Poetry, True Poetry: Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeroes – “Hot Coals”

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes

“Hot Coals”

Hot coals laying on my motorcade / Jewelry gone, eyes still blue / Thin memories in love with you, my hoary fire / In love with you.

Get the fuck out my sight.

Cold eats the flesh of broken hearts / tender the strike of tinder gods.
Hot coals.
Embers across a rayless sky / still warm my soul, I often cry.
Hot coals.

Slag reveries in love with you / my hoary fire, in love with you.

Stay the fuck in my heart.

Hot coals tonight, Cimmerian.
Hot coals to die, Cimmerian.

Heavy the tongue of tinder ray / shot by the road, a slow decay.
Hot coals.
Heady, the musk of cinder love / ashes beneath her tender rug.
Hot coals.

Slag reveries in love with you / my hoary fire, drip from the skies.

Stay the fuck in my heart.

Hot coals to die, Cimmerian.
Hot coals alive, Cimmerian.

Freedom of / the dying man is God.
Freedom of / the dying man is God.

I don’t usually open a review with the words to the song, but Edward Sharpe’s writing is so Genet/Rimbaud-like that the words are that important.  And the Magnetic Zeroes are one of the greatest bands out there.  This makes their 4th studio album together, and each one is so unbelievable.  The music perfectly backs up the foreigness and sense of isolation you get from the words.  I have all their albums.  Always a little on the odd side (hell, a large way on the odd side), The Magnetic Zeroes always released great albums.  The only artists I could compare Sharpe’s lyrics to are Robyn Hitchcock, ofMontreal, or Neutral Milk Hotel.  Not for the weak of heart, but my heart has the Magnetic Zeroes written on it.