The Year of No Returning

by Ezra Furman

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hatoue ezra furman is dope and epic and awesome Favorite track: Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde.

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1.	Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde 03:47	lyrics	buy track
Now my tender heart is hardened I'm taking walks in my dead garden I'm shooting marbles 'cross the floor In the maintenance closet at the grocery store In my little black apartment I found love's secret compartment And now I keep my things inside That's my Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Somewhere back there I started drifting And I just drifted all away Now am I still the man you paid for? Am I something completely different in the night and in the day? I was hideous and handsome And I held myself for ransom 'Cause I was honest and I lied That's my Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde And I know that you tried Oh, I was standing on the beautiful downtown skyscraper I was looking down the side A beauty's frail and beauty's passin' And she soon goes out of fashion And she's just runnin' down the drain She'll be always stuck somewhere between big joy and big pain And although she'll always slay me I will make her be my baby Yes, I will take her as my bride And there's a thousand ways to love her Open heart or undercover And I just never could decide That's my Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
2.	American Soil 04:34	lyrics	buy track
There's something in the water, something sick in the blood and the oil See the white chicken grinning, see the serpent in a horrible coil Don't be scared by the stares of the peasants on the subway car Because the way things seem in a dream is just the way that they are When I can feel God taking his eyes off you You were born for American soil Every race has its place, every nation fights for species survival I'm a Jew through and through and I'm about to write you a Bible Now let me take your hand and show you through the twisted hallways of the house of song We got the magazine, wall paper and the million dollar bills on the lawn Oh and I can feel God taking his eyes off us We were born for American soil Ya don't have to be clever to detect a big American sadness When the population rules, every man has his hand in the madness Well there's a dead grove a' trees, you can visit on the outside of town And there's digital dust inside the cemetery settling down Woo and I can feel God taking his eyes off us We were born for American soil Well now we have seen every baby has to have some kinda mother and father But the child's gone wild and the pieces got away from the author Well if freedom isn't free, all the bills must just be lost in the mail All the highways are on fire and the serpent is now eating its tail And we can feel God taking his eyes off us We were born for American soil
3.	Lay in the Sun 03:54	lyrics	buy track
We've done a lot of things we can't take back But you can't take that so hard We'll drive all night and we just won't look back We can take your daddy's car Out on the desert when the stars come out All the cars fly by like rain I'll let you show me what you're all about And you won't have to explain Don't cry, honey I'm right here I'll be the one who you can lay in the sun with When it comes out, here it comes now Here it comes, dear We'll catch a plane to somewhere far away And we'll hide away for good I'll change my clothes and you can change your name We'll pick out one that sounds good How 'bout Diana, how 'bout Clementine We'll have all the time we need Just close your eyes and let the scene go by Have your passenger seat dream
4.	Sinking Slow 04:27	lyrics	buy track
All the broken pieces Lying in a pile Waiting to be swept up From the bathroom tile Broke my only mirror Feeling not quite right Empty little bedroom And a long night Oh, I miss my honey so Now I'm cold and lonely Oh, and I hope she comes back home To her boy whose heart is broke I'm sinking slow Born into a strange world Waiting for a train Sliding 'round Chicago In a soft rain Year of No Returning Hanging on the wall Praying for salvation And a phone call Oh, I miss my honey so And my childhood's ending Oh, and she's got to come back home To her boy descending slow I'm sinking slow
5.	That's When It Hit Me 03:25	lyrics	buy track
That's when it hit me and shattered my collar bone I was in love with your world and the way you shoved it down my throat I was bleeding just a little from the cut near my eyebrow I wanted to tell ya that I loved you but I just couldn't figure out how That's when it hit me That's when it hit me: right now My mouth fell open at the sight of a violent beauty I was drooling sweet liquid on the carpet when you cut right through me My eyes were black when you threw me against the wooden door I was head over heels, I thought I couldn't take any more Oh but that's when it hit me That's when it hit me once more And I was bleeding in the bed sheets, when we said good night And I was touching a black and yellow bruise on my thigh I was running on empty, the big bad sun started to rise Well, that's when it hit That's when it hit me, aye aye I think it's clear, oh darling That it hurts to split open my Deep deep sleep at 2:30 in the morning But you broke into my heart And you gave me no warning You're a heart attack And I'm a dead man walking
6.	Down 03:55	lyrics	buy track
What the fuck do I do all day laying in bed Caught in a web of desire What the fuck can it mean all the noise in my head Hanging my heart on a wire Lost and found and lost again Making daddy proud Got my tongue all caught up in my throat Trying to tell you I'm down The 46th floor has a beautiful view But I'm living down in the basement And I got no reception so I can't call you And you can't call me so we're even Leaving town with nothing left Making daddy proud How can a man get anything done Feeling this way? I'm down Listening to records about high school and girls Caught in a meaningless circle Strangled to death by your ropy gold curls Watching the sky--turning purple All the drugs didn't do me no good I'm sick of non-stop anaesthetic And I want the world to remember my name But I know you'll probably forget it
7.	Cruel, Cruel World 03:23	lyrics	buy track
Lost my job, lost my money in a flash Watching my old life turn to dust and ash Called you up on the telephone Ended up in a new town all alone Took the bus on the highway tangled up Felt the billboards' images fuck me up Buy and sell yourself awake Fall in love with a new thing every day It's cold, cold, cruel, cruel world Saw your hair in the sunlight glistening Told you stories, you weren't even listening Living out of an old suitcase Looking at your stone-cold pretty face Out of work like a true American Got real sick with no health-care benefits Everything turned black and blue Government says, "We can't take care of you" Goodbye, goodbye, cruel, cruel world
8.	Are You Gonna Break My Heart? 02:53	lyrics	buy track
So are you gonna break my heart? Are you gonna rip my world apart? Are we gonna do this now? I don't have all day Come on and get the scissors out Show me what love is all about Do it fast and painful, just like always Come on I've gotta rock and roll We don't need to list the things you stole Use your fingernails or use a tool You're a beautiful woman with a job to do So go, just go ahead and say the words I can' tell you how many times I've heard Those same words repeated to me anyway There's a boat on the open sea It's just perfect for someone like me Who doesn't care where he's going, as long as it's far away If you ever got to use your heart You wouldn't even know where to start So let me put your mind to rest It's a useless antique tucked away in the chest So are you gonna break mine in half? Are you gonna walk away and laugh? I'm a very busy man, and money is time So I'm thinking that your time is up I'm at the bottom of this coffee cup I'll just break it myself and that should be fine
9.	Bad Man 04:55	lyrics	buy track
Beauty is a drug and it's coursing through my veins I sit at home staring at your picture while my colleagues discuss capital gains This love's just a cloud of cigarette smoke Blows away on the wind but it stays in your throat And the coughing is worse than ever these days You walk into the room and I can't look up at you All my concentrated efforts added up to one big thing I never meant to do My heart's been misfiled by the U.S. Postal Service All these people with their expectations make me so nervous And people like them could never be like people like you You're too bright for me, I'm too dumb for you In the night I see your face in the moon You're the one who stands rock-solid in the shifting sands And I'm a bad, bad man with a place in my heart for you I got to the place where secret things are sold Thunder in the distance and it sounds like it's a million years old I see your hair like a waterfall falling Feel like a lone drunk in the parking lot bawling And I don't know how this house got so incredibly cold I can't explain it and nobody cares to know Long-dead women call my name from deep inside my radio I sit surrounded by my money and my glory Numbly re-telling my little pointless life story And the chandeliers winked as if to say, "We know" And I've confessed all my sins I'm just the type who never ever wins And I pray to God every weekend I fit it in And I've kept you waiting so long But everything's gonna be different when I finish this song And I know myself better than anyone Who's to say I'm wrong? You're too bright for me, I'm too dumb for you In the night I see your face in the moon You're the one who stands rock-solid in the shifting sands And I'm a bad, bad man with a place in my heart for you
10.	The Queen of Hearts 04:57	lyrics	buy track
It's the search for a church in the bottom of your purse A spiritual home you can take to the mall You dig and you dig but you can only find your wallet And your phone with a hundred missed calls You could never return them all And I watch you with your purse from the adjacent coffee table At the Starbucks they built inside my heart And your make-up starts to run, you can see you're getting older You can see your life has been hard Your face is worn like an old playing card The Queen of Hearts The Queen of Hearts I am working in my bedroom, I'm composing all the music For a film that will never be made It's the story of my life, a one million hour epic About a good man who went down in flames Who got lost in God's multitude of names I am searching, I am searching I am waving my antenna Trying to pick up some signal through this dream I'm an ant in a hill but I think and I feel And I'm composing these love letters to the queen Hoping somebody will see what I mean The Queen of Hearts The Queen of Hearts The Queen of Hearts I always heard about God with a wink and a nod I guess I took it all too seriously But I was five years old and I took what I was told To mean that the sublime was in my reach That the ocean of the known ends at the beach Just up the street These days people like that are considered aberrations And I'm being corrected as we speak This is my heart, it's a motor, it will search the world over I'm a search engine, see what I mean? I don't need the Internet, I don't need TV To find the queen The Queen of Hearts The Queen So if you ever find that church that fits in your purse Put it into your cold metal shopping cart And keep on wandering the aisles on the sick fluorescent tiles We'll be miles and miles apart I've got my own search, I'm still just at the start I'll be out on the highways looking for my counterpart The Queen of Hearts
11.	Doomed Love Affair 02:57	lyrics	buy track
Living like a crook in parking lots Trying to get my thoughts into jars Labelled A through Z for a systematic analysis And we are two vagrants on a train through the Midwest I'm connected to you by tendons, bones and veins what a mess It's getting colder now And your soft red sweater calls my name out loud It's not over til it's over And I can't go through with it And you never knew for the longest time You were on my mind And I'm finally through Wasting all your time God it's been rough these last few weeks My room is a mess and the ceiling leaks I shouldn't have dragged you into this Doomed Love affair Doomed Love affair Doomed Love affair Doomed Love affair Fluorescent shopping malls at night And I miss your 3am phone calls Since you left, I left broken glass on the floor And I cut myself And blood just knows how to get through the veins to the heart And so it goes It all seemed preordained from the start Love disappears in the wind like smoke My room is a mess and the mirror broke I shouldn't have dragged you into this Doomed Love
12.	40 Days in Kansas 04:25	lyrics	buy track
40 days in Kansas 40 nights in pain This world took my fame That world took my name Here go I with nothing Here go I the same White swan on the river Black swan in the rain I could hear the thunder Rolling far away Moses hid the water Jesus hid the sky We just hid the in-between And kissed it all goodbye Catch me when I'm falling Catch me in the rise Wash me in the river Hold me in your mind I could hear the thunder Rolling far behind Thunder roll For the evening with its blue-black tone Thunder roll For the morning with its great unknown Thunder roll its bones White wing on the water Black wing on the sand Red wing in the sunset I can hardly stand Sleeping in the doorway With a bottle in your hand I could hear the thunder Rolling across the land Thunder roll For the young blushing groom and bride Thunder roll For the old with their tired eyes Thunder roll goodbye

about

This work is dedicated to the glory of God and the consolation of man.
It is a cycle of reactions to a certain spiritual homelessness
widespread in our time – a globally pervasive culture that refuse
s us any real moments of the reflection or contemplation. We are almost
constantly either working or being entertained, and in this way we are
always anesthetized. This threatens to turn us into monsters. My
record, then, is not meant as entertainment. These songs aim at the
lofty goal of real protest. My country and its culture have spread,
Rome - like, across the globe over the past century. I have been asked,
at the cost of my soil if necessary, to submit to corporate power, to
tolerate a constant stream of toxic advertising, and to be complicit
in a productivity that is often totally evil. My reaction, as chronicled in these songs, has been variously dissociation, anger, escapism, despair, masochism, self-pity, bitterness, etc. You may note that the final attack strikes in the record’s only clear tone of hope. This is intentional. After the natural negativity that our times provoke, I resolve on a steadfast refusal to submit. I do not despair. I will preserve my humanity and I will seek God in the darkness.

I do hope for both our sake that this does not strike you as repulsively pretentious are irrelevant. I know that part of pop music is that it does not take itself too seriously. Too bad for pop music, I say. You are, of course, free to choose how to listen to this record, and whether to listen to it at all. It may end up being used as pure entertainment, which in the end is quite all right. I count myself lucky that you’ve encountered it at all and I hope you find it satisfying. Thanks for your time. Live well, love fiercely and be good. – EF

“The place where you cam from ain’t there anymore, and where you had in mind to go is canceled out. This place you are now – inside your
daddy’s house – is nothing but a cardboard box I can knock down any
time. You know that and always did know it. You hear me?” – Arnold Friend

“If Thou Thyself does not go with us, take us not out of the
wilderness.” – Moses, Exodus 33:15

I killed Ezra Furman, and I took his bones, and I made me a new man.

credits

released July 16, 2013

All songs written by Ezra Furman © 2012 Ice Chest Music (ASCAP)

Recorded by Tim Sandusky summer 2011 at Studio Ballistico in Chicago
–
Mastered by Jeff Powell at Ardent Studios
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Photography by Rosemarie
Wagner (front) & Abe Bingham (back)
–
Album design by Steve McFarland

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Jul 16

Union Chapel

London, UK
Jul 17

Union Chapel

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