Story Behind The Song

Begun for an aborted duo project around late 1999, intending some of the verse lyrics that are still present as throwaway temporary things meant to be replaced through collaboration. The bridge was added in 2010, but the choruses were instrumental at that point. Iris's vocal lines were added in 2016 to imagine the female response to the song.

Song Description

Mark Linsenmayer: vocals, nylon-string guitar Iris Hutchings: vocals Rei Tangko: piano Ken Keeley: electric bass Jim Turk: djembe, shakers, rainstick, finger cymbals

Lyrics

You came round; I saw your shoes
You came round, and I felt used
You came round, I don't know when
You came round, and stole my pen

You made me up to listen up
You weren't enough
I heard you out
I didn't buy it
Your feel throughout

You came round to get your stuff
You came round; you'd had enough

You made me up
To listen up
You didn't hear me
We could not want
The real us
We couldn't last

If you're feeling it at all, you will not miss my call
If you're feeling you're alone, you've got to listen for my tone

If I'm away I'm dreaming of you, I'm leaving me through, believing it's true
I'm seeking nothing and I'm finding it.
I often face the fact that I'm okay, but I miss you every day
And the hold you've got upon me in a smoky kind of way
It's been years and years and they've dragged on very slow
But I'm alien and angry and I will not let you go

When you enter in my brain and start kicking things around
I feel lost and tossed and lonely and I can not feel a sound

It's amazing that you're ended, it's amazing you existed
It's incredible I think of you much more than you insisted

And wherever you are now, you should detect what I allow
There's an arrow pointing from me, poking out right through my brow

And the beam that it projects passes over and infects
A stream of inspiration, intermittent and complex

Pieces of my soul, blasted out of this black hole
Astronomical but finite and what's left is what you stole

And I'd give you the last word, if you believe one thing you've heard
And the next time you come round I will dismiss you as absurd
Like you did me

I see you sing
Not listening
Get over it

You came round; I smelled your breath
You came round; I felt my death