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I Was Told To Keep This Hidden

by Learner

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1.
Intro 01:56
Show me how to find home. What happened to my home? Try to separate the host from the cancer. “Killing one or both” they say is the end result. Maybe, this is freedom. Baby, there’s no hope for them. Don’t you remember we walked in open fields filled with peace? Scribble out the message, hope to feed the ears. Shouting loud the echo, the media will face all their fears.
2.
Cowboys 01:53
We all speak in tongues sometimes. We all lay in the walls just to hear what others say sometimes. We all keep our hearts hidden from the world sometimes. And I tend to run away every time You call on me. Why is it that the biggest part of my life becomes so small in retrospect? Tell me I’m beautiful because I’ve never felt so mundane. I have trouble believing that there is a God who loves me because I’ve been too sick to believe in anything. I wish I could go back to when I was a child, and get excited for Sunday school, and participate in the arts and crafts that were mandatory if you wanted to go to heaven. Father, I’ve changed my mind. I really want to go to Heaven! But I don’t know how to pull the plug on what I know. Let me tell you, it’s going to be hard to give up on the cheap sluts and the idea of suicide, but I can do it for You. I can do it for myself because, in the end, it’s better to live a long, satisfying life then to die early because of the bad choices that I’ve made. But I know them too well. On second thought, let me just sit here and pluck off the feathers of my dreams, hoping that they will fly away.
3.
There’s a cemetery on 3rd and Madison. The grass is overgrown and not many call it home. But the ones that do sleep in their own wooden coffins until the worms get through, and use their bodies for food. I hope they found peace when they went to sleep in the ground like my mother told me when I was a little boy, and I lost my grandmother after a long life of living in a basement that was never sound. Forever and always, and love never dies. I’m just surprised we believe this lie. Forever and always, if love never dies, then look me in the eye and tell me that these bodies, they still live in love. It’s a myth of its own. I don’t even think that it’s real. I thought I was in love before, but it turned its back on me and walked right out the door, leaving no rose petals or heart-shaped candies behind. This is why I’ve realized that life’s never kind. And I never could dance. It never made me any better, and I never wrote poems or stupid love letters. And every relationship that I had has gone straight to hell along with all the “you and I”s. Sometimes I wish I had never sold myself to love. Sometimes I wish I never sold myself at all.
4.
There’s a piece of me that wants to see ambition and solitude lie in the same bed in a cheap motel cheating on their spouses while agony is in the next room banging on the wall to try to keep them from growing loud. And the mold in the room is another substituted emotion that I can’t find the words for, but it laughs while the wind shakes the walls and the beating hearts of the cheating ones intertwine in holy matrimony for just one night. And when it’s done, solitude stays up all night until its lover falls into a deep sleep then she makes her way over to the next room to bring company to agony, and the two stay up all night to watch the sunrise. A pack of smokes later and the two have brought tears to all of our eyes. Pretty soon, the town finds out about the affair and burns ambition at the stake while solitude slips away and agony pretends everything is okay. And all this time, the mold with a nameless emotion keeps laughing his days away.
5.
Hello, saints, I am the sinner that you hate, the one who has no friends because I spend my time pointing out their mistakes. I am the one who has been left to die and left to rot. Do me a favor and just throw me to the side to waste away, all alone. I’m alone. I’m alone. Keep me company, darling, can’t you keep me company? Oh, Lord, will you keep up with me? This room looks much smaller when it’s filled with a sad face that an empty heart won’t care to embrace. Hello, saints, I am the sinner that you hate. I am the center of what you hate. I lay beside prostitutes and the drug lords. They keep me close. They keep me hidden from the rest. I like to bury them inside of my chest to make me feel all warm and alive on the inside. Maybe the world is better off not knowing what I say in the dark and staying far away from every single one of my thoughts. I can’t believe who I am. I can’t practice what I preach much less enjoy any company from anyone for more than an hour without thinking of suicide. It all just seems like too much to handle sometimes. Break me apart and sell my heart for cheap pleasures that die right after they start. The lady in the white dress will never come for me.
6.
All the people, all the people on the street just want to feel peace in place of their pain that they bear with a weight of a gun to their head, and they share this with people that they hope will care, but hope has died along with the youth of our nation. They all croak at the sun and take heed in the night and suffer from the monsters that lay under their bed at night. The therapists keep telling them it’s all in their heads. Well, I’m going insane. Does this make me a broken angel or a damaged soul that holds a lifeless pulse? I will never know. I think I’m going insane, and all the people keep telling me to let this go. I will never know. Since you’re so smart, can you tell me why I cut my wrists or why I shouldn’t bleed out on the park bench? They can’t understand. They will never understand. But life goes on for some while others keep hoping that their shorter skirts will find them love. And the pastors coax them into feeling alone. And we all go to church to grow closer to God, but walk away feeling unworthy and bitter and hollow. But I guess life goes on.
7.
I just wanted something or someone to hold on, so hold on to me, as tight as you can, and I’ll be the man (the man that I never was) I should have always been. I’m not a man. I’m a clone of a demon derived from the feelings that we stuffed in the ceiling to hide from the condescending public with their sharp remarks that pierced through our armor and broke through our beings. My beating heart beats slower every day. My caring structure never cared anyway. My hating nature only hates on the person who strikes the first match even though we may be in need of a light. You can call me what you want, I know I’m better off alone in the cold. I can stand in the snow then join the rest by the fire. It only fuels our desire to seek first ourselves and put our lies on the shelves with the rest. From Hitler, to Gandhi, to Monroe, and Picasso, we mine as well just join them all. I didn’t want to be the one to go, but I didn’t get a choice and the worst is the friends that I’ve hurt and the lives I’ve destroyed. I won’t lie; there is a void in my heart. I just wanted something more. I hate lying on the floor. I always feel as if I’m born this way. My doctor won’t give me the pills that I need. Mother, I’m sorry, but I’m drowning in the sea.
8.
Indians 01:50
I’m addicted to the soft skin of a goddess. There’s no better way to describe this. Keep lying next to me. In my dreams, I always leave you with a pill that takes away all your colors. She never had a chance. That’s what all the whores keep telling me, but I know that I can be held responsible for looting the poor and replacing their hunger with headaches and heartache just around the corner. Keep singing loud, keep singing loud. You’ll find me hanging off the roof. White flag in hand. White flag in hand. White flag in hand. Never let anyone say that you can’t sing it loud, keep singing loud. I promise, one day, you can look up and tell the world how badly I’ve treated you. Happy Anniversary, this marks the 8th year of anguish. Such a careless reminder from a callous heart. I’m sinking to the depths of the ocean with the knot in my stomach caught on a stone beneath the bridge that we all cross and commonly abuse just like the saving grace meant for the unplanted seeds. I won’t uncover the ending without corrupting the damned.
9.
Southern 01:48
What’s wrong with our country? Take our mothers for example; they work and they bleed for their children, but they’re the ones leaving them alone at night to get drunk, and get laid, and never let their lives pass them by. All of their children grow up watching late-night TV, letting the actors play the roles of their fathers, but they are never there. And I don’t think that your father ever cared. Then, we wonder why our children only want to use drugs and have sex all the time. God bless America, land that I love.
10.
Closure 02:18
Lest we forget the next move, just know that I tried to hold on to all that we thought we would be back in the 9th grade when we gave all it took just to keep our dreams alive. The thought of viewing the world from a misshapen van where the doors don’t close right was the best idea we could ever had. But this is what it’s like to say that it’s gone after a subtle removal on a cold winter’s night. Nothing is close to right. The friends that I’ve made have kept me in the dark while the objects they praise have become a second nature to their hearts. I don’t want to lie next to a bottle on New Year’s Eve passed out because I don’t know how to handle my alcohol long enough to make it through the night and into a new year with new toys and new goals hand in hand with the people that I thought could keep me up above the flames, but I’ve slipped and burned my feet. To sum it up, I don’t want to go down with the world we were warned about. I don’t want to lay with the girl who has no name. And best friends means friends forever despite all the road bumps you cross with a short fuse and a lighter held close to you. I just want you to know that I cared and still care and will forever care no matter whether you spit in my face or you pull out my hair. Sometimes, it seems like I’m not even here. I’ve started to slip away. If you thought that I’d give up so easily, then you never knew me at all.

credits

released July 2, 2014

Recorded @ VAMP Studios in Lynchburg, VA, by Daniel Davis.
www.facebook.com/VampStudios

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Learner Front Royal, Virginia

Alic-Bass
JD-Guitar
Randall-Drums
Garrett-Vocals

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