Loyalty Bldg.
Recorded October 1999
Release history
Credits
- Written by Harvey Danger, © But Mom I Love Music (ASCAP)/Famous Music
- Aaron: bass, guitars, backing vocals
- Jeff: guitars, Clavinova, organ, backing vocals
- Sean: lead and backing vocals
- Evan: drums, backing vocals
Lyrics
Slow to marry, swift to die
We leave disasters where they lie
I know these lines look crooked on paper
but I swear I got it straight in my head
And if you’re looking for somebody to blame
I recommend the dead
‘cause they never answer back
Skinny dipping in the lake
I got the itch, I drank the wake
Would somebody please hand me a towel?
And now we’re up on molehill mountain
Scraping coins out of the fountain
with a retinue of dirty old young men
again
But when I get back from Nashville:
I’m renting a room in the Loyalty Building1
I’m sure that the prospects are sound
in the event of calamitous circumstance
or great good fortune
There must be a reason
there must be a plan.
A palace in receivership
a jester with a busted lip
a catalog of crooked answers
We’ve all heard about the rapist nun
she pulled a switch on everyone.
the altar boys are not having fun
and the papacy is drawing up the papers
behind closed doors
But in the meanwhile…
I’m renting a room in the Loyalty Building
I’m sure that the prospects are sound
in the event of calamitous circumstance
or great good fortune
there must be a reason
there must be a plan
-
A real building, located at Third and Adler in Portland. ↩
Quotes
Sean: "Loyalty Bldg." is our only stoner jam and is very long, but charming—we had a LOT of fun that night; it's a real building in downtown Portland; lyrics reference several headlines from Irish newspapers, and other random tangents ("Esther Forbes, meet Howard Fast"); best tambourine performance of my life, which is saying something.10A
Evan: "Loyalty Bldg" does the same [as "Carjack Fever"], but gets there via the organ, the silly little drum fills that still make me happy, and the secret sound of Sean knocking an empty water bottle against a music stand. Everything is structured, and all the big sounds are in place, and it sounds more like a "real" record than Merrymakers, but happily the corners are still filled with with the junk of our lives.10A
Sean: The Loyalty Building is at SW Third and Adler in downtown Portland. I saw the painted sign while smoking on the roof of an adjacent hotel in the middle of the night and thought it had been put there just so someone could put it in a song. Great good fortune, indeed.P&F
Notes
- Recorded at John & Stu’s Place.