The Failure Cabaret

Release Date: April 26th, 2019
Stephanie Dodd (Fremont, NE): vocals, accordion
Justin Badger (Fremont, CA): vocals, guitar, kick drum

Executive Producer: Chuck Porter
Produced by The Fremonts and Cameron Mannix (Chris Tucker on Shadow Sees)
Recorded & Mixed by Cameron Mannix at his house in Boulder, CO
Mastered by David Glasser at Airshow in Boulder CO
Photography & Album Artwork by Emilie Druss & Matt Lowber

1 - How Often

Stephanie Dodd: music & lyrics
Justin Badger: music

You were wearing a yellow dress when I first met you
And the sun made you light up a fire
We were gathered there to celebrate the love of our friends
But I was the one who left there inspired

How often do you meet someone you actually love?
Never and every day.

It was not the first time that I had felt true love
Oh no, I had been there before
It was like I knew you from another lifetime
You might have been my daughter or my mom

How often do you meet someone you actually love?
Never and every day.

We are unknown and absolutely known.

2 - Find Me

Stephanie Dodd: music & lyrics

I just want to be drunk and really profoundly ugly
I just wanna be left alone
I just wanna dig a hole that leads to China
Go to the place where nobody can find ya
Bury myself just like a bone

I’ve got weapons of mass destruction against you darlin’
Inspectors come and I beg their pardon
Lock me up but put the mat under the key
Oh you could find me

La da da da da da da

You look high baby but you look so low
You look at me and I gotta go
I say I’m so so late
You don’t know where I might be

My body’s in a sub-sub-basement
My heart’s in a small town
My soul’s in the bath
And my mind’s not found
I’m all wrapped up
In a soundproof tapestry
Just try to find me

You’re a friend with a list
A pet with a ‘tude
My parents’ guilt for all I don’t include
I try to be nice
I try to just be
But I can’t do shit with you on the scene

I’ve got too many hands on my time
Hard to know just what is mine
So suck this
I’m taking back all of those keys
Don’t try to find me

‘Scuse me while I disappear

3 - Howl

Justin Badger: music & lyrics

I was a granite statue
I was an iron fortress
But now it seems it’s weathered down
I was wrong. I was misused
I earned my right to be stubborn
But now there’s not a soul around

You may see how this world goes with no eyes
To replace what I’ve see I would tear out mine
I may stand broken, naked and bruised
On this great stage of fools

Though it rains down on me
Though backs may have turned you see
Blow winds, come and crack your cheeks
I’m every inch a king that I was
I’m every inch a king that I was

You were a subtle honest
You were a silent truth
But angry I turned you away
You were my one and only
You were the pieces of me
But this I realized to late

You and I may sing two birds of a cage
Don’t you fall before me you’re not my age
I’d still carry you on my withered spine
Your voice, ever soft, teaching mine.

Though it rains down on me
Though backs may have turned you see
Blow winds, come and crack your cheeks
I’m every inch a king that I was
I’m every inch a king that I was

Howl!
Howl!
Howl!
Howl!

4 - Songs About Babies

Stephanie Dodd: music & lyrics
Justin Badger: music

‘Scuse me friend, but I just got here
And I intend to stay
In the land of good times and fancy wines
And I’ll chase my mortality away
Old age will slow us down
And we all know what follows fast
But I drank the madman’s elixir
And I’m gonna make my good looks last

La dee da dee da, La dee da dee dee
Everybody wants a baby except me
Oh no, I like my nest empty
La dee da dee da, La dee da dee dee
Come to my house friend and you will see
It’s clean and I’m fast asleep

I wandered forty years
To get to where I am
And biblically speaking, I wanna save up
My naughty bits for my man
My garden’s full of flowers
In perfect late summer bloom
Since I moved to New York and I shot that stork
I’m feeling all of twenty two

In conclusion, I married a man
And I’m sure that the boys work fine
But I know our glitches and don’t need to see
His genes when they’re mixed with mine
Maybe I’m fooling myself
And I’ll rue it when I’m gray
But I’m just a cricket that sang all summer
And I’ll dance on the last of my fertile days

5 - Kids Who Always Swim

Stephanie Dodd: music & lyrics

Well, we were born where we were born
And we were raised how we were raised
And we came wired in certain ways
So we could face uncertain days
Uncertain days
Uncertain days

And we were born before the time
When kids revealed their hearts online
We made no record of our crimes
We just ran free and that was fine
And that was fine
And that was fine

We are the kids who always swim
When we’re pushed in
We have our fight. We have our friends.
When we’re pushed in

And we have wandered through these lands
And let go of each other’s hands
We made impossible demands
We drew our lines. We took our stands.
We took our stands.
We took our stands.

But I am telling you today
Just like the moon. I’ll never stray.
Oh no my heart is here to stay.
I guess I just came built that way.
I’m built that way.
I’m built that way.

We are the kids who always swim
When we’re pushed in
We have our fight. We have our friends.
When we’re pushed in

All of the love songs lied
The great musicians died
So let your love light shine shine shine shine shine
I’m telling you there is no other time
No other time
We are the kids who always swim
When we’re pushed in
We have our fight. We have our friends.
When we’re pushed in

6 - Fear of Consequences

Stephanie Dodd: music & lyrics

August 21st, 2017
Moon eclipsed the sun
American astrologists know what it means
Run run run get it done get it done

Oh fear of consequences
Did you reconcile your expenses?
Ask forgiveness for all your offences?
Religion overruled the sciences
And the poor better fear the consequences
Better fear that

Oh Oh Oh Oh (Oh Oh Oh Oh)
Oh Oh Oh Oh (Oh Oh Oh Oh)
Oh Oh the poor better
Fear That

Moon slides across the sun. The light goes dim.
Communications fail.
Our source of life, our only sun is hidden.
Human frailty unveiled.

Oh fear of consequences
All the ones that his argument convinces
Armed militias build their defenses
Politicians overruled the sciences
And the girls better fear the consequences
Oh better fear that

Oh Oh Oh Oh (Oh Oh Oh Oh)
Oh Oh Oh Oh (Oh Oh Oh Oh)
Oh Oh the girls better
Fear That

What’s gonna happen when the moon blocks the light?
When the food starts to dwindle and the people start to fight?
I’ll run to the highest court to plead for my rights
Thank my lucky stars that I’m a straight man and I’m white
Fears that never dare to cross your lips
Swirl around you during the eclipse
Vaguely now you start to see a line
Some have to fear consequence and some are fucking fine

Do you fear the consequences?
Who’d better fear the consequences?

7 - Gravity

Stephanie Dodd: music & lyrics

Fire escape
After a long night
You’re having another cigarette
We watched the kids get kicked out of Abingdon
The sun came up but we weren’t done with each other yet

I should’ve known then
I should’ve realized
The pain that you had locked up behind your eyes
I should’ve let go
I should’ve walked away
But I was young and a little drunk
And it looks like I stayed

Do you think the gravity here is stronger than the gravity
Anywhere in this whole world?
I would sit upon this stone and wait for you
Like a mother waits for a birth
My heart exploded when you called me your star
Lucky for me this gravity won’t let me get too far
Sit with me baby let the wind make us who we are

Tavern on Jane
Tea lights in the darkness
I finally told you the tale
Of a night in Prague and the ache in my heart
You sighed the saddest sign and let fall your veil

8 - Shadow Sees

Stephanie Dodd: music & lyrics
Justin Badger: music

Oh it’s like they sliced off part of my soul
Now there’s only one place where I feel whole
In the silver, in the snow
Burning hot and freezing cold
Luminescence in my bones
Down’s the only way to go

At night I climb up to the moonlight
And spend my hours with wolves in the trees
Then I fly down the mountain side
And only my shadow sees
Oh only my shadow sees

But I pause
A little danger nips my mind
What if I fall?
What if I’m paralyzed?
What would I do then?
I couldn’t make a call
The mountain sees that there is no connection to the town at all
No, if I fell
I’d lay here in the snow
And I’d cry
Until my last tear froze
And celestial beings would visit me from the deep
And stitch me back together as I drift away to sleep

Down in the town
I have a real nice life
I have a daughter
And a beautiful wife
But my heart isn’t quiet
When I stay home at night
It pulls me into the car and drives me up to these heights
There’s no escape
The only way home is safely
But I take these risks alone
And I take them daily
I hold my world in every move that I make
And I bend it as far as I possibly can and hope that it won’t break

At night I climb up to the moonlight
And spend my hours with wolves in the trees
Then I fly down the mountain side
And only my shadow sees
Oh only my shadow sees

9 - Pretty As It Seems

Justin Badger: music & lyrics
Stephanie Dodd: lyrics

Why the long face? Is it that bad?
Why did we think that this would be so easy?
It was too late when they all said,
”Silly young thing, it’s not as pretty as it seems.”

Tried to be special
Found it too stressful
Gave it all up to God
But God wasn’t having it
Our idols turned suicidal
Sit with me baby
Let’s spin it all sentimental

Aye, there’s the rub
Does something come next?
What do we know?
Nobody’s ever writes home
And if they did what if they said,
”It’s not as pretty as it seems.”

Walking down aisles
Blind to miles
Prance queen
Lie in the dark rewatching

Fortunate love, we’re stubborn at best
Maybe we’re just haunted by ghosts of old days
Still here we are halfway to death
No use lying

Seems my baby
Worth it maybe
Though it’s not as pretty as it seems.

10 - WE DON’T LIVE THERE

Stephanie Dodd: music & lyrics

We can see it in the skyline
We can go and have a visit
We don’t live there
We don’t live there
And our eyes are filled
With anxious, heaving visions of the light
We don’t live there
We don’t live there

It was never our birthright
To have things and no fight
It was always part of the plan
To go out West like a young man

And we crawl through the sprawl
And we cling to our dreams
And the past and the things
That we hope it might mean
And the stories we tell
Are of how much we loved
How it was.
How it never was.