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The Calculated Dream

by Eliot Rose

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1.
No One Whom to Tell My Story 03:49
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I've been traveling far from home Searching vainly for some glory And returning all alone No one whom to tell my story Winged shadows fill the air And secret beasties rule the evening I've no one to whom to say my prayers I've no one whom I can believe in The wind is tugging at my sleeves And whispering sweetly through the forest I make my bed among the leaves No one whom to sing my chorus (Lalalala la la lalala la la la) I travel quickly as I can To stay ahead of the machinery That's been creeping 'cross the land And devouring all the scenery I've a love I lost in time She may even not yet know me But when I hold her little hand in mine She will be my one and only (Lalalala la la lalala la la la) I'll be back from far away To return the things I've borrowed Though there's no numbering that day It'll come as surely as tomorrow When I shine my little light When I get all up in glory Before my mind runs out of sight I'll have someone whom to tell my story
2.
Broken Bones 04:30
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Broken bones Hairline fractures in your cranial dome Trickling blood onto the paving stones You were far from home And you were all alone Singing your last song of broken tones Broken backs Spinal fluid leaking through those cracks Vision dimming as your heart attacks Just a fade to black Then your jaw goes slack And when you die you're never coming back What a shame to crack open your skull when it's so full of song What a loss to have lived your whole life for these melodies now gone But when they entered our skulls through our earholes we all sang along Broken heart Nested in a ribcage blown apart Skylight brightening as your ghost departs It looks back from afar As your head lies ajar Pouring out last thoughts like migrant stars What a shame to crack open your skull when it's so full of song What a loss to have lived your whole life for these melodies now gone But when they entered our skulls through our earholes we all sang along Slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly, dying...
3.
Brightness and the Blood 03:40
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Brightness and the blood were swirling sparks around our eyes And we saw visions in sun-blindness when we stared up at the skies In secret regions of the summertime where stars were turning pirouettes We sat on the horizon wearing nothing but our silhouettes At all You know that we invented numbers Just to count up all the wonders That we saw So we kept watch and we waited We sat out on the overpass until the roads returned to grass And gravel then we travelled Through continents and centuries until one day eventually We heard the sweet song of liberty And with its soft strains Breezing through our brains It felt good to be free again Beneath this vast sky Just to be alive Is quite a thing to be my friend Brightness of the sun was burning holes into our eyelids And we couldn't sleep 'til twilight when the sky turned dusky violet In the nighttime stars and constellations crept through our incisions When we woke we rubbed our eyeballs they were bulging out with visions From our skulls Our teardrops glistened like TVs They flew away like flocks of geese and gulls So we pondered and cogitated What began with brainwaves feebly formed Emerged as babies easily born And multiplied 'til we realized We too were born once way back when It felt so good we can't wait to be born again And with their refrains Breezing through our brains These songs will set us free again And if you ask why We are still alive Well there's nothing else to be my friend Beneath the bright stars You will go quite far If you make believe you can Brightness and the blood were guiding specters through the skyways And our ghosts were set migrating when they left our bodies sideways To secret regions of the summertime where stars were spinning in their graves When you ain't got any money you've got nothing but your soul to save At all You know that we invented numbers Just to count up all the wonders That we saw Some spoke of God up in the blue But you know what we invented him too And he's just like me and you You know the words we spoke were truest When his light was shining through us He said it's all right He'd say it's all right We say it's all right
4.
New Secret Weapon 04:43
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Seems like I've been living in a dream-time Flashing hand signs Gazing at the passers-by And dropping my eyes When theirs meet mine Eavesdrop I've been hanging from your rooftop Shiver and shine Hair and wires intertwined In the moonlight All blue/white Phone lines I put a wiretap on your spine Plug it into mine Now my body pantomimes When you move I move too As you do You'll catch me slipping through your dreams when they don't end up as you'd reckoned As if the sky were a screen on which the beam from your brain was projecting So put your head between your knees if you feel in the least bit threatened But if love ain't enough I got the new secret weapon For you... You give me eyestrain I put a microphone in your veins Shake and convulse Moving to the beat of your pulse When you inhale My limbs flail My heart flutters Lighting one fuse with another Voltage and sparks Jumping cross the open arcs Tween my lips And your lips (I pulled my hood up I clutched my drawstrings tight As if to keep these secrets safe inside my mind I felt your palms so hot They burned right through my own I knew their contours like a bar code etched into my bones) Satellites dance When our fingerprints change hands Time to make plans Time for you to understand That it's all right It's all right It's all right I keep my fists in my sleeves but they could come unsheathed at any second And if you look into the dark you might see a hidden fingertip beckon So keep your head between my knees if you feel in the least bit threatened But if love ain't enough I got the new secret weapon For you...
5.
The Calculated Dream 04:06
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(instrumental)
6.
The Infinite Gloom 04:29
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I've got some things to make believe in I've got memories dim but vivid in the night Like distant stars Hung from such great heights But they shine so bright I think of you most every evening Of our many dreams dispersed and vagabond As all the stars In the sky turn on And I sing my song Blue, blue, electric blue That's the color of the infinite gloom White, white, pearly white Shining through the holes in the deep dark night Green, green, opalescent green That's the color of the moon and its beams Red, red, cadmium red Shining through your eyelids and into your head When I'm lying awake and I'm feeling forsaken And so all alone in the night Your features fade a little more each time that I retire And before these memories expire I just thought I'd call you up to inquire Do you remember Growing old and getting high In California Scraping stars out of the sky With our antennas And can we save those dreams for the nights after we die 'Cause you told me it'd be forever Blue, blue, electric blue That's the color of the infinite gloom White, white, pearly white Shining through the holes in the deep dark night Green, green, in the nebulous green You could conceive of the infinite dream Grey, grey, carbon grey That's the color of the present day When I'm lying awake and I feel my heart breaking I'm so all alone in the night And in the dark I see your face but it's fading fast Long as these memories still last I just thought I'd call you on up to ask Do you remember When we would sleep through the night And long into morning Throwing off sparks and breathing sighs Straight up to heaven And can we save those dreams for the long post-mortem nights (In the moonlight our bodies lay ghostly and godly things Glowed through our skin in the night We were lying awake with our hearts gently quaking Our dream-laden breaths taking flight When I'm asleep I still hear you whisper every now and then And if you never call again All I can do is remember when) 'Cause you told me it'd be forever Yeah you told me it'd be forever Yeah you told me it'd be forever You told me it'd be forever
7.
Sweet Heart 06:45
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Sweetheart, heaven help me No more shall we part Silence whispering and weeping Echoing all through the dark Sweetheart, bells and birdsong Contrails hung with charms Neither waves nor earthquakes Will take you from my arms When you lie wide awake in in the deepening evening With no things to hold and no hopes to believe in I'll keep my eyes closed 'cause I know you are dreaming through me Sweetheart, where does time go When we are apart Evenings we spend wishing Upon that same distant star Sweetheart, is there heaven Buried up there in the sky Hidden in secret constellations Slowly drifting by When you lie wide awake in the dark deep and hollow In the cold hidden places where no one can follow I'm here to remind you tomorrow's not so far away When we fade from heaven Our bodies neither flesh nor flame Shadows like coelacanths drifting In an ocean that goes by no name
8.
Brazil 02:55
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Brazil... Something in me wonders where you are When I'm driving through Sao Paulo in a stolen car With the radio dial tattooed on my arm L.A.... Where all my troubles seemed to far away Where the least of every worry's knowing what to say Keep my mouth shut, keep my insides safe from harm Brazil... Something in me wonders where you are When I'm trying to catch a tan under depleted stars Finding every faded sunburn looks the same Tokyo... Where the neon never lost its glow Where the moon's beamed off of satellites to video And every rocket flying upward sends down flames
9.
Gravity and Love 03:13
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One day electric cityscapes sprang into life Projecting stars onto the blank sky Arrays of windows glowing like an insect eye in the night I met a girl there amid the carnivals and fairs We rode the ferris wheel through thin air She scooped me up into the blackness of her pupils and I sighed What secret lightning bolts could strike me? What stars descending from above? What strange designs in the white noise between our lifelines Spelling out our names in gravity and love? One year I dwelt in cellars covered with debris While darkness bleached my body bone white I trained my telescopes on God, I raised my lightning rod up high I saw a girl's face arrayed 'cross constellations Trailing braids beaded with starshine The emptiness between her lips cast down eclipses on my eyes What secret lightning bolts could strike me? What stars descending from above? What strange designs in the white noise between our lifelines Spelling out our names in gravity and love? What secret lightning bolts could strike me In hidden nerves I knew not of? What points where ley lines crossed the light years between our star signs Spelling out our names in gravity and love? Love, love, love Love, love, love Love, love, love, love Love, love, love
10.
Heavy Are Our Heads 06:10
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Time moves so fast slipping through your synapses Your reincarnation can feel just like a relapse When you're dying all the time Punching holes in the hive mind You feel like I feel a magnetism maybe something in the air It's like the gravity is getting heavy everywhere ahead and behind Ooh ooh ooh ooh yeah-hah! I sit and wonder why all the girls just pass me by And if you ask me if get it yet I'll say "I haven't gotten much lately. But one day soon I'll meet my lady 'neath the light of the moon And when she asks 'do I know you?' I'll say 'yes, in fact you're having my baby.' Oh baby baby baby!" The girls pass me by skating 'cross my glazed eyes I feel them swimming 'neath my skin and circulating through my spine There comes a day when my skull gets too tight for my mind And my teeth click and chatter while my thoughts bump and grind Ooh ooh ooh ooh yeah-hah! But you got down on me just like good lobotomy I felt all the bad dreams a-draining out of me Beginning to fade And in the deep dark within I awoke with a start And my eyelids fluttered like a hummingbird heart As if to lift me away Now my thoughts drift ahead while my body stays behind You know that heavy are our heads and light are our minds Heavy are our heads and light are our minds
11.
Time and Time Alone 03:11
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Beneath the stars gently wavering The satellites relaying Memories I see your face slowly float by Behind my closed eyes Endlessly Do you tuck the times beneath your thumbs Do you still taste them on your tongue Are they memories you can have but never hold? Do they trickle up your spine And percolate into your mind Or do they have you by the heart and by the soul? Beneath the clouds aggregating Evaporating Everywhere The sighs we exhale when we're thinking Are all comingling In the air Do you hide your dreams beneath your hair Or do you send them off like prayers Are they things that you can hold but never keep? Are these reveries like ghosts To which your body just plays host Or are they with you when you wake and when you sleep? Beneath the trees gently swaying Like shadows praying Over me I like awake in the moonlight Wondering where you might Chance to be Do you wonder about what might have been And all that could be yet again And all the things that you can think but never know? Do all the words we left unsaid Reverberate inside your head Or echo back from times bygone so long ago? You can think and think again but never know And only time and time alone can tell you so

about

I began recording The Calculated Dream in fall of 2005, about a year after I decided to quit making music. I had been playing synth-pop in Portland, and the hassle and stress of booking tours got to me, so I decided to take a break, maybe forever. One day I was biking to work and I got hit by a car, and I used the insurance money to buy an electric thumb piano. I holed up in my room, sketching and tinkering around on the thing. It was hard not to play. The next summer I took a trip to Japan, and spent long stretches without anyone to speak English to, during which I started writing songs again.

Then I moved to Cluj-Napoca, Romania, and the Eastern European winter provided a good occasion to hole up and learn the art of digital recording. I lived down the next to a conservatory, and when I opened up the windows come spring I heard operatic fragments and overlapping quartets drifting up the street. Someone loaned me a Soviet-era synthesizer and I found a shortwave radio at the flea market. A lot of these sounds ended up filling in the gaps between the plinking of the thumb piano keys, and entirely overwhelmed it on some tracks.

After a year I moved back to Portland into a whole house--hell, a whole town--full of instruments, and a lot of friends helped me to ready the album for release. It took some time, and none of it was spent in the studio, but that's part of the charm.

Download includes my hand-drawn cover art for the album.

credits

released August 8, 2008

additional mixing - Mike Jones
mastering - Nathan Moomaw
thumb piano manufactured by David Bellinger

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Eliot Rose Portland, Oregon

Eliot Rose is the stage name of American musician Eliot Rose.

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