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Conversations Over Breakfast

by Kat Bula (aka Thimble vs. Needle)

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1.
Audrey 04:00
well, i don't fall in love particularly easily, but when you first poked your head out of that cardboard box, Audrey, I knew you and I would always be each other's center of gravity. is it bad that i can't say that to a human being? you're the softest and the smallest of all of my best friends. and you're a do-it-yourselfer, just like me: you made your own cat toy from the mouse that used to be my nemesis, destroying my house plants and crapping on all of my things. you wanted congratulations, but instead i just cried, so you dropped the body and rubbed on my ankles and meowed to try to ask why. oh, if love is just unbalanced energy, then you've cured me of my dangerous sentimentality. when you kill for the sport of playing soccer with a corpse, audrey, it makes art spiegelman want to draw you as a nazi. baby, you'd better lick your paws right clean before you come to bed, 'cuz i can't sleep if i think you'll knead death into my chest. but i'll hold the covers up for you so you can crawl underneath, and for the rest of your life, audrey, it's gonna be you and me. you're the softest and the smallest of all of my best friends. you're the softest and the smallest murderer i've met. and i guess without your taste for death, you wouldn't complete me.
2.
Meat Drink 01:42
3.
Open Casket 03:01
thank you, father luke, the only one who still knows what to do in case of death: fulfill the last requests. forgive me, father, but what do i care what they do or do not wish to see? and gee, don't i look pretty in death? in my blue dress, blue eyeshadow? i left the money so they could pay to make it so. john, my son, don't turn your head away. it's my funeral; i had to be here today. so look me in the face. look me in the face.
4.
For Amy I 00:43
5.
oh, to go back to seventeen, leaving cryptic notes for my parents quoting rock n' roll lyrics. oh, and writing songs in my bedroom, with too many guitar chords and overly obfuscatory words like the ones i didn't understand on all my favorite cds. i knew i'd start to understand if i just kept on listening, and therein find the answers to everything. oh, to go back to nineteen, standing in line for hours to see the only show that mattered. oh, to accept the invitation to throw myself into chanting anything the singer asked me. i want to be willing and able to give in to rock star cult leader manipulations again, and therein find the answers to everything.
6.
Neighbors 03:42
you watch the neighbors playing four square on the street where they have marked a grid in red duct tape midst the broken glass and oil stains on the ground and you've seen a lot in your life that both you and i don't care about-- are you tired yet? you watch the neighbor standing naked in her kitchen. she's deep-frying something and smoking a cigarette-- are you tired yet? you watch the neighbors fixing cars in the alley beside the tree where the raccoons nibble at the compost heap and the cars, they are tired, and the fruit rinds are rotting sweet-- and you'll stay. you guess. awhile.
7.
i found a key in the back of my closet. i guess i put it there a long time ago. for years now, i thought that i'd lost it. it didn't matter; there was no place for it to go. no one unlocks the front door but me. the cat doesn't need a spare key. what's the use of hanging around here anyhow? if there's one thing i've learned from my friends, it's that to leave town is to leave all your problems, and you don't even have to make amends. so at 6:10am i'll be seeing you again, my old friend american air, 'cuz there's a patch of brown earth glad to soak up these tears, and it's somewhere between here and o'hare. now i do all right in the kitchen, but to think of the money i've bled eating $2 toast and staring out the window while a book in my lap goes unread in every uninspired diner in this town.... i just wanna be alone, but not without a crowd. what's the use of hanging around here anyhow? if there's one thing i've learned from my friends, it's that to leave town is to leave all your problems, and you don't even have to make amends. so at 6:10am i'll be seeing you again, my old friend american air, 'cuz there's a patch of brown earth glad to soak up these tears, and it's somewhere between here and o'hare.
8.
Loveseat 01:55
i fell asleep on your loveseat last night with my rain boots on, my long plaid jacket wrapped around me like a blanket, smelling of rain that had gone rotten, and the cat just eyed me from the chair across the room, because there was no room beside me, and my hips crack now when i try to walk around, from the hours spent folded fetal on the loveseat. it's your couch where i'm a guest when i stumble in after two, and it's your house, i can't forget, even if it's my house too. you fell asleep, and through the wall i heard you snore into the new girl's ear. she doesn't know yet how your nose changes sound depending on the amount of beer you drink.
9.
well, the blues don't mean a thing in my young life; somehow, somewhere i lose them. and the men don't mean a thing in my young life; somehow, somewhere i lose them. never a tear, never a care, never a heartache that i can't bear. so sweetheart, please don't try to make me blue just 'cuz i can't love you like you want me to.
10.
For Amy II 00:49
11.
sex in the morning can ruin my whole day. my body holds one grief for every pound i weigh, and the older i get, the heavier i step. sex in the morning can ruin my whole day, especially when i throw my glasses on the floor, forget, and trample them on the way to the bathroom. sitting on the sink counter, ankles on the toilet seat, after telling him i needed to pee, blinking back tears that have nothing to do with the frames i crushed under my feet: at least i'm alone here, if i'm going to cry. at least i'm alone if i haven't even got my glasses to hide behind. sex in the morning is no good anyway. it's mostly an excuse to get out of getting on with the day.
12.
it doesn't bother me when you step on my feet while we're dancing. i'm doing all the steps wrong, and your feet belong where mine are dancing. but this makes me feel weird, my forehead scratched by your beard while we're dancing. oh, i hope i don't have B.O.! i'll try not to look up your nose while we are dancing. i can't tell if you're hitting on me -- i don't think that i want you to be -- but if you are, i can't blame you; we're the only ones here under 40. and i'm grateful, sir, you're teaching me these steps, but don't you think it's weird that my hand's on your bicep? i wish i could remember your name! it's not my usual tack to let a strange man put his hand on my back, but... we're dancing? i don't usually move the way a man tells me to, but... we're dancing? this rhythm section's got mojo; i wish i could take a violin solo instead of dancing! let's face it: you are better at music too than you are at dancing. i don't think you're any more attracted to me than i am to you, so why the hell are we swaying and holding each other where everyone can see? oh, maybe it's FATE'S way of making us friends, and the way this awkward story ends is that we go outside and talk about books till it's morning. let's go outside and talk about books till it's morning! let's go outside... and not fuck each other.
13.
does it make you feel left out, the only one in town i haven't yet fucked? yeah, that's gotta be tough. it could be i just haven't met you yet; it can't just be that you don't make me wet, 'cuz no one really does anymore. that's no reason to turn down potential scores. :/ the best reason to fuck your friends is conversations worth having over breakfast. i'm no good at small talk -- worse when we've just fucked -- so don't look forward to my erudition on how work is going or patterns on dishes, 'cuz no one really gets it anymore. that's no reason to shut the door (click, lock). i've got a single bed for a good reason: i don't want your chatter to drown out the clock's tick-tock-tick. so while it's been lovely to kiss you, can't say i'll miss you when i wake up and you're gone. you'll be miles out of earshot; still i'm nice and i'll not verbalize my "thank god." my personal life may be a mess; at least i've still got one hot dress, torn stitch by stitch by all the hands of all my favorite one night stands who reach their destinations smart enough to know they've gotten nowhere with me. given my aptitude for so much that's harsh or crude--fuck, I can't understand why i should have such a very hard time with love.
14.
for 21 years, i loved you. i waited for you to notice me, to thank me for keeping you company; i was born to no other purpose. i thought that someday you'd sit on your bed with a library copy of grey's anatomy, pouring as though it were pornography, or your family tree. with one index finger on the diagram, you'd slide your other index finger from your hip toward your belly button, find me and press in. say my name, and make me amazing. for 21 years, i waited for you to feel me. but you don't feel anything unless it hurts. so I swelled up inside you. i thought we'd die together. i saw you a moment before I was gone: you were laid out on a table with needles in your hands. hands that never held me; you never even looked at me. you looked like death there, but you were still breathing. you were awfully ugly, actually, in that backless gown. the nurse carried me to the incinerator, and now i'm free.
15.
Metsäkukkia 02:07

about

A homing pigeon that roosts in indie folk pop, after a quirky genre odyssey that is sometimes funny, sometimes poignant, and generally unabashedly awkward.

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released May 31, 2014

Featuring:

Kat Bula – vocals, acoustic guitar, violins, violas, piano, Rhodes, accordion, melodica, percussion
Chris Stainback – bass guitar, banjo, ukelele, lap steel, electric guitar, drums, jaw harp, percussion, melodica
Pat Gay – Wurlitzer
Aaron Guest – drums, piano
Aaron Harmonson – double bass
Jake Hemming – vocals
Coty Hogue – vocals
Nora Hughes – vocals
Kevin Lee – vocals
Mars Lindgren – trombone, euphonium
Jan Peters – bouzouki, mandolin

Recorded at Sleng Teng Recording in Bellingham by the very patient and skilled Pat Gay.

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Kat Bula Seattle, Washington

“Smart, sassy, sensitive… a rare depth and range in an otherwise endless sea of singer/songwriters.” — Cascadia Weekly

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