NEWBORN LIFE TEETHING lyrics. mp3.
This is the worst I've ever handled a situation. I never killed anyone, but I remember parking my car on Woodstock. The car was so hot because I was so upset. Heat coming off my forehead, that one Lifter Puller song blasting with the windows rolled up and a fucking brick in my hand. I was going to run right though his screen door for dramatic effect and shove that brick up his pretty boy ass.
I got a phone call from this kid, Daniel the other day. He said he got my CD and this song really got him. Fuck yeah, it got you. It got my stupid ass too.

THE 'RISKS' INVOLVED WITH WAKING lyrics.
The Real Diego played a show at the Pickle Patch. The band we played with had a bumper sticker that read, "When was the first time you realized you were an asshole?" This song is about that moment. I was throwing up in a hotel room in Houston after the food poisoning in Albuquerque. Getting tangled in web of bad women and good lies.

WHO'S GOING TO SHOE YOUR PRETTY LITTLE FEET?
This is a Woody Guthrie cover as far as I can tell. When I moved to Portland, the first thing I did was force Ben Barnett to record this cover with me. I can still remember the "apartment" on Oak Street. You can hear the sorrow in its echo. This woman told me that my "apartment" was used to slaughter and package chicken and that I should burn jasmine to counteract the effects of negative spirits. I should have listened to her, but I didn't. After I threw up, I woke up naked in the bathroom. I remember the room getting really hot. I ain't snorting shit anymore.

NIAGRA FALLS lyrics.
This song was written by Carlos Gutierez. He was the first person that I played with that ever scared the shit out of me. He's a really great person and he writes really great songs. I still want to be him.

300 COPIES lyrics. mp3.
I remember being at Ben Gibbard and Kris K's house. Kind of Like Spitting would spend weekends on their couch when we used to go up to Seattle to fuck with Barsuk. Gibbard left us a key for the house so we could go out for a drink. We all got ready, went downstairs, and the first thing we did was get the key jammed into the door. Then we decided to break the key. Then we decided we could figure out a solution to this dilemma by taking the whole damn lock out. When we did, a shit load of springs shot out and we knew we were fingered. So I drove for like two hours with Mr. Brian Grant to various hardware stores until we gave up and decided to get the part in the morning. We thought it was really funny that these boys would come home and their lock would be missing. I guess you had to be there. As house guests, we wore ourselves thin and fast.
300 copies is what I figured it would cost to recoup the record. I was scared that Jensen would lose the farm by picking up the project. All he lost was good judgement. And the songs I reference in "300 Copies" are Jugoton songs. Croatian pop from the '70s. Mainly Novi Fosili, Dani Marsan, and Oliver Dragovic. I grew up on these songs and recently found a new love for these classics. I could talk your ass off about this.

I HAD YOU lyrics.
This is just a dirty little song. Inspired by rude comments Mike B. was making towards my lyrics. The drum sample is Ben Barnett at the Cash Money Bros. show in some basement. That other sound is my friend Missy. Everybody asks me what kind of keyboard I used. She has a great laugh and the mic picked it up. She and I took a great roadtrip once.

NOT NOW, NOT EVER lyrics.
I remember taking a flight out to LA to calm myself. My girlfriend at the time called me to tell me this story about jumping into puddles. Indirectly. That's when I knew it was all over.

YOU SLEEP, I DRIVE lyrics. mp3.
I can't sleep at night. Call me sometime late, I'll be up. I stay up 'til 5am reading liner notes to records. I was living with a girl who thought it was a good idea to go to sleep at like 11pm. We lived at the Stark-Brown house. They had jobs. I didn't want to wake anybody up so I used to drive all night. My routine was to get a Happy Meal and cross every single bridge in Portland. The drives usually ended up in the industrial part of town which always reminded me of San Pedro. Some nights I would drive into and up through Washington. Drives always get you thinking. The longer you drive, the more you think. The longer the drive, the more places your mind can wander. I used to take drives like this with my friend Peter. Whenever he smoked he would roll down the windows and turn up the heater. He said that it made the winter seem like summer. I agreed and so I use the same technique. He passed away in a plane crash along with his sister and two other friends. I went to see the parents of one of the boys who passed. His father showed me a roll of film with pictures of the crew right before the plane went down. They were having a real good time. You couldn't really get upset. They were having such a good time. So I sat there with Darin's dad and we looked at the pictures for a couple of hours. He said he appriciated the fact that I took the time to come over. He told me I was invited into his home anytime. That was about six years ago. I haven't been back. So this all came flooding back to me in the middle of a drive and I drove back to the Oak Street apartment which I still had keys for - no one really lived there anymore. I threw this song together in about an hour. You can hear the cement walls clearly in the recording. Anyways, I came home, and everyone was still asleep. I always thought that my time alone at night was an alternate life. I used to almost look forward to it. I'm still trying to find someone to pull into this alternate life. I hear that girl stays up all night having interesting converstions these days. And I think Isaac is a good name for the baby.

ME AND ANDY lyrics. mp3.
This was written ages ago. The Andy I'm talking about is my friend Andy Harris, a local hero here in San Pedro. The Real Diego had just returned from tour and I saw Andy somewhere and we took a drive. I was upset about the tour and I had like fifty inkstamps on my wrists from all the shows and all I wanted was to play in a band and I was like, "Fuck all this."

GLORY! GLORY! lyrics.
I remember being in Komiza late at night, by myself, and somewhat fucked up. I was walking in the cold and listening to the guitar track I recorded for this song just trying to come up with better lines than, "Let's throw all your money away." It was hard. And I think toast is humorous. But the original intent slipped away and overall it's a fuck-off letter to a good friend.

INK
In this track I was really getting in touch with myself. I was exploring myself. I still do that.

TONIGHT, TONIGHT lyrics.
This is the first Novi Split song I wrote. I just got some hot computer program and wanted to see if it would work. I had no lyric sheet or real focus. I wrote it after school. I remember going out with a girl at the time who was uninspiring. I thought that was a good quality in a person back then. I was working at Wolf Camera and seeing the most amazing images of child birth. They come out red and blue. It's a miracle that they come out at all.

BIG ACTION lyrics.
I hate this song. It wasn't intended to be released. I mean, I straight stole a fucking Jets to Brazil sample. I apologize to those guys now. David Jensen said it wouldn't be a record if this song wasn't on it. You dont argue with that. But it's too damn optimistic. I dont want people to find out I'm optimistic.

THIS NEW ROOM lyrics.
This is a really simple little song. It's about being excited by your immediate future. Hoping for the best, but being way in over your head. Not everything is miserable, you fucks. But it all ended terribly so, you win.

THE NEW SPLIT lyrics. mp3.
God, you were miserable when I wrote this song. Something about your boyfriend and you never watching the sunrise together. Never staying up all night to "talk". And me, I was looking for a little good advice. Remember that? I stole your sweatpants when you went to school. School was a waste of our time. You asked if we could be friends again. I always answer questions with, "Fuck it." Grant Capes says thats a bullshit answer. He says it's affirming with a negative tone. Whatever, Capes. Oh, the song. Idealistic people should always find themselves realistic people until that grows old and you don't get me. Then two idealistic people should find eachother. But no one has any sense and I fucked all your friends. But then it's like... well see, there are a lot of people on this Earth. There are a lot of people with brown eyes. There are a lot of people who get scared when I get drunk and call them on the phone talking about, "How do you want to die?" and "Who's your favorite Wu-Tang member? and "How would you want your favorite Wu-Tang member to kill you?" And then again, there's the twenty-hour roadtrip to think about these things. Or the eight hour working day.

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