We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Wooden Crosses

from When We Were Animals by Mishka Shubaly

/

about

Listening back to these songs as a collection, it couldn’t be clearer to me that this record would not be what it is without my friends.

I wrote this song about my time on the road with my buddy JT Habersaat. Yeah, it was a grueling time, but I got this song out of it. I was proud of it lyrically but it’s a downer, and I knew the arrangement would have to kick ass. JT had given me a copy of Black Pudding, a record by Duke Garwood and Mark Lanegan, a singer with whom I am almost psychotically obsessed. A lot of the songs are just classical guitar and drum machine, so I floated that idea to my oldest friend, James Sparber, who did the production and a lot of the arrangements for the record. We got tight bro from way back when/ ace guitar slinger Damien Paris to get it weird and sinister. The ‘carpet of pythons’ line on the chorus is cribbed from my friend Aaron Lazar circa 2002. I asked one of my musical heroes (who has become one of my closest friends) Bill Whitten of the band Grand Mal to sing with me. Bill’s supporting vocals on both verse and chorus really made this song for me. This song felt like filler in the demo phase; now it feels like a standout track.

lyrics

Wooden crosses, roadside graves
White crosses at the Gas n’ Save
Six million ways to come undone
Six million ways and it takes only one

Perverts lined up, the degradation arcade
I haven’t slept in forty days
I dreamed that I called you, I wish I could call
But mostly I dream about alcohol

I saw you in your hospital bed
I saw you in your wedding dress
Memories squirm like a carpet of pythons
They rise up to strike then they’re gone

Sweet gasoline, concrete island
Blue Listerine truck-stop violence
I built you this song out of dreams that expired
I built you this song so you’ll know that I’m tired
Tired of dive bars and punk clubs and hotels
Tired of strangers with questionable motives
I don’t want to be here and you don’t want me here
So let’s all close our eyes and watch me disappear
I’ll disappear

credits

from When We Were Animals, released May 1, 2018

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Mishka Shubaly image

Mishka Shubaly Phoenix, Arizona

Shipwreck survivor, Jeopardy clue, bestselling writer, road dog on house arrest.

contact / help

Contact Mishka Shubaly

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this track or account

If you like Mishka Shubaly, you may also like:

Bandcamp Daily  your guide to the world of Bandcamp

On Bandcamp Radio

Fabiana Palladino stops by to talk about her mesmeric debut LP.
listen now