EROS
PREACHIN TO THE CHOIR
I’LL TAKE YOU THERE
ACCEPTANCE
ARE YOU AWARE
WHAT I AM THINKING
SOLITUDE
LEAVES FALL
THE GUNS OF BRIXTON
COWBOY
WHEN THE WHOLE WORLD HATES YOU
UNITED
WE DEMAND CHANGE
FALLING LIKE THE RAIN
LET IT BURN
EROS (T.James)
Let’s sacrifice Agape/lay her head across the Scottish maiden/The blade then/will touch upon her throat/and we’ll cast her off to float/in our sea of isolation/Harvest women as our breeders/just as the good book tells/captive in our cells/Concubines & courtesans/we partisan against them/in our land of bigotry & patriarchy/
I only care about Myself & Sex & Power/Everything in sight I must devour/Feed me with yourself, your Sex, your Power/I only care about Myself
/Selfless love cannot exist within our credo/Worship our libido/My sisters/don’t slip/I’ll keep you tight within my grip/The sky will bleed for Philia/From Eros’ hands your blood will drip/Let true hatred taste the National Razor/insurrect you must/But be certain & just/Kiss me tender in the gallows/Lay my strife upon the knife/Only then you will be free
PERCUSSION, VOCALS: T.James
PREACHIN TO THE CHOIR (T.James, avery r. young, Ecclesiastes aka Syntax)
[TJ]: Can you hear this one coming through?/Put ya fists up/you know what to do/Tristan James ’pon the track with/avery in the place to be & Ecclesiastes/It’s the crew that’s comin with the truth/Intellection comin bulletproof/Some folks fear it/They don’t wanna get near it/Facts comin through, shit/They don’t wanna hear it/
Preachin to the choir, but the choir’s not singin/Let me hear your voices call out to me/When I hear your songs we’ll start to be free
[Syntax]: Syntax on the track & I told y’all cats/Bout time we all got goddamn mad/Take it to the streets y’all fuck the police/No we don’t need another election/to select the next oppressor/What we need is a muthafuckin insurrection/Damn right I said it/you fed up/then get up/and make some moves/the detonation’s awaitin/So trigger the fuse add a spark to the fuel/Truth always starts in the hands of a few/and I’m here to bring the good news/that it’s right to rebel so fight like hell/I know you heard it all before but we can’t afford/to keep ignoring keep on snoring/What’s it gonna take to wake up?
[avery]: I hope there comes a day when they all can’t turn away/I hope these words we say will plant some seeds of change/I hope you hear our voices & raise it along with we/Join us in the marches & love the world back to harmony
[TJ]: Respect to the ones bringin friction to the system/Listen/can you hear those brave ones calling?/Singing as the racist
structure’s falling/ Voices, bring about the sound of
reason/also known to the masters as treason/But our chants ain’t loud enough/and the masses ain’t wakin up/It’s time we all start to rise up singin [all:] We won’t stand for none of this shit/And the balance is shifting just wait ’til this tips/And your time is come/The days of hardship are done/And we’re calling on the masses in shadows of doubt/We can shake the system if we start to shout out!
VOCALS: T.James, avery r. young,
Ecclesiastes (aka Syntax), Ines Kembel
I’LL TAKE YOU THERE (A. Isbell) Irving Music, Inc.
I know a place/Ain’t nobody cryin’/Ain’t nobody worried/Ain’t no smilin’ faces/Lyin’ to the races/
I’ll take you there
VOCALS: T.James
TRUMPET: Dan Godston
ACCEPTANCE (T.James)
Oh no, there you go again/
trying to pretend/that what is happening isn’t real/You’re praying that with time/this society can heal/But there are two worlds in a contradiction/you’ve got to choose between reality & fiction/And those choices shouldn’t be surprising/fight for liberation or the Third Reich rising/
The more you accept them/the more you become them/and if you become them/then you better run then/cuz I only have one enemy/and it’s the muthafuckin bourgeoisie
Oh no, they got in your brains/now you’rewearing chains/You believed in all the lies/and more & more each day/you’re going blind/Now you cannot say a word/and if you could/you won’t be heard/cuz TV, radio, & telephone/only seem to work in monotone/Liar, Liar, Liar…/Why, oh why?/
I don’t know
VOCALS, TROMBONE: T.James
ARE YOU AWARE
intro to “What I am Thinking” (T.James)
Are you aware…
WHAT I AM THINKING (T.James)
Are you aware now/of what I am
thinking?/Are you prepared now/ for what I am thinking?/We need strength/We need power/
We’ve got to rise up/& take back what’s ours/
And we need to now
VOCALS, TROMBONE:T.James
PERCUSSION: Matthew Roan
SOLITUDE (T.James)
Don’t touch me—I’m afraid of you/I don’t know what you’ll do/Can’t trust me/I can’t trust you/I’ll live my life in solitude/I know you might feel the same/Neither one of us is to blame/I feel like we must prove/that we must live a life in solitude
They’ve got us penned up in here/it’s ever so clear that/ they want us living in fear/But we’re not seeing/ this is the plan/ that we’ll never understand/the joys of/a life in a free society/Don’t trust me/I need you/ Believe me & then I’ll fuck with you/Your hate breathes/such a cool breeze/What your life needs is right here with me/Come take it/Yes, you want it/I’ll withhold truth just to be with you/I just want to be
without you/but I just can’t live
without you/Let this be the battle hymn for those who are deceived/living life in solitude frombigotry & greed/Keep us drugged up/while they sit pretending like they’re sane/ spreading paranoia like a needle in the vein/I’m captive as/ contradiction runs/velvet lies flow from their tongues/ I’ll patronize/ You’ll
condescend/ Subsist in a world of pretend/We have the power/You’ve got the means/Their strength is less than it seems
VOCALS, DIDGERIDOO: T.James
VOCALS: Jennifer Beck
LEAVES FALL (T.James)
Trying to hold on like outstretched branches do to leaves & samara of sycamore maples at the first breath of fall. As hard as the struggle may be, no deciduous plant will deny that the change is inevitable. Like the falling of leaves, empires too feel the pull of gravity as seasons change. Fall can come at any moment. Weather changes suddenly. Sparks can cause fires. From green to yellow to red, foliage changes, preparing woody perennials for change, alerting earth’s creatures that a new season is come. Unlike the old wisdom of nature’s largest vegetation, emperors cannot predict the weather. They only know to hold on. They deny that empires crumble & leaves fall.
VOCALS: T. James
THE GUNS OF BRIXTON (P. Simonon, 1979) Universal – Polygram Intl.
When they kick at your front door/how you gonna come?/With your hands on your head/or on the trigger of your gun?/When the law break in/How you gonna go?/Shot down on the pavement/or waiting on death row?/You can crush us/You can bruise us/But you’ll have to answer to/Oh, the guns of Brixton/The money feels good/and your life you like it well/But surely your time will come/as in heaven, as in hell//You see, he feels like Ivan/Born under the Brixton sun/His game is called survivin/At the end of the harder they come/You know it means no mercy/They caught him with a gun/No need for the Black Maria/Say goodbye to the Brixton sun/You can crush us/You can bruise us/You can even shoot us/but oh, the guns of Brixton
VOCALS: T.James
COWBOY (T.James)
It’s time to wake up from this American daze/and wise up to their American ways/Wipe your eyes off from this American haze/and realize you ain’t nuthin but American Slaves/First they used us in the search for the gold/found our labor priceless/so as slaves we were sold/Now they use us in the search for the oil/in exchange for bread & books/spill Iraqi blood on the soil/
Cowboy you better ride tonight we know the time is right we’re comin for a fight, we’re ready for you/Cowboy you better run away/victory’s ours today/this time we’re here to stay/we’re ready for you
They whisper lies of freedom/under cover of terrorism & WMDs/but they invented terror/conquering the West with their disease/and now they’re gettin paranoid,/with anthrax in the mailbox/but they were the first/bringing blankets with smallpox/So you wanna play cowboys do you?/Well this time we’ve got guns too/Cowboy everything that you do/it’ll backfire on you/The blood-soaked soil of these Western lands/contains the
blood-soaked seeds sown by the hands/of millions of slaves with a whip to their back/some Red & some White & some Black/And the seeds of terror, anguish & pain/weren’t sown by the Tubmans & Walkers in vain/cuz they weren’t growing fruit, just to be strange/They were cultivating a plan to make the system rearrange GUITAR, PIANO, HARMONICA: T.James
DRUMS: Matthew Roan
WHEN THE WHOLE WORLD HATES YOU (T.James)
I wake each morning/flip on the tube/listen to the drama that comes on the news/Children blown away/genocide every day/AIDS & neglect/this whole world is a wreck/But today/I’m still doing nothing/I hear the screams still echoing/from drowning flood victims/Neglect in Katrina/I still ain’t gonna listen/Wait for Israeli distractions/before I take action/I’ll wave my poster/“Don’t bomb Lebanon!”/And tomorrow/I’ll wake
up & still do nothing
Whatcha gonna do when the whole world hates you?/ Won’t you be ashamed if they hold you to blame?/Will you close your eyes again?/Will you turn your back on them?
My paychecks are funding/a war that’s illegal/but I’ll tell myself/that these lies must be real//I’ll wait for that vote/to pull the chains off the throats/of Guantanamo residents/We hate you Mister President/but our anger’s still not evident/cuz tomorrow we’ll wake up/still doing nothing/Here come those Democrats/ Let’s invest all we have in them/pick the lesser evil/ and we’ll get screwed again/ We can start a club selling t-shirts in bright colors/ but what’s that gonna do/ when we fight with each other?/ And tomorrow the
world will still wait/And tomorrow the world will still wait/I can see those Minutemen/building walls
around the borders/killing off undocumented/with fascistic orders/I just want to stop them/Someone ought to drop them/but not me/cuz I’m stuck here/still doing nothing
VOCALS,
PERCUSSION, ORGAN: T.James
UNITED (T.James)
Walk tall you’re stronger than you know/this time we’ll be united/The more we fight the more we grow/The fire has been ignited/Until we walk that lonely road/we won’t know what real life is/but when the truth has been bestowed, we’ll learn what wrong & right is
Call me a mess, say that I’m depressed tell me what I should be when this sickness you have given me//If only you knew the destruction that you cause, a system of oppression, enforced with perfect laws—perfectly flawed—to hold us down//They eat the flesh of my back like a platter/It’s ok/Cuz they’re only getting fatter, stuffing their face with the things we hold dear, but have no fear- we’ll take it all back soon/We’re slaves to capital but we still stand tall/the pressure of the few can’t do/this much longer for the harder they push/we’re only getting stronger just hold tight/at the end of every tunnel is a light/As more start to see/what they do to you & me/those in power start to freak/saying, “Stop, this can’t be/Let’s take it overseas/where no one else can see/We’ll claim to set them free/& then survive off their poverty”/This must be/stopped/And now the ball drops/Democracy/is closely related to hypocrisy/Investing billions in a lie/while their own people die/crushing those who strive/only for a better life/This is bullshit!/Don’t let ’em get away with it VOCALS: T.James
WE DEMAND CHANGE (T.James)
In the belly of the beast is where I feast/Braising the walls/with a fire from the east/Slice like khukuri/until the pressure’s released/The more we fight, the more our powers increase
We demand a change/We demand change
It’s time for retribution, we need a solution/Suffocate revisionist delusions/Fuck the constitution,/We need a goddamn revolution/The time for change is now/and in our struggle/we’ll find out how/eradicate oppressive roots of Chow/bathing in the wisdom of Marx, Lenin, & Mao/So let the red flag fly up in the sky,/I see the beautiful future reflecting in your eyes/Fighting for our vision revealing all their lies/Bring forth the final struggle/I’m hearing battle cries/Why don’t you listen up while I sing this song/We’ve got to take power while we’re feeling strong/I said that, I know, we’ve waited too long,/But if we fight now, we just can’t go wrong/The treads of the vanguard can take us thru the mire/Fighting for the future through smoke & barbed wire/Even a small spark can start a prairie fire,/but we’ve got to break the system, to take what we desire VOCALS: T.James
FLUTE: Jennifer Beck
FALLING LIKE THE RAIN (T.James)
Sometimes this world seems like it won’t last/but my senses tell a different forecast/We’ve all been enduring for a reason/just waiting for another rainy season/Like clouds forming, filled with vapor/our tolerance begins to taper/with lies condensing in our ears/The sky will tear unleashing tears
Falling like the rain/Wash away the tears & the pain/It’s never gonna be this way again
This one is for my hood cats/rappin about them diamonds like they know/wannabe gangstas with nothing left to show/Why don’t you stop hoping & dreaming about em?/Pick up a book & start to read about em/West Africa, Brothers & Sisters still enslaved/in the diamond mines digging for jewels every day/But that’s ok, right?/Just so long you look right/Take that stupid grill out your mouth/before I get the urge to rip it out/This one’s for them sunshine revolutionaries/selling books & propaganda/just like Uncle Sam does/but I ain’t never seen you out in the streets/battling the cops that oppress us/the systems that repress us/I’ve seen a whole lot of talkin & no walkin/It’s far time we all got our heads straight/before time’s up, it’s too late/ before the world dies & dries up/it’s time to make a move here while the tide’s up GUITAR, VOCALS, RAIN: T.James
LET IT BURN (T.James)
As it’s falling apart/I won’t even start/to stress out or worry/there’s no need to hurry/Let’s not slow it down this time/Wall Street is collapsing/but I’m still relaxing/The corporate crises/are doing quite nicely/Please don’t slow it down this time/Let’s just bring it down this time/
I just wanna let it burn/I just wanna watch it burn
Why do we claim to be free/when we still fail to see/that the dollar’s our master/It’s the drug that we’re after/Let’s just bring it down this time/Let’s not slow it down this time/And I’m so tired of living this way/And I’m so tired of waiting for change/When will we walk out with matches & gasoline?/When can we bring forth a new society?/They fight at the top while/they’re trying to stop this/Those corporate crooks they won’t even look/While I take out my matchbook
VOCALS: T.James PIANO: Matthew Muñiz
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