Along with Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie, Dustin Kensrue is one of the best lyricists in modern rock. I could have picked a great number of songs from their discography for an arrangement, but for me there is a beauty in "So Strange..." that pervades it's post-hardcore treatment. And given that this song is now 16 years old, the words were/are quite prophetic.
lyrics
So strange I remember you in protest of a prayer
Falling back from seas we fear to sail
I swear I saw the shooter, gold teeth and a double dare,
Postmodern warnings seem inclined to fail.
Feigning an apology.
Those words they never left your lips.
Those 5 years in Bermuda slide by like the lights of passing ships,
So strange I remember you,
knee-deep in Nietzsche's lies
my throat was an open grave
I drank your stained glass eyes
They taste like dead cathedrals
that are crumbling beneath the weight of ten thousand jaded tourists
who've traded in their hearts and hands for
disposable cameras, set to document to decay,
set to capture just enough of life
to catalogue the things we throw away.
Breathing the fumes of our machines
We've lost our way.
Breathing through television dreams
If we could only see us now.
The words of the dead ring in our ears, but its only a lie.
The voice in your head brings you to tears, but you don't know why.
The words of the dead ring in our ears, but its only a lie.
The voice in your head brings you to tears,but its only a lie,
Its only a lie,
...isn't it?
credits
from The Seas We Fear to Sail,
track released October 20, 2017
Vocal Re-composition/Recording/Editing/Mixing: Evan Sponseller
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