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St. Sebastian of the Short Stage (EP)

by Franz Nicolay

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1.
2.
Start off with the saddest thing you know And then you’ve got the audience Then it’s all your show A man’s wife leaves him Someone’s robbed Someone swallows cyanide Someone’s strung up by a howling mob My name is Hollis Wadsworth Mason Junior Defender of what’s right And I’ve got a way with cars And I only work at night My name is Hollis Wadsworth Mason Junior Defender of what’s good I believe that there’s a simple answer When I get under the hood My grandpa was a moral man He worked the soil and the wood He said the city’s evil And the world is irredeemable We'd better get back to Montana while we could I looked for heroes They’re the only things that last To back absolute values With nothing but a good heart and a mask It could be that I sound naïve about the true nature of sin But if the choice is cynicism, rage, or giving in Which world would you rather live in? In May of ’62, I’m 42 years old The game has changed, I’m obsolete - It’s a strange world for heroes Worm’s in the apple Eating us from inside Maybe good & justice are old-fashioned values But even owls have pride A man must work with his hands The only skill that lasts Even when you’ve been replaced Even when you put away the mask Start off with the saddest thing you know And then you’ve got the audience Then it’s all your show Start off with the saddest thing you know.
3.
I was a sculptor I worked in marble, stone, and clay And I've crafted some treasures in my day I was a painter Oils was my trade And oil fueled lifetime's worth of flames When the war came Everyone's eyes all looked the same Hot with fear, regret and shame Among them, not a name I built the bridges And I the trains Between us, put a tap on mother nature's veins And he, the logger He, the chief of police And he, the sole, acknowledged master of the feast When the war came Everyone's eyes all looked the same Hot with fear, revenge and tears Among them, not a name I sang of battle I was its balladeer I sang of more blood and bone than I can bear to hear And we were brothers That time is past But I will spare your life until the last When the war comes, we all deny where we were from Hot with loneliness and rum Suddenly ripe with age When the war came Everyone's eyes all looked the same Hot with fear, regret and tears Among them, not a name
4.
I just want to love Is that so much to ask? I just want to tear up at the movies Lie out in the grass And this song is dumb, I know Sensitive singer-songwriter trash But so am I, what can I say I'll believe it all to the bitter last I can hide behind names, clever words The usual crap But this is me talking I'm sick of giving And getting nothing back I just want to love Is that not enough? I've got a big heart, a true heart I really do believe this stuff I just want a body to hold me At the end of the day I don't want to grow old alone When I die, I want someone to say "He was loved, and he was a lover" And be buried in the woods And lie alone, together I just want a body to hold At the end of the day I don't need to kiss all the girls Just as long as one of them stays I know I missed the age of romance Maybe there never was an age of romance Maybe the likes of me just can't conceive Of the world as it is, oh, so naive But so free to dream I believe in love, I do, I do In what do you believe? And I do joke, I know, but this isn't a joke I'm a lonely man at the end of my rope It's a cry for help, a cry for hope I just need a little hope That though I'm a fool, that there's another Fool who's trapped outside of time Looking for a lover I just want to love Is that so much to ask? I just want to tear up at the movies Lie out in the grass.

about

This is a 10" EP release on Team Science Records.

credits

released October 13, 2009

All songs by Franz Nicolay (Eggshell Armor Music, ASCAP) except #1 by Jonathan Richman (Modern Love Songs/Rockin' Leprechaun Music, ASCAP). #2 is inspired, obviously, by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons' "Watchmen". I wrote as part of the "Watchmen" episode of the Bushwick Book Club (myspace.com/bushwickbookclub), a songwriter group based out of the Goodbye Blue Monday club in Bushwick, which picks a book every month and writes songs about it. You should come!

NEW ENGLAND
Franz Nicolay: accordion, vocals
Amanda Palmer: piano, vocals
Brian Viglione: drums, vocals
Recorded & engineered by Joel Hamburger at GödelString Studios in Brooklyn, NY; 2008.

THE BALLAD OF HOLLIS WADSWORTH MASON, JR.
Lloyd DeBonis: trumpet
Brad Kemp: bass
James Frazee: marching drum
Franz Nicolay: accordion, keyboards, percussion, vocals
Brian Viglione: drums
Produced by James Frazee & Franz Nicolay at Water Music in Hoboken, NJ; 2009.
Assistant engineer: John DeLorme

WHEN THE WAR CAME
Franz Nicolay: guitar, piano, organ, tambourine, vocals.
Produced by James Frazee & Franz Nicolay at Water Music in Hoboken, NJ; 2009.
Assistant engineer: John DeLorme

I JUST WANT TO LOVE (2001)
Franz Nicolay: guitar, vocal.
Recorded by Franz Nicolay, in a pit of despair! Way back in January 2001, after-hours at my old dot-com job. What do you want, I was 23 and not sleeping much.

Mastered by Alan Douches at West Westside.

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Franz Nicolay New York

To us, the beautiful - and to those who disagree, may their eyes fall out.

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