Get all 13 Dean Batten releases available on Bandcamp and save 10%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Optimist Breakfast, Dennis, The Quiet Sounds of Sewing, The Favor, Sky Pink, Let 'Em Bleed, Would You Like to Come In?, Aries, and 5 more.
1. |
Aries
05:30
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Father Sky was in his house, when he spit out a vessel that couldn't carry water. The year before, the bull got out; whipped by his eternal Venus.
Marry them with a stone and throw them through the window.
Marry them with a stone and throw them in the ocean;
Let them drown. Deluge, smiles.
Frightenedly, the time wore on. The evening sun cascading in its dying. In fragile youth's delinquency, the bull would turn against the mother.
Taste the blood, it's in your mouth. Lap it up, you minotaur.
You'll make her a Lazarus because you can't control your anger.
Beg to try. Deluge, smiles.
Three tries dead, and she will succumb.
She gives in, and they will have a son.
Tearing flesh, the time has come.
Their severed hearts distort as one, to make -
Aries.
He will wage a war on both of them; challenge what became their nature.
He will teach the girl to throw her spear -
And the bull to hold a flower.
Better yet, he might kill the both of them in their beds while they are sleeping -
Better that, than to lie awake all night and listen to their weeping.
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2. |
Kool Aid
03:45
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I'm thinking I'll move to Washington, get an apartment in Yakima.
Make plans for a trip out to Senegal, pull a Ginsberg in opium Dakar.
I'll be a wage slave the rest of my life, but I only have to live through the night.
Every night, until it sorts itself out.
Fall in love with a girl over condiments; ketchup and anger, and eloquence.
The Kool Aid I'm drinking will hemorrhage and spill out my guts when I'm done with it.
Because nothing important can come of this, these trite observations of Nothingness.
Love's not enough to entangle this monster of dark in my consciousness.
Yeah
But suicide sounds nice.
I will never get it right.
(But who would you do that to?
Maybe you could do it to you.)
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3. |
Mouth Sounds
05:14
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Never have I ever thought I'd ever find a woman like you.
Smiling with your eyes as the cold compels me to move.
It's so warm, I'll come inside.
Television afterlight
It's so warm, I'll come inside.
Holy one, protect my sight.
Never have I ever thought I'd ever find a woman like you.
Header on the paper of the things I try not to lose
It's so warm, I'll come inside.
God said it would be alright.
It's so warm, I'll come inside
Cross my heart and hope to die.
But watching you sleep, I see everything I need.
Watching you sleep, I see everything I need to be alone.
One thing I don't know: how I've grown.
Never have I ever thought I'd ever find a woman like you.
Fire from the sky, let it run out; they're only fools.
It's not warm enough outside
Everybody run and hide
It's so warm, I'll come inside
Begin new eternal life
But watching you sleep, I see everything I need.
Watching you sleep, I see everything I need to be alone.
One thing I don't know: a better way to show how I've grown.
Mouth sounds you make in the middle of the night really send me reeling
Plastic escape with a plastic knife, where my paint was peeling
Touch me again in the middle of the night
Glow stars on my ceiling
Touch me again and ruin my life
Finally get me feeling something, sometimes...
But watching you sleep, I see everything I need.
Watching you sleep, I see everything I need to be alone.
One thing I don't know: a better way to show how I've grown.
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4. |
Nothing
04:29
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You took me into your mouth and I wept for I felt nothing
I heard moans slipping out past my lips and they meant nothing
Ran your hair through my hands, it was soft but I felt nothing
Next to your thyroid gland I searched for love but I found nothing
What am I coming to? I don't even know you.
Flexing my fingers; this persona needs obscured truth...
Built up castles and crowns, Europe's ethics held nothing
Carthage burned to the ground; that crusade produced nothing
Poet, singer and slave - all this effort for nothing
All the love that's been made turned out children of nothing
Man, I'm scared of this nothing
What am I coming to? I don't even know you.
Flexing my fingers; this persona needs obscured truth...
As if we are, or if we could be, more than nothing.
Oh my baby, I come to me.
Fuck me, I can't look at this anymore.
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5. |
What Then Do You Do?
05:03
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What then do you do, when the happy dream is killing you?
Somehow, the wire's in your meat.
And you cannot retreat into the Holy, Total Absolute.
You are still a being, even if there's no such thing.
Take me down again, there must be something I can learn from it.
Take me down again, I will bend until all these words can fit into a wave.
Each a every day a struggle I can't figure out
What's worth it and what's pushing luck I don't have to lose...
What then do you do, when you can't change what created you?
How then do you live?
There's nothing you can give that isn't made from poison fruit.
It's only partial truth you're seeing, the nature of a human being.
Take me down again, I need to find a quiet place to sit.
Take me down again, maybe I should not revisit it;
Because I'm made each and every day by the thoughts that I drink up.
I change them and I change the world I'm in.
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6. |
Be Like The Reed
06:31
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What blew the wind through the sky?
What felt your words feel a lie?
What let the water flow from high to dry?
These are the questions that we have to read
These are the questions, so be like the reed
Calm, bitter, sirens, despair.
I think she even screamed with her hair.
What breaks the silence when it leaves its chair?
These are the questions that we have to read
These are the questions, so be like the reed
The role that the tongue plays with words.
You, to discomfort, become inured.
The way is the way is the way is the way is the way
These are the questions that we have to read
These are the questions, so be like the reed
Tongue clicking disdain for pay.
The rising of sun starts the day.
The way is the way is the way...
These are the questions that we have to read...
These are the questions, so be like the reed.
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7. |
Psilocybin
05:03
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The world struck first, and the dispatched fist was but a recoil.
Her knuckles bled hot glue as she reached her hands into the silt for more.
My mother's hands are black, fight back the heart attack
Wet eyes like broken glass reflect my sorrow back
Psilocybin, fragile lynch pin
The world struck first, and the frozen water was an option
His fingers cold right through as he dug the snow out to make his hole
That dirt was hard and black, each breath a heart attack
The baby's crooked back, like cattle burned to ash
Psilocybin, like a woman
To the virgins there in paradise, keep your linens tight around you
Let your cheeks return to white, angelic demons feigning good...
Psilocybin, fragile lynch pin
Cracking open
Like a woman
OM, peace, peace, peace, death
Shallow death
(Voice 1):
[I have never seen the sunrise
On a day like this
The change was subtle
But now, there is something been lifted
A weight I was carrying is now laid down
And I am totally unsure as to how
Or why
But I look out at the sky
And see the crisp blue
Coming on from the gray, which came on from the black
All dappled with stars
Now smoothing out to blue
It’s curious, this enterprise
Bewildered by it all my life
They say the good artists borrow
And the great artists steal
I just want to be able to buy my next meal
They love that on the corner
Repeat it in the street
That horror is beautiful in its way, almost as beautiful as all this blue
And it’s nice enough to make a man weep;
But I don’t weep,
Do you?]
(Voice 2):
[Two eyes cast skyward amid the pain of death throes
Five fingers in a knurled knot around the cork
Bottle further jostled with indignant, silent pleas
The wine not nearly so white as my face
The system shocked with some feeling that hits like avarice
But is not avarice
Not greed
More some kind of Lust
A blank Lust
Like a desire to killed,
To watch the hordes of human interaction/incarnation trampled or otherwise smeared
And for the smearing to begin especially with me
Schubert’s Opus Ninety swirls before my eyes like snakes on the ground
Snakes made of tears, made of rain
No death can come here
No sorrow
This is relief
And it comes fast like a thief
The Prophet was correct;
The secret of Death is found in Life
No seams here, no seams
You’ll find no strings on me
I’ll slip out when I deem necessary
The voice of a woman insists it’s a good time now
I suppose the choice is made already
Drink to get the magic going
Let’s see what’s down there in the mud]
Psilocybin, fragile lynch pin
Cracking open
Like a woman
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8. |
Wet Desert
05:29
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You're most beautiful just before you break;
When all the color rushes out of your face, then you crumple
And spray
And it moves me
I don't know you, do I? (Aim for the space you provide)
Pray for a moment's sunshine (Pray for a moment's sunrise)
You're most beautiful just before you break;
Arch your back up to straddle my face, then you crumple
And spray
And it moves me
I don't know you, do I? (Aim for the space you provide)
Pray for a moment's sunshine (Pray for a moment's sunrise)
Echo, echo the company line
Father time was a friend of mine, oh forget it
Echo, Echo the hint of lime
Narcissus to Clementine, oh forget it
Echo, echo a wasted rhyme
Codeine plays in the back of my mind, oh forget it
Echo, echo the firing line
Get the fuck out of dodge this time
Oh , forget it
I don't know you, do I? (Aim for the space you provide)
Pray for a moment's sunshine (Pray for a moment's sunrise)
Dry me out in your wet desert, I don't mind dying of thirst
Lay on my tongue your wet desert, lounge in the sand of my bones
Dry me out in your wet desert, I don't mind dying of thirst
Dry me out in your wet desert, I don't mind dying of thirst
I don't mind dying of thirst
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9. |
She Says
01:56
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"Someday, I'll show you how radiant you are," she says.
"So come to bed and sleep awhile. Come to me now, baby," she says.
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10. |
It's A Beautiful Day
05:13
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It's a beautiful day, it's a beautiful day
I just wanted to say that.
It's a beautiful day, it's a beautiful day
I just wanted to say that I love this,
I do.
Without Love, there is nothing at all
So do not try to keep your Love small
If you find Love, give that Love praise
And when you make Love, make Love all day
Until you are Love, then give it away
Where does one stop, and two begin?
Is there only room for me where you end?
Can you show me where that is?
Because there's only this one thing, and that's all of this...
It's a beautiful day.
Today, it's a beautiful day
I just wanted to say that
It's a beautiful day, it's a beautiful day
Because we are Love, given away
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Dean Batten Daytona Beach, Florida
Often genre-bending, thought provoking and emotion stoking, Dean Batten's music is most concretely one thing:
captivating.
Moving forward from his previous work, Dean has re-embraced the folk, early rock and country sounds of his childhood with 3 new albums: "Optimist Breakfast", an acoustic album; "Pessimist Lunch", a full band version with the same songs; and "Realist Supper", a live album.
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