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"The Things You Don’t See Coming"
Written & Produced By: Tonedeff for QN5 Music (ASCAP).
They’re touches that you never feel.
Cuts that happen in the heat of your fight.
You’re just the last to know it’s real.
And though you can’t recall, they sting in your side.
Something’s coming. Just beyond your feelers.
They’re warnings that you never hear.
Till the glass explodes - it’s seen with your eyes.
Forever captive of your fears.
Your distraction holds your ransom so high.
There’s no signs, no rhyme, no reason, why and how, right now.
Once you know it’s over - you’re the last to find out.
These are the things you don’t see coming.
Tie the blindfold tight.
These are the words of another victim.
Standing still as they’re killed by the whiplash.
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2. |
Five Sisters
04:55
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"Five Sisters"
Written & Produced By: Tonedeff for QN5 Music (ASCAP).
I got five sisters, tied to one mother
five different sides to uncover
Pick a part of her personality, each
And develop whoever you want to be
I got five sisters, all in one line
five gifts in all to combine
trace it to the root of our family tree
And here’s how each one is unique
Sister #1 had it rough,
And she took the brunt of the punishment, cause she was the first of the bunch
To an underage mother, who was tough,
No wonder she’d rush to married, at barely 16, and very young
She’d become the disciplinarian, but
the symptoms of the repression she suffered, would bubble over in lust
After a couple of marriages go bust,
She struggles with different daughters who mimmicked her, just as mother had done
Sister number #2’s sad news
The first out of four from my mother’s schizophrenic husband #2
The rumored most beautiful one of the group
In her unending quest for attention, she had a penchant for bad dudes
Who ruined her her magic with baggies and booze
And would lose the pure magnetism, and attraction that her mother exudes
She mentally never grew out of her youth.
As the master manipulator, of the ladies, she knew -
And you can be whoever you want.
So what you get whatever you need.
And you can be whoever you want.
So what you get whatever you need.
Sister #3 is Geneva
In times of war, she’s the center where the rest of them meet up
#2 would beat up her self esteem with a stream of grief,
saying that she was an overweight underachiever. and #3’d believe her ---
See - as a teen she married a dealer who’d mistreat her
who later OD’d, to leave her with babies to feed,
In need of a man she can keep, the pattern repeats, there’s talent beneath
Her broken mentality keeps her from all things that she dreams of
Sister #4 is our noah
The spiritual core - the enormous weight of it all - is too much to hold up
The only one with no sons or daughters and so she’s focused
The last to get married, first to graduate, perfect persona
So, opinions matter more - they control her - and that alone is her torture
So, fashion forward, it masking her frazzled aura for show
But the fact she’s mostly at home alone, and won’t pick the phone
Says the difficult role has been choking her growing older
Sister #5 is the fighter
Though the other 4 would pull out a knife to defend the others with no wind-up
if you saying something sly just to slight us
#5 will prolly blind you while driving, she’s got the eye of the tiger
This lioness’ll ride or die for her pride,
And she thriving on trying times, she’ll always find a way to survive in a bind
She made it a decade, with her guy doing time, and she’s by your side,
But god forbid, you cross her line, with a forgiveness too high to climb.
Now, it’s important to observe -
That the force of nature that birthed us, made "mother" more than a word
There’s so many states of this person, though some distortions occurred
That each of us absorbed a portion, in turn, we form into her
To secure our places and worth, this cunning runs in our genes
So we can change into different faces when it comes to our needs
I've got 5 sisters, but 6 mothers in deed,
Cause each one of them was a mother to me.
And you can be whoever you want.
So what you get whatever you need.
And you can be whoever you want.
So what you get whatever you need.
These pieces of me are yours, so own them.
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3. |
Phantom
06:37
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"Phantom"
Written & Produced By: Tonedeff for QN5 Music (ASCAP).
There is nothing left when I’m inside out.
but I can walk through anything.
I disappear from pictures in my house.
But I can run through everything.
Everything, everything.
And I had to crawl through it all
so I could feel the loss peeling off.
And I have no armor at all,
and I feel so raw. Is this real or false?
I’m running through those walls.
Away.
Away.
Nothing hurts when I’m inverted.
Nothing hurts when I’m inverted.
Nothing can contain me.
Nothing can escape me.
Nothing that can hold me down.
I’d have to die to show you how.
Till then just let me see this through.
Till then just let me breathe through you.
Till then you’ll know that I’m around.
Even though I won’t be found.
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4. |
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"More Like You (feat. Fjer)"
Written & Produced By: Tonedeff for QN5 Music (ASCAP).
Additional Lyrics by: Fjer
In the loneliest hour.
I'm smaller.
...And as I pushed back with seven years of strength
To clear my face of the pillow, I feel your weight
I remember the wet material ’s taste, threads drenched with spit and tears on the case
If he put me to rest, then it’s here that I’d lay
Just as my breath disappears, they peel you away, protesting and smearing your name
The resentment and fear and anger contained in your beer ridden gaze
Are etched in and seared in my brain, that memory’s clear as the day
You attempted to seal my fate
But I know that you love me.
Though you tried to drown your son with your sorrows.
You’d rather choke me than hug me.
I learned that I was promised nothing tomorrow.
You were so fucking ugly, that it gored my mind/
So I hate that your mug is looking more like mine
No matter how much I scrub, it’s getting worn by time
Isn’t the irony humbling?
Listen, I just don’t know how else I’m s’posed to say this
But I hated your guts through the 80's and maybe ‘91 at the latest
Don’t play it like this statement here’s belated
Cause, there is a type of pain that’ll stay with you way into later ages
And since anger is the stage that follows denial,
Well, this phase of bargaining’s how I can face you to blame you for these behaviors
You’re the basis for my values, though I’ve changed within
You still have to appraise the painting by the frame it’s in
And, the traces are paper thin. The saying is ‘blood is thicker than water’
Cause no one can strain or rinse off the sins of the father
A major difference from mothers sisters & daughters
We’re raised to live up to similar bars and yet one’s the signature product
So the pressure’s on you. “The stress is hard!” Cool.
The lessons start and they’re cruel. It’s a messy job, but you do it.
So, let’s be honest in full that we’d best acknowledge the truth
Our resemblance stopped when you ruined an immense part of my youth.
Talk when I'm through.
I live in the fear of -
reflections getting clearer.
As years go by, I see the proof.
I look more and more like you.
More and more like you.
Oh what a conquest! I’m everything you wish you could be.
You were always in conflict and distant, so resisting to speak
You’re an accomplice in bringing out the victim in me.
No matter what I accomplish - I’m still living with this glint of defeat
The issues that seem insistent on clinging from our history is ______
I was the kid you would beat, when pissed at my sisters for things
Admittedly, you exhibited clear cut chivalry, here in this scene
Couldn’t hit them women - who isn’t your seed.
Or whipping on me with a thick metal buckle because I had tripped up my niece
Or I misplaced a shoe when fitting to leave
Giving me grief, Military steeze discipline
grill to grill like a drill sergeant, bark on a six-year-old, rinse & repeat
or pinning my twisted addiction to sleaze
Begins with the pictures & zines you hid, as I leaped, the mattress slid underneath
Perhaps the 15 years it took you to visit jilted me,
Skipped the greeting, dipped and used my crib like a Hilton to sleep
For a night, oh that’s right, still pissed at my decision to flee
the difference between is and isn’t just in our genes
with limited means, neither quit and the ship didn’t sink
We’re living symbols of the immigrant dream.
Now, peep the rifts in our symmetry
Your story’s so tragic - On some Dickens shit you could lift from a page
You thought your father was absent. but your mother stole you off then shipped you away
And though you had no examples, And no authority figure to chase
You taught your son what a man was, even though you were lost, you’d spin in one place
bitter frustration became centrifugal rage as you flipped your shit for a chick
with 5 kids to her name, you overcommitted, filled up your plate
a way to fix what you missed in the case of family
A slave to decisions you made at 20 - now with an infant to blame
Driven insane. Quick to dismay. Drink yourself to a primitive state
I know how addictions limit the pain,
So, you get your kicks when you stray, It’s a vicious cycle decaying your platelets
So when you get sick it's your end of days
But it isn’t, your Mrs. nurses you back to existence, you’ve changed
A new beginning but your ambition’s the same
I wish you’d quit playing the victim, switch up the aim
Live for the day and then rage while it’s still in the tank
Listen to a son with no children to raise
A son who’s afraid that his image will mimic mistakes
A son who’s drifting in space, but inches away, fit with your face
Before this shit gets too late, then listen, this is my forgiveness in spades.
If you could, erase the things you’d said and done.
Would you? Or is your only answer to run?
Run from my childhood.
Run from your guilt.
See how you shattered me and buried yourself.
My silhouette has been cut from your past.
I will forgive you - as your face becomes my mask.
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5. |
Control
09:44
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"Control"
Written & Produced By: Tonedeff for QN5 Music (ASCAP).
Stay. No, don’t.
Go away. Come close.
When I say what I want’s not the same as what I’ve done. Oh no.
It’s coursing through my veins.
Coursing through my veins.
I’m out of control.
I can never tell when it’s over.
When I say what I want’s not the same as what I’ve done. Oh no.
It’s coursing through my veins.
Coursing through my veins.
But I want control.
The jenga pieces were fucked from the start.
Cause everything that I touch falls apart.
There’s a faulty part of me resting, till it gets the best of me,
let’s me reach for the structure and then it shoves on my arm,
I expect to be late - in a rush, cause it’s smart
And it deafens my head to negate the buzz of the alarm.
Though I set it, I slept through it - wait...which one is the mark?
And who medelled? I wrestle with blame - while drunk up at the bar.
Then I’m shredded to death the next day - too hungover to march
to the set of this expletive play, in what’s known as a farce
This director resents and degrades - I flub all of my parts
and I exit the stage, yet I claim that I’m numb to his remarks
I’m an expert in lessening in pain, I cut over the scars
So the flesh that is left can remain untouched, pure as the dawn
But the second it festers, I rage. Destruction of the facade
Ain’t no guessing the recipe’s flavor, when crunched under the char
It’s excessive in plenty of ways, I’m stumped? Then I restart
Cause If it ain’t perfection, I fade - I run towards the dark
Like there’s medicine kept in the shade - he crumples up the art
I regressively step and the baby gets dumped with the water
The penalty’s heft on mistakes is much heavier/harsh
So, when I mess up - reset the game - and thus - never go farther
A vet to rejection and hate, I’m huddled in my guard
So instead when I’m sent a grenade, I can bump it out the park
But he tends to deflect any praise and lumps it with the snark
My perception is - yes, I’m afraid I’ll fumble at 1 yard.
I’m sweating whenever there’s bets to be placed, stuttering over the odds
Leveraging a defensive delay, by shuffling the cards
Petrified of success and acclaim, he stumbles over the blocks
Every hex is accepted with grace, he’s comfortable in the loss
He projects, the trajectory’s safe, it’s control he can chart
There’s sympathetic attention to gain - the shrug nobody wants
And it's all the expense of his angst, I gun solo - it’s hard
instead of help - incessant delays - it does most of the harm
And when wave of depression came, he jumped right over the barge
And in my dread, I was led astray and I dug holes in my yard
My ex suggested we separate, cause I suffocate with art
But there were many more pressing plagues, that were stuffed within our cart
And then when I checked out, I felt my brain, I shut it in response,
Ain't no prep for the sense of shame, when your woman knows you lost - 40
I felt dejected, my selfish ways, had crushed my lover’s heart
And then my plus 1 departs, like they were plucked from the ark
Temporarily end the ache, with sluts, hoes and thots
On the bus home I’m starving, cause my stomach’s full of knots
And as I slept in this bed of blades - he’s puffing a cigar
Cause he deceptively fed me bait, and drugged me with his charm
It’s like a sedative - hence the haze, you’re somehow absolved
Knowing there’s someone else in charge as you plummet and you fall
I relent and self-deprecate, and publicize my flaws
Turning these lemons to lemonade, in a punch filled with straws
Everyone begs me to get a taste, it’s ugly but it’s strong
As I struggle to evolve from a duck into a swan
yet this devil won’t let me change, he’s sunk in with his claws
Until he collects every debt I pay, I’m stuck within these walls
I’m living within an enemy state of mind, but instead of a stranger, penning these checks,
The evidence states, the enemy’s name is mine.
HOOK
I’m outta control. I want you to know that my mind is my foe, and it vies for the throne
I’m trying to hold it inside, but it won’t
Subside and it grows, unless I can oppose it by fighting to own
what I’ve pridefully thrown to the side cause I’m prone to be private and closed
So, writing this tome where I’m highly exposed, helps lighten the load
of the lies and loathing, the size of a boulder that’s tied to me
Hope l survive to be old and wiser, bestowed with the spite that I’m owed
from the life that I’ve broken - the price of atonement is dying alone
And I’m out of control - And I’ve driving it home - every wind in road Is the kind that erodes
And behind me it’s broke, I stay alive going forward and hide from my ghosts,
but this self-sabotage is a complex process where the conflict’s
brought upon by my own impulsive thoughts and then I’m haunted at night by them both
I was psyched to propose, so hyper with goals, and despite this he chose, to incite a divorce
And reclined as a drone in his stifling work, then he cries in remorse
In a cycle of woe, it’s dividing my soul
And one side’s got to go. But I just cannot decide if I’m the parasite or the host.
No.
There’s something wrong with my head.
That shouldn’t be there.
I’m out of control.
I’m out of control.
I’m out of control.
I’m out of control.
Don’t ever change. Don’t ever change.
Cause it won’t change. No it won’t change anyway. (41)
So you can stay the way you are.
The way you are.
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Tonedeff New York
Emcee / Producer / Singer / Songwriter / Designer / Director / Insomniac.
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