And Longing

by Lions and Lanterns

And Longing cover art
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1.
04:02
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05:10
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03:46
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02:57
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03:23
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04:29
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04:35
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04:07
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03:58
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02:58
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03:56
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about

Lions and Lanterns consists of...

Greg Zimmerman - vocals, guitar, violin
Tom Fairbank - vocals, bass guitar, trombone, harmonica
Megan Mitterer - vocals, keyboard, clarinet, banjo, percussion
Brian Mitterer - vocals, guitar, accordion
Randy Thomas - drums

credits

released 02 August 2011
Production and Recording by the exceptionally talented TJ Martin

Photography by Collin Martin
collinmartin.com

Special thanks to Mary Ellen and John Mitterer for the practice space and all their moral support!

tags

tags: indie rock Chicago

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Track Name: Sun Burns Out
The river froze inside the city
These streets are filled with vacant eyes
We're the dreamers who will keep on moving
When the sun burns out over you and I

Never saw a child with so much anger
I've never seen one look so lost and sad
Until I gazed upon the new dysfunction
And saw your empty face the day ambition died

And they say that the dead have nothing but love for the living
This day is gone tonight

Poets die someday and artists fade to grey
And love is here for now but knows it cannot stay
But we're the dreamers who will keep on moving
When the sun burns out over you and I

We are the lantern in the canyon
We are the flicker on the stones tonight
The walls are coated with our best intentions
We are the only thing we've ever gotten right

This is the start of a bigger breakthrough
This is the secret of atomic spin
You are entangled in an insurrection
We are the hole we have created just to fill back in

We all are capable of boundless bravery
And we've been cowards more than once before
These are the hands with which we'll sculpt salvation
Or we're just looking for the notes to guide us there

We are the sound of a new assumption
(full of so)
We are the downbeat hidden in the noise
(much sorrow)
Ungrateful product of your own reflection
(it brings me down)
We are the id that swims beneathe your skin tonight

And when we've got it we will someday lose it
(so sweetly it stung me)
But leave a tribute in the darkened sky
(to hear what we know)
We are the dreamers who will keep on moving
(ooh)
When the sun burns out over you and I
(I'll try)

When the sun burns out over you and I
When the sun burns out over you and I
When the sun burns out over you and I
When the sun burns out
Track Name: Don't Make Me Wait
Everyone, everyone I know
...has seen me shaking
Like a leaf out in, leaf out in the cold
...the seasons change, and I'm still waiting

Goddamn it just won't stop
The feeling that you're dragging this out just for fun
And I'll hand it to you, girl
With a heart so tempered, didn't know you could be so cruel

'Cause I've been pacing the halls
Bottled up like it's Three-Mile Island
And I've been reading some books I found, and
They say the world is ending, so

I know a place that could be ours all day
(Our bodies warmed by the rays)

Please babe
Don't make me wait
I won't hear you when you tell me, you don't think about it when you're alone
That's not me, I don't believe in living for later or someone else
So please babe
Don't make me wait

Send my love out to Capstone
The coffee house kids, the Rattler, the Bitch and the Gem
And the girl by the poolside
Who's so close to her window she pumps in that '59 Sound

You stand, like an accent on your
White sand, white sand
And I tried to reach you, but it's
All wrong and poor-planned, but

I know a place that could be ours all day
(Our bodies warmed by the rays)

Please babe
Don't make me wait
I won't hear you when you tell me, you don't think about it when you're alone
That's not me, I don't believe in living for later or someone else
So please babe
Don't make me wait
Don't make me wait

Let's get face tattoos and drink
To one thousand years of regret
Turn the mirror to the ink
Darling please stop your laughter, let's compare our disasters

What did you get?
Salt shaker, salt shaker
So your skin it will taste so good

I got the same damn thing I've gotten every time
The name of the tattoo artist
It's polite to offer you know, but

Please babe
Don't make me wait
I won't hear you when you tell me, you don't think about it when you're alone
That's not me, I don't believe in living for later or someone else
So please babe
Don't make me wait
Don't make me wait
Don't make me

Everyone, everyone I know
...has seen me shaking
Track Name: La La La Lost at Sea
I felt it at the hillside
Where the glaciers carved out long ago
And the thundering crawl of that ancient wall
Like my own mounting sureness and grim resolve
'Cause I knew I would leave her, I knew so hard
But all she heard was the droning sound of the distant passing cars

So come to me like a lion
Or don't come to, don't come here at all
Took one glance backwards, now I'm not so sure

At times she was blinding
At times she was America's girl
And her sidewalks were paved in the stutter-fade
Of the time-shifting streetlights, the life they gave
To the tension and closeness, the distance, aloneness
My confidant, this stranger

So come to me like a lion
Or don't come to, don't come here at all
Took one glance backwards, now I'm not so sure

And oh no
The ironies exposed
Ohh no dear, it seems that
Time is frozen when you're near me

Her skin is Atlantic
Like the glimmer bounced up from below
By the moonlight that lays in the summer's waves
The maritime riffs that the sailors played
Or the tributes they strummed for their landlocked days
When they dreamed about going to sea

So come to me like a lion
Or don't come to, don't come here at all
Took one glance backwards, now I'm not so sure

So come to me, I'll be waiting
And we'll spend our last days in the sun
Took one glance backwards, the damage is done
Track Name: Spumento
In a cabin by the brook
Near the tiny village of Spumento
Lived an old retired cook
A pirate by his trade

And he looked to the sea
To his old ship 'Majesty'
And he lived by the shore
To feel more at home - he lived alone

A caller came to his door
To that tiny cabin near Spumento
His 'Majesty' needed him once more
So he left without delay

And the thoughts ran through his head
"Will I come back alive or dead?"
So he stepped onto the road
And left his land-locked home - goodbye Spumento!

And if you see him sailing
You'll notice from a mile
You'll see what he's been wanting
The chance to really smile

The cabin is quite now
Near that tiny village of Spumento
The townspeople wonder how
That came to be

And they go about their lives
Hats on Sunday, suit and ties
Did the pirate find his dream?
They just don't care - well, that's Spumento
Track Name: Future Zoos
In the future we'll all live in zoos and our families will come to greet us
Saying what you doing here in the zoo, what's your life like now

Are you able to walk down the street, are you able to hear?
Do you still remember my name, is it in your will?

Once we were all ten years old, free and running wild
But soon we'll be the winkled people who do too many drugs

I'll be a freak in a big glass box, locked up with all my friends
So watch me age right here right now, before they take me away

My grandma fell down the other day, now she has a black eye
Lying there she called for help, but no one was around

Already I am 26, and still that's not enough
And every year comes sooner than you think and the zoo waits for you

So chain me to some oxygen, and force me to choose life
Cut me open and do what it takes, but don't ever let me die

In the future, In the future, In the future, In the future....

In those future zoos
Track Name: Meriwether Man
A Merriweather Man
Youth he's left by the stairs
Ascending quickly, he leaps into
The cold inside
Of her eyes, wide
Misjudging them fatally

An office party joke
A token of innocence
The casual brush that drives deep into
Into his mind
And why?
Why does she get the best of him?

Casually he cracks a smile
A well-trained master of deception
A life past by
A love looked over
A heart grown colder - he tells himself
It's alright

Our Merriweather Man
Life fading faster now
Seeking a strength that he needs to find
To find inside
Of his life
This life has defeated him
Track Name: Carolina Breakdown
In a field off an old abandoned highway
His jail clothes heavy in the rain
He ran with a love-lost desperate fervor
The warden drunk and calling out his name

All anybody wants is to be free
But that is a right you cannot steal

Carolina breakdown
Carolina breakdown
Carolina breakdown
Is this the way it had to be?

For years in the Bamberg County jailhouse
Pent up and trying to kill the time
He dreamt 'bout the ranch house and the countryside
And he swore he would get back to his first wife

All anybody wants is to be free
But that is a right you cannot steal

Carolina breakdown
Carolina breakdown
Carolina breakdown
Is this the way it had to be?

And he arrived in the early dawn
And he heard voices and grabbed his gun
Her new man walking to his truck to find the convict's bloodshot eyes
And she screamed as the bullet went inside

The warden said he died of his disease
But the system isn't well, and some men are never free

Carolina breakdown
Carolina breakdown
Carolina breakdown
Is this the way it had to be?
Track Name: Leaving Today
And I want you
To know everything
These days grow long
Our time feels so short

A new coat of paint (it's a brand-new year)
With a smiling face (that looks so stern)
But the door is closed (you're on your own)
And you never felt so alone

It seems I never
Finished first at all
but when I did it
Would you acknowledge me?

A new coat of paint (it's a brand-new year)
With a smiling face (that looks so stern)
But your heart is cold (you're on your own)
And you never felt so alone

Leaving today
Nothing's gonna stop me, gonna get in my way
I won't stop to write
Nothing's gonna make me turn back tonight
I'm free

You've played the part
Of the villain here
It's not the role
You auditioned for

Runnin' down the halls (you're already late)
Six months to go (you're counting down)
Fourteen hour days (sometimes get old)
And you know it's time to fold
Track Name: Tiananmen Square
And my heartbeat it speeds up, racing me it bleeds now
Flowing through the streets of Beijing to Tiananmen Square
And your head resting on my skin and chest means
That this protest here wrestling my regression
Has ruined my attempts to tell you that nothing's wrong and I still want you
But the pace you hear
It's too late I fear

There was a girl, a mess of golden curls
A world of pretty eyes and bad dreams and secret thoughts unfurled
And with these fires and our tires burned out from too many miles
It was ended, corporal dependent
And all we are is what we do
And I must admit, I stumbled all through
The summer came and left me

And I am alone
And I am alone
And I live this life all by myself
No one to touch me now
No one to hear my voice
There's only my breathing
And a fade-to-gray feeling

Well can you feel the sea change set in motion?
The respite for the teenage hopeless?
Where all the calls from our future lovers swirl inside our heads
Well we could drive the car out to the movies
Play the new Death Cab for Cutie
With windows down we'll chalk it up to nothing bold and only luck

And my heartbeat it speeds up, racing me it bleeds now
Flowing through the streets of Beijing to Tiananmen Square
And your head resting on my skin and chest means
That this protest here wrestling my regression
Has ruined my attempts to tell you that nothing's wrong and I still want you
But the pace you hear as your eyes begin to tear
It's too late I fear
It's too late I fear
Too late I fear

The summer came, the summer came
The summer came, the summer came
The summer came and left me wonderin'
Track Name: The Scandalist
They start talking 'bout us when we're not around
You hear the whispers every time you walk away, and your eyes fall to the ground
Well shut them out, 'cause we know they don't approve
And to be honest I already was looking for, was looking for an excuse

Your best friend's calling, you don't pick up the phone
Your mother's knocking, she knows you're not alone
Her propaganda will seep in through the floor
Just fall inside me, I could never leave you, could leave you wanting more

Shut your ears to the banging on the door
Shut your mind 'til there's nothing left, but

Ohh, the colors that we'll miss, caught up with The Scandalist
She weaves a web of wash-out, and holes where our friendships have been
When all the trouble hides behind your gently parted lips
The muscles twitch, our nerves are pinched
We tense up
We tense up

We lock behind us, a click unto the world
I walk behind you down the hallway, steady now and focused on the girl
Your dress slides up as you bend to remove your heels
Our stolen moments have added up... now they number in the years

You're tight and charming, always on my mind
Illicit smile thrown back at me, will place me at the scene of the crime
Your heart is naked, pressed up on my skin
You start touching... your hands under my ribs

The cement that we poured went and dried too fast
Pull it back 'til there's nothing left, but

Ohh, the colors that we'll miss, caught up with The Scandalist
She weaves a web of wash-out, and holes where our friendships have been
When all the trouble hides behind your gently parted lips
The muscles twitch, our nerves are pinched
We tense up
We tense up
Track Name: Ecstasy
I know that its true, what people say
That you just came here to run away
because of those red lines, on your eyes
Remind me of what it is that I hide

I see you there, how you move
and feel the beat, which let's us groove
I have seen, what few have known
So don't leave me here alone, alone, alone, alone, alone

And it feels like Ecstasy
So perfect with you tonight
You take me away from that a, You saw me scream cause of
I think I'm cured of the, oh this feels so right

This club is full of average guys
But you've seen love, and watched it die.
And at his grave you cried and prayed
For a girl to let you live to day

I feel your sweat on my skin
It numbs the pain, this heroin
I'm not myself, you seem to know
But please don't say, don't say its so, so, so, so, so

And it feels like Ecstasy
So perfect with you tonight
You take me away from that a, You saw me scream cause of
I think I'm cured of the, oh this feels so right

I'm not going to leave you now
I'm not like him, I'll take this vow
So come on forget just why we came
Because our reasons are always the same

Press your body next to mine
Rub your body, against mine
Outside this club, the world's in pain
So stay by me, and my champagne, pagne, pagne, pagne, pagne

And it feels like Ecstasy
So perfect with you tonight
You take me away from that a, You saw me scream cause of
I think I'm cured of the, oh this feels so right
Track Name: Reconstructing You
And you - you've got your problems
I've got solutions
But you don't use them anymore

And you - you've got your weakness
But I don't see this
As such a problem anymore

'Cause you - you've gotta fight it
Stand up, be righted
and drop the chains that drag you down

And you - you've got your reasons
For leading treason
Against all help I could give

And you - you've got to reason
To know that I am
I'm meant to help you now

And you - you've gotta fight it
Stand up, be righted
And take the hand that waits for you

And you - you've got my heart now
Don't break apart now
We've come so far

And you - you are my heart now
Resting on lips vow
Seat of our love

And we - we always fight it
Can't override it
This love's stronger than both of us