Get all 12 Balto releases available on Bandcamp and save 25%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Wrong End, Spanish Wine, No Hard Feeling (4-Track), From Them to Us, From Us To You (A Cover Tape), Magnet / Mind, Black Snake, Mojave Blues/Still Don't Know, Bullshit Dream, Songs for Viktor, and 4 more.
1. |
The Railyard
05:17
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Oh my sweet little darling dear
When these words reach your ears I’ll be long gone from here
All alone in a railyard, the shrill whistle blows
Oh where I’m a-going really god only knows
I’ll call her Eliza, the girl with no name
All wrapped up in silence, in secrets, in pain
In north country winter, both tied to the road
Smiled and said nothing, I bared her my soul
And I know that I loved her, but I couldn’t say why
And all of that silence might well have been lies
She cried out “I love you, but I’ll never be free.
There ‘aint no use guessing, just forget about me.”
It’s lonesome out here on the road
Where the last points of fire that light the night sky
Burn down to their embers and flicker and die
My fingers go numb in the cold
Where the last little spark that’s disrupting the dark
Is that last bit of feeling that’s left in my heart
My footsteps were haunted for many long weeks
I couldn’t find shelter in those dull dusty streets
So I found me a railcar with no windows, no doors
Poured out all my love on the cold rusty floor
And in the gray morning I was long gone, away
In a far eastern country where the language is strange
Where the seabirds they circle no ocean nearby
Like lost souls they’re crying, lamenting their plight
The sun rises and sets in the same goddamn place
Shadows circle my body and laugh in my face
Though I set out to find me a whole brand new life
I don’t want to forget her, I don’t want to die
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2. |
Self Portrait
04:43
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Oh darlin' just for you
I'll be a good man I'll come through
Sing you simple words that you can understand
Sing it loud and clear and true
Oh I love you darlin' feel it my bones
Gotta tell it like it is
And though this world is wide – It seems I'm lost at sea
You know I'm rowing east
Oh darlin' though it seems I went away
I've been rollin' rollin' rollin' back to you
For I don't have a home of wood or brick or stone
No country, state, no name
All I know is that my place is where you are
I'm gonna make it, you know it can't be far!
It seems that you believe
That our love was lost the moment I appeared
You know this aint no phase – heard that voice and saw your face again
I can never leave
Oh I know that you are scared of everything
What's more you're scared of me
Everything I do is strange, its cruel, its real
I don't mean you any harm
Oh darlin' if the weight's too much to bear
Pass a little on to me
I don't got much but everything I have is yours
Don't be shy – come on by –¬¬ it ain't mine anymore
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3. |
The Tin Man
03:53
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The Tin Man’s sitting in the waiting room
With his brand new plastic heart
He don’t know where to start
Can’t really tell it’s a false alarm
Cuz he can’t feel much of anything
No he’s hollow to the core
And what he pours inside don’t satisfy
Just spills out on the floor
The doc comes in 20 minutes late
And he pours himself a drink
He says, “boy I aint no shrink
But you better watch what it is you think!”
“Cuz that thing that ticks inside of you
has got a mind of its own
it’ll drive you mad for what you never had
make you burn like black coal.”
And he came up strong with too much love
For her cold hands to hold
You better hold him down until the end of the show
And when they danced he broke her back
With the weight of the world
You better hold him down till the end of the show
In the park by the tenement
With his head laid in his hands
The Tin Man has got a plan
He’s met a girl and she makes him sad
But all he knows he knows from films
And he follows the actor’s lead
He’s jammed a rose between his teeth
And scrubbed his armor clean
Now he’s running up and down the avenue
His joints are creaking in the rain
He made a date but she never came
Of course, he has gone insane
And he shouts her name into the night
He startles the passers by
And on the road not far ahead
She hears and she takes a fright
[Chorus]
The police report had a note in it
And it made the captain blush
He thought it all was a little much
He didn’t they called that love
It seems the Tin Man screamed some profanities
From the top of a city bus
But when he caught a sight of his girl inside
He slipped and died for all of us
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4. |
Kirov Factory
05:14
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desperate, Fingers
prints on black and white
her hands tied
skinny wrists to the train line
trembling, Holding
fears she can't express
her eyes close
tiny fist in my hands, though
and she turns away, turns away
spilling tears on the subway
if birds could bend the iron rails
of cages, prisons, lies
and turn back time, unclip their wings,
regain that will to fly
as endless night returns to white,
someday they'll take the sky
cut all the lines, rise up on high,
like waking back to life.
sleepless, Frequent
eyes pried wide and powdered
for daybreak
steels herself for the heartbreak
hopeless, Highness
empty all your trust
as the doors close
the howling wind through the tunnels
then she'll glance back
sees her train on the wrong track
scares her to death scares her to death
scares me to death scares me to death
i'm a strange caveman
for a girl in a cave
scares me to death scares me to death
scares her to death scares her to death
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5. |
Elizabeth the Bumblebee
02:28
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Elizabeth the bumblebee keeps flying round and stinging me
Left poison in my fingers long ago
And lonesome in the summer night she tried to get me one more time
Left stinger in my body before she died
And every night that buzzing fills my ears till morning light
And how I’ve saved that bitter pain as if it was today
Elizabeth you’re just like me come back to life come set me free
We’ll drink the nectar, spark like fireflies
And teach me every flower known to this foreign land you call your home
I’ll give you shelter if it gets too cold
But oh, I know your paper wings were frozen long ago
And fallen here, my swollen hands and eyes all filled with tears
I had another dream last night, a bumblebee came flying by
Black and yellow shape caught on the breeze
And as I turned expecting you to whisper, “how I looked for you!”
I only saw an ordinary fly
For the world’s gone gray and all that’s left are flies around decay
And all I see:
Are golden fields that’ll never be
And love you spent and lost on me
Your final words still stingin’ me
Wring honey from my heart so bittersweet
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6. |
Long Time Coming
04:00
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Been coming for a long, long time
Oh did you say this life could never be
It was never really up to me
Decided by a god I cannot know
And when you poured every little fluid ounce of trust
The overflowing cup was only just
Your cardboard cutout substitute for love
And tragically I’m holding on
But the game is lost and the crowd is gone
I’m losing my mind
I’m losing my mind, oh
Been coming for a long, long time
And in my head a girl is sitting there
She picks a patch of wall and stares
She tells her love, she’s doomed to die alone
But then she’ll rise and straighten crooked spine
And remember love and remember life
She buys a ticket that train will take her home
And I’m standing on the platform here
But all mirages disappear
I’m losing my mind
I’m losing my mind, oh
Been coming for a long, long time
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7. |
Don Quixote
04:33
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Handfulls of sleeping pills washed down with a bottle of wine
Couldn’t stop my mind, couldn’t hold my attention
From Noticing the cracks, the holes in my logic
And the permanence of the things that I have done
I notice as I’m riding on a subway late at night
In the flickering light, that I have always loved
imaginary princesses – it’s a simple, brutal truth
That while riding high, I am Don Quixote
I am a bull in a china shop while stick-limbed, skinny, frail
I destroy all the pretty things while my body wastes away
And for my crimes they packed me up and shipped my soul away
So my fragile arms couldn’t cause you any harm or any pain
A letter comes down from the sky she writes a lot of nothing
but I lose my mind and spend a whole week thinking
of all the things I never did – that last and final promise
that I couldn’t keep – couldn’t make it across the border
Every time I touch the phone the urge takes hold my fingers
And my words turn cruel, I’ll make her say she loves me
Forgetting at the other end a pair of trembling fingers
dials frantically – my imaginary girlfriend
I am a bull in a china shop while stick-limbed, skinny, frail
I destroy all the pretty things while my body wastes away
And for my crimes they packed me up and shipped my soul away
So my fragile arms couldn’t cause you any harm or any pain
So forgive me for the things I’ve done and all I never did
And I’ll try to do the same for you, I know you’re just a kid
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8. |
October's Road
04:25
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the seatbelt sign blinks, the day is stretched out
somewhere far away all my hope turned to doubt
i sat awake in the piercing sunlight,
with my eyes screaming out for the quiet of night
Got cuts on my fingers, got blood on my hands
And the wounds can’t be stitched closed with fraying loose ends
And the echoes of past love now emptied of form
Get louder and louder as I drift out from shore
How am I gonna show from across this ocean that I can’t let you go
Cuz as the months fall away, aint see nothing gonna change
How am I gonna know if you’re alive and breathing anymore
Cuz all the lines are getting cold and I’ve got to show for…
Oh if you had seen me
Collapse to the floor and known why and what for
You'd finally hear me
Come running with help, wipe the blood from my mouth
Where it spilled
And maybe you'll notice
That fear of your loss has kept closing me off
And at last
I tore myself open
A river poured out after decades of drought
SO COME ON
I'm willing and able
My feet or a plane, oh a bus or a train
I can run
If only a moment
To hold your cold hands tell you life aint that bad
Because it aint — life aint that bad.
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9. |
The Lover
05:54
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Hey there lover don’t you feel so bad
There aint no one gonna take what you once had
Oh you won so many battles but you lost the war
Now it’s time to pack and leave for brighter shores
So you tore up half your letters
Marked the rest “return to sender”
Tore every last picture off the wall
Hey there lover I know she's done you wrong
But what she gave you first won’t do you any harm
Well she faded into silence
Left you standing in the aisle
When morning came you dropped that dried bouquet
But you know she really loved you
Though now there’s nothing to hold on to
You know certain things can never be undone
So hold your head up high, lover
Drink that wine and toast your lover
Even if she’s gone and far away
Oh can you remember – what you had
From the first of November – and what was said
That passed away
By the very first of May
I met a lover yesterday on bended knee
He aint waiting for no one to set him free
See he grew his beard and watched the autumn fade to gray
Sittin by the kitchen window, he’s drawn the shade
And the faces laugh around him
“You’re a fool you lonely bastard,
don’t you want to be a happy man like me”
But he smiles, his eyes a-shining
“My friend you miss the silver lining
There’s only one truth I’ve come to know”
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10. |
Home November Shore
04:50
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At a bus stop in a border town
This lovelorn refugee
Slowly smokes a cigarette
And trembles, ill at ease
She should have been here hours ago
I watch the eastward road
But the sun tracks fast across the sky
And still nobody shows
And then I’m torn away at last
The doors slam hard and fast
Watch the empty houses
Press my nose against the glass
I guess I’ll go home then
It’s time to go home again
I’ll try to go home again
At a wooden house on Fleet Street
I took my final vows
Put a pen to paper then
Described what I had found
But words all lose their meaning when
You’re lost alone in love
And whatever mail I sent that day
Got lost and wasn’t enough
So I read a guide to San Francisco
In a boat out far from shore
Thought of all the love I’d make
If I ever got back to port
Now Coney Island’s emptied out
That cold November shore
Between the freak-show carousels
Dance the ballerina ghosts
I dance the ghost dance for my love
I paint my forehead blue
Raise my hands towards paradise
But my directions get confused
And I know I marked myself a man
With war paint on my cheeks
But there’s no strength left in my hands
Can hardly even speak
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Balto Los Angeles, California
Card Carrying Cultists of the Great American Song, The Great American Groove, and the Great American Highway
Balto recommends:
Men Who Share My Name
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Men Who Share My Name is a beautiful work of art - a devastating folk record - portrait of a man and his life. Philippe, the mastermind behind Hip Hatchet, played piano, accordion, and sang for Balto.
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I heard Widower's (alias of Kevin Large) song "Grasp" performed live when I first moved to Portland and it made a lasting impression. Fantastic record from start to finish. Really, really sad.
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Popular music bent into something you've never heard by the producer of "October's Road". Keyser Soze will knock your socks off.
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This album makes me want to run in a valley, dance near a bonfire, and repent for all my sins at the same time.
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Downey to Lubbock
by Dave Alvin
Soulful guitar interplay form the heart of this lovely Americana collaboration from Dave Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore.
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