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Snakebite

by Alandra Markman

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1.
Snakebite 02:42
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1 / Snakebite This aeroplane gives a false sense of motion- A slow motion drive through time A place I’d never find on the land I can see from the air But that don’t mean the fog can’t swallow me up I drip into a little cup Filled with watery swirls Delusions of grandeur and calendar girls I’m blinded to all the world But the ground’s coming up- Now my aeroplane’s in disrepair And I’m all out of signal flares But I think I’ll be all right out here I won’t be scared, I might spend the night out here- Or the week, or the month, or the year The fireflies are ten feet wide But I came out well-supplied To fight or fly away Should I feel so inclined Thunder rolls across the land At night the desert cools off Reptiles come out to dance in the shifting sands A snare drum roll from a distant marching band Comes up to me, wraps around my hand Rattles its way into my brain I feel something that might be pain But it feels good- Now I don’t want the antidote I don’t want the passing boat To come along and rescue me I’ve drawn up my bridge on my sand castle next to the sea I could stay here all my days, Beyond the reach of society Oh cold-blooded reptile Teach me how to be cool I only know what I learned in flight school Dates and measures and times But I think the real buried treasure here Ain’t written down on any map of mine No... not mine
2.
The Ice Age Is Here 03:29
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3 / The Ice Age is Here Over my shoulder, the north wind’s blowing out my fire Over the shoulder, the highway’s buried deep Under piles of cars Under the blizzard, the avalanche rolls down on every side Under the blizzard, the traffic honks a final reply It’s backed up for miles, choked up with your bile And it will spit you out The snow will turn black, give your exit fumes back And it will wipe you out (2x) We’ll never get older, we’ll just stay frozen in the ice Overjoyed, the policy holders can’t wait to die They’ll be locked in a freezer And shipped home to their wives They’ll keep the milk cold And keep her rich for the rest of her life Internal combustion is out of the question, It’s best just to stay cold Give up with no fight, melt into the night, And you will never grow old (2x) Snow day’s coming, the ice age is here Let’s all be full of good cheer (2x) (previous lines repeat)
3.
Leaving Las Vegas 04:24
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2 / Leaving Las Vegas Irresistibly bound to the passage of dates These figs and palm trees and artificial lakes Sit beautifully in empty mountainous landscapes I could wait all day in this sand But I want to go back in time to find my friends so we can start over again Gone with the wind Bound up in pyramids If you unraveled these bandages You just might find an invisible man Lying in wait for someone to find him But it seems nobody can (chorus:) I hear the sound of turbines ringing in my ears Hear the sound of jet engines ringing in my ears I head the sounds of turbines ringing in my- Can you keep it down please? I’ve barely slept a thousand years! Irresistibly bound to the passage of dates These figs and palm trees in artificial lakes Immortalize modern man’s mistakes And erase what came before But if they just looked underneath the floor They’d find me sleeping there Tossing and turning while the desert is burning And F-14s buzz like flies Well lying in wait is all the rage but now I want to live So I'll unwrap my palms and let the dice roll I'll unwrap my fingers and let the bone show Let my tribute go up to the gods of rock and roll (chorus- I hear [...] guitars wailing, snare drums beating) Please Mr. Pharaoh- your reign has ended long ago Come out with me and learn to dance Please Mr. Viva Las Vegas- Come out of your sarcophagus and play with me But they’re putting up hotels right next to the runway With planes coming in, 10,000 a day With all these resorts enclosed in glass While I rot here in my ziggurat The moonlight comes in sometimes But I want the sun (chorus- I hear […] chainsaws ringing, bulldozers ringing)
4.
Headed For The Borders 03:02
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4 / Headed for the Borders We're tearing down the barricades Ripping out the wires from this penny arcade That keeps us paying for these motorcades To keep us in line and tell us we're safe Lock us in boxes and say we're insane Till we riot, cry out, shout out and sing (4x) (chorus:) We're headed for your borders You couldn't stop us if you wanted to We won't be taking orders Just be doing what we've gotta do They think they can fight us, think they can stop us With rubber bullets and the dropping of the tear gas- Tin cans and toys for overgrown boys! We've got the music and they've got the noise It's all a game till we exercise choice Burn our ballots and lift our voices To riot, cry out, shout out, and sing (4x) (chorus) They keep us divided, keep us all fighting- Petty warfare and backbiting- Colliding with the truth and the cops who are lying At least it's exciting when you're inciting To riot, cry out, shout out and sing (4x) (chorus)
5.
Coney Island High 04:18
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5 / Coney Island High (chorus:) Come one, come all, to the greatest spectacle The world has ever seen Please suspend your disbelief ‘cause this is shaping up to be quite a scene Come all you worshipers of darkness; set up your little pentacles here in the front row seats Come all you sideshow freaks; Cast off your plastic manacles- set yourselves free Packing up and leaving town The circus never stays around This traveling carnival is totally disposable Here today and gone tomorrow These throwaway prizes bring no surprises It’s all stuff we’ve seen before- but we want more (chorus) It’s an itch you’ve got to scratch So step up and hand over your cash Leave your troubles on the dashboard Sword-swallowers on the boardwalk With stages marked off in chalk Share space with displaced Indians Juggling Tomahawks- just for a few bucks (chorus) Come all you sideshow freaks Cast off your plastic manacles- set yourselves free
6.
Two Of Me 02:39
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6 / Two of Me There are two of me They form a less-than-perfect symmetry There are two of me I hope you don’t find it too bittersweet One who comes out when it's raining and cold One who’d never be so bold just to see me One who it seems is just an illusion She comes to the strangest conclusions that startle me Then there are three of me Just another one or two of me Then there are three of me I guess that makes it you and you and me My better two-thirds says she’s ready to roll She wishes she were under control- she’s got vertigo The air is too thin and it’s harder to breathe Leaving me the somewhat bereaved part of me And we’re all going down to our homes The evenings always leave us two alone (2x) Now there is one of me Just another lonely one of me And so I start to talk to me Until finally there seems to be One more who says “You’re just as guilty!” So I guess that makes it four of me And we’re all holding hands in the street I take up the whole sidewalk just to me (2x)
7.
Bird Interlude 01:33
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[Guitar with sounds of the Bywater in New Orleans.]
8.
The Last Laugh 02:26
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8 / The Last Laugh I’m just as simple as I appear Nothing to hold me but familiar fears Which wait at the end of every year As a test to see what's bullshit and what's sincere (chorus:) I won’t say hello or goodbye Nothing will describe it Except you and I just sitting thinking Making up one lie after another Till our eyes are streaming We can hardly see each other we’re both drunk and in the gutters Nothing is funny and nothing is true And if you don’t get it, the joke will get you You’ll double over laughing until the fun is through Collapsing in a pile of conflicting points of view And when we finally get there It’s a great big party, everyone’s invited- Even those you didn’t know And we're all laughing all about The things we did to while away The hours... pretend they were for show (chorus) It’s just as simple as it appears (3x)
9.
Waltzing To War 04:08
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9 / Waltzing to War They’re just clay pigeons, shoot ‘em down Just watch the fires burning them down There’s nothing you can do right here and now Just let the armies strut around We’ll divvy up their cities and towns There’s nothing they can do except to bow (chorus:) Come in from the battleground Listen to the airplane’s sound We’ll dance to the speeches we expound And we’ll have us another round The drinks are all on the house Until the house burns down Hit the floodlights, let them drown Let the tracers chase them down There’s nothing they can do except to bow And if fire and brimstone aren't enough, We’ll show them we can be just as tough We’ll take off clothes and put on cuffs... See how well they like it rough (chorus) And if we think we shouldn't fight We'll look into the firelight Just a diplomatic oversight But after all, we’re in the right And on their gravestone it will read We called your bluff and saved the free world From your terror- Never admit to a tactical error You’re just one in a million, A face in a crowd However you yell it won't bet loud enough We need to clean the surface of democracy These colors don’t run, they only bleed... I guess we’ll just let them be (chorus) (2x)
10.
Thoughts Of A Fox 03:02
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10 / Thoughts of a Fox [For Nick] Here comes rabbity-boo Just bouncing’ along, that rabbity-boo Not a care in the world- except maybe you Here he comes now, still hopping along Just a few steps... it won’t be too long Rabbity-boo won’t know you’re there Jump out right now, before he gets scared You’ve got him now for sure Rabbity boo will be no more But rabbity-boo is getting away from you Rabbity boo is getting away (2x) That rascally dude! He got clean away But if you wait for a while There’s some chance he may Just come hopping back for you to eat A rascally feast! It will be so sweet Here he comes now, over the hill Here’s where you go move in for the kill You’ve got him now for sure Rabbity boo is toast Rabbity-boo was getting away from you Rabbity-boo was getting away Rabbity-boo was getting away from you But he’s done with that for today (Watch out for that owl! ...Oh dear. That's messy.)
11.
Dostoevsky's Demise 03:38
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11 / Dostoevsky's Demise Dostoevsky was made up of cells- Mostly water, mostly water Dostoevsky was made up of booze- Mostly vodka, mostly vodka Edgar Allan was made up of prose- Mostly poetry, mostly poetry Edgar Allan was made up of woes- Mostly whiskey, mostly whiskey When the storm of drunkenness abated We found ourselves among the hated bourgeoisie Something other than nobility Has crushed our souls And made the barricades come down Shots fired in the dark- A brainstorm made much heavier by drink But when we stop to think, something takes us back... To those street corners Where we would stand on shoeboxes Those crazy fools who shout obscenities at the crowd Their vocation one of leisure and of wealth When the summer comes we’ll drink to their health And Dostoevsky was made up of cells- A million mitochondria in a million private hells And Charles Dickens was made up of kids- Mostly orphans, mostly orphans And Charles Dickens was driven by drugs- Mostly endorphins, mostly endorphins And William Wordsworth was made up of words- Mostly sober, mostly sober And William Wordsworth was made up of words- Mostly empty, mostly empty Our entire literary establishment Is driven largely by intoxicants And our entire western civilization Depends on quite a lot of alcoholic rejuvenation Granted themselves freedoms unheard of by the press Dylan-esque, they slip into drunken harmonica solos Hitting new lows as they pull up the red carpets Leaving literary dinosaurs Whose books are thrown in tar pits When we pull up the fossils a few centuries later We’ll find the work of genius Of some misunderstood creator And only time will tell who gets to stay And who gets to stay in cells (3x)
12.
Fly By Night 03:29
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12 / Fly by Night [for Karine] (chorus:) Music is a palimpsest that sets itself straight When we burn the records in their old dusty crates Dancing is a crime that sets itself right Sleeps through the day and then comes out at night We think of all the records that have spun by And all the rusty needles we stuck into the sky When their signal flows it rains down music It soaks into our veins till we get lovesick (3x) We fly by night (chorus) We’re drowning in sugar... sugar sweet flood tides Radio waves that keep breaking record highs We sweat through the summer hits And then through the fall Gotta make it through the static snows To make it through at all (3x) We fly by night (chorus)
13.
A Lullaby For Nixon 05:11
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13 / A Lullaby for Nixon These phone lines, these taps and tapes These sherades where we all stayed Anonymous and proud of it Free to ride the audio waves We got ourselves in and out again Just in the nick of time And every night the floodgates break And white noise spills into the world The rise and fall of traffic on the concrete These things we have instead of the sea (chorus:) Hey! Finding what we hate 'bout these United States of America Finding what we love Releasing the doves of our hit parade When the scandal leaks, when the story breaks We'll sail away on double takes And lock the gates to our man-made lakes Till the storm abates once more These suits and ties, these alibis It seems they were all whitewashed lies That take flight into washed-out skies Of a million brainwashed minds These things we'd hoped to get across These battles that we thought we'd lost Come flying in to pick us up and fly us back home The choppers come to lift us out and fly us back home (chorus) These hidden plays, this ace of spades Kept up our sleeves for the endgames Preparing for the nighttime raids And polishing bayonet blades These secrets that we thought were safe These things we'd thought we locked away Come back to us to incriminate And throw us all in chains Throw us away forevermore, all away in chains (chorus)

about

An album of original solo songs for voice and guitar, with backup vocals overdubbed by myself and by Ivan Klipsten. Ivan was also the recording engineer. This was made in 2010 on analog tape at his Kit Kitchen portable studio, then based in New Orleans.

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released June 1, 2010

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Alandra Markman image

Alandra Markman New York, New York

I am a spiritual healer, writer, musician, and dancer teacher based in New York and New Orleans. I play saxophone, guitar, and piano. I also improvise poetry and song, vocally and on a typewriter.

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