Tim Becker - The Plaid Album (2017)

The Plaid Album

Artist: Tim Becker

Release Date: December 20th, 2017

After nearly a decade-long hiatus from music-making, The Plaid Album came together in Fall 2017, written and recorded in just three weeks amid a flurry of forty or so new songs. Departing from my formerly slow, perfectionist approach to lyrics and songwriting, I relied instead on stream of consciousness for the lyrics and even ad-libbing lyrics completely during the recording process (especially on “Blacktop,” “Border Crossings,” and “Clockbomb”).

As its name suggests, The Plaid Album is a crisscrossing collection of different-yet-complementary genres and styles woven together in the autumn woods. Recorded using a single SM-57 microphone in an untreated room, the initial release tells a story of creativity amid constraints. It’s a lo-fi, DIY effort, but marks an important moment of creative ‘unblocking’ that would lead to more refined and mature efforts in the coming years.

Baltimore

if you go up to Baltimore

keep your chin up

face forward

we’ve been through so much worse

if you go up to Baltimore

keep your chin up

face forward

you’re never on your own

your own

we’ve been through so much worse

I'll be waiting out the weather

I’ll be proud of you and patient

hoping for a future

when we’re back under the same roof

our next move will bring you back to me

our next keys will unlock the same thing

if you go up to Baltimore

I’ll be ready

if you go up to Baltimore

I’ll be waiting

Blacktop

blacktop show me the way

I’ve been living in a cupboard

in the middle of the city

and I couldn’t get my bearings at all

but I knew how to leave

how to leave

when my car breaks down

I’ll just build another one

from imaginary metal in my

temporoparietal drivetrain

that’s how I’ll leave

blacktop show me the way

I been living in a cupboard

in the middle of the city

and I couldn’t get my bearings at all

but I knew how to leave

how to leave

so I dug into the soil

and I pulled up what was growing

and I gathered every scattered bit

that rattled off inside of me

inside of me

I been living in a cupboard

in the middle of the city

and I couldn’t get my footing

but I gave up my misgivings

did away with my undoing

and abandoned my belongings

made a fire and let it take me

but I knew it wasn’t pretty

if there’s one thing in life that I know for sure

don’t buy anything that’s nailed to the floor

you’ll have to let it go

blacktop show me the way

I’ve been holed up in the middle

with the meaning I’ve been given

blacktop

Hesitation

look outside

leaves are falling

winter’s creeping

come so soon

why are you hesitating?

in the woods

sunlight filters

shadows shiver

through the skylight

why don’t you feel at home?

there’s a storm

let it take you

tapping love notes

on the windows

where are you, where are you?

what’s this specter

looming larger

deep within you

traps your spirit

in its talons

carries you off?

there’s a storm

let it take you

tapping love notes

on the windows

GASLIGHTER

I can't get a word in edgewise

I'm like a city that's been occupied

ooh, it's a dance

It's all about you

So I'll get out of the way

I'll get out of the way

Every time I try to set things right

You just keep burning that gaslight

ooh, it's a dance

It's all about you

So I'll get out of the way

I'll get out of the way

It's all about you

First Light at Hopi Point

sunrise is finally breaking

spilling light into the canyon

none of this was here forever

it just eroded over time

goes to show how things can shape you

wind their way in and divide

carve you into something different

or wear you down until you’re nothing

meanwhile we’re getting closer

getting closer to the edge

sunrise is finally breaking

but we won’t be here long

Border Crossings

stay awake, stay awake

stay awake

now watch as the pavement

runs out in the desert

thirty year famine,

mirage in the distance

no bunker to hide in forever

a face in the fire

reflecting the phases

of people I’ve been

til this moment now burning

coyotes are calling me down

to live underground

in a river of infinite darkness

following arrows inside

springing a leak I capsize

and sink to the bottom of knowing

where spirits are flowing

in tornadic spirals,

collapsed in a pile

deep in the back of my mind

fall in a trapdoor and find

a lingering doubt that I’m dreaming

and seemingly wake up to find

nothing I do has meaning

stay awake, stay awake

these border crossings, it happens like a dream

border crossings and I’m somewhere in between

okay

now watch as the sand

shifts into a mosaic

a medicine hunger

a history repeating

no bunker to hide in forever

a stampede of horses

percussive as thunder

they’re barreling closer

they wander inside me

I climb up the arches

where fire ants march

I fall over the side

and get stuck in a yucca

galaxies loom overhead

replacing my wonder with dread

for all of the moments I miss them

asleep in apartments

or pushing a boulder

so it can roll back down

deep in the back of my mind

fall in a trapdoor and find

a lingering doubt that I’m dreaming,

and seemingly wake up to find

nothing I do has meaning

stay awake, stay awake

stay awake, stay away

these border crossings,

it happens like a dream

border crossings

and I’m somewhere in between

stay awake

Bones and Arrows

you say "broad’s the road that leads to sorrow"

that’s why you walk the straight and narrow

and you look, and you long for

simpler times, simpler times

you say "broad’s the road that leads to sorrow"

that’s why you walk the straight and narrow

but this seems a false dilemma

look down at the bones you trample

just look down at the bones

look down at the bones you trample

you say "be in the world but not of it"

then raise ten children as surrogate voters

you say "they’ll know who we are by our love"

as you tear their families from their arms

there’s no such thing

as simpler times, simpler times

you say "love your neighbor" and close the borders

"feed the hungry" and shut off their water

"come as you are" to conversation therapy

send back all the refugees

there’s no such thing

as simpler times, simpler times

you say "broad’s the road that leads to sorrow"

that’s why you walk the straight and narrow

but this seems a false dilemma

just look down at the bones you’ve trampled

"they are precious in his sight"

if they’re christian, straight, and white

quiverfull arrows, quiverfull arrows

PTSD Blues

since you’ve been coming around

I’ve been anxious

since you’ve been coming around

I’ve felt helpless

since you’ve been coming around

I’ve lost focus

any moment of the day

you derail me

but you can’t keep me down

you can’t keep me down

I’m just along for the ride

since I learned to call you by name

I haven’t slept much

everything I thought I was

became mixed up

but since I found you out

I’ve only gotten better

I’ve taken back my life

and look—I’m on fire

but you can’t keep me down

you can’t keep me down

can’t keep me down

‘cept maybe once in a while

once in a while, once in a while,

once in a while, once in a while

since you came into my life

I’ve felt hopeless

since I found you out, sometimes

I wonder if it’s worth it

sometimes I wish you’d pick on

somebody stronger

maybe just for a minute

so I can recover

but you can’t keep me down

you can’t keep me down

can’t keep me down

I'm just along for the ride

you can't keep me down

can't keep me down

‘cept maybe once in a while

once in a while, once in a while,

you can’t keep me down

can’t keep me down

Saguaro City

is there dust in the air

something obscuring this?

a woman was lynched today

a man shot in the street

like vultures we dive

dig down to the bone

picking through for confirmation

it had to be done

Saguaro City

there’s nowhere to lean on

we’ve rooted in for centuries

we don’t care if you bleed

black bodies laid out

on long white tables

plunge our hands in the soil

planting a reason

Saguaro City

there’s nowhere to lean

we make a desert of this place

call it "keeping the peace"

the doves in the jury

are blaming the crows

minds made up before it happened

to go with their own

Saguaro City

there’s nowhere to lean on

we root for the cowboy

we don’t care if you know it

we don’t care if you’re driving

or selling smokes on the street

standing still, empty-handed

or simply trying to breathe

we’ll crack your heads wide open

we’ll let the teargas fly

we’ll roll a tank through your garden

we don’t care if you die

Saguaro City

Clockbomb

deep under the concrete

every city, maybe this one

there’s a ticking, there is motion

there’s a reason we don’t notice

we don’t want to, we don’t know it

there’s a whisper deep inside us

there’s a question with an answer

there’s an octave up above

and down below us if we listen

in the windows, in the buildings

in the cities where we’re hiding

take a look and see yourself

from somewhere outside

see the meaning?

one person

out of dozens, out of hundreds,

out of thousands, out of millions,

out of billions in all history

swinging legs up on the railing

looking down at all the people

as if they know what’s important

what has happened, where they’re going

little coffins driving on the little roads

with other coffins on the concrete,

every city, maybe this one

there’s a ticking, there is motion

there’s a reason we don’t notice

we don’t want to we don’t know it

there’s a whisper deep inside us

there’s a question with an answer

swinging legs up on the railing

looking down and for a moment

letting go

for a moment letting go