Lolita Nation

Release date: 1987

The band: Scott Miller, Shelley LaFreniere, Donnette Thayer, Gil Ray, Gui Gassuan

Guest musicians: Angie Carlson, Jefferey Layton, Lori Bauer, Michael Quercio, Dan Vallor, Mitch Easter, Jozef Becker, Lindsay Watson, Robert Toren, Eric Marshall, Zach Smith

Producer: Mitch Easter

Kenneth -- What's The Frequency?
Not Because You Can
Shard
Go Ahead, You're Dying To
Dripping With Looks
Exactly What We Don't Want To Hear
We Love You Carol and Alison
The Waist and the Knees
Nothing New
The World's Easiest Job
Look Away
Slip
The Real Sheila
Andy In Ten Years
Watch Who You're Calling Space Garbage Meteor Mouth
Pretty Green Card Shark
Where They Have To Let You In
Turn Me On Dead Man
Mammoth Gardens
Little Ivory
Museum of Hopelessness
Toby Ornette
All Clockwork and No Bodily Fluids Makes Hal A Dull Metal Humbert
In Heaven Every Elephant Baby Wants To Be So Full Of Sting
Paul Simon In The Park With Canticle
But You Can't Pick Your Friends
Vacuum Genesis
DEFMACROS
HOWSOMETH
INGDOTIME
SALENGTHS
OMETHINGL
ETBFOLLOW
AAFTERNOO
NGETPRESE
NTMOMENTI
FTHINGSWO
NTALWAYSB
ETHISWAYT
BCACAUSEA
BWASTEAFT
ERNOONWHE
NEQBMERET
URNFROMSH
OWLITTLEG
REENPLACE
27
One More For Saint Michael
Choose Between Two Sons
Chardonnay
Last Day That We're Young
Together Now, Very Minor

Kenneth--What's The Frequency?

But you can't place...if there's a bus...and you can
Face the nation...you can
Pick the game...you can...but when you know what it
Is...but when you know what
It is you're doing then you despise it...
Kenneth--What's the frequency?

Not Because You Can

If your eyes are green you will turn and stay sixteen
Never disappointed by a show of hands
And if your eyes are soft you can turn it on and off
You won't be shy when making your demands
And if your eyes are slow
You will always be a lonely woman
And not because you can
No, the time is now for deciding if you can

Shard

Close out sound and sight
Those I know are
On their own tonight

Go Ahead, You're Dying To

I'd think there'd be laws of nature
Forcing you people to get it together
You can wreck my life
Go ahead, I know you're dying to

Dripping With Looks

So into the chaff
Last laughs of the traveling class
Low tide on the sand
Sad strand of the government land
I'd not be such a disgrace to
Everything that I've been through
If I had it to do
Dripping with looks like you

Private heaven blonde Small pond of the demimonde Want it back to lose Soft shoes Always something to prove And I'd do anything once, too Just shut up about school I think I'd learn too Dripping with looks like you

Washing on a tide of Laughs come and gone Stranded and withdrawn What's the news Turns out the Government knew Small and private views What did you want? Again?

Exactly What We Don't Want To Hear

It's been a decade of trade-offs
Of try myself or let others try
What sort of win is there waiting
For prima donnas like me to find
Standing all night in line?
It's been a decade of record stores
Hordes of failing new wave careers
What lengths we're going to just to
Exactly what we don't want to hear
With all our well-trained ears
It's been a decade of lives I've left
Twenty months behind when I've gone
If I've been missing expect the worst
That I won't be gone long
Find

We Love You Carol And Alison

All I ate was spearmint candy Trying to change the flavor of the days And chasing inundation only childish ways

And it shows Oh and it Shows

But oh this time the sugar was dazzling
Saying for once you might just join the game
And don't insist on always seeming less the same
With the smile and of the clique
Princess, in this context you're a freak
But you must see
In your crassest hour the charm still works on me
And will you take on our age's dream
We love you Carol and Alison
Oh will you take us

'Cause it's still a green land And it still works as planned And 'cause the glory is at hand

And will you Take a seat In our dream car

Oh, I want to go But I can't

Right at hand These evenings turn out to be such a crapshoot Don't be such a reason not to leave I smoke and kiss the same in all realities And when they ask who's giving the rides I feel as if I promised I'd look out For all the lonely souls who still go home without When the shoulder upstairs gets cold If he had his way we'd all be old

Let go These Evenings cozify And then leave You And when They ask who's Giving the rides They need you

And he's got nerve
Asking this Lolita nation to bow and serve
And will you take...

The Waist And The Knees

Cozify with the lip-tied mind
Beckmanns by the enlistment line
Got to be small when target times come
Got to be smart while acting dumb
Son I think your learning don't seem right
Sleep under the floor at night
Feeling sicko hang on sloop john
Ugliest trip I've ever been on
We'll follow those dreams we're going to have each
Small and literal, well within reach
And not a sicker fantasy dreamed of
No excuse for love
Trade all the forward brain for a needle of novocaine
Going to be reconciled and when they give you an inch
You'll take the inch with a smile
Going to get hold and no one leaves
Going to get cold and most will freeze
Going to get folded into threes
Until you bend at the waist and the knees
Oh pal Joey, we're losers we know
It's written on our hair and clothes
We've seen the rings of smoke through the trees
We're how all the words go
Ollie and Stan for all seasons we know
I couldn't face this heaven alone
Agreement made this day with the undersigned, no one twisting his arm,
Company shall be referred to as 'special friend,' and
Shall not be held
Liable for moneys owed the retired vaudeville performers guild or the
American operatic wire recording archive society, and
Shall not be held
Liable for loss due to theft, misplacement, impulse
Buying, poor sportsmanship,
Birth of multi-headed infant, hubby red-faced after
Bizarre weight-loss
Ritual, it shall be remembered by the undersigned, no
One wins by being
Unreasonable
Over the ceiling rain
And no place left that I know to drain
Cutting the signal flow
You can dress as you like there's still no place you can go
Going to get hold and no one leaves
Going to get cold and most will freeze
Going to get folded into threes
Until you break at the waist and the knees
Fire across the temple and out the rear, motor skill
And low muscle stopped,
No one knows how to make it stop, I hope I can wake up

Nothing New

I was on the outs today
Feeling hit up for a price I thought
That I'd never have to pay
Wicker old-world store displays
Sure I'll take your warm hearth autumn line
But with what for any fair exchange?
Accounting says the terms can't seem to be arranged
And girl I know it's nothing new
To find someone in love with you
And if you are so inclined
To change your mind
A thousand times then do
And I will wait for you
Second nature in my mind
Like a seven hundred dollar tab
Of unpaid traffic fines
And you can't walk the streets these days
Now I'm thinking we've all paid the price
But none too many get our way
And we give to get you till we give it all away
And girl we know it's nothing new
To find someone in love with you
And if you are so inclined
To change you mind
A thousand times then do
And I will wait for you
Nothing new

The World's Easiest Job

Turning your friends against me
Man it must be the world's easiest job
Finding a verdict of retard retard retard
Well I might be
I haven't lived enough lives for comparison
I guess I could be a little better with numbers
Numbers
Riding a frenzied ten-speed
Man it must be the world's easiest job
Fighting and flirting then re-start re-start re-start
Well it may work your whole life
I know it hasn't for me for so much as a week
Before everything crumbles
Crumbles
Man it must be the world's goddamn easiest job

Look Away

Lyrics by Donnette Thayer

They say it comes to you
Like a light in a dark blue night
Irresistible, too clean and too bright
I tried to sleep it off
And I tried to hate it off
But I don't want to wait
I just don't want to wait
Every morning another darkness falls
Holds me gently but it won't let me go
And when I say I want to get away
I mean I want to get away
Well, shine the light shine the light
I won't look away

Slip

I should have spent tonight out finding some good ledge
It's time to look at long shots, the cheap end of the wedge
You used to hear our fights half a block away
I'm wondering now which ones I could have lost to make her stay
I call a friend of mine and say haven't heard a thing
The world has made you tired, wound down the driving spring
He says you're still a child and I hope you never change
But I can't jump at every chance that's moving out of range
Second hand slow now
I don't know how
Hours got right of way
On the verge of a perfect day
The slate I got clean won't stay clean long
And the love I got over won't stay gone
But the pain of the slip through fingers lingers on
Run the blacktop circuit, find the ethnic buys
Who is going to love this place when the trade route dies
Gassed to make the coast homes, roll the windows tight
Young men it's not your concern where money spends the night
New top guns I say glad to shake your hand
Lots don't get so lucky and luck is what will stand
Find you've got no grip on anything that lasts
All you party boys had best get serious and fast
Hearts at each side go
High now then low
What will make the race?
Maybe leaving without a trace
The slate I got clean...

The Real Sheila

The word must be go easy
Showing yourself to those eyes
Criteria running high
Austere and lost? No
They're tired of themselves as I am
Watching the shows go by
Lord knows that I'm not
Exactly the boy of my own dreams
And if I were a girl with dreams
I'd have dreams as big as you please
Sheila stay home a little longer, I'm going to phone you until I do
Sheila don't let them any closer, worlds will be changing when I get through
And nobody knows the real Sheila like I do
The word must be head down
And don't know a thing you're doing
Hear what the storefronts say
And dress clothes and thrill shows
Will take you like hands wherever
The word is get on your way
Where you know you're going someday

Andy In Ten Years

Andy don't speak I hardly think
You could live with what you'd say
And you're not the kind that likes justice blind
When it's facing back your way
Andy you're banging on the keys
But you can't flesh out a tune
You can lower your sights and read your rights
But you can't get good in an afternoon
Andy you're known for saying you don't
Speak Merit-Systemese
But to make it on friends too much depends
How eager you are to please
Andy you don't know the street
If you think that's how to live
Who's going to have cried when you've told your side?
I thought you were just being negative
Andy, it's such a lonely fight
Don't make it any harder than it might be
Andy, keeping the injuries slight
Your nights alone must sink like stone
Without a star to guide
And you're not the kind that in ten years' time
Will have won more to your side
Andy your bratty kid abrasion's
The charm that gets you by
You can lay the blame and place the names
But you can't play ignorant a second time

Mammoth Gardens

Lyrics by Donnette Thayer

We were breaking in but it was an open door
And there we found the decades dancing breaking in by radio
Slingshot windows opened up the sky
Defying our defiling
We found a place where runaways could belong
In Mammoth Gardens
We would dance
We would dance
Oh, just that one time did you really love me?
Seven years ago when we left our footprints in the dust
August stars are shining and I'm still waiting for summer to come
I heard it shatter in his voice
He said you can't go home anymore
In Mammoth Gardens...
Take me back on an airplane
To the deepest shadows and then pull me down
Make me remember just how hard we used to play
Name your price, name it
You know I'll pay
For just one sunny day
To be dancing the way we danced

Little Ivory

Little Ivory
What's it gonna to be?
Come on the cherub lover
Exit the third degree
And oh Little Ivory
The sun going down
And who'll Little Ivory decide
To follow to town?
Little Ivory
So unsafe to see
Daddy's big guns shoot down
All hope of reasoning
And there'll be no locking him
Out if we please
With all of his lawyers he won't need
To use any keys
Little Ivory
March in the last parade
Up north of Johnny's town
Pulling up tracks you laid
And ivory's discovering
What gets her her way
And will Little Ivory decide
To leave it someday?
Never

One More For Saint Michael

Michael you
Don't know the half of a mess
Getting made
Down at your favorite address
Pretty seraphs
Cutting holes in us all
Checking stains in the stalls
Getting season box seats for the fall
With their challenge
To the too weak to fight
Leave them shaking
With their faces drained white
Shooting red glare
In the dawn's early light
Knocking doors in the night
Flush them out, they'll get picked off in flight
Angel gel it awhile
And take some appropriate notice
Before all the numbers are in
Saint Michael you don't need one more win
Who's that little pile of smiles?
Get away thank you I don't need a tax audit
I haven't made one ha ha half dollar all year
I'm a man in the clear
Who does not need company here
Must be old heathen Ed
In a rail stop gin bag rain tarp
Nobody bother me spree
Comic relief pee sprays down his knee
I know kids about three
More goddamn impressive than me
Boards and tin and empties of gin
And god only knows how many holes he's been in
Saint Michael you don't need one more win
Captain Jim throws the prime directive out
For the umpteenth time
It's habit for him now
Reeling wild from the stern to the bow
With T'Pring and T'Pau
I know why they call a starship 'she' now
Volunteers the man needs volunteers
It's a special mission for a special deputy
Up jump an eager pup saying
Put in put in put in put in put in put in put in
Put in a good word for me
Oh no master my teeth aren't to chatter
That's just them dry bone crack down
Right down under the skin
Saint Michael you don't need one more win

Chardonnay

I was feeling the weight of the atmosphere
And those I know aren't looking overjoyed I'm here
Daughters about fourteen order wine
And Chardonnay shows what she knows when she decides
Couldn't tell you now what clicked inside
Or why that's what I call her
Hardly floored but still reminded
That I once could want it all
I don't know any that age who've died of greed
And so was I once letting be and letting bleed
I believe David Carradine changed a lot
Eastern wisdom Kunging Fu on western thought
But was always missing that same spot
Or knew but wouldn't say
A lot of life's best things are
Farther than a zen proverb away
Hey Chardonnay Chardonnay oh Chardonnay
Hey Chardonnay Chardonnay oh Chardonnay
They can always put you down some way
But I can't see you being saved for one more rainy day
It was easy to think at the U canteen
Drunk and small-time, finishing the quarter mean
That a lot of the structure would have to fall
Haves and have-nots polarized at facing walls
I don't think I believed it all
But needed just the same
A way to deal with being shut out
Of the decent peoples' game
Hey Chardonnay...
Well it's harder each night gonna take a miracle
Gonna take Ernst Dali and di Chirico
Gonna recharge cranio-mechanical
Turning me right back into an animal
Hey Chardonnay...

Last Day That We're Young

Adds up a shame to leave it so unresolved
Shakes all the sheathing loose from the wire
Time's going to be a luxury now
In the responsibility empire
Give me some false hope I can take seriously
Set me some road blocks I can't break through
And watch what I'll risk to get what I want
I think too much I always do
No changing your side
No thinking it's time to start things over
No favors denied
No, not on the last day that we're young
Hang up the faces, Lon Chaney, your day's gone
Each one is one less chance you can win
No one can get behind what they all say
And so you lose before you begin
What was it we were always wanting?
Didn't we know we had it all?
Show me some tear-eyed beauty that disappears
Every time I might happen along
Opalesque, eye-lined, owning the day
When it comes I'll have been proven wrong
No changing your side...
What was it we were always wanting?
Didn't we know we had it all?

Together Now, Very Minor

Become the agile ones with legal means
The men who bring the message to Abilene
Look-at-me togs boxed up at mom's on the floor
The news came hard and has never been taken right
Toplevel-cleared and riding the satellite
Girl, stretch your legs and find what besides me is new
And write the obit when you do
He never ran out when the spirits were low
A nice guy as minor celebrities go
All right all together now now very minor I know
The levee view reads like life as it used to be
But coming now the only thought striking me
Is take it in well
As eyelids of evening come down
Your beautiful longing world unwound
He never walked out...
And please don't pay attention to
A thing I do or say
It's a ploy to drag you out
And take it all away
All away