Protection Spells
(This album was my second attempt to write spoken word/rap songs around 2021. The main themes include lack of trust in self and others and the trappings of a daily routine.)
PROTECTION SPELLS
1 – Protection Spells (v1) It's hard to protect yourself When logic rests on hollow jest My mind is an octopus Setting agendas with fiber optics Setting lifelines blindly Sleep to forget, merge steadier regrets Trek to the promised land Muzzle the pleasure with psychedelic constraints Mess with my head, reset All of life is a censored facade Social contaminates Mad Max repentance, revival, repose Sprint to the underdogs Human interest stories, blind as a leech Revolution inside yourself Artificial artifice, simulated stimulation (bridge) "And now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds” (hook) Sing that song to right the wrong Madness sought with global barbiturates Crumble walls, refuse the call Soldiers priced at the window of parasites Ring them bells, protection spells Crawl space leased, let the silence speak (v2) It's easy to praise dissent When you don't conform to living or dead Stare at the sun for weeks Chant another reticent reprieve Brain dead, the battery Won't survive the winter's discontent Vac-sealed in victory Blazed in proverb, entrails rotted From flat earth to widow's peak Science fiction fundamentalists Bunkered celebrities Stoned ape theory, all art is contraband Crazed chameleons Language, a promise, a killing disease Dream of the devil queen Lustful lungs, reversible dementia (v3) Rummage through camouflage Kingdom breached, stunted resources The cult of frivolity Damaged seekers, flesh degreasers Commercialized antidotes Heroic dosage, death proportioned The path of the cynic unglued Reflections of thieves, dreamers fatigued Erase memories and ambiguity Displace identity and sovereignty The lies fade from transparency The end starts when the fallout breathes My heart beats with uncertainty Clogging biblical arteries Deflect the scent, arrogance on the ledge The blues consumed again, shadows of broken wings
2 – Hunter Gatherers (v1) Every word spoken in code Return of youthful pleasure domes Every nod covered and crude, unglued Balancing stalwart, sacred views Rectify the mesmerized Quell the Angel's rolling tide Every handshake cut and dry, constitution refried Wake immortal, diced inside Money restructured, creation myths punctured Quit the function, uncovered consumption Love turns stale, beyond the pale, reanimate the bait Trade in your burden for a rewarding, tamed, luxurious fate (bridge) Hunting with the mind’s eye Turning in the moonlight Gathered on the riptide Banished where the truth lies Famished when the sun dries Scattered on the rail lines (hook) Haven't slept in years Kept the fear revered Mind eye strayed in a quest concealed Fade the fever, redeemed Raiding quantum machines Numbed and uninteresting, tempted, jaded, now free (v2) Summertime, ride on the storm Sunday shine, fleeced with gold-leafed beacons Broken back, cradled cries of banshees, survived ancient skies Won't collapse with the shadow's final rites Over the rainbow, consciousness staples Reshuffled then bluffed by the kindness of strangers Early-bird catch and release, thinking compartmentalized Wayfaring shadows sabotage weather, cold heart, soul farce, refinanced the third eye Once the charm, now the disregard Twice reformed on the boulevard Warrior scorn in the kingdom of strays and whores Three times as scarred, fourth on the card, if memory starves the motherboard
3 - Sisyphus (v1) Masked and toasted, refurbished emotions Wake the vine, smell the roses Time policed, hectic release Freed from blame, underworld ingrained Awoken gut, resolve, no luck Grateful the grave, dust to dust Ashes, ashes, fallen desires All in your head, double down in the fire The sun wouldn't set, dreams from the depths Stomach scraps and arthritic rust Dangled under the table with the crust Generations level up, sins of the dead ready to erupt Pay sorcerers, frantic funeral pyres Children of the pesticide There are prizes and glamour, money as master Powerful funnels straight to the marrow Inject me forever Blood stream unfettered Inject me unleaded Blood stream cemented (v2) Demented, imperial passion plays Fables from the sharper edge Strapping in for the final stage Possessions chain the innocent Curses rehearsed in the headspace unearthed Metaverse voiced like six white horses Cult of the remorseless, enforcers of the endorsement Dialogue deeper, playing psychologist with reapers Walls up, defense mechanisms Schism to schism, revisionist recidivism X-ray the scum and spots on your lungs Obnoxious toxicity, 20/20 duplicity Madness of misery for the vigilant Steppenwolf Scared to break bread with political reprobates Planning the arrival, encumbered by enemies Keep running up that hill with no plight to remedy Courage under fire, earthquake or reckoning Streamline explicit, blood flows unexpectedly Critical desires, trained pussyfooting Services rendered, rancor rewarding Inject me forever Blood stream unfettered Inject me unleaded Blood stream cemented
4 – Peeling Back the Onion (v1) Stunned my gums like Cinnabons Inflammation vagabonds Birth betrayed, brain in flames Repair the stems, breathe in again Year of the clown, underground, rewound In the clouds for the sanest dismount With the howls drowned out by the sound Like the cat's infested, last meow World renowned, colonized, rebelled So fresh and clean, unapologetically crowned Numb is my new emotional reality I think I'm dumb, all apologies for faking it I think I'm young, all extremities oblivious Trauma wasted, no return to cookie mountain Radio head, radio dead Radiation therapy until I'm joyfully deaf (hook) We fought so hard to exist (in our waking dreams) Played possum with bliss (turn the signals free) Souls armored, unhinged (in the dirt so deep) Resurfaced for fame and lore (time is ours to freeze) Took pride in the crypt (early prominence) Like apocalyptic myths (seas perilous) When our passions relent (pressured diversions) We're all just lunatics inside flesh (catered distractions) (v2) Lost my sight, displaced with hopes high Hustle the abyss, head over heels, entwined Beam me up and spit me out Yearned for truth but where is the love A shaman destined, vibing the daze Awoken to screens of malaise Vampires on repeat, what a relief for my diseased speech Still some room to boast before the time is bleached Crucifixion close to extinction Sacred feminine mind contradictions Purchase the ticket for your own exorcism Watched online to shame at safe social distance Peel back the onion like honest Abe before his brain burst Peel back the onion like a runaway train Peel back the onion, no trace of the mania Peel back the onion, curated hysteria
5 – Dialectic (v1) The message from the sage Heal your rage The solemn waste Grab the reins, play no games Logical requests still the same You're not strange Just afraid and restrained In a bubble, locked down by a decadent disdain Media frayed, all opinions sound the same Time wasted on a two-decade delay Stored, permanent progressions, travel far from all transgressions War at your core, world underscored, the fable restored for a love out of sorts (hook) Answers at the finish, questions uncommitted Slew of waking villains, actors in this house of cards Watchmen on the watchtower, spies with no alibis Witches molding mirrors, anxious for the hallowed hour (v2) Embrace the night insane Roll the pain Claim your spite Saunter the maze Sit up straight, they feed on other’s pain Innards showcased, doppelganger thrown away Bounty on the faceless, automated defenseless Sectarian defiance with manipulated grace Terminally discordant Incognito roles supporting Storming the gates as the hunger narrates Debating the ethics of carnival prey
6 – No Carol in HR (v1) What a scripted sea, final fantasy Scraping hopelessly, waking callously Was it all a dream, was the circle cleaned Is there truth beneath these familiar fiends Just a job for free, just a screw complete Run to every beat until the path repeats Conversion therapy, no control with heresy Digging past the science, no belief, no defiance (hook) No Carol in HR No Carol in HR (v2) Starve with rats or feed on the harmony Peace is victory, aging backwards, released Falling down, just passing time, then these thoughts revitalize Drowned in the bait and switch of lost-sheep syndromes No brakes, no case building Freebased, welfare mingling One reality is enough, proud with lust Freed the demons one last time just to watch them run (outro) Recenter this winter When you face the loaded words on the brink When you play the fool so long, it sets within When you trace the reasoned doubt, and it pulls you back in
7 – Healer (v1) Not a puppet Not a window Not a serpent Not a signal Just keep calm and independent Just dream long without retention Can't keep up with mindless wreckage Can't speak up with obsolescence Consumable repentance Delusional ascension In delusions we trust, in delusions of lust Megalomania peddling in delusional sludge (hook) Wish I was a healer Wish I kept belief up Is it faith I need repealing Do I need a new revealing Had dreams I was a healer Mesmerizing, brainwave felons Hands tied, supersonic swelling Shaman gentrified Lives already parallel (v2) Prayed protection from the stain No one has that right to claim When the dark hits, focus wanes When light resurfaces, cradle the flame Where these thoughts stay warm Free will keeps score Emotional replays diminished with age Doctored minds to satiate the deranged Every routine set to break Vulnerable and with disgrace Treasured fear of the widowed pace Anguished lore and punished praise (hook) Had dreams I was a healer No sleep tonight, must be the theater No replicas, encased the feeling No paradise, head through the ceiling Had dreams I was a healer Open all hearts, redeem the cure Open all hearts, let love restore Open all hearts, back from the source Wish I was a healer
8- Empty Vessels (v1) All of life is staged, bittersweet replays Fill them up with rage, until the war pigs reign Just dirt on the page, make it bleed, fake the rain Pilgrimage, Hollywood, raise the stakes if they could Updates on the craze Misdirected relays In a moment estranged, stay in your lane Private pulse, promise of the paranoid Drunk and deaf disguises, criminal revivals Redesigned lifestyles, avalanched empires Eyes confess, minds for rent The patsy's last, perverted request (bridge) Neutral and well-rehearsed Siphoned the editor's curse Minds quelled for your consideration In this multi-leveled universe (hook) If we're all just vessels of devils, stars and pressure If we're all just cruising with no control of movement Thoughts roam uncovered, souls pool in wonder Words bemuse power, emotions recovered Forces from other heights, next war of sacrifice Next plague and poltergeist blamed on the failing light Turn the mood off, whether fake or not Life will fly on by, sunlight in short supply (v2) Microaggression, hypertension A breath wasted forecasting neurotic digestion Invasions conned with secreted suggestion The steady progression of ancestral congestion Words fail as antidotes, stable now but can’t emote Just be happy unquestioned Hallucinate the awakening Fuel for the lungs, celebrated oppression Safe space soldiers settling sacred scores Repealing the limits of the fatally unemployed Don’t forget all you’ve learned, your look of concern Won’t seduce wisdom as the pages still burn (bridge) Divine, loaded words ignored Trigger warnings, scarred rewards Some surrender heartlessly Some remember everything
9 – Edward-Scissorhand Hands (v1) Might have slept through the fallout That corrupted the calling Might have sensed feigned allegiance To refigure the seasons (v2) Moving backwards uneven Gambling heartbeats, all freelance Breaking tides, mending revenge Mesmerized by malfeasance (v3) Split the payments and crumble walls Ego born when the lightning sprawls Reengaged Mr. Know-it-all Might have fallen for longer cons (hook) Some take weakness for weakness Some wake wild with free love Pressure styled with Jesus Never banked on the kingdom (v4) Might have been muddled logic That refilled holy tonics Sanity through the culling Travel astral unconscious (v5) And when the trials refund Years of mind-controlled processing Tears of fire-drained witnesses Tangled, slanderous hypnotists (v6) Keep the choir in tune Cash your ticket and rune Scammed desires turn impotent Set the mood with a simple twist (bridge) Of fate, of grace Some chase their veins Pressure built up to bring down Riots, reruns, and rollouts
10 – Brainwave Redundancies (v1) Like a kid, got your nose Stack the game, ignite the prose Sacred trust set to rust Send the alimony, hero’s journey Gracious in your platitudes Toxic, cucked beatitudes Wise, uncovered aptitudes Slaying off the servitude Stories flow to fill the Louvre When I ring that fevered craving Sanity falls out of favor Listen for the words disabled Looting the awakening Snitching to the arrogant Keep up for the reckoning Focus on the inner grid (hook) Patient eyes hit double zero Wishful reply, bounty on the repo Creeping alive, bullied on the river Memory misfired, revitalized religion Reforming, reordered Containment contorted Fake famous, purge forward Daylight disorders (v2) Final bid, tunnel’s toll Creeping last domino Keep the world in tatters Distractions on a platter Idiot speaking free Soiled, praised anomaly Take shelter, helter-skelter Consecrated underwriters Surrogates self-imposed Trained appetites, trolled ignorance With every turnabout, every cycle Where the wild things haunt the spiteful Archaic revelations spring To boast so unreliably Leveraging redundancies Latched tightly to the irony
11 – Long Strange Trip (v1) This is no science experiment Human nature monopoly Nurture weakness, feast on the fringe Analytics of free-market swings Raised weeds, reconciled crimes Dianetics of a more famous design Heartstrings, subhuman, transplanted with swine Dog food distinguished, eroding the guise Don’t you ever get that feeling Someone's at your back, skin peeling Down your neck, through your spine Sending signals unrefined Malpractice, false discovery Twitter feeds on anxiety Nutritional, conditional The parasitic Sermon on the Mount Unannounced, golden calf Another formulaic mass Keeping faith among the snakes Hidden deep within the grass (bridge) Time stands by when threatened Pay no attention to that voice inside (hook) And upload Sometimes delusions will console Sometimes coincidence controls Wasting away undercover Breaking the phantom’s resistance Take that trip when outnumbered Take that trip when the road unbends We all drift in the wanderlust Take our turn in the Pharaoh’s blood (v2) Trajectory rejects the seed Root of all contagions Well-versed, dispersed the curse Coast to coast, through middle-earth Resurrection of the purge Reinvigorated birth Vulnerabilities on trial, strangers defiled Data inscribed, dismembered rewinds Unbreakable Let the inferno waste eternal Untraceable Shaking hands with the nocturnal Under lock and key, pawned psychiatry Like Truman making peace with his reality A vertigo too blurred to perceive Like the lizard's cold recovery Underwater breathing, under all the thieving The grievous angel’s descent To waste away with greed and hate, at least resist the jealous rage Anticipate the devil’s dice, heavy hands for idle minds
12 – Free Will Hunting (v1) Thoughts all consuming, still refusing the reunion With the national circumference, cutting ties with the confusion Meaningless, fruitful, distress signal Rebates in full, don’t choke sinful Zealot gene fogs the stiffening comedy In vaunted, lobotomized, secret refineries Bailed out by the lotto and casino-crafted fever dreams Imagined displays to maintain the obscene Save the receipts and birth dependence Chimerical conduction, sickness of the dead leg Battle with machines, waking up deformed chasing bars Keep sharp objects away when high hopes hit the cloud With a gambler’s touch to the funeral mud Might be out of luck but nothing’s permanent Day to day operations, stop the ringing and complacence Couldn’t brave this con, out to lunch with the servers corrupt The chaos candidate, ameliorate the stranded sun Snubbed by the fracture, hiding from the critic’s tongue Fighting for the stamina, crossing over to melancholia Deafening monotony, freedom from the fallacy (v2) Confidence craves a commercialized craze Collaborative currents, commemorative change Criminal complaints, cracked continuity Civic-minded cruelty, credit card coronary Collective Pavlovian reflex Cushioning panicked convulsions In an ancient pornographic wasteland Seizures like whispers with Tourette syndrome features Filmed in front of a live studio audience Mauling the air but far too obvious Fairy-tale slaves, the yellow brick paved Poor Humpty Dumpty and the hunchback gone insane Where do thoughts come from When were we last in control Where do thoughts come from From what system did we evolve Where do thoughts come from Will inspiration break our fall Where do thoughts come from Were we ever in control
NOTES - - the bridge in track 1 is sampled from the J. Robert Oppenheimer quote, taken from the Bhagavad Gita. - end track 6 with the "No Carol in HR" line from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. - end track 11 with the "lizard, am I standing in poop" line from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.