I think much like another song “Anti-Matter” (that's also on the same album as this song), this one is also is inspired by a horrifying van crash the band experienced on Nov 3, 2022. This, much like the other track, sounds like it's an extension what they shared while huddled in the wreckage, as they helped frontman Garrett Russell stem the bleeding from his head wound while he was under the temporary effects of a concussion. The track speaks of where the mind goes at the most desperate & desolate of times, when it just about slips away to all but disconnect itself, and the aftermath.
Keep your producer guessing
When you're in the booth confessing
And say it was mostly fiction
If they ever come to get you
Better bet your bottom dollar
On the spirit, son, and father
That I'll spit and shit and holler, yeah
Cause I'm my mother's daughter
Be warned, my temper burns
Like a ginger-blow pugilist
Unconcerned, I never learned to swing elbows
Or use my fist
Trying to live and let live and focus
Invest in problem markets
But killer's on a road trip
His text says not with carcass
From the backs of tent flyers in pen
The guilt-racked liar pretends to confess
When I was a little fat kid
I'd throw fits and punch doors
My frame is the same
I've just thinned; I want more
Down pinned on the floor
Trading places with my shadow
A pallid sallow corpse for a rising hell to swallow
Fully unarmed or armed under the robes with a staff only
Or unarmed fully under the robes
Through the ribs and inner body but
But for a bulging lung of poison
Poised to voice its cuts
And what's worse, of course
The sick and bile-y guts
From the backs of tent flyers in pen
The guilt-racked liar pretends to confess
They asked him whether he was sane
And if he'll ever kill again
Take half a clever lawyer's brain
To link the weapon to the man
Bitter thoughts, liver spots
Or bash your skull on river rocks
Love you lots, signed mom with hearts
OXOX on a Hallmark card
From the backs of tent flyers in pen
The guilt-racked liar pretends to confess
When you're in the booth confessing
And say it was mostly fiction
If they ever come to get you
Better bet your bottom dollar
On the spirit, son, and father
That I'll spit and shit and holler, yeah
Cause I'm my mother's daughter
Be warned, my temper burns
Like a ginger-blow pugilist
Unconcerned, I never learned to swing elbows
Or use my fist
Trying to live and let live and focus
Invest in problem markets
But killer's on a road trip
His text says not with carcass
From the backs of tent flyers in pen
The guilt-racked liar pretends to confess
When I was a little fat kid
I'd throw fits and punch doors
My frame is the same
I've just thinned; I want more
Down pinned on the floor
Trading places with my shadow
A pallid sallow corpse for a rising hell to swallow
Fully unarmed or armed under the robes with a staff only
Or unarmed fully under the robes
Through the ribs and inner body but
But for a bulging lung of poison
Poised to voice its cuts
And what's worse, of course
The sick and bile-y guts
From the backs of tent flyers in pen
The guilt-racked liar pretends to confess
They asked him whether he was sane
And if he'll ever kill again
Take half a clever lawyer's brain
To link the weapon to the man
Bitter thoughts, liver spots
Or bash your skull on river rocks
Love you lots, signed mom with hearts
OXOX on a Hallmark card
From the backs of tent flyers in pen
The guilt-racked liar pretends to confess
Lyrics submitted by SisterCity, edited by IndieKid1977
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This song was originally written by a guy called Peter Gutteridge. He was one of the founders of the "Dunedin Sound" a musical scene in the south of New Zealand in the early 80s. From there it was covered by "The Clean" one of the early bands of that scene (he had originally been a member of in it's early days, writing a couple of their best early songs). The Dunedin sound, and the Clean became popular on american college radio in the mid to late 80s. I guess Yo La Tengo heard that version.
Great version of a great song,
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it's "through the ribs and inner body" i think
When the vocals say
"From the backs of tent flyers in pen The guilt-racked liar pretends to confess"
I think this a throw-back to Sod in the Seed when he says
"I scribble vapid raps on your flyer backs"
I think what he is saying is that he pours all this stuff into his raps and pretends that he is confessing, when really he feels he isn't.
background singer sounds a little like Emily Haines...