Get all 26 Joey Carbo releases available on Bandcamp and save 35%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of PRIVATE EXECUTIONS VOL. 1 (2023), Flight Risk (2023), The Rakers and Joey Carbo, VIOLENCE (2022), VIOLENCE SINGLES (2022), Gnash (2021), WRACK &RUIN (2017), Live at Dyson House Listening Room (2016), and 18 more.
1. |
SISTER RAY*
06:27
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2. |
A.S.H. (2016 version)
03:00
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that new orleans tap water was the last thing for it
bit cold and dead rotten when it hit my veins.
she had a nickname; it was all i got from her
and through two broken condoms we made decent friends.
her left arm was useless, her face was real pretty
and we both got the shakes while we waited for Red.
i'm generally sleeping or dead on my feet
and i can't shake the tombstones from in front of my eyes
the half-baked and the half-deads walk circles around us
and i wake up sick again between two clammy thighs.
that cold tourniquet pinched me, her eyes were forgiving.
i took off my belt, it was warm from my skin.
we wandered up Broad street, bought three books of matches,
we suffered in silence and went back down again.
her old man was traveling, might be back by morning,
but we were blood brothers: the bent and the slain.
no god could forgive us, no meal could sustain us.
i only ask for a drip to untie my head.
and we wake into this and we waste into this
and we're born into this when we wake.
we shake and we twist and we break into bliss
and we're thrown into circles of sin.
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3. |
ONCE I'D TOUCHED FIRE
05:46
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silence only gets you so far
and we waited 'round the bend.
we waited so long,
tell us what for again.
once i'd touched fire it all went straight to hell.
straight to hell with room service
and walks around the block and my credit score.
straight to fucking dogs.
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4. |
SON OF A GUN
04:57
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He woke up with the red ass. We tippy-toed every step we took.
“You don’t know where you shit last”. And that little house trailer shook.
He said, ‘don’t let nothin’ go past and close your open book.'
"It’s all on his dead ass and we’re both off the hook."
Marshall was not normal; he was not one of us.
I sat with the sluts and addicts and he rode the other bus.
Be he followed all the way down and they blowed us till it sucked.
I still ain’t seen my way ‘round the brains or the guts.
“I don’t care what you want, I know what you need.
I was there when you woke up, I’ll be there when you bleed."
JW was my best friend and I see now how it looked
to the police and my old man, this hare-lipped, crazy crook.
I was taught to keep my head down; Winston didn’t raise no fuckin’ punk.
“Don’t worry ‘bout what goes ‘round,” and his head fell with a clunk.
“This bastard will not listen to reason or to me!”
When I got home he’d stabbed him, was headed for the Salton Sea.
And then the Sheriff came ‘round, looking for the man Winston took.
“I saw him last with Marshall and that little, hare-lipped crook.”
Now, I think about it often and when I get some violent itch.
I was born into a coffin, a son of a gun and a son of a bitch.
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5. |
SLAY(N)
02:35
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you wanna save me. i wanna slay you.
we're holding hands with what we never will do.
bloody paths are sacred. sacred lies are truths.
the hill where i'm buried is the bed where i'm born.
all this blood we have ferried floats the flesh we have shorn.
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6. |
IF ONLY
04:06
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Did your father let you down? Did he leave on your birthday?
Or did he pile up the pinkslips and just blow out his brains?
Did your mother let you down? Did she shoot up all the rent?
Did she fuck your friends and did it cost you your innocence?
Yeah, I could’ve been somebody if only I wasn’t me.
(Because) I was a born hair-trigger with one foot up in my grave
and I would tell you right quick I got no soul to save.
I waited on the cars of the men who looked for boys
and my hatred ran just as deep as my scars.
If you don’t know of all the ways a misunderstanding can kill
then you go right ahead and judge me; I’ve had my fill.
I had a belly fulla lies and my back burned from your eyes
and anyway I’ve known since I was born –I ain’t one of you.
And so I wake up and get bent and fill my veins with cement
And you would think before long I’d have figured out what to do.
Yeah, I could’ve been somebody if only I wasn’t me.
Now the cell that I’ve got is a hell of a lot,
a hell of a lot warmer than my old bed.
And I sit and I wait. I read and I masturbate.
But mostly I stare at the walls and I wish I was dead.
‘Cause, I could’ve been somebody if only I wasn’t me.
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7. |
||||
that new orleans tap water was the last thing for it
bit cold and dead rotten when it hit my veins.
she had a nickname; it was all i got from her
and through two broken condoms we made decent friends.
her left arm was useless, her face was real pretty
and we both got the shakes while we waited for Red.
i'm generally sleeping or dead on my feet
and i can't shake the tombstones from in front of my eyes
the half-baked and the half-deads walk circles around us
and i wake up sick again between two clammy thighs.
that cold tourniquet pinched me, her eyes were forgiving.
i took off my belt, it was warm from my skin.
we wandered up Broad street, bought three books of matches,
we suffered in silence and went back down again.
her old man was traveling, might be back by morning,
but we were blood brothers: the bent and the slain.
no god could forgive us, no meal could sustain us.
i only ask for a drip to untie my head.
and we wake into this and we waste into this
and we're born into this when we wake.
we shake and we twist and we break into bliss
and we're thrown into circles of sin.
|
Joey Carbo Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Joey Carbo's solo work as well as the albums he made with both his bands -
"Yes, it's dark. But Carbo isn't
intending to scare folks away from darkness, I don't think he ever is -- he's no stranger to writing songs about hopelessness and anger. He's done it with precision here, communicating specific turns of emotion, sans generalization." -C.M. Hall
... more
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