We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

The Lost Army

by Sherman to the Fucking Sea

/
  • Streaming + Download

    Includes high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more. Paying supporters also get unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app.
    Purchasable with gift card

      name your price

     

1.
Tie train rails round trees and say a prayer in a widow's name. When total war was civilized the sea moaned my name. The sea moans my name in its sleep. Howard's one arm leads the band in "O' Savannah!" O' Savannah, I run my fingers through her hair and write to my wife alone. Some women smile from their doorways. Some spit on me from balconies. While the sea moans my name in its sleep. Even when I promise not to burn this one down. I promise not to burn down your town. But in hatred and for mercy the South will scream my name. Train your eyes to the North, boys. We're headed for South Carolina. My men have vouchers for their blood. I almost tremble at her fate. For this must never happen again.
2.
Get love where you can. With the wheat fields tinged cadmium by a Gatling mist, you'd better get some love. Get love where you can. As I walk through the camp we've set down west of Macon, these men and boys write and sing love songs from murderous hearts. Whether it's the hand of a whore or a perfumed letter from a young wife, you've got to get some love. Get love where you can. All those red skies at our backs mean we're marching into the very heart of hate itself. Not one warm face for three more states. And they'll have every right to want to make orphans of our kids after we've mangled their horizons into a mass of twisted tracks. Our goal is to starve their wives. Our goal is to bleed them out. They'll call us murderous cowards. They'll throw rocks from their porches. But we cannot and will not stop until we've snuffed out their ideas. So if you're lacking for passion when I tell you burn a home, think of the mothers of the North who've cooked their last for their man. Think of the arrogance and greed, the plantation owner's whip. The last nation on Earth to abide the trade of men. They might hate us forever but that shall be our lot. But I've got to be honest boys. I don't care anymore if we win back Tennessee or sign a full surrender. There's only one way home. One way back to loving arms. And that's one fire, one fire at a time. Margaret, I'll be home soon. Minus an arm and covered in gloom, but Margaret, I'll be home soon. Listen for the sound of our boots.
3.
“One night I thirsted like a prince Then like a king / then like an empire / like a world / on fire.” - James Dickey One wakes to find her bed in flames. Outside they quote ancient rules but no voices will claim them. O Death! O Death! Grace find my feet tonight. Accidents are for bleeding hands. Accidents are born in the mouths of babes. Their life is with God alone. They’ve sworn their wombs to the lord. You never learned to leave well enough alone. Sisters hear us out! Our swords guide not the wind! We did this not with white teeth. Tell not of us black tales. Liars. We know the sound of the trumpet. We’ve drunk the guts of the Saints. And we know the hand of the Deceiver It holds a torch and it’s cold to the touch. Release. Release my soul to the hounds. From the jaws of death I am saved. In the hands of Christ I am found. My heart has no earthly grave. Burn what you will. My flesh feels no flame. Burn what you will. The Lord knows not your name.
4.
Wrongzilla 03:03
The light shone by the knife collapsed. The assembled fell to murmurs. First it was just one light for one light feels many fractures. When Jesus spoke to the choir he said there's a reason Helsinki isn't in Texas but that reason is not me. His voice sounded like 50 bucks of quarters in the air. He said if handstands were magic every child would fly. Put those headphones on a skull and watch it cringe. He said if trust were a fire its flame wouldn't burn at all. Because it's easy to call the poor man the rich man's poor man. It's even easier to say I shouldn't have been born with this third lung. I bet we could write one hell of a book just watching his mother's face twitch. Give those hands some deft advice. The wretch speaks on, fat man lives on. The angel weeps on the earth the devil strides on. And if he spoke through me I'd clear my throat and say Listen! Listen to nothing this man says. Hope wears not a telecaster's shape. Your soul is not a gravity bong. Crush and glow. God is rolling in his grave.
5.
My blood is a bloody mess pooling on the kitchen floor where I birthed your son six months after you left. Now you’re out in Kansas somwhere, at least you were the last you wrote. Pray for me, you wrote. Well who’s praying for us? You’re out in the fields. Cutting throats for God knows who. Making unitting widows. Of women just like me. I never gave a good goddamn. About secession, slavery or states. I thought we had a deal. "Me and mine and mind our own." If I’ve got to march three states. With your child in a roller. I’m gonna drag you back. Before you go and get got. I'm gonna drag you back.
6.
Viking Funeral (free) 03:02
Retreat, if it's possible. We're caught with our backs to the sea. Outgunned, outnumbered, outrun. The devil awaits the soul of a coward. So find your fire and drag a Yank along with you. I'll be your prisoner when the ocean behind me opens like the mouth of God and breathes me into its lungs. Prepare a vessel of tinder and an archer on the shore. Give this soldier a send-off worthy of a warrior. There is no glory for the meek. No stories told of the forgiving. Let the sky come alive with red lights as flames carve a glowing arc to my grave. I'll rest in peace knowing I've made widows of widows' tormentors. Christ curse your heart, Sherman. My final moment will be the cast iron sculpture of hate. You killed my cousin's wife. I'll die trying to get to your throat. You can follow our rancor along an infinite vector burning through progeny. My grandson's grandsons will curse your name. Goddamn leadership. Goddamn the memoirs. I'll die with your veins in my teeth. Knife your daughter in her sleep.
7.
8.
The Lord knows no grace like the sun-warm earth of a newly peaced union beneath a commander’s feet. And with nothing left of the rebels but the scrawl of their blood upon this parchment I just want a home-cooked meal the comforting creak of my floor a glass of bourbon neat and my long-tried wife at my side. But first we’ll march on the Capital barefoot in tattered habit. The Northern mothers weeping at the sight of our faces. The bronze Persius the dream whaler writes of holds high a lesser symbol than I here carry back to Lincoln. But there need be no overwrought sentiments or allusions to express what every soldier in the rank and file feels. Because it’s good to be home. It’s good to see my mother. It’s good to be home. It’s good to see my brother, my sister and father.
9.
No Cure (free) 03:39
Nothing stops, ever. Nothing stops everything. All things peak all at once. All beings speak all at once. Life is war. War is hell. There's no cure. No cure for life. Peak. Speak. Dry into drizzle into flood. Hearts into heads into blood. Men into women into graves. Love is the glory nothing saves. Nothing stops, ever. Nothing stops everything.
10.
The devil’s salted the image of your half-gone face in my hands to the back of my eyelids. I sleep like a statue on fire. While the wicked rest as though they were back in the womb. I’ve been home now 18 months and still carry my .45 waiting daily for retribution for this time on Earth I don’t deserve. My first day back I saw your wife. She didn’t weep when she confessed she’d give three times her widow’s pay if the cannon could have caught me instead. Any decent man would know when to take off his funeral coat how to carry that weight and bravely go about his day. But the only peace I find lies between the oiled clicks of the spinning cylinder of the gun I took from your holster. God take this memory. Or else I’m coming home.

credits

released January 14, 2011

Image for cover art taken from Barnaby Furnas's "Flood" series.

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Sherman to the Fucking Sea Denver

contact / help

Contact Sherman to the Fucking Sea

Streaming and
Download help

Report this album or account

If you like Sherman to the Fucking Sea, you may also like: