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Grimace and Grace

by Corey Laitman

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1.
call me a paper doll, this year has cut and scattered me to pieces; call me a time machine and i will bring you memories of spain; talk to me of carousels and darling, i will whirl you round in circles, call me an alien and i will know it's true, you know i am not of your world, there's not room for both of us in this town, i can be such a fair weather friend oh and you refuse to be embarassed, hero, you're unwilling to pretend but you throw your tender rope to me when cawing crows are heckling round my bends - once again - keep your eyes on your own paper, dear, lest your story get shouted out again - oh and history, forever will she be and man, we got a lot lovingly carved into our bones, then left out on your roof to rot - i don't know you, so don't call me names, it was never a choice i've made a new home with the wolves and i'll make my animal noises she took me by surprise, since when have you been so averse to reason? only a year ago her eyes were clear, it could be this just hasn't been her season. all our sighing spells and broken bells and cloying sick itineraries, fuck them. i miss you for the longest time, but letting go was the key to the kingdom.. so if you're looking for something everlasting, you can get gone from my road. 'cause the fact remains: i'm not a princess, and you've known for some time now that you are not a toad. our mouths were nearly always overfull, and on some hazy afternoons they overfowed.. oh and, history, forever will she breathe, and man we got a lot. lovingly carved into our bones, then left out on your roof to rot.. well, you don't know me, don't call me names, it was never a choice i've found my true home with the wolves, and i'll make my animal noises ©
2.
sea song 03:07
we were a tangle of bodies on the deck of a ship where we sailed around the world together, the endless night sky was a magnifying glass, and our hearts made a home for the ocean and each other we befriended the ends of the earth with the soles of our shoes and we swallowed the sunsets in silence, and we could see, it was plain, i could give it a name, but i'd just mean that it was supposed to be that way the breath of the world sighed us together, we folded and bloomed both for then and forever, your castaway dreams rattled mine in my sleep and all of you live in my dreamless and deep. all of our words they were drumming the songs of the sea, they were fathomless, wise, they were ancient and strange, ten thousand years ago, but i still feel a beautiful ache in my chest when i remember - the breath of the world sighed us together we folded and bloomed both for then and forever, your castaway dreams rattled mine in my sleep, and all of you live in my dreamless and deep. these are times that can't be weather and we have never been back there since then ©
3.
we made our way back to a place where hope was breath and a beer or two, they could defuse a war there was no need to agree upon intentions, we just hopped into the car and in a world that bright, and hot, and green who could've believed in anything but our blissful stillness in the middle of such terrible speed i stopped shaving, keeping up appearances, you stopped knitting up your brow we skinned our knees and did away with thanks and please but we couldn't fathom how our wide-eyed winding worlds had wound us into strangest companions on that moonstruck river road, oh no one stopped to check the soil, some restless things just grow all on their own well we had time, well you know, at times, time was all we had our distances fell flat to parallel horizons, not quite happy, not quite sad. oh, and grace is a slow walker, quiet hearts get hassled into walls by thronging city streets, oh darling your planet held so steady inside the bright white goodbye of our mother star strange vignettes humming through my inner eye the worlds i used to sleep inside the darkness of your cluttered cave, your burrowing cat-like contentment made my lower ribs ache ©
4.
I can tell myself to rest, you'll put your head on my chest and we'll smell like sun, and taste like a long day done and lately i have no qualms about sleep. i meet you sometimes in the deep where the roads are long, and our words - they play like songs. set it on fire, throw it against a wall you look at me, see a girl seeing nothing that you see, at all, and i think i know what it is that you miss someone to hold and someone to kiss but i'm not convinced that has anything to do with me. butterflies are foreign things to me, my stomach's full of vegetables and tea, but my arms are strong, and our half-love creeps along set it on fire, throw it against a wall you look at me, see a girl seeing nothing that you see, at all, and i think i know who it is that you miss someone you held and someone you kissed but i know she has nothing to do with me. ©
5.
narratives 05:27
i wrote him a letter, i thought it might make things easier. and i finished a novel, i thought it might make my story cohere. we sped along northbound, past coastline, through dreamtime watching the dusks roll in cold lager at midnight on the shoulders of turnpikes whistling a darkness tune loners will fall to their knees in time by chance or by choice or by cosmic rhyme i knew we'd get along, oh my poison apple friend, i just wasn't so all-set-to-go just then. daniel: could you forgive me? maybe you already have. and hannah: you know you can call me whenever you feel things turning bad. oh and mother: now don't you forget me, you know now that i've had my troubles, too. oh and father: come down from your castle, your body's grown weary from all the miles passed beneath you. oh and lovers will crawl on their knees in time into a distance of their design too soon, orange moon, you were my tangerine dream i can't help but know exactly what you mean, when you're mean i can't help but know EXACTLY what you mean, when you're mean - i can't help but know exactly what you mean. ©
6.
aly 04:36
if i've ever known deep love outside the arms of family, outside the forever warmth of my childhood home, well you know, it'd be you and me - we've been laid bare. it's taken some re-defining, re-alligning, but we did it as a pair and you believe in me all those months that i barely felt like a person, when we drove to philadelphia to see my little sister in the hospital all lost and scared, yeah, it took forfeiting hunger all our wondering in massachusetts air. you have loved the worst of me you've surveyed my darkest dreams and all my sunken sceneries and heavy wings, oh, but i can lay me down to rest and know that you still think i'm the best, and that means everything. we were warned in high school by our seussian hometown sage that in order to know true beauty, deep life we'd have to bury ourselves first. dense, dark and hurt we'd have to grow back green and slow, aching toward the light from underneath the dirt. and we lived in the space that yawned between manhattan and the breath of the berkshires, where we warred with hidden cavities our bodies had so coveted before - run tired and sore, it seemed that every holy hallway we walked down there stood a demon at the door. you have loved the worst of me you've surveyed my darkest dreams and all my sunken sceneries and heavy wings, oh, but i can lay me down to rest and know that you still think i'm the best, and that means everything. so friend, when your vision begs to fade, you can think on this tiny world you saved and how she thanks her lucky stars - know that you have the soul of a lighthouse, you're a white knight in the dark ©
7.
long walks float the hours by, the water sighs its thickets breeze all full of smoke and tired eyes our drunken souls find full expression, dawns that break with cups of tea and writing, writing, pages three we open channels, miss the train our thunderstorms chant with the rain and i'm, so fucking grateful for the people that i love. floating tubes of bubble soap i'm falling fast you throw the rope winds around darkness like a gallows while we wade, dream-like, in the shallows can you fix my broken mind? can you find what i can't find? warmth like magma through the cracks of shivering spines and smiling eyes and i'm so fucking grateful for the people that i love. and i've seen that my heart it waits for no one, but you imbue my fathoms deep my hands and my sunsets and my and i'm so fucking grateful for the people that i love. ©
8.
when you tell stories you ask nothing of me you find all your words by yourself and the way that you offer means nothing is taken from you so we come out even felt faint and weak from the salt and the caffeine heat wave and beer on the fourth of july i wanted to carry you into my bedroom and lay with you 'till you felt better and you know that i love you completely though i'm clearly not sure what that means told you your eyes were like the sun rising unsentimentally told me one of your old unsettling dreams ©
9.
hannah 05:43
the bathroom is a wreck with all your clothes strewn on the floor and your body is bent double with all the wondering what for, no there's no room for working; only room for wanting more! (your body tells its' tall tales from the mirror on the door) cream on your face in daytime makes you sensitive to light. when you're laughing with your feet up, darling, you sure seem alright make a vapor of this lightness! can you hold it to you tight? you feel like heavy metal days you didn't sleep last night and one day you'll know - there's nothing so real on which to worry. one day, some day, you'll see and we've known, oh we've known from all the winters in this city that you'd stand up like a fireplace on your own that you could be your own hearth in your own home. the marble countertops and wicker baskets tossed askew, they're relics of a garden passed, before the things we knew, this home has seen its angels pounding walls in empty rooms - but easter's fast arriving, dear, the spring always comes through. and one day you'll see how you've outlived your pity. oh one day, some day, you'll see and you've grown, oh girl, i've seen you grow although at times it's felt so shitty, i've seen you reach up like a ladder, bone by bone - i saw you in the driveway praying all alone and these days we know that in those pristine closets are bones and rags and families just like ours we grew ourselves out in the backyard sticky pine floor forests and hauled our wicker baskets up to mars! oh, nothing loved us better than those stars! oh, nothing loved us better.. ©
10.
jamie's grandma brazenly appeared, a picture from her graduation from the lifelong school of growing old and wise our eating habits all tacked up alongside reasons why we suck but love each other in the end, three sizes, shapes, and hurts to mend amber, andy getting wed, there's someone down in tucson singing rafa's out in oregon at the beach there's matt's obligatory pun, annie thinks killing cats is fun but robert redford thinks i'm great, he certified appreciate! two cups flour, two cups tea, our baking notes say we've got lots of cum from our party summer past when we danced in Irene the voices of planned parenthood, we think we're doing what we should can we tell all the cool kids that we named our wireless meowcat? i wasn't here for julia and thimo, but that note's never gonna come down because of the hilarious way julia said monkey (monkey!) we ran the road down wild maine, from massachussetts, just outside new york, we came craigslist, clark university, they bore us out so strangely in the heights you don't like cats, but i like you guys a scary chicken fights grenades, rachel, annie, james cat the third our lizards, turtles, little girls and bloody bunny-dogs jamie's nostalg for the zambs, we've got language! we've got plans! how opportune a network, say, can we watch some colbert today? i wasn't here for julia and thimo, but that note's never gonna come down because of the hilarious way julia said monkey (monkey!) we ran the road down wild maine, from massachussetts, just outside new york, we came craigslist, clark university, they bore us out so strangely in the heights you don't like cats, but i like you guys just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly; you don't like cats, but i like you guys. ©
11.
you went overseas for a while i found other reasons to smile and you stayed by our window pane watching as we played below in the thunder and rain tearing the ground from its' earthly chains and you went to new jersey for a while and you walked with your aunt down the kerosene miles and the person i was and the things that i knew are all fading with grimace and grace to the blue of a bruise ©
12.
when i walked across with devils legs, i wondered i wondered if you knew i wondered if you saw right through me and when i swam, i swam into that, river rocking i wondered if you heard that little yellow bird gone flying you were safe to me- you were safe to me, safe to me.. when i spoke, i spoke all of those words so callous, i wondered if you felt their roughness like a belt of leather, and when i climbed, i climbed onto those bottom branches i couldn't help but see the bottom of the leaves all rotted you were safe to me - you were safe to me.. safe to me. ©

about

Grimace and Grace:

"It's like chicken noodle soup or yogurt at just the right time and the right time is always."
-Gideon Irving of "My Name Is Gideon

credits

released September 13, 2012

all songs written and performed by rachel laitman

album art by rachel meirs & anna latourette

drums on animal noises, restless things, birds and bees, narratives and hannah performed by the human metronome with a beautiful soul, matt johnson

piano on birds and bees, aly, fucking grateful, matt on the fourth, and jersey suburbs performed by the intuitive and 'tasteful' brian fitzsousa

inebriated folk chorus on narratives and fucking grateful immaculately performed by jamie nadeau and lovely drunken company

acoustic guitar on animal noises, narratives, aly, and hannah; electric guitar on animal noises, sea song, matt on the fourth, hannah, and river running; bass on animal noises, sea song, restless things, birds and bees, narratives, fucking grateful, matt on the fourth, and hannah; mandolin and river running; percussion on sea song, fucking grateful, and matt on the fourth; backing vocals on restless things, fucking grateful, you don't like cats, and river running breathtakingly performed by the inimitable peter j hochstedler

all songs co-produced by peter j hochstedler and rachel laitman
engineered and mixed by peter j hochstedler

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Corey Laitman Montague, Massachusetts

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