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Primary Function

by The Runaway Five

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1.
like a phoenix from the ash, between me and the freight train tracks grow chain link fences, built to keep me tightens like a tourniquet, these brand new buildings just don't fit a parent's clothes on naive kids crowds of people trying to feed a bigger one, but soon there'll be security, cleaned up streets make it safe for your investments by removing all the peasants who needs me? it's a great time to be downtown [chorus] if you've never been alone here then you probably shouldn't go near don't you worry, we will clean it up and we won't hear em singing we live downtown bet your ass we've got a model, a florescent light to follow just a little inconvenience and you'll see with your capital we'll fix downtown long ago there used to be local bands on the marquee the kids are gone, but they're not at home all will be well when we're no more what makes us true after the war of zoning boards and franchise stores i just want to ride my bike and see the workers all on strike and tearing down rainbow bridge but grand delusions held by men who don't know how to just say when aren't hard to see, it's a great time to be downtown [chorus] all my life i've lived under construction progress leaving road cones on my lawn fancy malls mean fancy new obstructions now i can see the neon from my yard [chorus]
2.
how long should i wait? i'm convinced you're not coming did you find your clean slate? you're laughing but it's not funny [chorus] but now i can't move on the ground is shifting oh the clouds have frozen this weight worth lifting who said you could create pages upon pages not worth reading evolved to a new shape your vacant stare's out breeding [chorus] [why'd you why did you why did you become] x 2 a DENTAL HYGIENIST
3.
i don't have to imagine what my life without you would be like 'cause now i'm out of fashion tossed away without a thought to slight but i can't be concerned i took something that i'm not giving back maybe one day you'll notice but i don't think you'll ask me for it i, i'll just leave it alone i never thought i'd be here waiting for memories to begin fading you, you have all you need so i do not regret my thieving, 'cause all i have is what you gave me left without a passion for progress left with just the faintest traces of a pulse i thought you'd take the long way it turns out you just thought you'd had enough but i can't be concerned despite a sinking feeling that i can't seem to shake i left the battlements empty and now i'm just left stopping bullets i, i'll just leave it alone i never thought i'd be here waiting for memories to begin fading you, you have all you need so i do not regret my thieving, 'cause all i have is what you gave me all i have is what you gave me, woah i'll never get enough from you
4.
left a broken shell circuits laid bare, an iron belle you found me among the junk eyes barely shining enough to see the trunk close to find the source of the malfunction show no remorse just a subject, a flaw to fix a socket wasted, their chemistries mix [chorus] but i must serve my purpose fulfill my function my heart is not my own but yours is beating faster wish i were older but i'll just close my shining eyes a thin blue smoke the smell of solder a girl provoked a contradiction her sole defense divide by zero to feel the friction [chorus] [chorus]
5.
Patient Zero 03:34
you left home you had a great ambition to be a great success and i want to be the first of many you're going to impress they tried to stop you in your tracks with every cunning plan they had but no chance, you're mine, and now i'll share you with everyone i can [chrous] they don't want you, but they need you i won't hide, i won't cover up my face i'll be first, but not last an epidemic is exactly what we need the far east is far gone, despite every precaution they could take you evolve too fast to be set back by any worthless drug they make old men small kids, a targeted approach to bring efficiency to bear but no mind to think just a ruthless deadly virus and you know i will be there [chorus] patient zero [chorus]
6.
i've been drifting away thought i'd have so much to say but now this time i will hold my tongue i can't keep living, living like i'm young cause i'm wasting my mind and i know it's gonna rob me blind enrolled in school of thought where everything's legal until you get caught but i'm low on money and i'm low on self respect my friends and family are trying to forget who i am a hex on your name or your soul, but it's all the same
7.
jackass
8.
he stands in silence waiting for the door to open no shoes on his feet, no wind in his hair a modest complaint issued to the correct neighbor don't check the apartment, he won't be there dressed in the same clothes like a bad decision the scoundrel is lost among the crowd is this the character who fits your fine description take off your headphones, you're talking too loud [chorus] oh, you'll always look humble you need a shower and a shave as our economy crumbles we'll expect you to behave the sun is setting, does he get to go inside? cursed to the street that leads him nowhere a maze of doubt, working overtime on christmas no missed calls cause nobody cares [chorus]
9.
it recently occurred to me in a solomn flash of irony that when the end of this world comes to be we won't see it coming if you extend the timeline long enough when most of us have turned to dust and every forward line is behind us, it all seems pointless [pre] should we start to gather firewood or simply stare at it till you go blind we may have five billion years in which to overcome our fears but there's no stopping entropy [chorus] eight point three minutes to go till finally we're running out of energy and suddenly this system's closed you and me we're taking stock of what we had, it wasn't really all that bad at least we'll freeze together so fire up you're furnaces, give a shout-out to copernicus because without him all we'd have is nothing to revolve around together we were nitrogen, inert but still it burns the skin come up too fast you'll get the bends, and i'll explode [pre] [chorus] should we start to build our starship mine well i assure you folks time's not that kind hope you have low expectations, yeah [chorus] x 2 or 3 or whatever
10.
measure some x-rays, study a black hole i can't justify this expenditure very much longer [chorus] time spent studying in harsh fluorescent light, from the roof of a building flys a lonely kite soft music playing, a kettle on to boil, mise on place for a meal left to spoil i'd like the patience to wait forever, but i like the thought of you fixed better -- the dark walks home were always alone, we walked in silence, sodium lamps shone down on me as i watched the little bugs, the ones that only come out at night [chrous] pray tell me now have you thought this through? drastic measure for one as confused as you [chorus] blood was soaking through the pocket of my jeans, you took me home to get me clean the sun was coming up and i was coming down, we stared at one another until i just couldn't take anymore try as i might, i can't understand what makes you think you've got a plan to end up where you want to be, unless of course it's not with me [chorus] a meal left to spoil i can't tell you that i want you i can't tell you that i need you i can't tell you that i want you i can't tell you anything i can't tell you that i want you i can't tell you that i need you i can't tell you anything because now it's not true
11.
01100011011011110110110101100101001000000110111101101110001000000111001101100101 01111000011110010010000001101100011000010110010001111001001000000111001101101000 01100001011010110110010100100000011110010110111101110101011100100010000001100010 01101111011011110111010001111001001000000110111101101110001000000111010001101000 01100101001000000110010001100001011011100110001101100101001000000110011001101100 01101111011011110111001000100000011101110110000101110100011000110110100000100000 01101101011110010010000001100010011000010110110001100001011011100110001101100101 00100000011001100110000101101100011011000110100101101110011001110010000001110100 01101111001000000111010001101000011001010010000001101011011010010110001101101011 00100000011001000111001001110101011011010010000001101111011011100010000001110100 01101000011001010010000001110001011101010110000101110010011101000110010101110010 00100000011011100110111101110100011001010010000001100011011000010110011001100110 01100101011010010110111001100001011101000110010101100100001000000110000101101100 01100011011011110110100001101111011011000010000001100001011011100110010000100000 01100100011100100111010101100111011100110010000001100110011011110111001000100000 01101001011011100111001101110101011001100110011001101100011000010111010001101001 01101110011001110010000001110100011010010110110101100101011100110010000001100001 01110010011001010010000001110100011011110111010101100111011010000010000001100001 01101100011011000010000001101111011101100110010101110010001000000111001101101111 00100000011101110110100001111001001000000111011101100001011100110111010001100101 00100000011011110111010101110010001000000111010001101001011011010110010100100000 0110010001100101011000100110000101110100011010010110111001100111 i come here every night i stopped fighting it a long time ago it's never quite enough the class war's over, son, we lost and all that we have left to do is [chorus] 01100100011000010110111001100011011001010010000001110111011010010111010001101000 00100000011011010110010100100000011110010110111101110101001001110111011001100101 00100000011001110110111101110100001000000110111001101111011101000110100001101001 01101110011001110010000001110100011011110010000001101100011011110111001101100101 00100000011001010111011001100101011100100111100100100000011100000110010101110010 01110011011011110110111000100000011010010010000001100111011100100110100101101110 01100100001000000111010101110000001000000110000101100111011000010110100101101110 01110011011101000010000001110111011010010110110001101100001000000111010001100101 01101100011011000010000001111001011011110111010100100000011101000110100001100001 01110100001001110111001100100000011101110110100001111001001000000111010001101000 01100101011110010010011101110010011001010010000001101000011001010111001001100101 00100000011101000110111101101111001000000110111001101111001000000111001001101111 01101111011011010010000001100110011011110111001000100000011010100110010101110011 01110101011100110010000001110111011010000110010101101110001000000111100101101111 01110101001000000110000101101110011001000010000001101001001000000110000101110010 01100101001000000110010001100001011011100110001101101001011011100010110000100000 01101000011011110110111001100101011110010010000001100011011010000111001001101001 01110011011101000010000001110111011011110111010101101100011001000010000001101110 01101111011101000010000001100001011100000111000001110010011011110111011001100101 01100011011011110110110101100101001000000110111101101110001000000110110001101001 01110100011101000110110001100101001000000111001001100001011000100110001001101001 01110100001000000110100001100001011101000010000001100011011011110110110101100101 00100000011011110110111000100000011000010110111001100100001000000111000001101000 01101111011101000110111101100111011100100110000101110000011010000010000001101101 01100101001000000110110001101111011101100110010100100000011101000110100001100101 00100000011101110110000101111001001000000111100101101111011101010010000001110111 01101111011100100110101100100000011010010111010000100000011000100110000101100010 01111001001000000111100101101111011101010010000001100001011010010110111000100111 01110100001000000110011101101111011101000010000001101110011011110010000001100100 01101001011001110110011101101001011101000111100100100000011101000110010101101100 01101100001000000110110101100101001000000110000101101100011011000010000001111001 01101111011101010111001000100000011100110110010101100011011100100110010101110100 01110011001000000110100001101111011011100110010101111001001000000110100100100111 01101100011011000010000001110100011001010110110001101100001000000111100101101111 01110101001000000111011101101000011000010111010000100000011010010010000001101011 01101110011011110111011100100000011000010110110001100001011100100110110101110011 00100000011000010111001001100101001000000111001001101001011011100110011101101001 01101110011001110010000001100110011100100110111101101101001000000110001001101111 01110100011010000010000001110111011010010110111001100111011100110010000001100001 01101110011001000010000001101001001001110110110100100000011010100111010101110011 01110100001000000110011001110101011000110110101101101001011011100110011100100000 0110001001101111011100100110010101100100 [chorus]
12.
it's always raining i've been grinding for days something so familiar the music's always the same i can't quite remember about the hands on the clock got to find the chainsaw asked every kid on the block flying my airship captain at the helm in pursuit of the dragon all across the realm i'm exhausted from the climb i wish that i could just fly to the top but i know i'm gonna die i killed seven dragons baby just to make my way up to you climbed so many fuckin stairs i'm gonna need new fuckin shoes then a sixteen bit ultima atom bomb gets dropped right on my head the only way to defeat you baby is to come back from the dead

credits

released June 11, 2011

The Runaway Five is Zach Wolfenbarger, Sarah Allen, Bobby Shields, and Ian Williams

All songs by The Runaway Five
except Intermission! by The Runaway Five, Fen Ikner, and Lauren

recorded by Tommy Rat, Kevin Dowling and Fen Ikner
mixed and mastered by Fen Ikner
acoustic guitar, vibraphone, and back-up vocals by Fen Ikner on tracks 3, 5, and 8

art by Adam Gilliland
claybots and insert photo by Camille Young

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The Runaway Five Chicago, Illinois

TWO MAN SCI FI CHIPTUNE DANCE PARTY

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