1. |
Gentleman's Agreement
03:27
|
|||
|
What is yours is mine
Its my right divine
Don’t you love to rest those legs
And watch this serpent-wise man provide
A beer and the game
my Sunday domain
You’ll have to show the guys what I have’s
A kingdom under any name
It’s a gentleman’s agreement
You’ll come to understand
If you want your thoughts informed
Baby, I’m your man
I’ll huff and puff and get what I deserve
If like a soiled rug
A silly sadness comes
I’ll have you take my medal
Pin it to my chest, you won’t doubt my love
With your eyes red and blue
I’ll know what to do
I know when the chatter
Has to give its way to the physical
|
||||
2. |
Girl Light Up
03:39
|
|||
|
I glance across the room
then to the screen he keeps consulting
I could be laughing with
A friend or curled with a novel
I’d used to think a lonely
conversation was a contradiction
I plot a bathroom route
so smooth, the quickest one to shelter
He says that love’s
A “fluid thing,”
“What its all about,”
“A convention,”
“Bigger than to waste
on any one person.”
All clichés wrapped in contradictions
He’s never seen a girl light up like this one
when she’s comfortable and trusting
He’s never seen a girl light up like this one
when she’s free from all transaction
He’s never seen a girl light up like this one
when she’s allowed to be impressive
He’ll never see this girl light up
Not him, not him
“Tell me what you do”
Then, “What do you like to do for pleasure?”
He talks about his own art,
his bars—his two joyous fascinations
I’m dreaming of
some new day when
boys won’t be boys,
men will be men
Not in that stupid
fifties way
Not in this anemic
New way
|
||||
3. |
A Fine Thing
03:11
|
|||
|
Faye believed in words
That combinations could make
Hooks to tear past meaning
Where gesture would reign
She fashioned characters from
Ones she knew
And exposed their closest
Secrets in the name of truth
And Will assumed a preacher
Was his destiny
Half-truths from fiery verses
Were his prophecy
“Hell abounds for your sins,
grace for mine”
were his implications
in Texas junior highs.
It's a fine thing to love the good where you find it,
But will you hate the evil? When its in you?
And how will you choose between the two?
And who will judge the screams mingled through
with both pleasures and with pains?
And Annie down the street
The careful know she’s a sage
Radiating over
The kids’ paper plates
A secret savings and
a second husband’s rage
She will live the story
No one celebrates.
|
||||
4. |
Son Your Soul
03:35
|
|||
|
Son your soul is not just found there in your heart
It attaches to your every part
Nothing you will do won’t speak to who you are
You’ll find a mixture of death and life inside
Son, your soul will fall to some degree
It’s not perfection that you need
It’s love, it’s love, it’s love
Son the souls of everyone you know were knit
Together with a thread that cannot rip
One measure of a man’s in how he cares for it
One’s the ratio of gentleness to strength.
Son, you soul is not the part that bleeds
It’s not safety that you need
It’s love, it’s love, it’s love
Son, your soul will fall to some degree
It’s not perfection that you need
It’s love, it’s love, it’s love
|
||||
5. |
Sister
03:38
|
|||
|
Sister
I saw you out at night
A lonesome terror whirred
between the lights
Sister
I saw a tethered neck
A curdled bark like a bite
on a rotting deck
Sister
I saw a prophecy
A sea parting with seven marts
swallowing
Sister
I saw one blind eye,
one dumb, one drowsy,
one wooing hate inside.
The world, the flesh, the devilish embrace is all around
The living dead, a marriage bed defiled far as its found
Sister
I saw them closing in
A false god or a bad prof
Emboldened them
Sister
I saw a horror show
A blood bath in a brute-black
Camino
The world, the flesh, the devilish embrace is all around
The living dead, a marriage bed defiled far as its found
My sister said to me,
“As a young suburban kid,
no tragedies,
I hoped this judging God a lie
But now I wonder with
Equal fear and hope
If every soul will give
An account for each moment
If the sky will crack
And fall down in a loving way
And we’ll be seen
And see each act and thought laid bare
And every tear gets wiped
And everyone who trusts will live
To see when we
will all have been brothers and sisters”
|
||||
6. |
Like Warmth
03:20
|
|||
|
Hard pressed, you say the fall’s
Your favorite season of all
The death don’t bother you
Followed by new life and morning dew
And all of Spring’s promise
Plus the cool’s its own comfort
Come now lets make a life
A home grown old and wise
We’ll be surprised all over
Again to find we both will die
Despite the testimonies
Of everyone we’ve loved
Come now lets craft a love
A monument to the things above
Then be surprised all over
Again to find we both will rise
Like warmth drawn to the cold,
Or our broken-bodied God
|
||||
Championships Portland, Oregon
Championships is the product of Portland songwriter Cameron Heger. Though he is no singer, though he is no multi-instrumentalist, and though he is barely a songwriter--Championships, against all odds, exists.
Championships recommends:
Era Ephemera
by House of Angels
Sam writes beautiful, psychadelic folk-rock with lush musicality and well-observed lyrics. And there is no better dude around.
go to album
Excellent guitar pop from my hometown in Arkansas. Great record.
go to album
KilLer jAmZ.
go to albumIf you like Championships, you may also like:
Garage punks from Portland lean into their pop-rock side on their new EP.
go to album
New release from the Portland indie rockers zips from power pop to jangly garage and everything in between.
go to album
The latest from Peel Dream Magazine is a conceptual exploration of isolation told via narcotic psych pop inclined towards the whimsical.
go to album
