Music and lyrics by Damon Waitkus

Lyrics

High tide at last in this world
and you can hear the iron eaters:
it’s a little tapping sound in the wires
but it keeps you awake.

High tide at last in this world:
the speechless brutes come out of hiding
and go bellowing at noon on the hardpan
like a warning system test.
The moment I perceived that I was living in record,
I saw the entire world as living in record.

There’s a great clock hidden in these hills
somewhere north of Ely where the air is still.

It’s a funny sort of love
through which we stream to touch
with our mystery tools,
itching for memory.

So, a black bear ambled down from the highlands
at the end of another trading day,
cornered me on the Embarcadero
and edged me slowly back into the bay,
and from the corner of my eye I glimpsed a figure
on a promontory high above the bustle.
I called out to him and saw that he was watching
but he didn’t move a goddamn muscle.

God loves you if you leave him out of it
and exercise the faculties he gave you,
and wield them like a broom
to sweep him from the room:
Order soothes, but it’s the paradox will save you.

I felt a chilly draft come down the attic stairs
and I called that movement breath:
our Golem, if you need to name it,
our brawn, if we only claim it.
Add one letter, and it’s Truth in place of Death.

World, world, world, world, world, world,
born full-grown into a velvet zero, 1968,
It’s growing late.

Personnel

Damon Waitkus – lead and backing vocals, acoustic, 22-EDO and electric guitars, percussion, hammer dulcimer, glockenspiel, piano, pianet, synth, flute, whistles, electric taishogoto, banjo, mbira
Emily Packard – violin, viola
Jason Hoopes – bass
Jordan Glenn – drums
Ivor Holloway- tenor and soprano saxes
Jonathan Russell – Bb and bass clarinets
Victor Reynolds -organ
Karl Evangelista – electric guitar solos