Music and lyrics by Damon Waitkus

Lyrics

Old dread, picking up the night shift after hope punches out–
one of these days, one of you will have to go.
Because you’ve both put in your time and I can only pay one pension.
I went slogging through the past as a means of circumvention.
I’m either going to claim my father’s errors as my own somber intention
or I’m going to pay off his arrears, going to run the water clear
on the first of the year.

I asked for intimacy and I asked for simplicity:
You showed me to my cell and sealed it tight.
Then I asked for a wilderness to dissolve my pain:
You woke me in the middle of the night.
So I’m not going to harbor any secrets
and I won’t fight another person’s fight.
Like a winter soldier all my nightmares will be hidden in plain sight.
I’m going to drain my life of fear like blood from a steer
on the first of the year.

Personnel

DW – voice, acoustic guitar, pianet, harp
EP – 5-strihng violin, viola
KM – flute, bassoon
JH – electric bass
JG – drums