Track Name: To Be Our Valentine
Loosen your lips
This is a safe ship
With all the mirrors faintly askew

Man with a gun
Looking for someone
Else with a gun who looks for him too.

Spare me the grief tonight
The people have lost their minds
And as
We were holding you down
You were laughing yeah

Look at the graph
Whoever laughs last
Laughs well beyond the point that feels good

City of rakes
All of the same faith
Closing their eyes and praying for you

We’re on our knees tonight
Scanning the clouds in flight
And as
You were plummeting down
We were watching it

I didn’t think you’d burn so fast
The fires were going straight through your hair
I hope it doesn’t hurt so bad
We will massage your bones
And write you poems
That make you want
To be our Valentine.

Spare me the grief tonight
And close all the curtains tight
Because
We are turning around
Flowers spring from your mouth
We were watching it
Track Name: Island of the Hungry Ghosts
What did I ever do
To bring you back again?
What did I say to you
To make you laugh again?
Was it the honest truth
That brought you back again?

I fought, but they pushed you down the stairs.
I watched, watched them switch your brain with theirs.

I had to tell you twice for you to trust yourself
Follow your own advice:
Don’t interrupt yourself.
Slipped and fell through the ice
Perhaps you pushed yourself.

You couldn’t hear me at all.
The medicine was in your head.

Screams rose from my chest but wouldn’t come
You chose to forget what you had done

Fighting a secret war
With all the sound turned down.
Kicked through the boarded door
To find they’ve shot you down.
Lying there on the floor
With all the walls burned down.

You couldn’t hear me at all.
The medicine was in your head.
Track Name: Hush Hush
You may be right four-eyes
It’s hard to believe
Cause I’ve been crazy until now

I turn out the lights
And hope for the best
Cause I’ve been mystified by life so far

Your secret is safe if you let me jump in
‘Cause finally it seems I’m good at something
I’m living it up while I’m winding down

The begging for more
Messed me up
Cause I’ve been lazy until now

What were the chances I’d find
The words to snare her
Cause I’ve been mystified by life so far

We live in the age of the gorgeous machines
We live and we die by what’s under our sheets
We’re living it up while we’re winding down.

Said
‘I don’t care about the things you used to be now baby.
You’ve got an honest face.’
Said
‘I don’t mind the fact that you won’t let me down there baby’
You’ve got an honest face.’
Track Name: For A Shy Child
I’d like to rip a hole
In the earth
And climb in

And I would let the wound
Heal around me

And the scar would be my headstone.


I’d like to build a tower to the sky
And climb up

And there I’d let my friends
Eat with me

And the clouds would be our bread.