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Carpenter Bird: Revisited (10th Anniversary Edition)

by David Wax Museum

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1.
What could you want with my jalopy heart? What could you want with my jalopy heart? It’s rusty and battered and falling apart You’re probably wastin’ your time tryin’ to get it to start My jalopy heart Though I still may know how to love I still may know how to love I still may know What could you want with my rattlesnake skin? What could you want with my rattlesnake skin? I’ve shed it before and I’ll shed it again Leave it useless, grey as an old man’s chin My rattlesnake skin Though I still may know how to feel I still may know how to feel I still may know What could you want with my antique music box voice? What could you want with my antique music box voice? It’ll play you a song, a faintly audible noise— Now a dirge but once a song of rejoice My antique music box voice Though I still may know how to sing I still may know how to sing I still may know Through I still may know how to love I still may know how to love I still may know
2.
Chorus Colas, Colas Colas, y Nicolas Headed to Chile But you never got across No you couldn’t get out of Mexico Once you got in Now you’re going to have a baby And she’ll be a Mexican The people back home Remained confused Never been to a fandango In southern Veracruz Chorus Dear Margarita Cousin of Dona Juana Wants you to eat Her tamales of iguana Chorus They say two stars Fell from the sky When the baby comes You’ll find them in her eyes Chorus Aqui ya me despido Porque no puedo mas Aqui acabo cantando Los versos de Colas Chorus
3.
Go ahead and pound me with your tiny fists, Beatrice Pull at my seams, watch me come unstitched, Beatrice I heard you coming before I saw you—your jangling wrist, Beatrice Should’ve gone the other way towards a rattlesnake’s hiss, Beatrice If only you hadn’t bloomed like a jacaranda tree If only things were up to me If only I were a current in the river as it flows Where I watched you dip your toes Si ra na na na na na Of the hundreds of flowers, I can’t tell which is which, Beatrice But they’ll make you a dress with a vine for a cinch, Beatrice Tell me is it merely a will o’ the wisp, Beatrice… To think I could make you less weeping willowish, Beatrice? If only you hadn’t bloomed like a jacaranda tree If only things were up to me If only I were a fish in the river as it bends Where I watched you slowly wade in Si ra na na na na na Have you ever seen a badger and armadillo kiss? Have you ever watched a sidewinder flail and twitch? Beatrice Once when the moon hung low like this, Beatrice Two tamarind trees bent to touch through the mist, Beatrice If each love story has an archivist, Beatrice What will he write of my cowardice, Beatrice? If only you hadn’t bloomed like a jacaranda tree If only things were up to me If only I were the sand of the wide Balsas River Where I watched you dry off and shiver… Si ra na na na na na
4.
Oh, Jenny, just because I love you Your momma’s heart is going to falter Well, I sure hope it recovers By the time we reach the altar Chorus Oh, Jenny, Jenny, Junebug Under the persimmon tree Your momma’s right You are too good for me Oh, Jenny, just because I love you Your momma’s threatening Alabama Tell her we need her around Because soon she’ll be a grandma Chorus Oh, Jenny just because I love you Your momma’s cursing her rotten luck Remind her to be grateful You’re not dating that other schmuck Chorus Oh, Jenny, just because I love you Your momma’s come all undone I own no suit, I have no job But soon I’ll be her son Chorus
5.
The grass with its fever The temper of the rain The soft muffled dream Our love became A fist of bees Buzzing underwater A tethered steer Marked for the slaughter Love’s a beekeeper It’s a beekeeper Drawing honey from our hearts I play the unsound sleeper To her fire and brimstone preacher Love assigns us such strange parts My heart failed me As if powered by broken bellows From an old pump organ Its keys aged yellow Just when I needed It the most For reasons as inexplicable As the Holy Ghost Love’s a beekeeper It’s a beekeeper Drawing honey from our hearts I play the auctioneer going cheaper To her anchor plunging deeper Love assigns us such strange parts Love smoked us out Confusion set in The bees sputtered As if drunk on bathtub gin Wings a ghostly white Little stained glass pictures In a church, in a snow storm Turned our hearts bitter Love’s a beekeeper It’s a beekeeper Drawing honey from our hearts I play the waterlogged weeper To her jukebox dreamer Love assigns us such strange parts
6.
Before this song truly begins For your permission I ask If you’ve ears you will lend I hope I’m up on the task If you’ve a heart to mend You’ve found a place to rest at last In the forest wandering Nothing but my thoughts stirred I found my heart was pounding In time with what I heard On my chest it was knocking Oh, the carpenter bird Men built rickety wagon wheels For to cross the countryside And then came bridges of steel For to cross the rivers wide But nothing compares to the feel Of the bed he crafts for his bride I was looking for a reason To explain why things occur Why some commit treason Others follow the herd Why some disregard the seasons Others the carpenter bird Handle the carpenter’s tools Make sure you don’t cut your hand But if you go to the carpenter’s school And spend time with the land You won’t get fooled by the fool Nor by any other man With this verse we stop Singing the carpenter’s song Just as his rhythm from the treetops Pauses as the sun withdraws For I believe I just felt a drop And the road home tonight is long
7.
At a cabin in the woods Deep in the Ozarks Eating wild turkey As the sky turns dark Moon a jagged hole In the gravelly sky Finally at ease Nothing to justify Oh I have wasted my life Gray bats circle On a predetermined course My heart beating Like a fenced-in horse To live out here Where I was born Still clings to my skin A blackberry thorn Oh I have wasted my life My people taught me To try and do right In a world as mean As a Branson cockfight So I got a degree The finest school out East Now I hardly go back Last chorus but not least Oh I have wasted my life
8.
Nursing a Negro Modelo I look across the plaza to the church Battered by rain and neglect Its eight bells like stout pigeons perched It’s late evening but muggy And from the balcony I can almost touch The fat electric wires Through which I hear the current rush The beer is warm and sour But it cost me less than a dollar Kate comes out to see me I remember when I first saw her I pictured us in Tampico In a hammock on the beach But I quickly realized She’s as self-centered as me I’m sufficiently reticent To drive her back into the bar The police below are busy Harassing each passing car Then a man on a bike Turns the corner below, falls flat Not even sticking a foot out And the police get a good laugh The man stumbles up Throw his leg over the bike Then he stares up at me And he’s drunk, all right But his look is steady, serious, and has a dark pull That makes me feel complicit in something terrible Though I’m not sure what or why And in this huge, awful moment his eyes Two fat spiders crawl inside me and leave their eggs I return to the bar For another beer Ask Kate to dance And hold her near
9.
I spent 16 dollars on beer I never drank I spent 3 hours in line at the bank I spent 2 years on a heart but it just sank I spent several summers waiting for apples from a barren tree I spent too much of my childhood in front of a TV I spent 2 years on a heart that in love could not believe Chorus Be like a ghost—find a new heart to haunt I can’t believe there’s anything still here that you’d want Be like a ghost I spent 300 dollars on a banjo I never pick I spent the afternoon out in the rain—enough to make me sick I spent two years on a heart with walls forest thick I spent every hour while I was with you Spending all of my heart but it just left me blue I spent two years on a heart; I guess I had nothing better to do Chorus Be like a parachute—open your heart up Not for me – it’s too late – but maybe there’s someone else to interrupt Be like a parachute
10.
Wish I had a donkey in my soul Carry all my burdens home All those things for which I can’t atone I can sell but I can’t disown Wish I had a donkey in my soul Wish I had a cellar in my chest Store the fruit when times are pressed When winter covers the ground with its vest Give me somewhere warm where I can rest Wish I had a cellar in my chest Wish I had a mousetrap in my mouth Snag my tongue like a nail snags a blouse Stop me before things head south Before all I hold dear I renounce Wish I had a mousetrap in my mouth Wish I had an anthem in my lungs Instead of this ladder with no rungs ‘Cause as I get old, my heart grows young Forgets all the songs it has sung Wish I had an anthem in my lungs Wish I had a sinkhole in my veins Which map my arms like highway lanes And so that after each time it rains I can wash away all my aches and pains Wish I had a sinkhole in my veins Wish I had a plough in my back Drag it behind me to cover my tracks As I am swallowed by the night’s mouth of black I can’t make up for all the things I lack Wish I had a plough in my back
11.
Chorus How I love, how I love when you are still Like a bird, like a bird on my windowsill Like a bee, like a bee in a daffodil How I love, how I love when you are still Still as a bee Yes, then I can see Why I fell for you way back when You are so beautiful I’ve tried to be dutiful To the lovers that we might have been Chorus ‘Cause when you’re still Then I can fill You up like a pitcher with no brim Still water shows Us what we know-- Our dreams however inarticulate and dim Chorus ‘Cause when we talk Amidst corn stalks You sway as they do with the breeze The world I’ve built It walks on stilts Oh watch how it falls down with such ease Chorus
12.
I am surely a sinner Though I’m not sure all I’ve done But man is the basest of all And He sees into our hearts What a terrifying thing It’s been so since before man’s Fall Let me rest in the wake of the Lord Let me rest in the wake of the Lord If I am to be saved Can I dig my own grave? Let me rest in the wake of the Lord He tore down our cities Burned them to the ground Blotted out the deeds of man For the covenant was broken So the sun stood still So many things I don’t understand Let me rest in the wake of the Lord Let me rest in the wake of the Lord I am tired and sickly May the End of Days pass quickly Let me rest in the wake of the Lord
13.
Beggar for Your Love I’m a beggar for your love I just want a little piece of The love you flaunt On the streets I haunt A beggar for your love I’m a beggar for touch I need it as my crutch Like an opera needs a curse A funeral needs a hearse A beggar for your touch Chorus Don’t make me shake my rattling cup at you I’m a beggar for those lips Lord, make me the glass from which she sips Lay me down in a creek bed If she won’t even turn her head— A beggar for those lips I’m a beggar at her feast Call in the doctor & the priest But medicine and prayers Won’t work on a heart so threadbare— A beggar at her feast Chorus First verse

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released July 3, 2020

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David Wax Museum Charlottesville, Virginia

Pioneering indie folk musicians David Wax and Suz Slezak are the plucky husband-wife duo behind the eclectic, exuberant “Mexo-Americana” band David Wax Museum based in Charlottesville, VA. First reaching national acclaim with a show-stopping debut at the Newport Folk Festival, the band has built a reputation around energetic, heartfelt live shows and sonically adventurous albums. ... more

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