Strangers, Vol. 2

by Derek Porter

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about

"If Vol. 1 was wilting and dreamy then Vol. 2 is a staccato and scary dream."
- Nathan Retzer, Panglossian Thoughts

"Porter successfully transports the listener into a world of mystery and seductive anxiety. He creates vivid stories with his nuanced yet tenuous imagery."
- Whitney Washington, Music in Brief - Huntsville Magazine

Derek's follow up to 2010's Strangers, Vol. 1, Vol. 2 takes a darker approach akin to a tenor Tom Waits or a more accessible Captain Beefheart. Lyrical inspiration comes from French writers - look out.

Sartre and his epistolary work Nausea are of particular inspiration. Roquentin's wanderings through different shades of reality inspired the unsettling distance found in "I've Been Walking Different Avenues Lately" and the harrowing discovery of some sort of truth in "Chestnut Tree."

credits

released 15 April 2011
All songs written and recorded by Derek Porter.

tags

tags: americana country experimental folk rock Nashville

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All rights reserved

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about

Derek Porter is a songwriter from Chicago currently based out of Nashville, TN. He performs with the group Pageant and writes for the group Little Sisters.

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Track Name: Roger the Engineer
Mr. Anxious thanks us for servicing his lips
I think we thanked him just a bit too much
You got some on your chin
My throat's a nauseous faucet with slow and steady drips
I think a knot is in my stomach
Come get yourself a heavy whiff

Roger the engineer

I'm freezing and I'm cold
Sometimes it seems like no one knows
What's going on
Hey, what's going on?
I really want to know
But then again I don't
You know I like it in a box
This paradox of chicken pox
Acute chaos no absolute control

When I let you go
I won't let you go

Lord can't take much more of this from me
There's beauty in religion that I'm starting to see
Lord can't much more of this from me
I'm startled by the vision I am moved by degrees

Oh my god I was freaking out
I was freaking out
Track Name: All Is Loss
I could've known the pleasures of home
The love, the lord
And I could've felt the hand I had held
The heart, the hold
And I could've seen beyond what I've been
My flesh my blood
And I could've heard the scraping of words
The froth, the flood
And I could've smelt the skin as it melts
The slack, the suet
But I couldn't eat with you next me
Without breathing
Curdle like a word removed from
Track Name: When I Forget My Name
I'm running away
Got the itch in a bad bad way
I'm running away
'Cause I've had bad dreams as of late

Fell asleep in your lap
Read a book I forgot where I was at
I had a headache when I woke up
And a knot in my stomach

Where'm I gonna stay
When I forget my name
Where'm I gonna lay
My head when I am gone

I'm running away
Got the itch in a bad bad way
I'm running away
'Cause I've had bad dreams as of late

Got stuck in your mouth
Read a book I forgot what it's about
I had a headache when I woke up
And a knot in my stomach

Where'm I gonna stay
When I forget my name
Where'm I gonna lay
My head when I am gone
Track Name: I've Been Walking Different Avenues Lately
I've been walking different avenues lately
I've been trying on different hats
When I look in the mirror it strikes me that my skin is stretched

Yeah my arm is limp
It's deader than my name
The veins inside congeal sometimes I feel their stuff constrict
It pulls me taut until I'm limp

I've been walking different avenues lately
And their trees are of the common fold
They tend to agree and continue to spring
From whatever source it is that makes them grow

I've been walking different avenues lately
Ones that lead me to the shore
Ones that lead me to the people
To the scores of people
Admiring her as an immensity as a solid force

Removed from us by god knows what
And who are we to know for sure?
How can we know for sure?

Yeah the ocean is thin but what it covers is real
But we only regard the nothing the nothing
What of the thick and what of the fat?
Hide yourself in its folds

Hold your breath, it's better than breathing
Make your name unknown
You make your name unknown
Track Name: Tongue in Cheek
I can't understand you
When your tongue is in your cheek
I think you've had to much to eat
I swear your stomach's sprung a leak
Are we alone?
Are we alone?

I can't understand you
When you're goading me along
You've got me breathing like a dog
We are gone oh we are we are
Are we alone?
Are we alone?

My stomach feels you breathing
When you dig me deep inside
You've got a second set of eyes
And you can see at night
You see me hypnotized
I'm hypnotized

My chest it feels you pushing
And my ribs won't do their job
But most my heart it feels you leeching
It cannot keep can't keep beat now
Oh my god
Oh my god

My throat oh it's a-panging
While you push for all you're worth
And I got fifty ways of saying
Oh my god oh god oh god
What have I birthed?
What have I birthed?
Track Name: Chestnut Tree
You're just what the tree's been getting at
Oh yeah you are
Oh yeah you are
I caught the sky as it was turning black
And all was dark
And all was dark
And in the park I sat between two trees
Nowhere to go
Nowhere to go
I felt it thick I felt it in the leaves
Nowhere to go
Nowhere to go

And I knew
It was in me too

With every desolate I catch a crack
With everyone
I catch a crack
No matter how my memory books are stacked
I catch a crack
I catch a crack
What fox condemns himself and not the trap?
My memory falls off the back
My back is stearned and leafing out its limbs
As I begin
My sinking in
Thick's making turns and letting out its in
As I begin
My sinking in

And it said
Kid the rhythm's dead

I cannot feel what flowers at my feet
I cannot see
When I die come put them on my grave
And kneel and pray
Love make me believe in memory
In memory
In memory

Love I feel you pulsing in the trees