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Boy Scout (Part 3 of "The Drug Years")

by Paul Roessler

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1.
Boy Scout 04:04
Boy Scout Watch out Boy Scout He was a church going god fearing disciple of the American Dream Till he woke up one morning and realized he was a queen Watch out Boy Scout Do you believe in a black god Do you believe in a white god Do you believe in a queer god Do you believe in the right god? Imagine his surprise when he looked in his best friend's eyes Don't be a tool question their rules everything is out of your control Watch out Boy Scout Do you believe in a black god Do you believe in a white god Do you believe in a queer god Do you believe in the right god? Always got up on the right side of bed always kept a little prayer in his head But now they have told him don't think and don't tell saved him a place in boy scout hell Watch out Boy Scout Do you believe in a black god Do you believe in a white god Do you believe in a queer god Do you believe in the right god? Watch out Boy Scout
2.
Jade Buddha 04:30
Jade Buddha Jade Buddha fat saint stone ghoul cancer statue Leper idol cannibal lotus black zen widow money colored Maggot mother monkey fucker fungus flower carcass lover For you brother shoot brother For you sharp knife grows duller For you gentle killer For you greed drives a man insane Jade Buddha Graven image of blood drenched nirvana Jade Buddha coffin kitchen worm breeder grave robber Heart eater child beater soul raper arson savior Shiva in labor mushroom crater urine bather pope and priest and king of our enslavers For you a child ages For you we all miscarry For you paranoia greed drives a man insane Jade Buddha karma slasher may the beast be your master Virgin birth to disaster wife thiever bedroom creeper Backdoor cheating sneaker feast of fear and corruption Grief and tears sad eruption well of sorrow with no bottom Green apple brown and rotten For you a child ages For you we all miscarry For you paranoia greed drives a man insane Guitars by Adam Roessler
3.
2B^-2B 05:15
2B^-2B Hope fled like a bird out an open window, free at last to soar and glide Last I saw he was a mile high not looking back or to either side Got robbed at gunpoint by an angel, I was relieved of purse and pride (Nothing lost that I hadn't learned to use to dim my eyes and cloud my mind) Maybe hope's like a whore that keeps a failed arrangement barely breathing, Giving what is missing but still needed A kind of twisted love A kind of broken faith A kind of tortured limbo that is ugly but still living Still worth trying to save. And I am not strong and I am not right And being wrong sucks the light out of my sun and my life And all I've done is shown in sharp relief as incomplete and compromised Maybe hope's like a vulture perched on a corpse Feeding on the end of something Striking a bargain with the dead A kind of broken faith A kind of tortured limbo that is ugly but still living Still worth trying to save. Maybe hope's like a train bearing sad tidings from a battle Lost all of these years except in dreams A kind of sweet relief A kind of closing doors A kind of painful freedom for and from a ghost that's haunting And now can finally leave
4.
Job's Robe 05:02
Job's Robe Hey, what the hell did I ever do to you God to make you hate me? To bring your thunder down on me? Wasn't I always your little choirboy? Your little angel? Now you're making an example of me. I didn't paint you a bearded old white man or claim to know your plans or your will. What did I do wrong? I'm still trying to be perfect; trying to be amazing; trying to be your man Trying not to go crazy. Won't you share some of that grace, some of that mercy, some of that hallelujah, some of that light with me? Tell me Help me Hold me Show me Lead me Teach me Heal me Free me Choose me Use me See me Be me Take me Shake me Burn me Break me Steer me Hear me and be near me Lift me Kiss me and be with me (make me laugh make me cry make me great let me die let me fly let me go let me run let me love let the sun shine on me let the river wash me clean...what'd I ever do to you?) Guitars by Sarahtonin
5.
5 Years 03:58
5 Years Words and music by David Bowie Pushing thru the market square So many mothers sighing News had just come over, We had five years left to cry in News guy wept and told us Earth was really dying Cried so much his face was wet Then I knew he was not lying I heard telephones, opera house, favorite melodies I saw boys, toys electric irons and T.V.'s My brain hurt like a warehouse It had no room to spare I had to cram so many things To store everything in there And all the fat-skinny people, and all the tall-short people And all the nobody people, and all the somebody people I never thought I'd need so many people A girl my age went off her head Hit some tiny children If the black hadn't a-pulled her off, I think she would have killed them A soldier with a broken arm, fixed his stare to the wheel of a Cadillac A cop knelt and kissed the feet of a priest And a queer threw up at the sight of that And it was cold and it rained so I felt like an actor And I thought of Ma and I wanted to get back there Your face, your race, the way that you talk I kiss you, you're beautiful, I want you to walk We've got five years, stuck on my eyes We've got five years, what a surprise We've got five years, my brain hurts a lot We've got five years, that's all we've got
6.
Taliban Girl 05:35
Taliban Girl Taliban Girl Taliban Girl The flesh is elastic, it stretches and bends It goes where it has to But oh what might have been A square circle of wooden iron It's a man's world, Taliban Girl
7.
America 03:37
America One world One law One mind One eye Freedom and Police In America Radio and TV, Reality We're all free, We're all so free Family. community Evil and Free In America
8.
Nobody Knows 03:48
Nobody Knows Thank god there's experts on the radio to tell us who to hate Thank god there's always someone else to pull the trigger for us when we hesitate Thank god there's someone who knows what the hell is going on Thank god there's people on the TV making sense of violence and life Thank god for great men in the halls of power in our darkest hour fighting for what's right Thank god there's someone who knows what the hell is going on And I'm no expert but I am a man familiar with hell I have no answers but I will try to ask some questions that will help Because it seems like nobody knows what the hell is going on
9.
Porcelain Throne (A Tribute to the King) Here I sit on a common man's throne beautiful no longer Brought down by a fiend's desire and an imbecile's hunger Here at last once and for all alone without doubt a goner Me and the Colonel had a war and the outcome was a slaughter Kinda funny to see an obese king reduced to flesh and bones and angel's wings I guess I really should have known the emperor's wearing no clothes Said the King of Rock and Roll on his Throne The King of Rock and Roll How the mighty have fallen how the great have been brought low All those gold Cadillacs are stalling all the women are saying no Naked and dead on my porcelain throne I'm only fat and pathetic and old Stripped of all I had and was I'm worth less now than all I owned May my humble contribution corruption to be shown And death decay and destruction forever to be known though none may heed the message... Said the King of Rock and Roll on his Throne The King of Rock and Roll
10.
As We Become More Timid Turning our backs on a past that's so far away Back in the day we fell in waves climbing up out of our graves Such are heroes made. We're teaching the kids it's dangerous to play Best to be safe; safest to obey Turning out backs we take no chance Turning our eyes to a truth we know is a lie That somehow we can cheat and never have to die How can I say to that one mother who lost one and can only mourn and pray? He fell for the right to make mistakes But she'd be okay if the war was for some lower stakes Like for something we call freedom that no one ever sees anyway Let's hide our heads in the sand God bless the day when Billy the Kid, Jessie James, Bonnie and Clyde And all of their kind are safely locked away May we lose the key and never come to find That without our wolves we might as well be sheep So teach all the kids to follow the well marked way It's best to be safe, safest to obey And when the sheep have won the wolves must hide and run
11.
Placid 04:46
Placid Placid like a cow like a sow in slop Like a man on top or a lady at shop Tranquil as a lamb happy as a clam Vapid and how not very rapid then or now Calm take it as it comes take it nice and numb be the tranquil one Slow let the troubles go let your life just flow Let the time just hum Flaccid half asleep gotta keep your pace Bovine don't have the speed don't have the need to race There is too much haste and too much waste and too much blazing up of minds Going against the grain is such a pain just leaves you upset and sublime Sedated too high to make a choice so I waited till I wasted my time Oh what the hell everything is fine....
12.
SELF HELPLESS Madness set in June 9th, 1997 As foretold by every ex-junkie prophet that I know And not one missed a chance to say they told me so But the future is easy to read and the past, well, just watch it bleed But today remains a mystery All the local fools call me up down on their luck And the geniuses down at the Alano club Want to help me and tell me what to do But I'd rather be dead than be like you You say your life went out of control; well I gave up trying so long ago And I think you're just looking for one more stone to throw, but... Everybody's gotta make their own mistakes They say these problems are all in my head The inevitable results of a life misled And everybody knows what I should have done instead But they never seem to have the nad to lie down in my bed So the losers sock in for another round And somewhere God's letting someone else down Let's drink one to another fool who put his faith in someone like you Everybody's gotta make their own mistakes
13.
Reaching 08:47
Reaching There's a chance there's no meaning There's a chance that there's no reason for anything So one empty evening in lieu of real feeling loneliness comes creeping You find yourself needing someone Alone with my beautiful friend she is singing But everyone else has run off to bed Needing we start reaching, reaching we start touching, Touching we start finding each other Find me, Reach me I've been living on the horizon starving for something Something no church can provide Crying and screaming and always so needing The one thing that no one need ever be denied For living asks for giving, receiving, believing Even trusting even forgetting all our reasons for hurting For burning for learning for turning to needing And then we start reaching and then we're touching And then we're finding each other Hear my confession I'm lost in this mess again I know my salvation begins in the hands of a few blessed friends I'm reaching, needing, touching feelings, holding, finding each other Reach me don't leave me teach me to breath again Find me a new way of being like I've never been

credits

released June 27, 2021

Anything that continues long enough begins to appear normal.
So five years into my experiment into self-immolation (1998) I had achieved a sort of equilibrium. I got up at five or six and boarded the morning snake to work and then came home and recorded every night till two or three. I had my family, I had my music, I had my artificial endurance. I could go on.
And as you can hear here, I had my rage. Rage at the homophobic Boy Scout organization and suburban parents; rage at right wing radio and Elvis Presley; rage at addiction and sobriety; rage at America and the Taliban; rage at hope and god. As Connor Oberst says: "It's not something I would recommend but it is one way to live."

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Paul Roessler Los Angeles, California

Paul Roessler is a musician, composer and producer who lives in Los Angeles

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