Noble Creatures (2007)

How Will U Shine
Kicks in the Sun
Promenade
A Few Extra Kilos
Last Letter
The Gyroscopic
Moon Gone Down
Red Letter Day
Out on the Vine
Cranky Mulatto
Steeple Full of Swallows
All in the Pack
Flavor on yer Tung
Spivey

Label: Yep Roc

Release Date: July 10, 2007
Recording Location: Austin, TX; Congress House

Credits

How Will U Shine

Kevin Russell

Jammin’ on the old cartoons with the swagger of the immune

Sleeping like a fat raccoon/ diabetic on a honeymoon

O baby when it’s a hard time, ooh baby how will you shine

After all the pretty plans I made I been befriended and I been betrayed

Now I’m stewing in my own perfume lonely as a weather balloon

You wanna smell like the roses you wanna ring like a bell

U wanna shine like a TV inspite of yerself

Umanna drink like a chimney u wanna smoke like a fish

U wanna sing like a satellite but here’s the thing about this

Go cry me a river and roll like a wheel

Sit down with yer woman tell her the way that you feel

Kicks in the Sun

Jimmy Smith

I never talked you up

I never shut you down

Bring you up in the mix

What do you bring to the sound?

Now, I would not offer

Any help or advice

Unless you beseech me

Oh honey don’t ask twice

Walkin’ down my street

I’m lookin’ for a hook

I try to locate some soul

In a calculus book

But the fat man fell

And the big boy slid

Put that dog on a leash

Wire him to the grid

Now I got caught

Livin’ outside my means

I’d say they threw me back

Better to give than receive

But that ain’t always the case

It’s hardly ever that slick

I had to swim in the rice bowl

Not the runt, but the pick

Sleep out under the park bench

Live on minimum wage

Down there in the crawlspace

Down there huffin’ the methane

No reason to get excited

It’s only kicks in the sun

Throw a towel to the maestro

He sure had a good run

Promenade

Kevin Russell

Baby I remember the way you held my hand

I tried my best to tell you, but you wouldn’t understand

Now I think about you always and to myself I say yer name

The way we were when forever was just another day

I traded yer sweetness for my loneliness

Yer confidence for my own regrets

Yer simple grace for this disarray

That’s my stock and trade while you promenade

Sometime I’m singing to the ceiling

Sometimes I’m talking to the walls

Sometimes I forget this feeling

Ever mattered at all

But in the evening when the sun’s down

There’s sadness on its way

Like a ghost that knows my address

And where I lay

Somehow my losing just comes natural like a southern democrat

Nostalgia haunts my memory and stands in my path

You promenade to the city, you promenade to the shore

The gentlemen say that you are pretty and promenade round the floor

Now I think about you always and to myself I say yer name

The way we were when forever was just another day

A Few Extra Kilos

Jimmy Smith

Spillage in the morning and again in the night

Spillage to the left of me, I’m gonna catch it on the right

Some say it’s losin’ some call it a gain

Some curse the sunshine then piss on the rain

So take me down mine hourglass

The grains on the bottom represent the past

The gash in the middle no one can suture

Sand on the top well that’d be the future

Take all the guts of the middle ages

And the confessions from the glassed cages

Tie it all together on four stages

Shoot, a fella could have a pretty good time with all that in Vegas

Spillage in the morning and again in the night

Spillage to the left of me, I’m gonna catch it on the right

Some say it’s losin’ some call it a gain

Some curse the sunshine then piss on the rain

Some spills, it’s enough to make me cry

In bombed out shoes I couldn’t walk a mile

At your border with all my senses dulled

Spillin’ out of her top, ooh I’m a greasy gull

Just flowin’ through some window pane

Shed some light on a tired brain

It’s like feedback in the real high K’s

Spill out of my cot, go hit the urine cake

Last Letter

Kevin Russell

If yer low and feelin down

When yer lost and tossed around

You can go and see the man

I know I couldn’t be that strong

Yer last letter was that long

And it took me by surprise

When I read through bleary eyes

Now everything’s all gone

Now everything’s all wrong

When they all deliver their packages of tears

And it makes you different and threads you through fears

You can go and see the man

You can go and buy another ring

Yer last letter was lonely one and it made me wanna cry

It made me feel like the only one

And it made me wanna grieve

Now everything’s all wrong

Now everything’s all gone

Yer last letter was lonely one

And it broke me all to tears

I couldn’t make the words out all that well

It was just enough to tell

Now everything’s all wrong

Now everything’s all gone

The Gyroscopic

Jimmy Smith

Lost my job at the opinionory

Co-workin’ windbags creatin’ drag

Fell behind, you know, coastin’

Easiest money that I ever made

Reincarnated bottle-nosers

Noble creatures of the sea

I threw away a 6-pack ring

That night I had a dream I lost my teeth

All you good people gather ‘round

Get inside the gyroscopic

See her spinnin’ perpendicular

No reason outside is gonna stop it

Save Ulysses for another day

Give it enough time the experts say

Handful of monkeys with typewriters

Will be found passed out in a limousine

So cheer up, the sluts are comin’

The big orgy just a day away

Wake up with Beatrice in the bushes

Only in horniness will we prevail

Moon Gone Down

Kevin Russell

Me and the coke and cigarettes looking at the crack of dawn

I got a house that’s full of lights but I never turn them on

Heater’s broken, moon is going down

Living in a house of blue lights, wolf knocking at the door

Chopping down that cedar tree, looking for a couple more

Bells are ringing, moon is going down

Moon gone down on my porch

inhale and exhale this tiny torch

Built me a boat on a rainy day waiting for my ship to sail

Help my thumb up to the moon, look like I lost my fingernail

Cat’s are crying, moon is going down

Moon gone down on my porch

Inhale and exhale this tiny torch

Sun comes up in the morning, shines on my sleepy head

One time I woke up and found angels all around my bed

Angels angels moon is going down

Red Letter Day

Max Johnston

On and on and by the rules….

The way you came and went with me….

Like a broken Tilta-Whirl…

Is there any chance?

Oh the world is closing in

Oh Im trying to pretend

Is there a way

A better day

Runnin’ rounds a marathon (epic take?)

I’ve got my rosy blinders on (true?)

Now all them roses in the land

I gathered, put ‘em in yer hand

Can you smell or should I? Sniff?

Oh Oh Oh

Oh Oh Oh

Is there a way?

A better day?

A better day?

Out on the Vine

Jimmy Smith

Set up shop next to a feed lot

Walking knee high through a pile of slop

Come to terms with my landfill

Bird in the turbine so my vessel spill

When I’m choking gimme the Heimlich

Fibrulator for my tick-tick-ticker

Polk Salat again tonight

Tony Jo say we do alright

Ain’t too much I can plant in this heat

The fruit fell so I could name the tree

Hey, how are you?

Well, I’m doin’ fine

How you like livin’ out on the vine?

I like livin’ out on the vine

Nettles out on my causeway

I’m the bunny I feel no pain

Drop me down on the toll road

Go from high speed to the Morse code

So wrapped up in my membrane

Donations out to the food bank

Feel it out on my keytar

Won’t leave you hangin’ on the last bar

Cranky Mulatto

Kevin Russell

Storm down in the gulf, how hard it’s gonna blow

In the citronella candle glow it’s a cranky mulatto.

Opossum in the tree, devil in the leaves

Mouse done stole the cheese, dog done stole the fleas

Heaven’s radio makes a sound like a brown banjo

Opossum sittin’ in the limbs

Devil gonna wait for him

Steeple Full of Swallows

Kevin Russell

Steeple full of swallows

Hammer in the weeds

heart full of my head

mosquito’s on my feet

You must be the fine hairs

You must be the frown

You must be the reason

All the lights go down

Steeple full of swallows

Smoke in the house

heart full of my head

mud in my mouth

You must be the cinder

You must be the sound

You must be the reason

all the lights go down

All in the Pack

Jimmy Smith

I was gagged, can’t drop no names

I was eatin’ fried eggs with a beer in Heathrow

And I lied, I’ve never seen her before

No, I was at home listenin’ to a box set

You think I’d craze, craze my whole scene

Yeah, I needed the money, but it’s never enough

There was no body and there was no dope

Just a misunderstanding ,and I ain’t a rat so…

Your people overreacted; I said my girl could sell

Shit you don’t want to buy, 90 bucks a barrel

Everybody was willing, not a Cain but an Abel

Just got so greedy, I had to pull out

So when I go to the polls, when I look at the stats

How do we cure a pig, it’s all in the pack

Flavor on yer Tung

Kevin Russell

You got the poison you got to let it drop

You got the reason and it’s the season for the treason

You got to let it drop

The evidence is growin for that flavor on yer tung

Ol cock is crowing, go shootin with yer gun

Sunshine from the sun you gotta get the flavor on yer tung

Arithmetic is sturdy and purity but yer money is dirty

Common of unit of measurement and pleasurement

Somebody randomly selected it

Hey the perpetrator was unscrupulous they wasn’t used to us

Somebody gonna get sued for this

Hey you got the poison and you got to let it drop

Hey you got the poison and you got to let it drop

The evidence is growing for that flavor on yer tung

Spivey

Jimmy Smith

Dr. Spivey with a roll of quarters in his hand

Fightin’ off the bullshit the best he can

Able to sniff out the most complicated scam

Ain’t no doctor he’s a natural man

He’s in the house

Seen him walk out of a paper bag

Dial his momma turn around and call his dad

Eat Rotweiller with some chopsticks

Come over to my place and babysit my kids

He’s in the house

Outta control in a nose dive

Gimme the keys, I’m Spivey, I will drive

Not all of you can fit into my ride

I’m Dr. Spivey, I’m the one who decides

He’s in the house

Dr. Spivey with a roll of quarters in his hand

Last I heard he was in the ground

Roll of quarters what that’s 10 bucks?

No, it’s some fool with his jaw wired shut

He’s in the house