released May 23, 2025

***

LYRICS:

A final emergency
As the memory breaks apart
This empire of the heart
That stops and starts
Between the flags

Between the flags I swam with you
Into the future
A future bright and blue
I carried you back
Back to solid land
And dug my toes into the sand
I watched you dig your toes in too
They’re just one part of you I love

And I’m the one you chose
When you’d grown tired of easy answers
You begged me not to go
So I’ll stay until I die
But your love breaks like a wave
And then how eagerly you flee me
While your currents overflow

I walk in shaking hands
Staring off into the distance
Like the cowboy that I am
Leave my problems at the door
But if this fire can burn out, baby
If this branch can break
Then nothing else is safe

I see you clear as day
Wander past me in the window
Wincing as you wave
Of course, you’ll take the long way home
And go so far out of your way
Just to make sure as not to see me, darling
But you hear it
The beat of my haunted heart
Still stops and starts

The first night dry did not go well
Sweating out a lesser hell
The future sneaks up on you fast
From the past

I lost your light
And hobbled toward the caverns
As though you might
Be waiting on my hand
Is your shadow still there in the darkness
Or did it vanish with my youth?
Forever shaded from the truth
Like every part of you I love

The part of you that stalls
When there are no more easy answers
I thought that you would call
As the tide came rushing in
Only say the word
Are you ashamed that I still need you, baby?
With all of my haunted heart
It stops and starts

All of my haunted heart
It always falls apart
Right in front of you
I’m right in front of you

***

CREDITS:

released May 23, 2025
DRUMS, PERCUSSION - Matt Walker
BASS - Matt Heymann
GUITAR, KEYBOARDS, VOCALS - Steven Kaiser

PRODUCED by Steven Kaiser
MIXED by John Davis at The Bunker Studio
ENGINEERED by Steven Kaiser
ADDITIONAL ENGINEERING by Ryan Deeter & Jordan Franzino
MASTERED by Alex DeTurk at The Bunker Studio
COVER ART by Katie Calfee

RECORDED at MingMusic Studios (Chicago), Rough & Tumble (Brooklyn), and Sandbox Studios (Brooklyn)

LYRICS & MUSIC by Steven Kaiser (BMI)

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