Speaking in Amtrak whispers of the warm winds of Portuguese winters
I fell in love with your telephone eyes, gazing into my soul through microwave towers
Yours was the flesh come closest to being, yours was the body I almost felt
You weren’t there when I trekked through the city, through skyscraper wind tunnels, the clouds pregnant with snow
And you weren’t there because you were smarter, you knew how this played out so you split the scene
And I’m still here among the unenlightened, and when I speak they can’t catch the dialect and . . .
This is too real, this is too tactile
This song is the wrong place and time
This is too much, this is too naked
This is the wrong place and time
I’ll always be on your periphery, I’ll always have a supporting role
You’re the protagonist, the one with dimension, a hit with the focus group, the key demographic
Far from the male lead, I’m a bit player, all comic relief and desexualized quirk
I saw you smile once, a convincing performance, you followed the method and lived in the role
It was beyond performance, bullshit you don’t know that, for a few seconds you felt like I did
It transcended fiction, it went beyond metaphor, we were real people, we had skin and . .
This is too real, this is too tactile
This song is the wrong place and time
This is too much, this is too naked
This is the wrong place and time
Bitch, your voice sounds like the tape’s slowed down, this is the song you thought I kept writing
We go way back, before speech and memory, we go way deep, we sink in dreams
Last we met, you coalesced in ether, amorphous in shadow, shaped into being in light
Let’s meet up, we’ll cut through the forest, we’ll endure the midpoint where the dead talk backwards
We’ll arrive at the place where the sun’s always shining and we’ll never have want anymore
This is too real, this is too tactile
This song is the wrong place and time
This is too much, this is too naked
This is the wrong place and time
This aspect of life is an ordeal sysiphan, an uphill struggle marked by regression
I am mute, I watch from the outside with deep understanding I cannot apply
I’ve seen them cry with joy, seen them sick with sorry, seen them spasm in pleasure and writhe in pain
I comprehend their words and relate to their feelings but I cannot initiate, I fail to engage
I want to live in their world, want to feel as they do, feel their highs and have a life worth living
And I beat at the walls and scream my lungs out until my fingers are broken and my hands are bleeding
This is too real, this is too tactile
This song is the wrong place and time
This is too much, this is too naked
This is the wrong place and time
Siberian post-punk group Квалиа pair haunting, discordant atmospheres with urgent vocals for a wonderfully unnerving listen. Bandcamp New & Notable Sep 22, 2020