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Blind Contour

by Corbin Murdoch

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jip1979
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jip1979 i just wanted to let you know, Corbin, how much your lyrics and beautiful voice resonate with my heart. Such wonderful poetic lyrics... thank you for all your music
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    https://www.corbinmurdoch.com/blindcontour
    --
    Written by Corbin Murdoch
    Produced by Corbin Murdoch & Jesse Gander
    Engineered & Mixed by Jesse Gander at Rain City Recorders
    Mastered by Alan Douches at West West Side Music
    --
    Guitar & Voice - Corbin Murdoch
    Voice - Rachel Tetrault
    Weissenborn & Dobro - Tim Tweedale
    Drums - Barry Mirochnick
    Bass, Organ & Synth - Jesse Gander
    --
    Artwork- Nick Lakowski
    Design- Kali Malinka
    ... more
    Purchasable with gift card

      $10 CAD  or more

     

1.
Denialist 05:45
Denialist Increments You slept in on the morning of the violence Woke to a full diagnostic of the incident Numb to it Feigned surprise As a choir of apologists apologize Well-rehearsed in pretending not to recognize Those hollow eyes Unconvinced By the thin, panicked smile of the revisionist “We’ll just rewrite the 80s, make it feminist Non-interventionist” ‘Cause you know that face From a dream or a memory you can’t quite place Two round holes that you cut into a pillowcase The only trace Phantoms Desperate to be seen Dressing up for Halloween a season early Bite lips Insist they don’t exist Cloak ourselves in myths of moderation The dream begins You are searching your city for a long lost twin They are reaching out to you with a phantom limb Paper thin Lonely streets All the ghosts look away before your eyes can meet You peer out at each other safely underneath Cold white sheets Phantoms Desperate to be seen Dressing up for Halloween a season early Breathe deep Rock ourselves to sleep In the darkness we repeat this incantation It’s just an aberration
2.
Supremacist 03:56
Supremacist In the film I am played by A chiselled jawed Blonde and blue eyed Everyman Cool and classless Pursuant of A dimpled actress Feeling bored And frustrated Talents unappreciated But then comes A shadowed stranger Says, “you’re destined Mankind’s saviour!” In the crowd We mouth the verses Close our eyes Like Sunday Service Bow our heads Lift our hands A movement With no clear demands The chorus swells Asserts a truth The supremacy of youth The poetry of indignation Absent risk or provocation In the afterglow Of crisis Curled around Our devices I watch you slip Into a dream Your finger still Upon a screen The secrets we tell Our machines Are whispered back To us in dreams And in the dark We lay defenceless As desire is turned against us We speak our love In the language Of the supremacist
3.
Character Witnesses Lionized Untested and unscrutinized We claim to love without condition What if we Expressed our love as bravery? Would it still be as freely given? This is the fear in the pit of your stomach This is the way you perform it in public This is what’s offered when help is requested This is your courage once courage is tested Measure me By the trust that I receive From those I’ve told I’ll stand beside them Measure what I do By how much it offers to Those whose love has been denied them Here is a lineup of character witnesses Justice applied in particular instances Here is the long list of all our excuses Here’s how they sound when repeated back to us Here are the names and addresses of monsters Here are the tools to dismantle their culture Here is a ledger of where they’re invested Here is the number to call if arrested
4.
The Best Place I Ever Lived I was born into this city Watched it grow up next to me Barely 30 years Into its second century Now construction cranes are clawing back Another square inch of sky Can’t remember when my city Stopped looking me in the eye Let’s have one last round of drinks Before they start tearing the building down Cocktails are infused With the last traces of Chinatown Stumble home down side streets That they tell the tourists to avoid Streetlights in the puddles Cut with traces of an opioid People talk of leaving Sometimes even I do All I ever wanted Was somewhere to belong to Standing at the bus stop Hoping for a Number 8 Standing on the sidelines Hoping markets will self-regulate Stand before the audience Take care to acknowledge land But not that its continued occupation’s Part of our retirement plan People talk of leaving I wonder if we ought to All I ever wanted Was somewhere to belong to It’s too late for the island Too late for the valley Studio or bachelor Two-bedroom, single-family Wealth as its own virtue Land as its expression A generation saves up Towards its own dispossession Cindy says she’s leaving But where she’ll go she isn’t sure They parcelled up a city block And sold it out from under her She says, “I stuck it out and gave this city Everything I had to give I’ll remember this apartment As the best place that I ever lived”
5.
Turn This Song Over Turn this song over Consider its purpose How much was gifted? How much was purchased? The pulse of a culture Held in your hand Feels distant as fathers And their dreams of an unpeopled land Dream of the future Relive the past But here in the moment Our culture feels Like we are touching it through glass So we perform it Like its imaginary The backdrop against which White women marry Like something we try on Whenever we want to Dressed up for the party One that we were not invited to Excuse the question So hard to tell What’s our intention Singing songs The same ones that the racists sing And some of this feels real Some of it pretend A conversation with a man That you pay to be your friend Getting close enough to touch Using a digital zoom Somehow it always disappoints Like every photo of the moon What’s the sound of this music Unappropriated? What’s the shape of this country Repatriated? Turn this song over What could it become? What might it offer To those that it was stolen from Dream of the future Relive the past But here in the moment Our culture feels Like we are touching it through glass
6.
Paycheques 03:54
Paycheques Getting shit-faced with my brothers On a sadness there’s no name for Convinced of our own genius Like the men that we were named for Crane our necks to watch the violence Turn away before the slaughter Watch the hurricanes approaching Name the storms after our daughter Darling there’s a sadness I have seen One I have been trying to avoid But keeping down the darkness inside me Limits my capacity for joy Always thought I was unworthy Left to reckon with my failures Always thought things would be different Once I untangled my anger Waited to feel better Dreamt of the hereafter To feel the soft touch of a lover To hear my children bray with laughter Darling there’s a sadness I have seen One I have been trying to explain It’s a place where each of us have been Still we do not dare to speak its name Darling there’s a sadness I have seen One I have been trying to deny Even as its building by degree In the spaces between you and I It’s as if living paycheque to paycheque Is just a game poor folk like to play As if there is not enough justice So some have to give theirs away As if pleasure is something to save for A debt to be serviced with pain We threaten each other with losses Never ask what we might stand to gain Halfway down the hallway Somebody graffitied A list of good intentions Numbered them like treaty
7.
Waiting for the Earthquake The contested territory where our culture sits Has a nation painted over it And when we close our eyes we see the shape of it In our poetry, in our politics In the prayers that we repeat on anniversaries At the cenotaphs, in the cemeteries In the lessons that we learned from the atrocities For which we were named beneficiaries Truth stood out on the blockade Held it for a decade We pretended not to notice it And now we populate our platforms With promises of reform When the call is for abolishment? Don’t mistake the way things are For how they’ve always been What should we tear down In the meantime While we’re waiting For the earthquake? The future we were told was preordained for us Now seems mutable and precarious Battle lines are drawn and boundaries readjust Between what feels safe and what’s dangerous Our city’s built of polished steel and poured concrete Still it shifts sometimes underneath our feet As we stumble home along its lonely streets Past the phantoms cloaked in their thin white sheets Now that we’ve all seen the violence Broadcast into the silence Of a nation under quarantine Are we surprised that abolition’s Just the starting position Towards a reimagining? Don’t mistake the way things are For how they’ll always be What should we tear down In the meantime While we’re waiting For the earthquake?

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released March 19, 2021

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Corbin Murdoch Vancouver, British Columbia

Corbin Murdoch is a songwriter who grew up and still lives on the unceded territory of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Səl̓ílwətaʔ (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations. He was a member of The Nautical Miles (2003-2017), with whom he released five albums. ... more

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