Sally Ride
“There is Something and not nothing”
Drums by Matt Pluff
Everything else by howie
Recorded at home
Music & lyrics by howie
Except “Miami” and “Can U Feel It?” music & lyrics by howie howard and Joel Hines
Thanks: Friends & family of MFR, Jill, and Tracy
“Science questions the common assumptions which seem to be true to everyone, to the layman as well as to the average scholar. Then the genius comes and asks for the basis of these accepted assumptions; when they are proved not to be true, an earthquake in science occurs out of the depth. Such earthquakes occurred when Copernicus asked if our sense-impressions could be the ground of astronomy, and when Einstein questioned whether there is an absolute point from which the observer could look at the motions of things. An earthquake occurred when Marx questioned the existence of an intellectual and moral history independent of its economic and social basis. It occurred in the most eruptive way when the first philosophers questioned what everybody had taken for granted from times immemorial — being itself.
“When they became conscious of the astonishing fact, underlying all facts, that there is something and not nothing, an unsurpassable depth of thought was reached.”
— Paul Tillich, from “The Shaking of the Foundations” Chapter 7, The Depth of Existence
“Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, 0 Lord.” — Psalm 130:1
01. Out
Out of this town
Out of this deathtrap we call home
Into the world
Onto an open road
Out of:
–our breath
–a sense of where we’re going
–this town
–this nowhere
Ihaveneverknownthereasonscouldn’tmemorizethefeeling
Throwmesofarintothislifeleavemehereandnottellmewhy
What a mess to find us in
Out of ourselves
Bound to a beat I can’t contain
Beating my steps
Turning me into someone else
I couldn’t tell
Out of this love I can’t express
Ihavenever…
Takemedeeperintothislifetakemethere;Idon’tknowwhy
(Out of this town / Out of this love I can’t express / Beating my steps)
02. Heart Stops Beating
Love, you are a passing wave;
Momentary; transient
Made of stars and shattered things
Am I? What if I am?
Heart
Stops beating
Making it feel alright
We’ll see it
Building it up tonight
We’ll beat it alright, we’ll see it
On the town and on the floor
Call me when your heart stops beating
Every club and everyone
Easy, easy, easy, we’re coming undone
When your heart stops beating … we’ll see it
03. Deft
You came in a wave
Pouring through our veins
Pressed to a shape I would not have named grace
And I’m losing control
I’m slipping out of phase
Becoming a change in the world, but still away…
I’m: losing, slipping out, changing, coming down
All this trouble in my heart
All the mystery you’ve caused
All concern and every thought
You’re deft
04. Yr Right
My arms are beaten
Ribs are fallen in
You caught me cheating; magic in my skin
I’ve been convicted
Banished from belief
No spells, no feathers now, only what I see
You’re right
Whaaat??? Am I? Still??
Harrowed by a Love?
You’re right
05. The Biggest Choice You Make (Every Day)
Are you alone?
Isn’t the vacuum freezing?
Can you make a sound?
Pushing away – keeping yourself from feeling
Signal’s fading out
We were at home
We were together, reading, in the broken light
It was killing your hope, finding in Camus’ teaching daily suicide
You don’t love this life, but it
Feels like something
May be worth your time
You’re always running by
Breathing it in
I’ll probably never believe it, but
I won’t walk alone
Asking myself,
Pulling my shoulder, dreaming
I would die to know
This will hurt
In time
You feel the something
May be worth your life
Your heart, your hands, and everything
This could be your sign
Though it feels like
Nothing can be right in your arms
In your eyes
06. Stopstopstopstopstop
Blindness
Seems you want it back
You want it all
Thoughtless rapture;
I can’t stand it!
Simple & certain
Yes, love, I’m on the run
Stopstopstopstopstop saying that,
Stop saying what you don’t mean
Tempted and righteous
Chemical, religious
We’re still fighting to wake up and
Start again
Stop…
When love breathes down your neck, I can feel it,
I can feel
Feel it
Stopstopstopstopstop
07. Miami
Calling out across the floor, I
Turn around
I thought I heard my name
In the crowd I feel alone
I know the way people play this scene
Every touch is meaningless
Every contact, emptiness
I feel every one
Can’t say that you want me back if you’re dancing in someone’s arms; when I’m already gone
I remember other nights when you and I thought we would find our break
We told each other fairy tales
This city’s cold and love doesn’t work that way,
Or any way
Can’t say that you want me back…
Not your fear, and not your anger;
Love, it is your love that hurts the most
Don’t deny that we’re in danger
I am sure that I can stand to know what it is, and
Whatever was to come
(Love your love left me – love your love returns)
…when I’m already gone
08. Turning the Wheel
Don’t say “nothing”
Don’t adore a void / avoid
Love, come burn me pure of
Every word
You are temptingly real, suffer you for the tease
I am turning the wheel, trying not to believe
Undistorted;
I am luminous
In the moment when we both forget
You are temptingly real…
Don’t say, don’t turn
(Pure of every word)
When I knew what you meant, there’s not a thing I could say
If it’s the Empty you feel, who can take it away?
09. Seven
Blindness, bright for sure and we
Take it as a comforting word
So bound,
Sick, and
Sightless, suffering,
Stumbling for some conviction to hang … can I hold on?
I can’t find one – I’ll make one – and I’m fabricating an end, end again, and I end again
This is seeing?
This is what I’m left when I’m on?
This is freeing?
This is courage under a cross?
Yeah, it’s troubling my heart, and I think
You could go on
Go on with me and find serenity
Peeling every image apart,
Every idol and every image apart
This is seeing?
This is breathing?
This is how I feel, beyond?
This is freeing?
10. Can U Feel It?
Can U feel it? Can U see it? Can U tell what it is, can U put words 2 it?
Can U mean it? Be it? Can U go on living like there’s something 2 it?
Say what you want to say about us
It doesn’t change anything, love, can U feel it?
Can U speak it? Hear it? Does it haunt your nights, can U make it quiet?
Can U leave it? Do you need it? Can U hope 4 it when U know you’ll never reach it?
Say what you need to say about us
It doesn’t change a single thing,
Love, can U feel it?
(One is never enough)
Say what you’re going to say …
Can U feel it?