The Ballad of a Mix Tape

And as we read, the world written in red
Luminous language and what was said
Our future's terminal and anything good will do
We will do it today and then throw it away
And these are the records
These are the friends
These are the monuments
Dreams never end
Phantom scrappy cassette sounds
Pagan ampeg spectral clouds
Something is missing
Something is missing
Unwilling to bend our knees
But willing to burst into flame
In Washington state or New Cross Gate
Always remember the failures
Always remember and tell us when you do
Tell us when you do
Our stereo's as cheap as it takes
Our bookshelves full of mixtapes
Of punk and soul and damaged rock 'n roll
The Go-Betweens and Supremes
And the Chills and the Dills
But something is missing
Something is missing
Remember the lost bands that never had a hope
Checks and Credits by Toulouse
It was scratchy, it was great
Unseen history of these bands
Like a building built on fertile land
But I own their fanzine and the 45s
And I promise not to let them die
And in the scale of the world
We're like a heartbeat
Our rotten teeth like cobblestones
In the pathway of forgotten things
Haunted all our favorite bars
And nurtured hard our daydream scars
But something is missing
Something is missing
Change of rhythm, running back to the scene
Detour this to the heart of the dream
Thank you, that guitar put in to words
Amplified tears and rusty badges
Fingerprint photograph smudges
Our mixtapes are memories for unseen histories
And mixtapes are memories for unseen histories
What means the most to you, it means so much to me
What means the most to you, it means so much to me
And something is missing
Something is missing
I put my tongue in my mouth
A bit of black tooth comes out
This happens monthly
Rotten footsteps to goodbye
We found the sound in the underground
And we felt so proud to be underground
And something is missing
And something is missing
And something is missing
And something is gone