Bad Sects lyrics - Cursive

For 20 years I've held this pulpit
Preached the word, served the Eucharists
Gained the trust of the townsfolk
Made every football game, never missed a social
Last week a boy I taught theology
Came back in town with a new ideology
Those feelings I tucked away
Threaten the sanctuary
A lifetime of burning culminated in one innocent forbidden touch
I know this is wrong
Cause I'm taught this is wrong

A new recruit, 25 years old
He joined the habit with a chip on his shoulder
Some nights he'd proclaim his preference
But only flat back drunk on a bottle of Jameson
One of those nights we stayed up, the two of us
Singing our lives, just the two of us
We were hiding in the dark
I fell asleep by his side
We woke to the chimes of the bells in the steeple, and ran off to separate rooms
They can't know what we've done
Our whole world would come undone

You'll never live this down
You'll never live this down
You'll never live this down
You'll never live this down

They're gonna find you out
And when they find you out
They're gonna drag you out! Don't let them find you!

I know this is wrong
Cause we're told this is wrong
A lifetime of burning culminated in one innocent forbidden touch
I know this is wrong
Cause we're told this is wrong

Flag And Family lyrics - Cursive

Your daddy and my daddy had a drink at the bar
Talking about what was best for me
Without an aim or a degree,
Stubbornly holding on to you
And you pulling away from me

The best that they could say
For my restless teenage ways
Was some time in the service might serve me well,
Even if it’s just servicing the latrines

Lucy my love, don’t go sending me off to war

I put up with your family,
Full of bigots and fanatics,
Just to get a little closer to you,
Now you’ve turned on me too
You have turned on me too.

Go hide behind your flag and family
This town has nothing left for me
This town is nothing more
Than a fundamentalist penitentiary

When you’re down on your knees
Are you praying for holy war?
When you’re down on your knees
Are you praying for oily war?
Lucy my love, don’t go sending me off to war

We must live,
We must true to our childhood dreams,
Or they’re worthless and our youth is insincere

So where do we find worth?

I put up with your family,
Full of bigots and fanatics,
Just to get a little closer to you,
Now you’ve turned on me too
You have turned on me too.

When you’re down on your knees
Are you praying for holy war?
When you’re down on your knees
Are you praying for oily war?
Lucy my love, don’t go sending me off to war

We must live,
We must true to our childhood dreams,
Or they are worthless and our youth is insincere

So where do we find worth?

Dorothy Dreams Of Tornadoes lyrics - Cursive

You said we'd leave next year
Each year for thirteen years
Each year, it gets harder to hear
It's getting hard enough just to stay in love

And now our roots grow deep
Beneath these barren streets
I've had the darkest dreams
The city's pipes and wires
Run through our nerves and veins

And those nights, after a double shift, I feel it
The dashed plans you never dared to live
They used to light up your eyes
Those bulbs have long burned out

Let a tornado tear through
Let it tear straight through our roof
And let the rain pour in
I'll scream, "Babe, this is it!
We'll leave the house in ruins
If we escape right now, we just might make it out"

This city, this city's killing us
This city, this city's killing us
This city, this city's killing us
It's killing us

It's killing us

This city, this city's killing us
This city, this city's killing us
This city, this city's killing us
It's killing us
It's killing us
It's killing us

Retreat!! lyrics - Cursive

They checked the shrine and the temple,
But he wasn't there.
They checked the mosque and the chapel,
Nope, not there.

Since you've been away on holiday,
The natives are all nightmares.
Since you've been away on holiday,
I daydream you'll disappear.
You keep us on a leash we can't conceive,
But still must adhere to.

The natives are whipping each other,
Over which god they prefer.
I wish you'd do us all a favor,
And just differ.

Since you've been away on holiday,
We don't know which god is which.
And since you've been away on holiday,
It's getting harder to give a shit.

So if you stayed away on holiday,
We could get on with it.
I mean, we could evolve like this,
If you'd just call it quits.

Since you've been away on holiday,
We've stomached your archaic rule.
And since you've been away on holiday,
We've hosted some wars over you.

So stay away on holiday, my friend,
We don't need your services;
Your excuses --
Your "mysterious ways" [x4]

What a mysterious way to behave.
What a mysterious way to just go away.

Lord let us go! [x16]

The Sunks lyrics - Cursive

Surrender your furniture
push the television out the window
overmedicated, this must be the sunks
if you can't understand the blues you don't know much

With much love for science and a youthful defiance
we struck blindly at the roots of this tree
whose branches got broken, pissed on and trampled

O please forgive us o mighty shady tree
O please forgive us o mighty doomsday tree

It's time to stick your branches
in the merciless wheel of Time
It's time to stick your branches
in the merciless spokes of Time
It's time to stick a fork in the merciless socket of Time
It's time to be sewn into the limitless fabric of Time

They'll call you a wash up
when you can't stay sunk
it's a shame to be so wet so young
living your life with much love for science

At Conception lyrics - Cursive

Jeanie's been throwing up all morning
Poor girl's been so heartsick ever since her boyfriend went to war
Father Cole's done his best to console the girl-
more so than some neighbors deem necessary-
but you just can't measure young love.

Picketing the clinic outside town,
Father Cole holds the record for turning twelve girls around.
If anybody knows the sorrows of the young woman, it's...

Father Cole, he's been acting out of sorts;
that strange sermon he gave accepting termination due to rape.
Jeannie whispered, "She's carrying" but there's one awful catch:
her boyfriend's been off in the desert for half a year.

Cole cried, "This simply cannot be!"

She quipped, "Quite the opposite-
I'm hardly the Virgin Mary...and you're no carpenter.
So, who will build my home?"

"Jeannie, you're just a kid. You can't conceive such mortal sins.
Everything will be alright...what happens in confession stays in the confessional."

So what goes on behind those curtains?

"Jeannie, you're just a kid, you WON'T conceive this mortal sin."

So-So Gigolo lyrics - Cursive

If you've got the looks
And if you've got the goods
I suppose you can make it
Anywhere you wanna get made

And you wanna get made...

My model agent says
You've got to get paid
You've got a special gift
You can't just give it away

For free... Don't give it up for free

And when my daddy calls
Asking how it's going
on them streets
All I can say is

I'm not exactly a salesman
Sure there's a product I'm selling
Guess you could say I'm an actor
Though acting's not what they're after

No, not quite

Sure this service
Is a popular year
More popular than my acting
Or my modeling career

This city
Has quite the service industry

Small town Adonis
Hits the Metropolis
Is brought down to his knees

Guess I'm a so-so gigolo
Guess I'm a so-so gigolo

Every audition
my agent commissions
Isn't so much an audition
So much as a job

I guess a job's a job

I thought that if they saw
How bad I wanted the part
The very least
They'd have to take pity on me

A word this city's never heard

So-so gigolo [x6]

I'm not exactly a salesman
Sure there's a product I'm selling
Guess you could say I'm an actor
Though acting's not what they're after

Bad Science lyrics - Cursive

Moms and dads break up their gangs,
take away their roller skates
Give them algebra and trig
raisins, dates, or figs
But take away the gingerbread and cake

Every husband, every wife, every cop, every teacher
everybody do the taking away
every law, every curfew, ever Bible-branded textbook
watch the kiddies do the breaking away

Moms and dads say,
"No more bands
no side projects, no solo careers
no young love
no kissing fish
no pets at all
no fun
and
I think we've had enough art, Mr. Marks."

Every molecule, every atom, every single particle
down to the quark

Do the breaking apart!

No skateboard no swimming pools
until you've finished your state approved chemistry,
kid!
Break it down to the electron and quark
and please tell us what happens when the particles spark

Every molecule, every atom, every single particle
down to the quark

Do the breaking apart!

Into The Fold lyrics - Cursive

[The Shepherd:]
I can't say I've always been honest; you can't say I've done a disservice.
The girl, she's just a child. She's got a lot to learn, and I'm helping out.

Your deceit is under your wing. You won't let her go.
You know it's not appropriate. Into the fold, into the fold.
But all that hair...and porcelain.
You swear it's more than mere lust. Into the fold. Into the fold.
If she knew what you do, the pristine routine to fool the rube.
The gentle gentlemen, the loathed Lothario.
You feign you've changed your ways, but we know, yeah, we know.
Can't you quell this need for submissives?

[The Shepherd:]
Oh, such lovely girls. To lead each other tender little lamb into the fold,
into the fold. And you, my pet, "The Sweetest Yet"-I'll hold you closest to my heart,
into the fold...

Into the fold, into the fold, into the fold, into the fold!

[The Lamb:]
I was in the student union studying for an English quiz;
he came up and asked direction to the new auditorium.
We walked up and down the campus, no one had ever heard of it.
He was so embarrassed when he realized he had the wrong college,
he offered to buy us coffee for the time and effort wasted.
We drank and talked for so long, we started making plans for dinner...

[The Shepherd:]
She was young and impressionable; I pretended to need directions.
She led me all over the campus. All the while, I'm asking her questions.
She agreed to have a cup of coffee-that's when I started to lay it on heavy.
Once she learned I studied Dostoevsky, it was in the bag.

Rise Up!! Rise Up!! lyrics - Cursive

Dear preacher, thanks for making time for me today
Hope you don't mind if I hide behind the curtain
It's been fifteen years since my last confession
By your good book's standards, I've sinned like a champion
But that book seems a tad bit out-dated

Please forgive me, for questioning divinity
It's an ugly job, but I think I'm up for it
I'm not saying who's right
I'm just saying there's more than one way
To skin a religion
There's more than one way
To explain our existence

Reverend, sir, I don't want to seem malevolent
My teenage angst is far behind me
But father, certainly it's troubling to see
All these people kneeling, instead of dealing
With the fact that we are all we have

So, rise up! rise up!
There's no one to worship!
But plenty of life to lose!
I'm not saying "let's burn down the church"
But do you want to hear my confession?
It's my greatest sin..

Okay, here it is:
I wasted half my life on the thought that I'd live forever!
I wasn't raised, to seize the day, but to work and worship
'cause "he that liveth and believeth" supposedly never dies

Rise up! rise up!
And live a full life!
'cause when it's over, it's done
So rise up! rise up!
Dance and scream and love!

[barely audible outro]
You're not the chosen one
And I'm not the chosen one

Hymns For The Heathen lyrics - Cursive

Night has draped its cape of stars
Over our small town
From the campus and the tavern
To the chapel and infirmary
We've seen their dreams
We've found the goods
The fables and folly
Of the residents residing in...

14 hymns for the heathen
First hymn, the son of God complex
Second hymn, the prodigal damsel
Third hymn, the tree stump of knowledge
Choking on Adam's apple

This odd lot under the cross
This broken promised land
Of dreamers and schemers
And preachers and predators.
They shall not want
What they've got coming to them
Whether innocent or insolent

14 hymns for the heathen
Fourth hymn, the passion of the chaplain
Fifth hymn, the brute kiss of Judas
Sixth hymn, Sodom falls to ashes
Seventh hymn, the church of doubting Thomas
Eighth hymn, a horse of the apocalypse
Ninth hymn, an immaculate exception
Tenth hymn, the demons of Mary Magdalene

I am a chapel, this is prayer book, these are the parables
God, forgive us, this is our business:
absolving sins of all of these heathens

Eleventh hymn, the Bible Belt tightens
Twelfth hymn, a leacherous Shepard
Thirteenth hymn, hiding in confession
Fourteenth hymn, an afterword

Rocking chairs of disenchantment
Green grass of envy and malice
Our salad days, living in Happy Hollow

No News Is Bad News lyrics - Cursive

I took a stroll down a primrose lane on a clear blue day
Everything seemed so perfectly placed
Daises lined each manicured lawn
Well groomed men walked well groomed dogs
Stopped in a bar for a mid-day drink
On search of a scene more inspiring
Shooting off the cap of a ball point pen
Thinking happen, something happen

When everything's in order
Is that what you write about?
There's nothing much new
There's not much to say
Well there's not much to say
I got everything in the news
It occurred to me
No news is bad news
When you trying to spark that fuse
Well you wanna sing them blues

You're waiting 'round for a water to boil
For the fire to lose control
But you can't heat up that kettle
You gotta leave the elements alone
It scares the shit outta me
When weathered writers lose their steam
I'm lonely, getting older, less interesting
You can't make this shit up
You can't make this shit up
You can't make this shit up
You can't make this shit up

When everything's in order
Is that what you write about?
There's nothing much new
There's not much to say
Well there's not much to say
I got everything in the news
It occurred to me
No news is bad news
When you trying to spark that fuse

I stumbled out into a black alley on a blood red dawn
The ramshackle block seemed trampled upon
Shattered glass smeared on burned cement
A stray dog eating from a black bean tin
Stopped in Eddie's for a pick me up
For leads on how the town got so fucked
Bought a bloody mary with tired grin
Saying, too dramatic
Try again

"The Ugly Organ" (2003)

The Ugly Organist lyrics - Cursive

(And now, we proudly present
Songs perverse, and songs of lament.
A couple of hymns of confession,
And songs that recognize our sick obsessions.
Sing along - I'm on the ugly organ.)

Some Red Handed Sleight Of Hand lyrics - Cursive

And now, we proudly present
songs perverse and songs of lament.
A couple of hymns of confession,
and songs that recognize our sick obsessions.
Sing along- I'm on the ugly organ again.
Sing along- I'm on the ugly organ, so lets begin.
There's no use to keep a secret,
everything I hide ends up in lyrics...
so read on- accuse me when you're done-
if it sounds like I did you wrong.

Our father, who art in heaven,
save me from this wreck I'm about to drown in.
Didn't I learn anything counting out
my sins on rosary beads?
The reverend plays on the ugly organ;
he spews out his sweet and salty sermon
on the audience.

...So why do I think I'm any different?

I've been making money off my indifference.
We all pass the hat around,
'This is my body', this is the blood I found
on my hands after I wrote this album.
Play it off as stigmata for crossover fans...
some red handed sleight of hand.

Woah oh.