Sax Rohmer #1
Lyrics
Fog lifts from the harbor, dawn goes down to day
An agent crests the shadows of the nearby alleyway
Piles of broken bricks, sign posts on the path
Every moment points towards the aftermath
Yeah ah ah
Sailors straggle back from their nights out on the town
Hopeless urchins from the city gather around
Spies from imperial China wash in with the tide
Every battle heads toward surrender on both sides
And I am coming home to you
With my own blood in my mouth
And I am coming home to you
If it’s the last thing that I do
Bells ring in the tower, wolves howl in the hills
Chalk marks show up on a few high windowsills
And a rabbit gives up somewhere, and a dozen hawks descend
Every moment leads toward its own sad end
Yeah ah ah
Ships loosed from their moorings capsize and then they’re gone
Sailors with no captains watch awhile and then move on
And an agent crests the shadows and I head in her direction
All roads lead toward the same blocked intersection
I am coming home to you
With my own blood in my mouth
And I am coming home to you
If it’s the last thing that I do
Banter
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JD: I had an office. Like my first ever office. After The Sunset Tree came out, I said, ah, things are getting busy, I should have an office to write some songs in. This is a long story, those of you who haven't been here before, the stories do tend to stretch a liuttle bit. So, I live in Durham North Carolina, I've been there for, close to 20 years, it's been a minute now. At the time, Durham was not a place people were moving to. Now, developers from upstate New York own like half of it. Developers from Cincinnati own the other half.
Peter: Yeah, blame it on upstate New York. That's who's taking over.
JD: It is.
Peter: It's upstate.
JD: It's actually Westchester County, to be fair. WHich to me, counts as upstate, because I don't know New York from Adam. But before that, Durham was, y'know, the downtown was half empty, all these empty buildings, and you could get office space on the cheap. I met a guy who ran a printing press, my friend Dave, who was looking for a place to get into this old science building that wasn't used anymore. Dave's deal when founding this office, Dave is a guy who likes to plan. This will shock you, but I'm a guy who doesn't plan a whole lot. I have to be taught to do that. He wanted to talk about the parameters of the office, whether to put a window here or here, and I was like, I don't care, let's just get in the building and we can talk about that later. So we did that. And I got the back office, it didn't have a window. It was way in the back corner and didn't have a window or any other outside light coming in. I had one fluorescent light above me and a wooden table, and a tape deck and no internet access. That is the room in which I wrote this song. (2021-08-06 The Orange Peel)
Live Performances
Footnotes