Beck recently released Song Reader, an album that doesn’t exist. Tricky. There are no actual recordings of the songs. Just sheet music, impressive cover art and nothing else. The problem is that some of the songs are excellent. So in the spirit of Beck’s intentions, here’s a great cover to a great song that technically doesn’t exist yet, plus a couple of exquisite tracks from Beck’s album Sea Change:
Rough On Rats (Performed by Brendon Thomas from the band Forever In Motion).
Lyrics
Your crawfish fingers and your dirty dregs
Your sideways stingers and your wooden legs
They’re throwing out jewels like rotten eggs
‘Cause it’s Christmas in Siam
And we’re rough on ratsYour scarecrow spiders and your shipwreck bones
The fossilized bibles of Geronimo Jones
His star spangled army in their roadhouse clothes
‘Cause a hero can’t bronze his soul
And we’re rough on ratsThere’s shattered glass on the dance floor
A cop chaperoning a doll
The testament of a landlord
Who’s living in a hollow logThe burlap flowers and the cocaine dirt
The horn of plenty in a desert of hurt
The corduroy boy in the killjoy shirt
He’s a stereotype on ice
And we’re rough on ratsSo what do you think you could take from the heap
Where the haystack needles are piled up cheap?
You can buy what’s useless and steal what you need
In the pink penitentiary
And we’re rough on ratsGuess I’m Doing Fine
Lyrics
There’s a blue bird at my window
I can’t hear the songs he sings
All the jewels in heaven
They don’t look the same to meI just wade the tides that turned
Till I learn to leave the past behindIt’s only lies that I’m living
It’s only tears that I’m crying
It’s only you that I’m losing
Guess I’m doing fineAll the battlements are empty
And the moon is laying low
Yellow roses in the graveyard
Got no time to watch them growNow I bade a friend farewell
I can do whatever pleases meIt’s only lies that I’m living
It’s only tears that I’m crying
It’s only you that I’m losing
Guess I’m doing finePress my face up to the window
To see how warm it is inside
See the things that I’ve been missing
Missing all this timeIt’s only lies that I’m living
It’s only tears that I’m crying
It’s only you that I’m losing
Guess I’m doing fineLost Cause
Lyrics
Your sorry eyes cut through the bone
They make it hard to leave you alone
Leave you here wearing your wounds
Waving your guns at somebody newBaby you’re lost
Baby you’re lost
Baby you’re a lost causeThere’s too many people you used to know
They see you coming they see you go
They know your secrets and you know theirs
This town is crazy; nobody caresBaby you’re lost
Baby you’re lost
Baby you’re a lost causeI’m tired of fighting
I’m tired of fighting
Fighting for a lost causeThereâ??s a place where you are going
You ain’t never been before
No one left to watch your back now
No one standing at your door
That’s what you thought love was forBaby you’re lost
Baby you’re lost
Baby you’re a lost causeI’m tired of fighting
I’m tired of fighting
Fighting for a lost cause
