Official release. Deemed definitive. Abandoned work.

Studio Recording. Second-to-last version, with ideas and flaws

Grizzly Crossing Studio solo recording. Second-to-last version, with ideas and flaws

Cheap/old studio demo. Decent recording

Home demo. Only for hardcore adventurers

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LYRICS

(Instrumental)

No, I won’t bear several nights like this,

sirens cry in the distance, and the air is pure steam.

A Silver Wraith Rolls-Royce

turns left, and its tires creak.

A young drunk driver is pressing his feet.

Beside him, there’s a girl;

The red hue of her hair is like straw in a field.

A distant smile lingers on her lips,

draped over her shoulders, a blue mink coat.

A shadow appears behind my door

I see through the glass the perfect size.

 

There will be several nights like this.

There will be several nights like this.

 

Her legs are like the highway from here to Seattle

Dark wool socks, that’s my undoing.

I am in deep – her voice sounds so sweet-

My sister is accused of a crime she hasn’t committed

Let me talk to you frankly, I think the killer is her boyfriend

He’s been gone since the day we found the corpse

The dead man was our gardener; he was a good old man

I still wonder why he did it.

 

The weather’s so hot I can’t take several nights like this

where my ceiling fan makes just a light breeze.

I open a file: her name is Victoria,

her sister Eileen, and the suspect is Phil.

A new enigma, again in the maze,

tomorrow I’ll commence, tonight I’ll try to sleep.

 

There will be several nights like this.

There will be several nights like this.

Smiles lost in the twentieth century.

I watch buses crawl down the street.

Each morning, a cloud covers the city

like heaven’s punishment.

 

Something lumbers like a clumsy cow.

Love affairs come slow when you are in need.

When you are lost, there’s no free map to the stars,

You’ll have to pay a price for it.

 

And, on the streets, with a wide-brimmed hat

dragging my best years like a hungry maggot

I find myself looking for something.

 

Sometimes bridges collapse,

Sometimes garbage cans are homes

Yet dusk never flows into a new day

Detective work is often nonsense.

 

A jazz cat is strumming a guitar

Women swoon over his cute face,

He is my twin brother

But I’m always in the gutter.

 

And, on the streets, with a long-wing hat

dragging my best years like a hungry maggot

I find myself looking for something.

I find myself looking for nothing.

Eileen Umney wasn’t half as beautiful as her sister.

She was infantile, and her words were few and small.

Her hands moved slowly, as if she were trying to catch snowflakes.

It was quickly clear she wasn’t a killer, although eventually we can all kill.

She told me she didn’t do it. I asked her about his boyfriend, Phil,

and she told me they were fighting the night of the crime.

When I left the jail, a few of her words still echoed:

Little house in Bodega Bay. Little house in Bodega Bay.

(Instrumental)

This town is like a grave, like a grave, a deep grave, a deep grave, a grave.

 

No one saw Phil arriving, arriving, arriving, arriving, arriving at the grave.

 

His mother is worried, is worried, is worried, is worried, is worried about a grave.

 

She thinks Phil is under the ground, in a grave, in a grave, in a grave, in a grave, a grave.

 

She says Eileen is crazy and she put him in the grave, in the grave, in the grave, the grave.

 

Phil was a good boy, but now he is in a grave, in a grave, in a grave, in a grave, the grave.

(Instrumental)

Walking by the garden, there’s a fight in my head.

Roses bent like the hunchbacks of a camel

In the month of the rain, footprints form a herd.

There’s a heap of rocks where ravens act like flags.

 

Though they told me it had been there for a century, I saw the sand stirred.

No, I won’t believe closed eyes like a child.

 

Phil was wrapped in ribbons when they exhumed him.

Violets so delicate and beautiful beside the corpse.

 

And the case was a big knot.

 

Ballistics reports revealed that the gun that killed Phil Hart and the gardener, James Angle, was the same: a small handgun, a Colt 21A “Vest Pocket”, .22 LR caliber.

She was crying, her eyes were wet like a fish

The letter was clear, as clear as water

screaming words, horrid fingerprints,

a heart vanishing beneath guilt.

 

Eileen now is so light, light, light, light, light.

Now she’s so light, light, light, light, light.

 

Victoria’s arms around me, seeking a shoulder

I was in the right place at the right time,

Sadness became desire in a strange twist.

The grieving sister, love and death.

 

Eileen now is so light, light, light, light, light.

Now she’s so light, light, light, light, light.

 

And forgetting the reality,

Her dress slipped like a leaf

And the stars went to sleep

stumbling over her moans.

Eileen now is so light, light, light, light, light.

Now she’s so light, light, light, light, light.

Instrumental

The judge and the police closed the case.

Eileen couldn’t stand the guilt.

There’s a punishment for every crime,

and this has been the one for hers.

 

The poor gardener found the grave,

he discovered the corpse,

she had to kill him, too.

 

How has such a pretty girl

been able to commit these crimes

and, then, commit suicide, too?

 

Life is a mystery to be discovered from the greater mystery

I’m down in a pool:

I think I killed her when I didn’t turn over my cards.

I’ve discovered the real killer.

There’s no love like blood love.

I hate my brother, but I know everything.

Maybe Eileen was an exception.

The truth is that a case like this one is too complicated

to be explained just with songs in an irregular record.

Think whatever you want.

Call it love, you can call it love.

The word is not transcendental.

Call it love, you can call it love.

 

The important thing is the meaning,

the important thing is the meaning.

 

You are hot, you are hot, you are hot

but you can call it love, you can call it love,

you can call it love.

 

But you and I know it’s not the poet’s definition.

 

The beach is so alone in February

and the sea is as grey as the sky

and the sand is cold and wet

but your mouth is warm, your mouth is warm.

 

And your jersey is like a refuge,

and I think your love is infinite,

We are barefoot and we are running

with the seagulls, with the seagulls.

 

Surrender of a man of laws,

the best end for my principles.

Clouds went away last year

now we are free, now we are free.

 

And your money makes us happy

and our secret is still silent

because people forget easily,

like computers with a reset.

 

If your memory becomes a crab,

among the anguish there’s our jewel,

our little daughter, Eileen

as a tribute, as a tribute.

 

If soldiers come around one day

waving swords and siren

we will join again the winners,

there is no wall for surviving.

Author's Comments

Detective was my attempt to tell a Raymond Chandler-style story through songs. The pieces combine sketches from my previous album with somewhat more conventional tracks. For a long time I thought it was a very failed project, but this revision has made me reconsider it.