1. |
Pacific Fog
03:18
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Oh, oh, love of mine
Take me out dancing beneath the stars
Oh, Japanese parts
American wheels will take you further than far
Oh, Ichiro, so wild and tangled in your sheets
On every page, I thought, that’s me.
Oh, oh, love of mine
Take me out swimming in Pacific fog
Oh, Canadian grass
and Mexican snow will both get you lost
Have you ever seen a child tangled in her sheets?
Have you ever thought, that’s me?
Oh, oh, Ichiro,
Bury your mother, your runaway thoughts
Oh, oh, No-No Boy,
Poor John Okada wrapped in Pacific fog
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2. |
Boat People
04:38
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Forty years ago, the doctor left on a boat
Never seen the snow or felt it in his hand
Sail until you see dry land
I can’t get off the news, I can’t get off the floor
The “good folks” go inside when we need them most
What do prayers do behind locked doors?
Tuan went back to rebuild, only to watch Saigon fall
He climbs up Mont Royal, makes a life in Montreal
Donated winter coats and Barbie dolls
I wrap myself in books. They’re talking bout this ban
I linger on bell hooks. She helps me to understand
Some of this ain’t new, no, ma’am.
Fourteen hours by car, cargo trucks and cabs
Just to shake the cops, Mom had to stay back
A Chinese safe house and covered tracks
Eighteen meters long, two hundred bodies full
A simple compass and a map from a kid’s geography book
Forget Ferdinand or Captain fuckin’ Cook
Bodies bobbing in the rough South China Sea
Ran across a Thai pirate ship scavenging
Ripped the doctor from his kids, bleeding
Hours under gun, then tossed into the water
He swam back to his son, held on to his daughter
Drifting through the night…
As the daylight broke, a mountain in the dawn
Off the Malaysian coast, sweet Pulau Bidong
Never cried so hard or so long
I can’t get off the news. I can’t get off my phone
My mother came here, too, forty years ago
If you see somebody’s cold, give ‘em a coat
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3. |
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Outside snow is falling
Han Shan’s voice is calling
Boots on Back Bay avenues
With Mitski’s tunes I tarry
In Mass Ave library
Climb Cold Mountain after noon
We got a lot to do
Really, what is there to do?
Winter city freeze out
Finals week I bleed out
All my last good tricks and charms
Sliding down Newbury
Sugar Plummin' fairies
Blowin' kisses through their scarves
On the bridge over the pond
A quiet that disarms
A glance across the water
Last imperial daughter
A trickster madame, not a thief
I keep my dress
both pressed and clean
Based on a best seller
Dance like Helen Keller
So new
Cold Mountain, see you soon
Hoppin’ on the Green Line
Dogeared, yellow highlights
Pre-Med major at BU
Trackin’ snowy steps
And sippin’ on some pep
In flasks of melted silver spoons
Eyes upon the moon
Really, what else can you do?
Get off at South Station
A good meal’s like a vacation
Chinatown, a sweet unease
Find our food in Cantonese
Jazz band in the cellar
Dance like Helen Keller
True blue
Cold Mountain, see you soon
Finals come and go
Through winter city snow
Ambition keeps you on a hook
Hard bound Aristotle
Bowling pin glass bottles
Undress like a nervous crook
You give me such a look
God, I’ll miss that look
A glance across the water
Last imperial Daughter
A trickster madame, not a thief
I keep my prose
both pressed and clean
Based on a best seller
Dance like Helen Keller
So new
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4. |
Disposable Youth
03:11
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Disposable you
Disposable me
Disposable hearts
Indestructible teens
A grin on the grass
Polish horseshoes and white trash croquet
From your lawn chair reign
Coleman cooler of ice
Bobbing for PBR
Modelos, light headed
Man, she’s off of the charts
Undeniable parts
Sharp wit, dark eyes and runner's legs
A mouth like New Year’s Day
Not a moment to waste
Leave that for the food
It’s life that we taste
And it’s life that tastes good
Disposable youth
Irrepressible hands long his waist
God, this band is great
Disposable youth
Caught like fireflies
In this mason jar afternoon
An single bite a la mode peach pie
Disposable you
Disposable me
Fearless child rolling up her sleeves
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5. |
Lam Thi Dep
03:21
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Shame on the southern face
Nicole saw the flags of uncle Ho
Sweep the streets she used to know
Military issued boots and uniforms
Shed like unfit skin on the pavement
Twice a widow
Clutching an unreliable M16
Stolen off dead infantry
Lam Thi Dep did you make it out?
Are you doing Becky’s nails in orange county?
General Tran, he votes republican
His father was a fisherman
He’s a pastry chef at Le Bec Fin
We both get drunk on Miller beer
We say, “salut,” instead of “cheers”
Born feeling wrong
I sing my secrets in a song
Too unfamiliar to belong
Anywhere on either side
I took the train to 59th
Felt guilty as I stood in line
Don’t let this get back to Mom
But I know every word to Miss Saigon
Washed up in the Ivy League
Microagressed, hear the precious sing
with suffering these “refugees”
in seminars, on bowling greens
with detached look-at-me empathy
but, what does “refugee” really mean
besides villainizing cold war enemies
and re-ascribing validity to the nation state?
Meanwhile, displaced peoples seek
a way to make the best of things
and run away from real suffering
which we employ as currency
against doctoral imposter anxiety
Look, I just want a house and a diamond ring
Get off it, or pick up a god damn rifle
There’s no revolution at Brown University
No, not for Lam or Tran or Nicole or me
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6. |
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Instructions to all persons of Japanese…
Instructions to all persons of Japanese ancestry
I think of my friend Sachi, now, Mrs. Kuwatani
Telling me stories in the old folks home
Like the time she was a little girl
and climbed above the rest of the world
Scaled the tower at the Santa Anita racetrack
Where not even the boys dared go
And she felt good for a moment or so…
I think of my friend Tats
fishing scorpions from the hot
Colorado River Indian land
Would be Casanova
Walking three girls home from the dance
Well after midnight
Singing harmonies, til one by one they’d leave
and leave Tats to stroll back in the moonlight
Singing ballads to the stars all his own
And he felt good for moment or so…
Instructions to all persons of Japanese…
Instructions to all persons of Japanese ancestry
I think of my friend Roy, a farm kid, teenage boy
Mr. Tanaka inviting him to join the dance band
In a place called Tule Lake, then, later on at Amache
He found a group of kids to find trouble with
Some little slice of living
Through a clerical error, his friends and him
got a bunkhouse to themselves, they called the “Loafers Inn”
Playing cards and telling jokes
They felt good for a moment or so…
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7. |
Ogie / Naoko
03:31
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We have but eternity, let’s waste it together
Dress me in sunlight and benevolent tethers
Swing on the radio, a kiss in the hallway
Ask me, how long I’ll love you
The answer, always
Pen touches paper and all the world’s right
Or, as right as it could be, tonight
Ogie, Naoko
Hearts in airmailed envelopes
Ogie, oh
Naoko!
They fell in love through a war, fished flames from their breasts
The girl was a poet, the boy did his best
To float in between islands on black ink and sentiment
As the sage recommends, firm footing as friends
A tiptoe quotidian so close to the edge
of the world, who knows, this could happen again
and where lay our loyalties, then?
to each other of course, til the end
Ogie, Naoko
Hearts in airmailed envelopes
Ogie, oh
Naoko!
Pen touches paper and all the world’s right
Or, as right as it could be, tonight
Ogie, Naoko
Hearts in airmailed envelopes
Ogie, oh
Naoko!
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8. |
Heart Mountain
04:13
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Good years on a mountain, primrose on the sill
Good years on a mountain, in the house that we build
Some star-crossed, outlaw love in the movies is cool
But over and over, our hearts are rapped by the rules
Dream, do not do, don’t dare drift from the pew
No serpent slain final curtain, no Byronic revue
Hush hun, tell no one, this one’s for you
Hush hun and hold it, trust it as true
Born to western mountains, three states from my hills
A long decade onward, a great gap to fill
Of travel and reference, yet I imagine us still
Old queens in Okinawa, springs of sonnets fulfilled
Hush hun and hold on, a daydream must do
Hush hun and hold it, trust it as true
From my lover’s brass bed, I catch alabaster snow
While you cross the bay bridge, with a boy who’s right to boast
of his companion’s classic beauty, like the Agave in bloom,
hills of Kurinji flowers where infinity’s consumed
Hush hun and hold on, like your teenage tattoo
or your beautiful belly, or your perfect crooked tooth
Your language is my language, wet lips in laundry rooms
Hush hun and hold on, daydreams must do
Good years on a mountain, with so much love that it spills
and runs down in rivers past the house that we build
We’ll sail down those rivers through my soft sunburnt hills
in a boat brimmed with books, capes of music, cups filled
Oh, teach me faith over fear, hear my heart as she thrills
and bellows and echoes with unconquerable will
Writing postcards from every province, picking primrose for the sill
Good years on a mountain in the house that we build
Good years on a mountain in the house that we build
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9. |
Two Candles In The Dark
03:27
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Don’t it feel like a movie, teaching this girl how to waltz
Left feet, she might have three, but she sure feels nice in my arms
Old folks sing an old song, play in the agreed upon key
My eyes are stuck on her, her eyes don’t leave her feet
This girl, no class ring, maybe this is more than a lark
Brown boots, a dirt floor, we’re dancing like two candles in the dark
Pretty outlaw call a quarter past, light knuckles on a barrack door
She got a brother down in Topaz, I saw that name once in a jewelry store
Wind around past the skaters and pond, looking for a cut in the wire
She’s got a key to the cellar door,
I don’t ask questions, man, just stand there inspired
This girl, gets why, I miss the garden at the Golden Gate Park
Young blood and old songs, we’re dancing like two candles in the dark
I tell ya, man, it’s like some movie and she’s just tailor made for the part
Lamps licking the roof beams, she’s got good looking down to an art
Hear the old folks sing them old songs, the background just fades away
Our coffee can fire’s almost gone, she says, “I gotta get out of this place”
This girl, a pin point, that moment ya feel a spark
Brown boots, a dirt floor, we’re dancing like two candles in the dark
Dancing like two candles in the dark
Dancing like two candles in the dark
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10. |
Dragon Park
03:34
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Je chante en français
Italian last name
Eyes like the king of old Siam
Broken in half
A colonial raft, splinters and laughs
Like my Japanese friend who fronts a country band
I feel washed out
Punched in the mouth, private school playgrounds
White knuckled, blue-eyed barbarians
I know that southern stare
Not just back home but everywhere
Forget me not
Strolling round Angkor Wat,
Ruins saved and cleaned by gloved French hands
Sweet Twinkie, confused
Old missionary blues
Kung fu barbie, yellow fever tan
Confederate flags, jasmine ice tea
The Golden Buffet in downtown Pulaski
Sashimi plate, magnolia leaves
At old Dragon Park, sit and watch ‘em do Tai Chi
Je connais ce regard qui tue
Non seulement dans le sud mais partout
Je chante en français
Un nom italien
Les yeux comme le roi du Siam
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11. |
Little Saigon
03:18
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I heard about a place called Little Saigon
Everybody’s got my face, so, mine won’t have to grow so long
Palm trees, a terrace seat, a café where I belong
Oh, I think I’d like to go to this place, Little Saigon
One day I’d like to go to a place called Little Saigon
Buy shoes in a little shop and silks from Vietnam
Take lessons on the Đàn bầu and play an old folk song
Oh, I think I’d like to go to a place called Little Saigon
Un jour, je vais aller à Little Saigon
J’enverrai une lettre en Français à ma maman
“C’est pas Saigon, maman, mais je serais content longtemps.”
Un jour, je voudrais aller à Little Saigon
One day, I’m gonna go to a place called Little Saigon
Listen to the CBC Band loud with my headphones on
Walk around the indoor mall where the language sounds like song
Oh, I think I’d like to go to a place called Little Saigon
Oh, I think I’d like to go to this place, Little Saigon
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No-No Boy Portland, Oregon
Nashville-born, Oregon musician & scholar. New album "Empire Electric out on Smithsonian Folkways fall 2023.
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