to the nights i stood ready to open mouth kiss porcupines i played pin cushion so well there were couch cushions stuffed full of cigarette cherries and headlines waiting for us to fall asleep to burn the whole goddamn body down to the nights flirting with the inevitable and fucking the moment instead steering wheel tears tempered glass tantrum and the open arms of light poles to the nights i wanted to die you don't own me you don't own me in 2005 the ska punk band the arrogant sons of bitches disassembled when members of the band followed the need to get real jobs all of them but front man jeff jeff rosenstock instead continued to make music and instead ended up living in his parent's basement it was cold it was damp it was dark but we are nothing if not reactions against our own environment you don't own me you don't own me jeff jeff i'm baseball bat to barstool and brick wall boxing again my hands are bleeding again and beating again beat beat beating again i'm left shuffling through splinters and not eating again jeff it's hard to see how you handled it how you handled all the heart scrape the hops the hot box and i can't stop this shuttering and bone bruising i just want to sleep jeff i just want to stop crying asshole in the mirror jeff i just want to dream dream that my blood hasn't dreamt of running to the waters and leaving me like this swirling and drained the thing that no one ever tells you about depression is it has nothing to do with being sad it's feeling hollow thin empty egg shell with rice paper walls y'all i don't know how to slow down most nights but i know i could get so much reading done if i got laid up in the icu you don't own me you don't own me jeff jeff you overloaded your outlets you frayed your chords let sparks fly to light up this basement you used your busted ass laptop as kindling because you needed this jeff but now i need this we all need this sometimes so let us swing guitar and duct tape into the dampness we will punch our shadows in their dark parts we'll take every shitty high school metaphor about razor blades and wrists stuff them into and amplifier and let them rattle and use them to carve the grooves into this here vinyl seven inch there all the heart scrape all the problems climbing every towering inferno deep burn in love every self inflicted car wreck the well intentioned pile up the break up the break in the five years of writing gone job terminated direction spinning skeletons scribbling skeletons scribbling ink to paper they put ink on this paper my problems are ink on this paper my problems don't look so big on this eight and half by eleven inch piece of paper here in the grooves of this vinyl seven inch carved with a gut wrench and a muscle still clenched the size of your fist they sound just like this and if i wasn't a fat kid in high school i would have never listened to punk rock and if i knew how to throw a football i would have never played any music and if i never got my heart broken i would sing blah blah fucking nothing i would sing nothing and i'm grateful to sing i'm grateful that every single day every single one of us every single time that we breathe we are singing an anthem of survival sound track of going down swinging thank you for this thank you for the sure footing thank you