Lovecraft in Brooklyn[1]

Lyrics

It's gonna be too hot to breathe today
When everybody's out here on the streets
Somebody's opened up a fire hydrant
Cold water rushing out in sheets

Some kid in a Marcus Allen jersey[2]
Asked me for a cigarette
Companionship is where you find it
So I take what I can get

Hubcaps on the cars like funhouse mirrors
Stick to the shadows when I can
Lovecraft in Brooklyn[3]

When the sun goes down the armies of the voiceless
Several hundred thousand strong
Come out without their bandages
Their voices raised in song

When the streetlights sputter out
They make this awful sizzling sound
I cast my face towards the pavement
Too many bloodstains on the ground

Rhode Island drops into the ocean
No place to call home anymore[4]
Lovecraft in Brooklyn

Head outside most every day
To try to keep the wolves away
Imagine nice things I might say
If company should come

Woke up afraid of my own shadow
Like genuinely afraid
Headed for the pawnshop
To buy myself a switchblade
Someday something's coming
From way out beyond the stars
To kill us while we stand here
It'll store our brains in Mason jars

And then the girl behind the counter
She asks me how I feel today
I feel like Lovecraft in Brooklyn
Yeah

Banter

Live Performances

  • 2015-05-26 - Gothic Theatre, Denver (encore)

    • Footnotes

    1. "American horror icon H. P. Lovecraft moved to Red Hook, Brooklyn to be with the woman he loved. He had never really seen any people who were not white folks from Massachusetts. Immigrants were spilling into Brooklyn from the four corners of the globe. Lovecraft's xenophobia during his time in Brooklyn resulted in some of the weirdest, darkest images in all American literature. One must condemn Lovecraft's ugly racism, of course, but his not-unrelated inclination toward of general suspicion of anything that's alive is pretty fertile ground." — Heretic Pride press kit

    John discusses Lovecraft and Sax Rohmer both extensively in his interview on WNYC, March 11, 2008, particularly explaining that their experience of alienation and generation of vivid imagery interested him while he repudiated the xenophobia that motivated them. (Annotated TMG)↩
    2. Marcus Allen was a National Football League running back for the Kansas City Chiefs and previously the Los Angeles Raiders during the 1980s and 1990s, and was inducted into both the College and Pro Football Halls of Fame. He is notable for being the first player to both exceed 10,000 rushing yards and 5,000 recieving yards in his career. (Annotated TMG)↩
    3. H. P. Lovecraft was an American speculative fiction author, famous for practically inventing the genre of cosmic horror. Notable works include the Cthulhu mythos cycle, stories in the fictional city and asylum of Arkham, and stories revolving around the Necronomicon, a grimoire. (Annotated TMG)↩
    4. Lovecraft was born in Providence, Rhode Island.↩