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Accordion Is The Mark Of Death

from Funereal Tymes by Swamp

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lyrics

Accordion is the mark of death.
It whispers all day in its wheezing way.
According sings with every forced breath
a dirge lethargic, but who is in charge of it?
I have a friend who lives in my room.
Taking my picture, he shivers and whispers.
He stammers, and gripping his camera…

Recording to capture a memory soon to be lost.
Maybe it would be better off. You’ll get what you can take.
Accordions, tap shoes, a family lives in the hall,
faithfully waiting for you to get back from the mall,
and meanwhile you find yourself all malted and milk-shaked.

My friend will be here soon because he promised me that he would be outside my door by noon and I’m a lunatic this morning still upon the floor and waiting for the power of his lungs to take the breath from me so he can play a tune… and that’s another building gone away, another guilty blinking dawn, another day of frequent fragrant longing, longing for the artless gift of agency from which to draw a constant stream of vacancy to wash clean all the memories of consciousness and any trace at all…

Growing richer double-fisted,
ice cream dripping toes and fingers,
only in that selfsame moment,
only in that selfsame moment.
What if it fits in your pocket?
Then you own it. And who knows it?
Only in that selfsame moment,
only in that selfsame moment.
What amounts to blood inside your
groaning gasping mechanism
only in that selfsame moment,
only in that selfsame moment.
What if it fits in your pocket?
What if it fits in your pocket?

Accordion feels it has no effect,
drinking me slowly, what the world owes me.
Accordion dreams it has no time left,
making a statement. Find out what escape meant.
My friend is dead, dead, dead, and it’s all my fault.
I should have been there, feeding him my air.
Feeding him my air, I should have been there.

I should have been there to watch the apparatus break.
I should have been but for this instrument’s history.
Mister mister my husband last night kept me awake.

BASED ON A TRUE STORY. This song is about drug addiction. Certain people wear accordions throughout their lives. The accordions are attached to their lungs and take away their breath in order to produce music. They can play the accordions and fill their lives with beautiful music (accordions are beautiful in this metaphor), but by doing so, they shorten their lifespans. In my experience it isn’t worth it. And don’t worry, my friend isn’t actually dead.

credits

from Funereal Tymes, released May 8, 2017

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Swamp Athens, Georgia

Swamp is made possible by Hale Satan, Ohmw Home, Tammy Waggs, and viewers like you.

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