Flood City Shootout - lyrics & streams

Originally released on Lucky 13 records in 2000, Flood City Shootout’s self-titled album is extremely hard to find, but can be ordered it at AthensMusic.net. Read Steve LaBate's essay on the band and album here.

Flood City Shootout - Flood City Shootout

All songs by Joe Guerzo & Ed Connolly. Lyrics by Joe Guerzo

1. You Don’t Want Me
2. Olde Westchester [listen]
3. Dishwater Blues
4. Another Song for Allison [listen]
5. Juniper
6. Sylvia  [listen]
7. Dagupan
8. Elkins
9. Undermined
10. Bootstrap Poetry [listen]

1. You Don’t Want Me
Well I’m not gonna bleed
I’ll get my things and leave
You don’t want me anyway
I’m not gonna beg
I’ve always been well fed
You don’t want me anyway

It’s an ordinary day
I don’t ordinarily feel so down about you
I’m just down about your ways

I’m not gonna try
Get all good and high
You don’t want me anyway

It’s an ordinary day
I feel that ordinary pain, but there’s no doubt about it
I’ve been fucked beyond belief

I’m not gonna stay
Why don’t you just say
That you don’t want me anyway

2. Olde Westchester
I don’t wish for much these days
All I ever wanted I found in you
And when you showed me the way
I’ll be dropping them at the end with you

Now I can feel it riding over me
We’ll come down… come down tonight
I don’t know what’s come over me
I never thought I’d be this far misled
Blame the mescaline

I was never right in writing you
I should’ve just gone and let you go
And when you speak words they’re meaningless
But so is everything that we used to know

Now I can feel you riding over me
Why don’t you come down tonight?
I don’t know what’s come over me
I never thought I’d feel knee-deep in shit
I shoulda read the script

The days of old are tired, like they’ve always been
But if you come down tonight it’ll be alright

And when the days are all impossible
And every day you feel like you’re plagued
I know you’re feeling miserable
Every second of every single day

3. Dishwater Blues
Greasy water, humid air
Sweaty arms are all drowning there in this heat,
This inferno kitchen
Banging pots play a jamboree
Dirty plates seem to talk to me
They say you’re lazy

Still I don’t have a reason
And I don’t have a clue
Just why I miss you

Pretty waitress don’t notice me
Water’s filthy and so are we, so says she
I’m so high on my feet
Thirteen hours at the sink
No one bothers to ask what I think
How I think about their murder

Still I don’t have a reason
And I’m long overdue
Why I miss you

Now my heart beats a rapid pace
Sweep the floor and the thought of your face
Your sweet face invades my space

Give me something, a thing to lose
Take this water, dishwater blues
Far from here to water that’s clear

4. Another Song For Alison
If you feel like your heart’s been all broken
Maybe it’s ’cause these words these words were left unspoken
I ain’t saying the world is killing you
I’m just saying that girl ain’t happening
I just sit back, roll my eyes and relish her

Just another song for Alison
When there don’t need to be a reason
It’s just another song for Alison

When your eyes are blind to air devotion
And her heart’s a sea of mixed emotion
Try to talk about it, but the talk is cheap
I tried to live without it, now I just don’t sleep
I just sit back, roll me eyes and relish it

Just another song for Alison
When all the other songs are said and done
It’s just a poor man’s song for Alison

5. Juniper
Gorgeous slanty eyes
They’re still gorges in my mind
Cannot be broken like this song
You’re so outspoken when you’re wrong
And I remember vaguely, when you were dead
Those gambling fingers ran my head

Years from now when I seal this fate
And I drink my fifth ’til I lose the taste
Until your slate is clean

Oblivious to my walls
You’re so oblivious to the way they talk
But I don’t mind them, I can cope
With your presence, there’s still hope

Well, I woke up to your void
But I’ll wake up, there can be no choice
You give one reason to see the sun
It could be heaven if there was one

6. Sylvia
Sylvia your eyes are turning blue
Still I don’t know what it is you’re up to
Now you stole my voice when you read my letter
Still I don’t know what it is you’re on

Standing outside my window, thinking no one is there
I caught you for one moment, but I don’t know where the hell you are

Sylvia that everlasting Monday
Can you tell me how you float through the air
I start to shake when I hear your breathing
And the smell of the bottle fills the air

Burning among the tombstones, thinking our time was spent
I held it for one moment, but now I don’t know where the hell we went

Die, die, like Sylvia

Waking around the shadows thinking your soul was spent
I saw you for one moment, now I don’t know where the hell you went.

Die, die, Sylvia

7. Dagupan
Left divine, you walk on water
With stolen blessings of Jesus Christ
I’m just an egg boiling in your water
Scorch my skin in Dagupan sun

Now they don’t give a damn about N.P.A.
And you don’t know how to do me like my Dagupan knows

Rebel lines divide the hillside
They string up traitors on Langka trees
She stands lookout, counting branches
Like traded bullets for rosary beads

Now we don’t beleive a word that’s on TV
And you don’t know how to use it like my Dagupan knows

Every solider at Manaog
Held the loyalists at bay
She’s just a ghost dying in the breezes
Where cities burn to ashes grey

Down low, Dagupan rogue

8. Elkins
Can you tell me where the night was, you moved so bold
Staring in the vainest mirror, you’re not that old
Lose yourself inside your books, where beauty never bends
You remain there stuck at 19, like some unused friend, so clear

When I think of all the passions that burned my sight
It’s still the sight of your undressing before my eyes
I lose myself inside your strip before your clothes hit the ground
You remain there so alluring
Without a sound I’m yours
But the clouds were lovely and you dance so lovely

You’re so young, so pure, so divine
Bring tears to my eyes
When I think of your memory buried in the ground
I would’ve turned the gun on the bastard, if only I’d been around

Lose myself inside my vice and lay your flowers in the rain
Where she sleeps in West Virginia
That hollowed pain is yours
Where the clouds are lovely and you’re shaped so lovely
Sometimes I still think you’re alive
Brings tears to my eyes

9. Undermined
Darling, my lovely one
I know you could deceive me if you wanted to
Dreaming his whole life through, he said
I wish I could be someone that I might have been

If my time is up, well my head ain’t down
Swear I’ve seen your face around
Leave my body undermined
I was only trying to reach you

She kisses girls to amuse me
Kisses boys just to abuse me
But I don’t mind, I’m not the jealous type, at all
Hang me by a rope on a tree
Wrap it around my neck, I can hold my breath

My time is up, but my head ain’t down
Glad I’ve seen your face around
Leave your body under mine
I was only trying to reach you

Darling, my shallow love
Do you think you would deceive me if the money’s right?
She said, in all honesty, if the wallet’s fat you know my ass is gone

Jennifer Samuels walked down the street like she had somewhere to go

10. Bootstrap Poetry
Another volume, another verse
Another echo, another curse
Damn the visions in my mind
Damn that thinking, damn mankind

Bootstrap poetry I remember your laces
And the oldest song in memory
Like a virus you live in my heart
How many angels have I lost?

The sharpest edges like a desert rose
Nina’s Finnish with wilco prose
She can tango on my chest
Flying off Sandia’s Crest

Bootstrap poetry I remember your laces
The oldest song in memory
Like a demon you live in my head
How many angels have I lost?

With back to Flagstaff, the Monte Vee
The sorest eyes a sight to see
Did your heart go emotional?
On the spot were Herm and Phil

Bootstrap poetry I remember your laces
You’re the song in the memory
Like a virus you live in my heart
How many angels have I lost?