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God Bless The Hunger

by Boy Without God

/
1.
if i was a cowboy i'd ride out west in the wintertime if i was a beautiful man i wouldn't worry bout love if i was a waterfall i would let water fall and if i was a broken record i would play the same two chords forever rich men make rich eyes over rich chocolate cake at rich women rich boys tear up their clothes and do lots of blow rich girls follow poor boys around for a sense of danger everyone's a hero baby, everyone's a hero i know i know i know if i was a better man i would love you like you deserve if i was a better man i would love you but I ain't got the nerve if i was a cowboy i would ride out west in the wintertime if i was a tortured soul i'd make perfect art if i was a rainmaker i'd make it rain over me in the middle of the road over me you're asleep at home over me on the endless streets abroad over me you're asleep at home over me gone sour and gone weak over me you're behind the sun over me unmaking my face over me you're behind the sun if i was a better man i would love you like you deserve if i was a better man i would love you but I ain't got the nerve
2.
Reasons 06:41
Burning cross of my mind salivating dogs of my heart come here and listen to me sleep come here and listen I'm not the one who crashed your car I wasn't led in handcuffs from your dreams I was smoking on the porch when it all went down come here and listen and God has a plan laid out in highway signs and time is a river of light pouring down my spine ain't nothing to eat but a spiderweb of bus stop conversation I will sleep all day like a dog who knows all of the reasons burning cross of my mind carnivorous scarlet birds of my heart I will sleep all day like a dog who knows all of the reasons come hear the sky break in sympathy like a dog who knows all of the reasons
3.
City Kids 03:43
They stayed out late that night like city kids the music was shining bright in the bar and he held her hand, told her "I love you" she said "I love you too" There wasn't much to do after that so they both squinted up ahead at all the dark, unimaginable roads the worlds one trembling note and he remembers tall rough green grass and endless sky and she remembers one look that held all their lives he says "i'm too drunk from your lips" she says "Hey let's go home and dance in the kitchen" radio whispering sweet old songs to guys and gals in the GI hall They took the bus back home at one AM and he nodded right off with his head on her shoulder and going home past the ridge, past the bay this moment never goes away and in the night there is love all around one unending sound
4.
well the bed is like dying but better and your dusky breath is for me forever I believe there is more to this world than the things that I see when I turn out the light side by side in the kitchen with coffee that morning the trees bloomed obscenely and wild every kiss was a glory so snowflake so starry I could not remember my name I just want it back I want all of it back though I'm told that it's never the same I wrestled with demons all night and alone in the morning believed that I'd triumphed but now I suspect they slipped my chest with the ghosts of old lovers and kings to laugh as the heat from my skin ignites each person I love in turn oh beloved human oh terminal case I can see that you're learning to sing so punch your voice up through the sky and wait for the echoes to ring And if someday when you're far away the sky rings with the sound of your wedding bells the sunlight won't know the name of the trees, the trees won't know that I used to be the one that you came home to all around us we are outlasted and distance checks forgetful hearts I may fade like breath on glass but the river never stops and the river never starts the river just runs all my faith is flickering like unused attic lights in a rainstorm in an old wooden church, late on a tuesday night the eternity I am chasing, just a trick of the light on the eye but oh to be alive for just a moment before I die breathing in unison, staring eye to eye oh the sudden lightness in this world can leave you blind
5.
I'm not ready to be truthful with you I'll keep pretending nothing's rending all my thoughts into tattered pieces I can't concentrate on books i can't concentrate on anything but you anything but you the awful wildness of the heat that's trapped inside this chest scares me stupid so i sit silent i write essays on my eyelids because you'll never see them but when I finally let them go the words will melt the fallen snow all the fallen snow and the trees will drink the icy water and burst out green with sons and daughters and under blankets of shade fill our lungs with the sweetest of air that we trade through our fluttering lips forget the nights so close but never touching the tv light so blue and cruel but spring will be a small good thing at a time like this I've got no choice but to be truthful with you i'll face the future with unblinking eyes and I will say forget the nights the tv lights
6.
Love Letter 10:19
Dear Love, Remember when we were curled safe in the arms of the sand, so small by the water? We walked everywhere in that country like we were waltzing, and you said "there is some sadness in you always" and you were right. I can't keep endings outta my head. Everything that's given must return just like the light ticking through my water glass right now, but we had it for a little while. but this is our corner of eternal mystery! This is the only life I get, and I will spend every night of it asleep. With my arm behind your honey neck and yours across my chest. Love, Gabriel
7.
I got a winter's debt piling up in snowbanks and I got a family watch as my silhouette stretches out in street lights watch as my heart leaps into my throat suddenly and the snow speaks to me of insurmountability yeah the snow speaks to me of insurmountability I was a captain of industry and romance and I got a daughter who scattered her breadcrumbs across the sea and on my tired breath, there hangs a frozen song: I got nothing, I got everything, I got me. and the snow speaks to me of the sky crashing its fists through my TV and the snow speaks to me of the sky crashing its fists through my TV I'll leave the driveway clear and go in to the love of my life. We'll stand at the window, my hands on her hips as the snow comes down over all I've done, over all I've loved making it perfect, making it clean, making it disappear and the snow speaks to me of the sweetness of laying down laying down in sleep and the snow speaks to me of the sweetness of laying down in sleep
8.
You are not the moon and I am not the sun we are just two bodies in a room, in a city, in a country, in a song The sun so blinding bright, so often whored in song leaves us whole as milk every noon and crying out in hunger every dawn and I could do this every night and never tire at all drift in and out of sleep but never ever fall and in the morning I'll awake and shower myself new my appetite like sharpest kitchen knives for just a little glimpse of you and here on the bus pen in my hand just moments away from your lips I can feel as it blooms in my chest and my eyes and my fingers and my toes and my lungs and my teeth in my veins and my heels in my skies and my trees every part of my body that is furthest from my heart I mean I really wanna see you tonight you are not the moon and I am not the sun we are just two bodies tangled up in your bed, in your room, on your street, in the city where we live, in a country we're not from in a song I wrote in the sun on the morning bus as it carried my away with the hunger climbing up my ribs like wild vines
9.
Sha La La 03:30
every day I take the train to school and every night I take the train back home a cup of coffee in the kantine you've got your rituals and I've got my own and every morning when I wake up in the firing line I feel fine I got a lot of life in front of me so baby it's alright it's alright I know you're practically married far be it from me to mention possible alternatives like reinventing the wheel with me and I can't offer you nothing but a shaky hand from a shaky man but maybe we could put our shaky hands together for better make em steadier I could drink it away til I'm crying, scare my friends I could swallow it whole never think about you ever again but these are lies I want no part of I won't be broken I won't be broken I won't be
10.
I saw it all in slow-motion and felt it in the pressure of your thighs straining past the one they clutch every night towards the one that maybe someday, maybe tonight so I wandered home alone made up my mourning bed counted all the future dead and awoke to only sweetness and at a party up north where the music shakes my drink and the happy happy people talk to happy you and I'm going crazy, crazy in my head tearing pictures off the walls and spitting poison I watch you like an airplane taking off like the negative that light leaves on closed eyes I wanna take you home and tie you to the bed and that's exactly what we do and we barely sleep and your body keeps all the bad things away the golden age is yet to come I still believe it to be true I mean, I think I still believe it to be true I mean, I hope there's still a chance I'll be made new I still hold out a hope that if I can put everything that's wrong with me into a song and play the final chord I will be made new slough it off like old skin send the demons scattering and be the one you love again be the one you love again.

about

About money: Pretty much everything I've ever recorded is available here for free. Before this record, it was all recorded by me in my bedroom, except for Your Body Is Your Soul, which was recorded by Nick in his apartment. None of it cost anything except labor, and the labor was a pleasure. But, home recording is restrictive musically, unless you happen to be both a talented musician and a talented engineer. I am not doubly lucky.

This record could only exist with the beautiful space/gear collection and incredible engineering talent of Elio DeLuca at The Soul Shop. It could not have been made in my bedroom, and it could not have been made for free. If you want to find it for free, I'm sure you can and I don't hold it against you, but by buying it here you help me in some small way to make another record, which is really all I want to do, and I assume it's all any of you could want from me,

your humble servant,
bwg.

credits

released June 21, 2011

All songs written & arranged by Gabriel Birnbaum (So Cruel and Oh So Bright, ASCAP)
Recorded at the Soul Shop, Medford, MA by Elio DeLuca (www.soulshoprecording.com)
Mixed by Elio DeLuca & Gabriel Birnbaum
Mastered by Mark Donahue at Soundmirror (www.soundmirror.com)

Brittany Asch - Vocals
David Bentley - Cello
Gabriel Birnbaum - Vocals, Acoustic & Electric Guitars, Piano, Tenor Saxophone, Percussion, Handclaps
Elio DeLuca - Wurlitzer, Fender Rhodes, Piano, Vocals, Percussion
Mike Fiore - Vocals
Martin Gonzalez - Bass
Will Graefe - Guitar, Vocals
CJ Hughes - Vocals, Handclaps
Siv Lie - Viola
David Harris - Trombone
Danny Mekonnen - Baritone Saxophone
Bryan Murphy - Trumpet
Mickey O'Hara - Drums, Glockenspiel, Percussion
Katie Von Schleicher - Vocals, Handclaps

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Boy Without God Brooklyn, New York

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