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Half Life

by Sub Lights

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1.
The girls are a long machine They pound a metallic beach Wave their electric hair And take no prisoners This half-life lost hold on me No control, no gravity Out of the void and into the deep We’re a strange new breed The boys are synchronized They chase the liquid lines Cut arcs in neon light Like they are hypnotized The kids orbit casually around the bonfire beat In phase harmonically With the cosmic scene
2.
Life is not for living, boy, there’s always less of us than there are dead, they said And hell is not a place you go it’s all the stuff you’ve got inside your head instead Your mind will be a battlefield if you don’t man your post This ain’t a game that you’ve been playing, kid Murder by numbers and adding up the bones Sounds more poetic than it is So let’s go my ally, comrade, friend As we roam the long goodbye Cause if life is just our bitter end What a wonderful way to die Better get your ass in gear, you might not last another year my sweet And hell might have a kitchen but I’d bet a billion you can’t stand the heat Your courage has abandoned you, you’re giving up the ghost Died the death a thousand cowards do A soldier’s life is fun until the bombs start to explode You might not want to hear that, but it’s true Our minds could use some breaking down Like Jesus dropping acid, Holy Wow! The future-past beginning now
3.
Traffic 03:49
“Don’t go,” she said and sighed, “until you’ve paid the price.” “I’m paid for life,” said I. And then we said goodbye We are traffic, we all are traffic A wise man said, “Recall, when you start to doubt it all— Like the link that makes the chain, like the drop that makes the rain, Like the blood in your veins—we are all the same.”
4.
I found a photo of you Was black and white, black and white your edges were all faded in the sun I’ve been lost since you’ve been gone Your soft skeleton by me While I listen to "RIP" And I’ll drag up all the pain At least I’ll feel something again Even when your mind was dark and gray You found your way I wanna cry I wanna fight As your colors bleed to light I found a photo of you Black and white, black and white I didn’t wanna wait too long It’s been hell since you’ve been gone Did you feel it, did you forget Did you think that I left? Did you feel me, did you care Did you know, that I was there? Did you feel it, did you forget Were you scared that I left? Did you feel me, did you care Did you know, that I was there?
5.
Rockville 03:02
I was born in Rockville, Came in on the train last night, midnight ride All the blooms a blur I was born in Rockville, Walked along the marble stairs, I sold my cares For pennies on the dollar And it goes on like forever And it feels like we’re together Let it go I was born in Rockville, Standing by the statues tall, long black wall All the names around it I was born in Rockville, Never thought I’d go back when REM Told me not to do it And it goes on like forever And it feels like we’re together Let it go

about

"Half-Life" actually started with a songwriting experiment where we challenged ourselves to write at least one song per week for a year, then pared down from those fifty or so. This EP is the first of what will be a three-part project coming from those songs. Then the idea was to transform traditionally-written songs, mostly played on piano or acoustic guitar, into our indie-electronic style. Lyrically, we wanted to try to capture the kind of social melancholy coming out of the pandemic and the Trump years, but then express that in a hopeful way. Like, life is tough and can be really sad, but even then people are amazing and able to find joy by connecting with each other.

Half-Life has multiple meanings as it relates to the EP. It is one of the key lines in Strange New Breed, which has a lot of science-y references. But it also is a way to describe how if you only live in the past or for the future, you miss the present, so essentially it feels like you are only experiencing half your life at any given moment. It’s also about what deep depression feels like. All these missed opportunities, just watching life go by from your bed. Black & White and Rockville are songs about the past. Traffic and Hell’s Kitchen Sink are about living in the moment which is the only time we can experience the full interconnectedness of life, that we are all the same.

credits

released October 28, 2022

Written and recorded by Sub Lights

Cover photography by Richard "Parlay" Copier at ONEiPhotography
Design by Meredith Duncan

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Sub Lights New York, New York

The New York City duo Sub Lights launched their indie electronic psych-pop project out of the bedroom and onto the stage in the fall of 2021. After a lot of late nights, early mornings, variously enhanced psychic explorations, along with heavy doses of political consciousness, “Medicine,” emerged as a definitive musical statement—equal parts song-driven and sonically expansive. ... more

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