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The Creaky Step

by Alex George

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1.
2.
Something is creeping in, stepping over the creaky step, weeping in you cereal and gasping for breath. I will always be your creepy friend. All these books are ghost of things you used to say: 'Nothing's ever perfect, but everything's okay' Something is ruining everything, erasing space on this dusty playstation. Fears and fan-fictions trapped in time forever. And taught to love through textbooks until we're dead. I'm so fucking dependent on this black machine: it's my thought collector, you're my tekken tag team. So take all of my punches, 'cause I'm just bones and skin. (Eyes refuse to open, like when you need to stay in the dream 'cause you were talking to a stranger that you swore you used to know) (Standing on my hands but my arms disintegrate away and I'm left spiraling out into space). Strike me down, I won't feel a thing. I swear I'm okay. I swear I'm okay with everything. Suddenly I see everything through your narrow eyes and into this static tv screen. Just stay a few more seconds on this withering park bench before this moment descends into memory. I'll give you all the answers if you let me do the maths; it's just logic, a simple equation to find the reciprocal of everything. So The Great Gatsby's dead. Nothing will ever be the same.
3.
We all live in a portable mansion made of Marilyn Manson's ribs and Shane MacGowan's teeth, and walls made from the skin that our victims were bored of being in. Stay out of bed; you can sleep when you're dead. Post-its on your mirror to cram all the shit in your head until you find a place where our eyes can't explode out of our face. Endless quotations. Just searching for some inspiration. Frozen peas, sad-looking trees, tattered posters looking down on old CDs, and this abandoned drum kit echoes and dissolves into space. What do you care? We breath the same air. We read those ghost stories and swore that we weren't scared, and the streetlights danced and flickered as we dared to dream of something bigger. I built you a dream house. Can't we talk this out? The face, the place, the everything. I remember everything. I'd like to get lost in these woods and sleep for a month. Tell yourself it's over soon; keep that little thought with you like a box in the corner of your mind, a ceasing aperture. I lie to myself all the time; I try to keep you out my mind and take comfort in your nothings. Though your nothings are more than my everything. So if seeing is believing then staple my eyes shut. Staple my eyes shut. Help me get out of this rut. I don't want to talk anymore. I just wan't to lie down for a while and sleep for a month. (The face, the place, the everything. I remember everything. I'd like to get lost in these woods and sleep for a month.)
4.
Tree House 04:31
So now I'm waiting for a reply, just like always. Playing some shit xbox game just to fill the space. Listening to that cd I made you, hoping you gave it some time, wondering if you're listening now, thinking of me, and smiling, and missing me as much as I miss you. And missing me as much as I miss you. And the christmas socks just scream; they're dying of neglect at the bottom of my drawer; they'll never see snow again. And the t-shirt that you gave me is falling apart; the threads are all unthreading; the emblem is torn clean off. And the space invaders disc could do with such a clean. We never made it past Mercury. We left so much unfinished, so if you ever feel abridged, I've got a spare controller. I hope you hear this.
5.
Etchasketch 04:17
I saw a photo of you somewhere. You were never one for photos, and I could see you shift and squirm while your friends turned into blurs, and I tried to meet your gaze through the megapixels. Through the megapixels. This house doesn't feel the same; the paint fumes spiral up and down the stairs, and in their path, I search for snacks, distractions, just someone to talk to. I learned all my facts and instantly forgot them. They used to fill my ears, but I can hear clearly now, and I can hear your laugh smashing through the smokescreen. Pop punk hour is over, so now what? In this room of unwanted things and childhood cliches, the wind distorts the silence, the way it did when we lay there, hidden away from the world like a broken plastic tea set. (I don't know much about God but we made a great cage for him. And I know that you'll soon erase me. You're like an etchasketch. I will never shake you clean.)
6.
Remember in September when you said that we should go camp out in the garden just 'cause we could. And now standing at the edge of this incredible machine - it's engraved with swear words, but what the fuck do they mean? 'Cause the feeling that this will get swept from our feet is as real as the astroturf grass that's scraping your knees. So let's talk about stuff that we wish we'd forget while the earth spins us round at an incomprehensible speed. 'Cause when everything keeps moving in circles, it's impossible to see straight. But this world isn't spinning, in fact it's spiraling out of control. And our fingernails will grow down to our feet, and we'll just sigh at how quickly we all got old. And our days will be spent just stacking up coins, just cutting and pasting, just doing what you are told. And the night time will come, like falling from a dream, like a key with no lock, like a shark that will swallow us whole, or like walking home after the streetlights have gone out. I am the only one here. I am the only one here. The world has stopped for me. The world has stopped for me. The houses watch and let me pass and the streetlights listen to the sound of my footsteps on the tarmac. I stride into the darkness and it encases me, and in it I am safe, and I am almost home. I am almost home, but I'm not ready for this moment to end... So somebody tell Fringe Master Chris that we need him. The master plan is failing, Jim's aperture is closing, and we don't have much time. One day all of the air in the world will have been breathed in.
7.
So another year over. My pc is full; it's full of bad decisions and gender ambiguity, but I've learnt more in the past 12 months than any institution could ever teach me: I've learnt that not all these people are my friends, they leave as soon as the elite four ends. Well for 6 months I stayed in the hall of fame, now charizard is dead, I'm starting a new game. My finger's on the button, I'm gonna tear it all down, the world will turn to pixels and fall like snowflakes on the ground, and you can twirl, and twist, and try to catch them in your mouth but you will fall, and find that they were never real at all. So now this window becomes our canvas, and you could smudge the sky, you could frost over all the frightening things. I'm so scared of starting over. I'm so frightened of you. And I'm afraid of all the papers I'll have to sit through. Just flip a coin and trick yourself that maybe this time things will be different. (Charizard! Charizard! Go now and leave this place! Charizard! Charizard! You've got stuff to think about! Charizard! Charizard! I will be waiting here, Charizard! Charizard!, when you figure it out) But if dolphins could talk, they'd tell me to grow the fuck up. Grow the fuck up.
8.
I don't want to watch when the sky is crumbling, I just want you to find, within these pages you're fumbling through, some silent piece of mind, some perfect waste of time, some place where all your thoughts can stay unthought, and twisted, torn and warped into this will to snort every spec of sherbet in the sky until there's nothing left. There is only blood raining on the rest who ever loved you, and gave their breath to fill their lungs with you, until there's nothing left. So one by one they came, and hatched inside your brain, and caused you so much pain you almost died. And staring at your flesh, and the bullets in your chest - I'd gladly force them all into mine, until there's nothing left. There is only blood raining on the rest who ever loved you, and gave their breath to fill their lungs with you, until there's nothing left. Just you and I in this stranger's brain, following this trail of toothpaste stains until we reach the kingdom of bronze, conjured from your favourite songs; and I learnt your chords, I learnt your lyrics, I finished the ice cream you never finished. When the dairy burnt a hole in your throat, I was there to teach your tongue to float.
9.
Let's switch on all the lights and dance until our migraines are unbearable, and when the world stops spinning and we've nothing to lose, I'm perfectly happy just watching cartoons. I'm terrified of dying, I'll never go to sleep for fear that I'll wake up and this will all be a dream, and they'll be nothing but time, my memories and me, a simple thought of you and this static tv. They know your face. They know your kind. They took all your children and left you behind. But I'll still love you when all your toys unwind: I'm 'In Utero', you're 'Nevermind'. Oh, never mind.
10.
[Cut two holes in a bed sheet; I want to be a ghost. Let me join you. I want to walk through walls, I want to be transcendent, but I don't want this house to haunt me anymore. I don't want this house to haunt me anymore] I know it was an earthquake. I know you took a critical hit, and you're poisoned, and confused, and stranded between two cities. I know you're afraid. I know this house collapsed while you were still sleeping inside, but it has revealed to you a whole new region, with infinite fields to explore, and infinite directions in which to flee. So flee. Fill your pockets with the pixelated pebbles in the rubble, enough to make gravity keep you rooted to the earth, but not to make the stars feel more than a big jump away. [sung bit] Now you're standing on your hands and spiraling out into space. You're crying in the darkness that's swallowed you like a shark. You're cradling in the corner of your mind where the foetal thoughts hide. Because, yeah, something is creeping in. But when it does, greet it with open arms; grab its hand so tight that the bones begin to break in your fist. And though their hands will cut through the x-rays, and their laugh will distort the sound waves, from bleary eyed and looking for milkshakes, you will stand on the edge of the earthquake! But you won't fall down! You will watch as cars are flung into the air, and the tallest structures fall into the dust, but you will remain unmoved. Ace your exams and find the person you're supposed to meet. Apologise to your friends for treating them like toys. Realise they've been asking where the hell you've been. Try to leave the house, or at least let them in. You've got a tough year ahead, but when you finally take that step, make it creak so loud that it wakes the whole house up.
11.

about

first album innit

credits

released August 22, 2015

Thank you so much to:

Alex Aspinall - mixing and mastering all the tracks and making them all sound a billion times better, this album would be nothing without him

Harry George - playing some of the more complicated synth/piano parts on Red Supergiant, Tree House, Toothpaste Stains and Lisa Lionheart

Annabel Hancock - playing violin on Tree House and Fringe Master Chris [Excerpt B: Skinny Jeans]

Jonny Williams - flawlessly shooting and editing the album trailer, as well as designing all my posters and helping with the artwork

Finn Searchfield - helping me out recording the drum track on Etchasketch

Mr Vickers - helping me solve several problems in the studio

And also thanks to all of you for checking out this album and supporting the show. I couldn't have done this without you!

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about

Alex George Bristol, UK

22. Musician from Bristol. Co-founder of Trickhouse Recordings and the term 'woah-fi'.

Like me on facebook: facebook.com/musicalexgeorge

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