Tresselsound

2 Plays

JUST IN TIME from the collection “My Baby’s Made A Monster Of Me”

I wish I could say you were everywhere that I wanted to be, a Visa card for my reverie, but it appears my account is overdrawn. I wish I could say, that our love was not a curse, that it didn’t seem to worse in reverse, an ugly duckling from a swan. I wish I could say that you were the mind that I had in mind, I wish could say that you were and you were just in time, but you’re not. I wish I could say without adding insult to injury, that you were just a remedy for an ailment that i had inside. I wish I could say that everything is coming up roses from here, but you were some kind of herbicide, dear, it’s been lonely since the flowers died. I wish I could say it’s always darkest before the dawn, like how I’m happiest when you’re gone, though we both know that’s a lie. I wish I could say that everything’s working out for the best, except for this knife sticking out of my chest, and I’m your only alibi.

Written by Ryan J. Tressel

D.Morey: Lead electric guitar

RJT: Voice, rhythm electric guitar, bass.

Recorded April 2004.

2 Plays

JENNA from the collection “My Baby’s Made A Monster of Me” by RJT

I’m going to throw up if you don’t show up. I rode my bike here seven miles. My mom made me wear a helmet, and now my hair looks like shit. My new Pumas are already out of style. But I don’t give a fuck. I love you Jenna. New music today is such a joke, except maybe for the Strokes. Virgin’s got their new record for sale on vinyl. Well my mom she thinks I’m crazy, and Mr. Duquette says I’m lazy, ‘cuz I failed his fucking biology final. But I don’t give a fuck, ‘cuz I love you Jenna. Well you’ll never believe what Justin said on the way home from drivers’ ed. We were tooling around in his dad’s minivan. He said that he thinks you’re dirty and that you’ve dating some guy who’s thirty, then made the jerk-off motion with his hand. But I don’t give a shit. I don’t give a damn. I don’t give a fuck, because I love you Jenna.

Written by Ryan J. Tressel

RJT: Acoustic guitar, voice.

D. Morey: Electric guitar

Recorded April 2004.

2 Plays

LIKE SOMEONE TRYING from the collection “My Baby’s Made A Monster Of Me” by RJT

It’s so cold tonight you’ll fall in love with me just to keep warm. Everything falls apart around here just as quickly as it forms. And your perfume is as pointed as a matador’s sword. You smell like someone trying to smell good. And you look like someone trying to look good. You feel like someone trying to feel good. So get your albino heart pumping, you’ve got a limited range of motion. Not fully articulated, just a Sindy doll of devotion. But your notion of emotions just makes you sound bored. And you sound like someone who’s trying to sound good. And you look like someone trying to look good and you feel like someone who’s trying to feel good, oh, Lord. So tell me amnesty is granted, because by your halo I’ve been branded. Oh, Lord. My Charming Whore. And I’m tired of trying. I’m so tired of trying.

Written by Ryan J. Tressel

RJT: Electric guitar, vocals.

D.Morey: Lead acoustic guitar.

1 Plays

MARY SHELLEY, from the collection “My Baby’s Made A Monster Of Me” by RJT

Prettier than Mary Shelley, another stage-dive off the jetty; but you hit the water with no splash, as my fingers turn to ash. She is smarter than Madame Curie, without the radium or the fury. Monsieur let her know that she was loved, and I’m still told she holds a grudge and says “My baby’s made a monster out of me.” Going drowing with Lord Byron, not going under but she is trying. I guess she finally gathered up the nerve that she needed to submerge, and say “My baby’s made a monster out of me.” He’s inside her, she’s in formation, and we’re invited to the coronation. But who here among us has not seen, the steps she took to be the queen? My baby’s made a monster out of me.

Written by Ryan J. Tressel

RJT: Voice, acoustic guitar, slide guitar

Recorded April 2004

1 Plays

HEART SHAPED BRUISE from the collection

“My Baby’s Made a Monster of Me” by RJT

Beneath suspicion, under your spell. I confess the truth, as if there were lies to tell. You are the witness, you’re the accused, you’re the executioner in Greta Garbo shoes. Every heart is shaped like a fist. Only a fracture, the slightest of tears, your Houdini suckerpunch caught me unaware. My skin is thin, but your pushing in, and you given me something I can use. Because you left me with a heart shaped bruise. Above the surface, below the sky’s stare. An azure blue, of me and you, and borrowed air. Breathing in, but looking down. Time’s come, baby, either swim or down. Every heart is over its head. I know baby, that’s where this currents lead. But I’m adrift now. I’m adrift. No land in sight, so I hold on tight to the only thing I have left to lose, you left me with a heart-shaped bruise. And it’s getting dark now, the night is closing in. And i’ll be alright but if I need a light, I’ll hold the buttercup under your chin.

Written by Ryan J. Tressel

RJT: Electric & acoustic guitars, bass, voice

D.Morey: Trombone

Recorded April 2004

3 Plays

THIS STORY MEANS NOTHING WITHOUT YOU

from the collection “My Baby’s Made A Monster Of Me” by RJT

Like Hamlet without Ophelia I’m here to drown alone. Your voice is only echo and the silence sets like bone. Like a silhouette receding, like a raven against the dawn. Like the smoke that stays to linger after the ash has gone. Like a minstrel with a broken lute, this story means nothing without you. Like a garden in the winter, bathed in frozen rain, although the flowers have all died, their shadows still remain. Like lines of demarcation, or marks upon a globe. Like an ocean full of wails all hungering for their Job. Like Cinderella waiting for her shoe, this story means nothing without you. So I tell men at the tavern, as I buy them all a glass, and describe them all the shape your body left upon the grass, as we laid upon the spinning earth and watched the blue roll past. And if any have wondered why I am here, well, none of them has asked. Like a revolution without a coup, my life here means nothing without you. All the heartache that I’ve been through, well that story means nothing without you.

Written by Ryan J. Tressel

RJT: Acoustic guitar, voice.

D. Morey: Slide guitar

Recorded April 2004

1 Plays

NEIL ARMSTRONG AT THE FRIARS’ CLUB from the collection “My Baby’s Made A Monster Of Me” by RJT

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, I do these sort of things so often. My old lady’s in the back with her barbituates trying to get her mood to soften. Because partying aint easy when you’ve chained yourself to the Whore of Babylon. In this world of red and blue dresses she’s put the drab one on. We put on a good show for the cameras, but there’s trouble back at home. She’s got my balls in one hand, and a vodka in the other; our cover’s blown. My voice becomes omniscient; the transmission’s in the air. It doesn’t matter if we’re on the moon or a TV studio in LA somewhere. Because it isn’t love, and it isn’t love. We faked the whole thing.

Written by Ryan J. Tressel.

Produced & engineered by David Kennedy

RJT: Acoustic guitar, voice

D.Morey: Trombone, trumpet

0 Plays

IF WAS WRONG, from the collection “Songs About Girls, Vol. I” by RJT

Hush up now, I can hardly hear the rain. For want of a nail, your words stutter in vain, and amble between us and these ghosts you entertain. You’ll never guess this riddle, and I will miss you but only a little, as I watch you burn like Nero with his fiddle, like I was wrong. You walked into the room, whistling like Joan of Arc, the weight of martydom you wear its mark. You ask to go home and I knock you out of the park. The point’s been missed between my glass jaw and your limp wrist, some lips will be fattened, some lips will be kissed, if I was wrong. I beg forgiveness for my limpness, between the peapod and the princess, you knew all the answers but you failed the quizzes. So who decides what memories we’ll save between the prenup and the grave? When you were ugly and when I was brave? When I was wrong? So now I know, though your crimes were high, my resistance is low. And maybe I would be able to let this all go, if I was wrong. And if you want your bird to really sing, you have to get vicious and tear off its wings. Then you’ll know the shame that clarity brings, like you were wrong.

Written by Ryan J. Tressel

RJT: Acoustic guitar, voice.

Recorded live August 2002.

1 Plays

KISSING from the collection “Songs About Girls, Vol I” by RJT

Oh, my lips are sealed but somewhere there’s a leak. To decode my morse code would take you a week. The firing squad has been up since dawn. Their target’s in sight and my blindfold is on. I don’t know you from Adam, but I’ve been informed my smile’s a coatrack you pass through the door. And you’re sitting in the backrow of my mystery play. You just hear the gunshots but not the words that I say. And I’m going to love you until it kills me. K-I-S-S, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. I was planning to leave you but my hands were tied. The guard swallowed the key once I gave him a bribe. And you gave me your lips and then you left me alone. I can’t stand to be here with you on my own. Because the jury’s sequestered, the trial’s adjourned. The verdict comes down we should have never been born. Because my love for you is going to be the death of me. K-I-S-S, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. I’ve been kissing so hard, my lips going to rip. If you were planning on lying, I’ll save you the trip. Because when god was deciding where the dice fell, the girls were in heaven and the boys were in hell. So I was worth nothing in this time and place and you don’t know the way the rain looks as it falls on my face. But the sentence is here, ignorance is bliss. The king’s fate is sealed by his queen’s poisoned kiss.

Written by Ryan J. Tressel

RJT: Voice, acoustic guitar

Recorded live April 2002.

1 Plays

DARK DOLL, from the collection “Songs About Girls, Vol I” by RJT

Tell me about the girl in the stocking cap with her mother’s rifle and her father’s cadillac. Goes out at night all dressed in black, half chameleon, half heart attack.  And tell me what you think about love with your stethoscope and your rubber gloves, your preposition princess is below your above you’ll be kissing that girl til you draw blood.Tell her what you think of love that’s if you even think at all, she’s got a thousand lucky numbers but you don’t know which one she’s going to call at all. She’s a real dark doll. She’s sitting on your lap bad vibes in tow, timebomb between her teeth, she’s primed to blow. She arches her back like a black rainbow your knuckles are white but you can’t let go. And time is slowing to a crawl as you bang your head against the wall, she’s a real dark doll. Now you’re back at home with your porcelain wives another color photo of your black and white lives. She’s waiting for you on a bed of knives waiting to see if your heart is as big as your eyes.

Written by Ryan J. Tressel

RJT: Acoustic guitar, voice.

Recorded live August 2002