Get all 14 Curtis Eller releases available on Bandcamp and save 25%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Fusebox Pennies: Collected Singles, Here Comes New Year's Day, This is Christmas Time (1972), Bury the Light, A Poison Melody, 54 Strange Words, Henry Kissinger's Dance Party: Live in the UK, Baudelaire in a Box: Songs of Anguish (EP), and 6 more.
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The Joyful Dead
03:35
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The Joyful Dead
In the key of Am
In rich earthy soil infested with snails
I wish to dig my own grave
Where I can at leisure, stretch out my old bones
And sleep like a shark in the waves
For I have a hatred for testaments and tombs
And rather than implore the world’s sorrow
I’d sooner, while living, invite down the crows
To drain all my blood and my marrow
I’d sooner, while living, invite down the crows
To drain all my blood and my marrow
Oh Worms! Black comrades, deaf and blind
Take this dead body sinking down, joyful and free
I leave this body to you….wanton philosophers
You, wanton philosophers
You children of rotting soil!
So dig through my ruin without remorse
Learn what tortures may still haunt the bed
Of this old soulless body, dead among dead
Dead among dead
This old soulless body, dead among dead
Dead among dead
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2. |
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LE VAMPIRE
You, who like a dagger ploughed into my heart
with deadly thrill, with deadly thrill, with deadly thrill.
You, who stronger than a crowd of demons,
mad, and dressed to kill, and dressed to kill,
Of my dejected soul you have made
Your bed, your lodging, and domain.
To whom I'm linked as a convict to his chain,
Or as the gamester to his dice,
the drunkard to his dram, the carrion to its lice.
I curse you. I curse you. I curse you.
Oh I wish my curse could damn.
I have besought the sudden blade
To win for me my freedom back.
Perfidious poison I have prayed
To help my cowardice.
Both poison and the sword
Disdained my cowardice, and seemed to say
You are not fit to be unchained
From your damned servitude.
You imbecile! since if from her empire
We were to liberate the slave,
You'd raise the carrion of your vampire,
By your own kisses, from the grave.
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3. |
The Albatross
02:52
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The Albatross
In the key of Bbm
Sometimes to amuse themselves the men of the crew
Snare and albatross, those vast sea birds
That indolently trail behind the ship
As they glide over the deep and bitter blue
As they glide over the deep and bitter blue
Scarcely have they pulled them to the floor
Thos fallen kinds, clumsy and ashamed
Pathetic as they drag their great, white wings
Worthlessly behind like drifting oars
As they glide over the deep and salty blue
As they glide over the deep and salty blue
As they glide ofer the deep and salty blue
As they glide over the deep and salty blue
Well those soaring travelers flounder on the deck
Once so beautiful, now comical and weak
And the sailors lurch about like crippled beasts upon the waves
And they hsove a burning pipe under his beak
The poet is like the prince of the clouds
Who haunts the storm and mocks the archer’s bow
Imprisoned on the earth by the weight of heavy wings
Exiled here among the jeering crowds
As they glide over the deep and salty blue
As they glide over the deep and salty blue
As they glide ofer the deep and salty blue
As they glide over the deep and salty blue
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4. |
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ALWAYS THE SAME (SEMPER EADEM)
Whence, ask you, does this strange new sadness flow
Like rising tides on rocks, black, bare, and vast?
For human hearts, when vintage-time is past,
To live is bad: that secret all men know.
An obvious sorrow, with no mystery, shown,
Clear as your joy, to everyone around.
O curious one, seek nothing more profound,
And speak not, though your voice be sweet in tone.
Hush, ignorant! Hush, ignorant soul that's still enraptured,
And mouth of childish laughter, neatly captured.
Death pulls us more than life, with subtle wile.
Oh let my thoughts get drunk upon a lie,
And plunge, as in a dream, in either eye,
And in their lashes' shadow sleep awhile.
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Curtis Eller Durham, North Carolina
Curtis Eller is a banjo player, songwriter and rock & roll singer who's songs describe a dreamlike vision of American history where all points in time have collapsed into one. A twenty-year show business veteran, Eller has developed a devoted international following with his band, The American Circus. ... more
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