the half-life of kissing


quotes:

• this is the very ecstasy of love / whose violent property fordoes itself / and leads the will to desperate undertakings. from shakespeare's romeo and juliet.
• le boulevard noir est inhumain, comme un mineral, comme un triangle. that's jean paul satre in nausea.
• doom'd for a certain term to walk the night. this is from hamlet.
• oh pernicious woman! oh villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!. from macbeth.
• the willful rebellion that was apparent to all who loved her has just faded away, and she has become a lovely enjoyable person and has more friends. she is taking a positon of leadership that has not only delighted her parents, but has also brought a degree of satisfaction to herself. this comes from some crazy 1950's book we found about bringing up teenagers or something. we thought this funny enough to include the whole thing.
• please. we must move beyond that stage. we must make the tears flow. this comes from the story of o by pauline reage. i think this was from another bondage scene or something.
• from my sin... and create in me - psalm 51.

references etc.:
this was the first song we wrote for this album, and arguable the best one too (hence it giving a title for the whole record). the lyrics are about girls in general. the song is very self-referential - thus the quiet section near the beginning reappears at the very end (with a different feel), the opening riff reappears in 7-time, and so on. underneath the section which speeds up and collapses, there is another snippet of the recording under the motorway bridge which became the hidden track.
the first photograph in the background is some sandy ground in a forst in tanzania. the second is the door to a life-boat shelter in sheringham, norfolk.

lyrics:
frank: i resent my first kiss - an introduction to these things i love so well. i was just lying on this bed with my head in my hands trying to make you understand that every single word is a journey from the pit of my stomach to the top of my mouth. and the feet of the faithful kicked dust in my breath and clogged up my lungs with the smell of the death of the hope and the fear and the love that kept me alive, from afar. i was trampled to the ground and i fell on my face and i remembered this place from the dreams of those toothless days when i held onto ignorance like a fucking mask that covered my eyes. insight undesired of where we both stood, and the good in me drained out like blood and seat and waste and broken teeth and the dust i swallowed down. so if words are all i have, then with words i'll build a word where we can burn our days and set fire to the things that we love. when my nerves connect to you, making contact, i spend more time itching stumps than flexing fingers. motorized, you are my support, the sound that helps me breathe you in. the machines we built alone are still not working. running like some melodrama towards the cliff edge. but i am not a character, i'm a ghost. the sickness is with me still, makes my veins crawl with the sting of poisons running through these poor holes in my sick skin. the half life of kissing your lips won't end. i cannot speak with your tongue in my mouth. cross tongued, tongue tied. i can't speak with your tongue in my mouth, with it pressed against these poor aching bleeding gums. i wish you could see me in the night when the rivers from my eyes flood their banks again and bring the rain. thus we end this four year drought. i wish you could see me in the darkest hours when my face blooms anew. i can feel your pulse through my lips. and i would walk down the street naked again, i'd withstand the heat, i'd withstand the pain if you kiss these eyes like butterflies and make me want to live again. if i had 1,000 words to tell you how i feel, i'd throw them all away because none of this is real and i'd make the sound that i have found so deep inside myself - 'it's you'.
chris: "alien, like a mineral" she said, or at least she meant. soft, constantly whispering caresses erode and abrade. they smooth and briefly perfect but eventually they annihilate. running, dancing, laughing, playing. i'd gladly relive this pain if that were all it took not to forget but never to have known. slowly, by degrees, my spirit ebbs away. the unknown seeps in. when the entire surface of my heart is covered in scars i'll be ready.
ben: now we fall back into friendship... this cold wind will blow away the warm sun. this autumn friendship formed of sorrow. we have a long way to go, this image imprinted on my mind. maybe we can all meet again junesometime.

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