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Sorrowful Mystery

by RITA CASCIA

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1.
Don’t follow me home Had quite enough of you here Don’t stick to my clothes I’d rather just smell the fear You know I made it past the millrace And thought I was in the clear Oh you perverted old ghost Stop chewing my ear Oh yeah The specter in the woods behind my house has no concept of boundaries Does a lot of grabbing at the milkmaids who rebuke him soundly Ever since last summer, Guess’s dam has been off limits thanks to his predations But I guess we’ll keep on living Evil draws close all around Both here and there And you can spit on the ground Tuck posies in your hair You can spin in circles Make the old signs with your hands You can take precautions But honey try to understand Oh that The specter in the woods behind my house has no concept of boundaries But the worst wrongdoings are all forged in ordinary foundries Like the last dinosaur, whose longstanding fate the open sky refuses, This sorry species has no excuses Oh yeah The specter in the woods behind my house, him and his werewolf friend, Smoke dope and heckle passers-by and probably will until the end We mend the evil in our hearts, down to the chaff the harvest wends, And we’ve got to pick it right back up again
2.
What a marvel when they laid the electric wire That brought your voice to the speakers on the production line I heard you over the click-clacking of the movable type It’s of you that I think when I’m covered in ink and dead tired My father’s been a cannonball ever since that mean old war My mother took to raising dogs, she don’t speak much anymore Your faithful listener in my room, by myself, no-one understands That if you talk like that, honey you must be a real man You know they tease me hard out here all the time Make cracks at my weight and speculate about the girls that I like Those poor, poor boys: I just find them so darn devoid I am twenty-one, gainfully employed, And saving all my love for my sweetheart with the golden voice Oh my sweetie pie, my sweetie pie Is it the colonel’s daughter’s number flashing on the radio line? Long time caller, but you hang up on me every time Put me up on the airwaves, I’ll convince you of my fervor tonight Tonight I’m driven to distraction hearing you call weather and date And the station ID gets me so hot, well daddy, dinner can wait It’s just about the hour for you to open up to listener requests Let’s hear the terrible symphony that’s beating here in my chest Those poor, poor boys: Those cretins do naught but annoy me Their palms all stained in key Each with a father who’d bequeath a U.P. fief to me But I’m calling up my sweetie Oh my sweetie pie, my sweetie pie Is it the colonel’s daughter’s number flashing on the radio line? Long time caller, but you hang up on me every time Put me up on the airwaves, I’ll convince you of my fervor tonight Tonight Oh I’ve been doing unspeakable things to myself in the darkness, Dreaming about the face behind the voice behind that microphone Do you see that red light flashing? It’s me, Pick up the line don’t leave me be Reach for that phone and answer me
3.
Thylacine 02:37
I could have wasted my life in an office I could have spent it out on the road They kicked me right out of the volunteer service I never fell in love, I’ll never own a home But I pursued a discipline you cannot understand Searching for that striped dog across this feral land I tracked the fossil footprints in North Queensland, Found petrified droppings down in New South Wales I cataloged the geologic record And even glimpsed the awkward stiff brush tail Pursuing the discipline you cannot understand Searching for the last existing members of their clan Thylacine, o thylacine I spied your fearsome jaws upon the movie screen Black and white, it haunts me to this day Now I lay dying in some Outback billabong Wondering where I went wrong And why I’ve thrown my life away Thylacine, o thylacine I spied your fearsome jaws upon the movie screen Open wide, they snatched my life away Now I lay dying in some Outback swamp The sun beats down, the gators start to chomp, I chased a dream, this is the price I pay A petty failure full of doubt I took the golden hook among the school of trout: My calling and my hangman and my curse I took for granted that the past and all our wrongs lived on and on and on and on And now I wonder which is worse
4.
Act sweet and get your cap Chief says the deceased is reposing in the shed out back I know you’ve seen worse in books and on the internet But you’re turning green as hell, yeah buddy, you’re a rookie yet We talk about it like it’s so sad It was the longest confession Father Dempsey has ever had Nevertheless, the morgue is gonna get her in a couple different bags And I still think doing yourself in is the last true hopeful act Well, kid, I’ve been on the force a real long time I’ve seen em hanging from rafters, seen their brains out, seen em fried I’ve split two lovers from a once-unending hug As far as I’m concerned, son, our graves are already dug On the heights of despair And I haven’t got a care Each special someone fading into the dirt All the troubles in my head Will be erased in the halls of the dead Where at last I will accept my minimal worth We talk about it with unbelievable fright Reading portents in the wind of every lonely night Nevertheless, the trouble with being born ain’t saying goodbye It’s the terror of carrying on, each dreadful weary mile
5.
The first heartache was when you spat me out of the cold, hard earth The second was the curse of my hardy people’s improbable girth Third on the list, yeah, I was truly miffed by my incredible failure of height But even a dwarf with the poorest recourses can swing with formidable might I ain’t talking bout hammers, I’m talking bout Amazons, tall elven ladies, fair maids Stalking the beaches, doing off with their breeches, yeah I’m breaking em out of their caves Davegard the Green came late to the scene and found I’d already swept em away I ain’t taking down dragons but no matter how ill-made, you know I still slay And all my fathers know is the ringing of their axes and the rubies that they’re passing from hand to hand Lineages writ in runes on the long walls underneath the mountain And tired commercial notions I cannot stand Well it’s true, from time to time I’ve undertaken some bestial things A couple affairs in the cloisters, I was only spared by the pardon of kings I can’t help that a hug and a kiss and some more makes me feel like a man A dwarf who’s short cast out from his clan lives as dangerously as he can And oh, I know, I will answer for my doings But the problem is just that the doing is so damn good Across this blighted world, I’m hiding from my shortcomings By stripping em down in their castles or out in the woods Enshroud me, please, in the garters of my lovers when That merciful reaper comes to set me free
6.
VHE 02:42
When may I see the tape of your vasectomy again? You know it turns me on to see a doctor do the twist You have always been such a very special friend Thank god I’ll never be emburdened by your kids Love me once on accident, don’t you think about or plan it Then you’ll love me twice, my antique parents will demand it If you love me three times, can it be just you and me, damn it, Voluntarily depopulating the planet No need to stop this godless rutting even if The moon is looking less than favorable I can see extinction has gotten you pretty stiff The future’s always impenetrable Millennial anxiety has never made the curtain look so good As when I saw you facedown on the couch wrapped in your hood Tie me to the headboard and I’ll make your dead eyes see How quickly we can fade into the dream Love me once on accident, we’ll say we never meant it Then you’ll love me twice, no arcane science can prevent it If you love me three times, can you whisper in my ear What I want to hear? “Let’s go extinct”
7.
We never had the type of sex promised us by erotic films No puffed-up lips, no too-big dills No indiscretions behind fuzzy steering wheels No incest, bondage, torture, shame My therapist had warned me not to scream his name And a pretty spotty record kept him from choking me the way I wanted But I loved every piece of that man His big round nose just like a cabbage So I’ve dragged his body to you now It’s right here in my baggage Listen to me, listen, Herr Doctor, please Can you do an autopsy? Saw through my pelvis or break my knees Can you find my lover inside me? No, I didn’t eat him though I really wished I could I never had the knack for making zuppa out of wood I tried to get him off the floor But a casual glance confirmed he wasn’t moving anymore He’s clearly left his mortal form: All that’s left is a sad puppet growing more and more deformed Anyway, The grave is cold and he hates cold so I know he must be somewhere in me Where my heart is warm and beating Listen to me, listen, Herr Doctor, please Can you do an autopsy? Saw through my pelvis or break my knees Can you find my lover inside me, Where he’s hiding out from the reaper? In my organs and skin The tyranny of death is so beneath us I know he’ll carry on within
8.
Ice Climbers 06:09
Don’t think too much about it, baby, The north sun does a rotten number on my skin Can you call it hiding When I’m just covering my seasonal blemishes? That’s the mark of an explorer, Someone who’ll grab the reins and grit their teeth And no, I haven’t been cutting… Okay, I have, but just the limbs that you can’t see Strapped in my snowshoes The tears freeze to my cheeks Been thinking lots about it, baby, Had a whole lot of thinking time Following in your deep snow prints Across the shrinking glaciers and the icy mountains that we climb Absolutely did I lose them, I left those tablets at the base camp several thousand kilos back This trip was already something Now it’s only getting more and more taxing Struggling to keep A modest grip on reality Oh, there goes that famous ice-climbing pair Trekking across the continent Two masterful alpinists seizing their fate Their lives spent on high, spitting in danger’s face Can’t stop thinking bout it, baby, If we do make it to the end, these journalists with their ticker tape Will have me half-mad on the newsreel with this mess of scars upon my face: “We got attacked by some pygmies, they’re down there at the South Pole living well, Oh, yes, it’s been an accomplishment!” …Perhaps the greatest of my life but I’m in hell Oh you should have made, should have made this trip alone And left my sorry ass on the couch at home Yeah we should have known, history ought to have shown, That I’d go off the rails and fuck it up Oh what a serious overestimation Of the kind of faith you should have in someone Someone like me

about

Raw, lo-fi punk and power pop from small-town coastal NC. Macabre humor and moral seriousness show through lyrical explorations of ghosts, cannibalism, extinction events, and the sex lives of dwarves and elves. Recorded alone on bare-bones gear and delivered with the intensity of a convict on the hanging block.

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released October 13, 2023

Songwriting, all instruments: Davis Alderson

Recorded at home

Mixed and mastered by Matt Southern in Raleigh, NC

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RITA CASCIA North Carolina

@rita.cascia.band
rita.cascia.music@gmail.com

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