Composed, performed, and produced by Greg “Dk” Kelley.

Words and music by Greg “Dk” Kelley except “Empire (The Tyger)” words by William Blake (1794) with additional words by Greg “Dk” Kelley.

Instrumental and vocal performances by Greg “Dk” Kelley except additional vocal performances by Lydia Sharp on “Agoraphobia” and “Empire (The Tyger).”

Cover art by Lydia Sharp from The Stomach Dance by Aubrey Beardsley, illustration for Salome by Oscar Wilde.

This album comprises songs that contain musical motifs from Of Real Things. Read more here.

Shielded Cable

A shielded cable runs from my fingers
It fashions the eternal pickup line
No interference perfect transmission
I don’t know what and yet I call it mine
In my eyes fair trains of image rise
No need to call them lies
Just because they’ve never been before

Each little heat drawn from the void
Each little dream it will begin again
Each little peace each little joy
You best be ready friend to burn again

In a grain of sand see a universe
Going round and round and round and round and round

A monster fly squats on my paper
She dots with darkness everywhere I write
I raise no fist against stupid instinct
I know I’ll never teach her wrong from right
Claw in hand away together fly
Don’t even have to try
Galaxies and worlds within my mind

A shielded cable runs from my fingers
It’s all protected from the evil way
By love eternal by love transcendent
My thoughts of you my love lift me away

Shielded Cable instrumental: a mix of the song with the vocal tracks omitted.

Animals Think

In the ditchbed behind the houses the lone coyote sets
Waiting to kill and eat all the neighborhood pets
Got no mate and got no litter committing such atrocity
Tell me why tell me why tell me why
I wonder what do animals think
I wonder what do animals think they don’t talk
I wonder what do animals think

On the beach down behind the jetty a broken-off antenna in my hand
Carving naked pictures in the sand
Got no friends and got no money don’t you wonder why I’m wasting time
Tell me why &c.

In the basement you’re disappearing I know you won’t be coming out too soon
I guess you feel alright with a needle and a spoon
You got tons of friends and tons of money I guess it makes me wonder why
Tell me why &c.

Animals Think instrumental

(It’s a) Mixture

Sometimes I hear you talking in your sleep
I hear you say the word yes to me
Asleep you don’t know there’s a world outside
And I can’t even dream what’s on your mind
There’s strangeness everywhere
Fair and foul and foul and fair
Feel yourself dying all the time
How you gonna work out a rhyme

It’s a mixture
It’s a mixture
Missing out can’t such a terrible crime
‘Cause nothing ever happens one at a time

Be glad for wet falling red and green leaves
Be glad for breakers breaking on the beach
Be glad no singularity frames the world
Little bit boy and a little bit girl
I get scared when I’m all alone
I feel afraid when everybody is gone
But when I feel warm loving come near
It kind of puts a shine on my fear

It’s a mixture &c.

You and I we’re looking out
Yeah between the golden bars
Of the flaming ramparts of the world
What lies out there beyond the farthest star

It’s a mixture &c.

(It’s a) Mixture instrumental

This Is Hell

The world looks cold and bleached today
All color drained in the steady light
The world looks overexposed today
Reduced to shades of gray and white
Why does everything look so different now
How could everything have suffered such a change
It takes a while to dawn on me the simple fact
That I’ve gone to hell
Oh this is hell
These are the regions of hell
Oh this is hell
I can go where I please in hell
Oh this is hell
See the points of interest in hell
Oh this is hell
There is no release from hell

I committed a sin today
Committed violence against you my friend
You may forgive the sin in me
But nothing can ever take away a sin
It will always remain written
Behind the dry dark eyes of memory
Written down in the locked up book no one ever would
Open willingly
Oh this is hell
Wave to all the neighbors in hell
Oh this is hell
Observe the posted road rules in hell
Oh this is hell
Behold the legion multitudes in hell
Oh this is hell
Better practice good behavior in hell

You and I are in love today
And swear a bond we will never break
Tomorrow one of us will go away
If that breaks a promise we would rather not say
It will always remain written
Behind the dry dark eyes of memory
With the good times and the bad times that no one ever would
Give up willingly
Oh this is hell
Standing room only in hell
Oh this is hell
Nobody is ever leaving hell
Oh this is hell
Me and my beloved in hell
Oh this is hell
We’re growing accustomed to hell
Oh this is hell
These are the regions of hell
Oh this is hell
We spend a season in hell
Oh this is hell
This is the lowest level of hell
Oh this is hell
At least we’re together in hell

This is Hell instrumental

Free Your Hand

Three bags of groceries need you ask
The kids must grow and grow so fast
But head and heart don’t multitask

Free your hand free your hand
Finish soldering the capacitor
Before you pick up the screwdriver
Free your mind free your hand

In all the world the clumsiest
Who fall like sunset in the west
Perhaps withdrawal would be best
Free &c.

You won’t fall you won’t break your hip
So lighten up on that kung fu grip

Rough brutal beast
Costumes in the trunk
Unwholesome feast
Hiding dirty monk

Can’t stop the rain can’t raise the dead
And there’s an iceberg right ahead
But you can see the children fed
Free &c.

Can’t stop the rain can’t raise the dead
But you can see the children fed

Free Your Hand instrumental

Thanks But No Thanks

You promise me protection
You promise resurrection
I can’t live on captain crunchberries
I can’t live in hateful contraries
I can’t live in a silent library
So thanks but no thanks
Thanks but no thanks
Thanks but no

You promise restitution
For a life of prostitution
If I drop my resolution
I’m no wild-eyed revolutionary
Much less a master-minded military
I’m just a free flitting fritillary so
Thanks &c.

Thanks But No Thanks instrumental

Agoraphobia

I live in the basement I sleep on the cellar floor
Sometimes I hear the little pitter patter of your feet upon the outside stairs
And I never leave here it’s a climate-free environment
There ain’t nothing that I ever want to see or nothing
That I ever want to do or say or know or find or see or be out there
You’re talking on the telephone carrying a big leather portfolio
You’re probably wearing panty hose I don’t want to think about that
I don’t want to think I don’t want to know at all
Why does it have to be so tough so tough so tough so tough

And I never leave here
It’s a climate-free environment
I love keep the thermostat a crisp and comf’table 69 degrees down on the cellar floor
And I never leave here I got my disability
I love to watch the checks they’re piling up accumulating there behind the cellar door
But you brought me a coffee pot And a little bag of coffee beans
I followed the instruction sheet God help me I drank a cup
Oh lord it was good Oh lord it was tasting fine
But did it have to be so hot so hot so hot so hot

You’re living above me I hear you above me
You’re so far above me I want you to love me love me love

Did you ever in summertime think about winter time
And swear that you could feel the icy wind invading down into your fingers and your toes
Well here it is summertime I feel that way all the time
If only I could turn the thermostat down to 32 degrees until I finally froze
I hear you walking back up the stairs just as quiet as a kitty cat
I wonder what you’re doing up there I don’t want to think about that

Agoraphobia instrumental

Empire (The Tyger)

“The Tyger” by William Blake, 1794
Additional lyrics by Greg “Dk” Kelley
Lydia Sharp, Soprano

Tyger, tyger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

They stand their post
They stand at their post
‘Til the whirlwind knocks them over
And they die

And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And, when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

Goatboy pulls the rope
Goatboy pulls the rope
‘Til the whirlwind knocks him over
And he dies

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?

Tyger, tyger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Empire (The Tyger) instrumental

A Tragic View of Life

On the morning I was born a star smiled down on my beginning
As if to say I’d be the greatest man alive
Now I look up at the stars and I think about the ending
And I wonder can an omen tell a lie
I’m a success in every endeavor nevertheless
I got a tragic view of life
Cause everybody sorrows and every beauty dies
I got a tragic view of life

I got a nail up in my boot and I got blisters on my fingers
And I got to know the parasites so well
I spent my whole life long making the earth into a heaven
And I request that you refrain from mentioning hell
I’m a success in every endeavor nevertheless
I got a tragic view of life
Cause everybody suffers and everybody dies
I got a tragic view of life

A sense sublime of something deeply interfused

Everybody I know who ever held this position
Has died young ugly miserable and sad
But I plan to live old and happy and pretty
And when I die to be universally mourned
I’m a success &c.

A Tragic View of Life instrumental

Do What You Must

When Mick Jagger took the fall
Mick Taylor saw to his Les Paul
When push comes to shove
You must do what you must

When Wonder Woman took the screw
Four billion women said me too
In sin and in lust
You must do what you must

When soldiers come to your back door
You know just they’re looking for
When systems all go bust
You must do what you must

When weather turns to deadly force
With fire and flood without remorse
In gale and in gust
You must do what you must

When riches turn to dust
You must do what you must
Get off the crazy bus
You must do what you must

Do What You Must instrumental

More Quietly

The mighty river flows silently
Oh don’t I wish I could flow like thee
O how I wish that I could puke
More quietly

O silence never where people be
Where will you find then serenity
O how &c

The world is spinning all around me
The broken fragments is all I see
O how &c
ORG
I said hello Satan I knew that he
Come to collect me as we did agree
But don’t I &c

I beg your pardon please forgive me
Don’t mean to bother your tranquility
But don’t I wish &c

My dear beloved so fair and free
You have requested quite reasonably
That I should calm my soul and puke
More quietly

Knocking to Get Out

In the darkness of the night you’re lying wide-awake
Your naked eyes are tortured by a hundred horrid shapes
Ain’t no devil-dog or she-goat bearing down upon your breast
It’s a living thing inside you not gonna let you take your rest

There’s something knocking
Knocking to get out
There’s something knocking
Knocking to get out

What makes the painter paint what makes the writer write
What makes the old philosopher study long into the night
What makes the mad dictator send a million to their deaths
What makes the martyr testify up onto his dying breath

There’s something &c.

I built a fire I built a fire
I built a fire and an icy wind
I built a chimney out of solid ice
Till the fire rose up my chimney and tore apart the sky

There’s something &c.

Knocking to Get Out instrumental

Rendered into Song

Baby needs a change and
I need changing too
We two talk it over
Baby and I are cool
It makes a lot of sense
Take care of the children

Give us our nourishment

I read a letter that you sent to me
About a hundred years ago
Said you were drowning in the boring sea
I never want to go back
I want to never go back
Never I want to go back
A teenage rock and roller
I’m doing hard time for indecency
That’s why I look the way I do
My face is battered and my hands they bleed
But I hold these hands before me
And extend these hands to you

I prayed for madness
And the madness came

Let’s have a good time
‘Cause we can make the time good y’all
Real things and reasons
How and what to do
We can talk it over
We’re animals too

Rendered into Song instrumental

Free Your Hand (Reprise)

And so goodbye I leave you now
And beg indulgence you’ll allow
I always made an awkward bow

Free your hand free your hand
Goodbye my friends I leave you now
With such indulgence you’ll allow
Free your mind free your hand

Free Your Hand (Reprise) instrumental