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Mean Spirit

by The Whiskey Priest

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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    handmade lino-cut printed cover, based on the original album artwork by heidi landau. Limited edition of 200 copies total, in various colors.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Mean Spirit via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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    Purchasable with gift card

      $12 USD or more 

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    handmade lino-cut printed cover, based on the original album artwork by heidi landau. Limited edition of 200 copies total, in various colors.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Mean Spirit via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $13 USD or more 

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    handmade lino-cut printed cover, based on the original album artwork by heidi landau.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Mean Spirit via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $13 USD or more 

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    handmade lino-cut printed cover, based on the original album artwork by heidi landau. Limited edition of 200 copies total, in various colors.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Mean Spirit via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $13 USD or more 

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    handmade lino-cut printed cover, based on the original album artwork by heidi landau. Limited edition of 200 copies total, in various colors.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Mean Spirit via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    8 remaining
    Purchasable with gift card

      $13 USD or more 

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    accidents will happen. but do we cry? goodness no! take this opportunity to save some dough on these misprints of the handmade lino-cut printed cover, based on the original album artwork by heidi landau. limited edition of 200 copies total, in various colors and deformities.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Mean Spirit via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $10 USD or more 

     

1.
rachel in a summer dress many long ago from detroit from port aransas from an island of snow we sat in the kitchen and my face it stopped working and we all sang "papa was a rodeo" and we smile with our eyes and we laugh with our eyes and we know, yes we know, yes we know wildflowers and cigarettes and shoes full of sand bird song and good vines getting pulled away from the land and there is a song that's always been sung but that i can't ever understand it goes "the man with the lord, and the lord with the woman, and the woman and the lord with the man." and hey you gotta have love you gotta have a front door to walk through at night and oh, it don't seem like much to kiss those bare feet and rest in those eyes but sometimes that great wall you built to hold back the flood only locks those flood waters in tight then your home is in danger and your heart is a stranger to your mind and you drink the salt water with the fisherman's daughters and you cry and you cry and you cry so you drive through the desert now and you look for a sign and you smile when you remember that big yellow house in the sky where they put money in your hat they put flowers in your beard and in your dreams she kisses you slow rachel in a summer dress many long ago
2.
Meanie 03:29
i bang a drum so i don't have to work i'm a sonuva gun, i'm sort of a jerk i didn't mean to be such a meanie to you i just thought you'd understand, cos i thought you knew that i didn't like the way you'd talk to me i didn't like the way you'd boss me around so much i know you loved me but i just can't take that stuff i wish someone would kindly just explain the whole deal to me i thought i'd figure it out eventually why some people gotta drag these heavy chains through the smoke and everybody else gets a smile and a coke i stepped out just for a minute, had to look for my faces i never found my way back into your good graces but that was tonight, and tomorrow's today i don't know what i just said and think i like it that way but i don't like thinking bout the way i was i'd like put it behind me, i'd like to cover it up so i jump under the covers and wash away my sins but those stains are getting thicker and that remedy wears me thin so i take a blade to my long black hair and my baby's having nightmares bout girls i ain't never touched i know she loves me but i just can't take that stuff i was a prince of the pavement for a year or two and then the shine shimmied off and the shit shone through you were riding your bike, you were saying your prayers we were minding our own business, we were caught unawares now i'm living out west where there ain't no surprises still picking out the splinters from between my eyes got a road for the wheels, a fire for the dark i got the moon, i got the moon, i got the moon for a heart i'd do anything you've heard of just to lay it down neat i'd be your open umbrella, i'd be the back of your beat but i'm broke and misbegotten and i'm missing some teeth i'm gumming up what's left of all the things i believed when i was young and full fire, not just your voodoo doll oh yeah you pour it on real thick but i'm gonna have to call your bluff you're just a meanie when you're trying to give me all your love
3.
Nearly Numb 05:29
o spirit roll, come tumble and sing my faith is hanging by a string rush river rush, make a flood of this stream my faith is hanging by a string been choking on the names i've been known to carry and don't a body need to breathe? i was lit up all winter, now i'm hiding from the spring and i can't feel anything, i can't feel anything oh mother stop fussing, mother stop your worrying my faith is hanging by a string cast out into the dark where it should be shimmering it's blinking on and off, can you tell me what it means that our prayers got us nowhere and our hopes are picked clean still i'm betting on that wedding ring and the lord he is a mountain in the thick of my dreams but i can't feel anything, i can't feel anything my body is turning in the grass and you're covered in the blood, you're covered in the blood this rain is falling at last and we're mixing into mud, we're just mixing into mud i was a soldier in a war that both sides lost and now we're counting up the cost, we're counting up the cost and if you see my grandfather, could you tell him i've been tossed in the wind and the snow, and i'm covered up in frost and i'm trying hard to sing but i can't feel anything it's a dark mind now that winds this road see it balancing that heavy load full of dust and promises and visions of a home oh the spirit has been known to groan so take me to the rock, make a flood of this stone i'm so dry, and i'm so all alone oh father abraham, there ain't no lamb, so c'mon let's make a scene cos i can't feel anything, i can't feel anything...
4.
it's like a knife in my eye it's like a knife in my eye it's like a knife in the back of my eye and i can't get it out, i can't get it it's like honey on my chin it's like honey on my chin it's like honey runnin' down my chin and i can't get it off, i can't get it i can't get it off my mind it's like a spider in it's web it's like a spider in it's web it's like a spider in it's web and it's coming for the bed that's tucked inside the nest in the middle of my head it's like a well that won't run dry it's like a well that won't run dry it's a poisoned well that won't run dry it's filling up my cup, my cup runneth over i can't get it off my mind it's like a cage with no doors it's like a cage with no doors it's like a cage with no doors, there's nothing for it but to rattle the bars...
5.
Youngtown 05:58
i can't sleep in a young town i walk the streets with my eyes to the ground i got no time to hold or be held so busy keeping my hands to myself it's all the slaves to the fashion the slaves to the scene it's all another missed opportunity for learning to live with less of me in the dancehall of the prophets i met the priestess of apophis she was a dee-jay hipster mystic she was mumbling something bout drugs and lipstick she was a slave to the fashion a slave to the scene she was another missed opportunity for learning to live with less of me on top the mountain of the ego i have surround my self with seagulls their cries drowning out my deception breaking up the signal, blocking my reception they're keeping me distracted from learning my lesson that you gotta have a death if you want a resurrection keeps me a slave to my fashion a slave to my scene keeps keeping me from one more opportunity for learning to live with less of me
6.
well you brought me a companion when i kept asking for death you gave me a warm body when all i wanted from you was breath i asked you for a reason i begged to understand so you sat down in the native pose and drew pictures in the sand you saw me drifting off and you pulled me alongside and said "wait for me my darling dear beloved and only bride" but i caught you going out when you told me not to come i could turn on you again i could turn around and run but i been through this before and i guess it didn't stick cos, oh, look who it is yeah baby don't it just make you sick how the best of us get stupid how purposes all bend yeah i been through this before guess i'll just go through it again cos it's late now, in the day oh it is late and it is dark and the lamplighter is wandering through the town, but not the park where i am lying on a bench and waiting for a sign that tells me i can stand and leave and that everything will be fine and that i should keep on walking through the street lights and the grid keep on walking through the night where the awful truths are hid behind every painted face down every dark stairwell yeah tell me i should just keep walking though i can't tell where i'm headed but that sign has not appeared and my eyes are getting tired and my vision is impaired and my lips are cracked and dry and my tongue is clicking loudly and there is a hammering in my head i could use a drink or twenty and a stranger's welcome bed i could use a bottle of easy living i could use a pound of flesh to fill this lake of longing cover up this meaninglessness i could use a game of you to help me forget this ain't no game now listen, is it getting better or do you feel the shame oh the pen is moving fast now but my heart is faster still and it's turning out the storehouse where the driver keeps the till in a maddened quest for currency for any coin that can be spent towards the matter, bleak and urgent that's caught and bleeding on the fence that borders off the ancient city from that country lost to man and keeps him ever sick and longing for where the water meets the land in that blazing world of ever turning, daring him to stand visions of her naked body twisting in between two nail pierced hands
7.
i've been praying selfish prayers begging mercies from the girl upstairs don't think she can hear my cry got bigger things on her mind i've been living on different streets walking backwards on my new beat saving pennies from railroad tracks painting all my red doors black stumblin' round on the sides of my feet bubbling like a bitch in heat at every ghost i meet i've been sleeping in my shoes digging up my dangling roots sniffing out meaning in the songs i sing open up my veins for the fat lady glue her feathers to my face walk over her empty grave and then i take it out on faith i've been praying selfish prayers heresies and put-on-aires making out in empty tombs fertile goddess buds in bloom swimming out from those minor keys gonna ask my question of that wounded king till i belong to everything
8.
i've been thinking too much in a world where my fingers can touch the rocks that the river has made smooth as your face on it's way through the canyon i've been drinking my tea with the honey from a dead man's bees who themselves all died in the freeze we had around christmas you never could hold in your hands what in your heart kept you lonely and driven you were running before you could stand but you just couldn't see what you were missing i've been walking your dogs down the path that divides up the east from the west listening for the sounds of my own breath which just proves that i'm breathing well i hung onto every word every lesson, every blessing, every curse course the message we both missed is that a word ain't a thing worth believin' and you believed with all of your might changed your name to explain your new living but you still slept alone every night you just couldn't see what you were missing did you just want some kind of relief from the weight you'd kept buried and hidden did you never learn how to say what you need we'd all have come running just to listen oh this suicide honey's too sweet now my tears are unhinged but forgiving still your rosy's on her hands and her knees as she watches your ashes go drifting and your sisters and brother are weeping and kissing while the monks sing a hymn for the living and the wind gives their robes a good whipping and takes our voices and sends them up, lifting high over the cliffs where you'd spent your life sifting for some kernel of truth in your fields of misgiving and my brother i hope you can see what you're missing
9.
10.
washing my hands, washing my feet in the sea i can't stand, the waves beat-beating out a steady command to bring me kicking and screaming now i'm burried in sand but the wound is still bleeding did you strike up the band and then get to retreating? am i part of the plan or part of the scenery? i was done with the world i was done with the world long ago yessir my friend, i'm a pretty good heater but the word would not bend, the world didn't treat her like you wanna pretend a girl should be treated so she's out at the end of the wits-end pier she's throwing in cans of last year's fear laying on hands, raising the dead, turning wine into water, turning gold to bread i'm letting go of the words i'm letting go of the words that i know i was done with the world i was done with the world long ago leaves on the trees, leaves in the gutter blessed my knees, blessed my brothers bless my soul ima golden summer for you but once upon a time in a breakfast joint we were fickle and fine and without a point and the point ain't believing, the point ain't in leaving the point is just breathing in truth, and in truth i am born with the word i am born with the word in my soul and i'm done with the words i'm done with the words that i know i'm letting go of the world i'm letting go of the world i'm letting go
11.
free me free me from the words free me from the words the words that are a cage the words that are a cave a cave without a light a light without a source of you free me free me from the self free me from the self the self that is cave the self that is a lie a lie that is belief a belief without the truth of you free me free me from the world free me from the world the world that is a lie the world that is a stone a stone that is a path a path that is the grave of you what is what is show to me what is

credits

released November 11, 2014

made by roberto sanchez, seth woods, james summers, ben lance, alex dupree, joshua zarbo, b. sterling archer

"uprooted" drawing by heidi landau - theheidilandau.com

mixed and mastered by erik woffor
produced by roberto sanchez
written by seth woods

for cja, and rosy, and fred believer
thanks to: cja, rob and ellie, twp band, derek pierce, owen gillham, all kickstarter backers, and rhubarb.

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The Whiskey Priest Albuquerque, New Mexico

The Whiskey Priest is song-writer Seth Woods. He sings about horses, oceans, trains, mountains, deities, hands, science fiction, sex, vegetation, drinking games, deserts, depression, party people, seagulls, death, monks, memory, autumn, driving, and breakfast. He has never met a drum machine he didn't like. ... more

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