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The Ratatat EP

by Bodi

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1.
One 03:31
You and I are dying - did you know that? Cause I think if we really did then we wouldn't hold back Anything we want to say, want to see, want to do Want to get, want to give, before our lips blue, and There's no flying, where we'll go that's A myth to make heaven ever after, but it's here Hell is here, too, named: hate and fear God's not above, it's sittin in your mir Mine too, and his and hers I think you'd agree it's better we deserve From each other - we suffer when we place Our happiness in other people's hands to shape Why wait to become what we're told we couldn't Cause re-runs don't happen that often We run once then it's time to book it Yon sel lavi, one foot in the coffin But it aint all awesome A hundred times I've watched People that I thought Were saints turn goblin So I step with caution And trust when it's earned, not the cart before the oxen Moonwalkin past the rest, but who's watchin This too-often, smooth talkin criminal, the truth Is I (i-i) should be walked past, too I got a book of shadows that are way past, due And I'm boxing, with em, too, a silhouette Of myself, dance a pirouette With the devil in my head, the angel in my bed Is hell-bent on showing me heaven 'fore I'm dead And I've said it's beautiful even when it isn't Cause it is, but many times I almost made it finish ,But it's a gift, and that would ruin it We're all cuckoo in this nest, and I, too, flew in it - So let's lose our minds In a hurry, cause worry is the glue that binds The heart to the past and the head to the future Sort of like playing roulette with a Lugar No life after, outcome disaster I'd rather capture happy right here Give me that rapture, baby You can't save me from an end, already drawing near I'm falllllin Falllllen I'm fallllllin Falllllen It's all coming to a close Sooner than we'd like, hold on for dear life One third's gone to the sandman Out of the blue, we're into the black, and Between work, working out and TV Texting and texting while we drive we gotta eat Shit shower shave - breathe, and repeat And try to find peace, so that's, two outta three Gone So we can give the third degree To father time and keep looking for a sign Or meaning, or realize the divine Is every second breathing Every heart beating When we depart, all we're leaving Behind's inspiration for others to climb Some sunshine in the middle of the dark Yesterday's gone. today's when we start
2.
Day 02:36
Verse 1: Many times I thought I'd never live to see another day Prayin that my matter gray would release another way Instead of splatter from the chatter in the head, mad hatter Stuck in Jacob's Ladder, but I kept the wolves at bay By facing where they lay, placing light in shade Cause when the monster's face is made, it loses strength Shake away the chains, hear the music that they make Until they break, so I…stay awake until the wake, wait - You ever notice When it's hopeless is when the goal you're working on is closest? The lowest low without a rope is comatose on overdose Of broken hope and clear the smoke and focus with no hocus pocus Needed for the steepest zenith to be reached, cause what's beneath is Blood, sweat, and tears, that gives victory the sweetest Taste. So lace up the boots And face love and truth or else what's the use? If the shots are as real as a 21 gun salute The hoops we keep jumping through are useless Clip: I was told by one of the greatest pimps that ever lived His name is called...God... That if you know what you got Then you ain't got much Many times I hoped that tomorrow would be better Dependent on the forecast to change the weather Depending on another to not let me drown Deep ending in the shallow end, upside down Sometimes we need a medic to heal our wounds And sometimes we gotta stitch our own tombs And I know it, cause I got the scars to prove it You can hear em bleeding through the speakers through the music (ah) Knocked down to a worm's eye view Is needed to appreciate the birds I flew with Shoes made of concrete, wings made of tin Wavin at the giants that are standing in your shadow And not steppin on anyone's shoulder blades Or caught in games the third rock boulder plays Colder days around the corner, that's true But we can make it warmer, that's cool Clip: You're not supposed to know what you're gonna do with the rest of your life yet You're doing what you think's best You're following through on what you think's best and that's what you should be doing You had a plan, you're executing it, what's wrong with that? But you gotta give it a chance You gotta give yourself time You can't beat yourself up because you're taking chances on things So don't start giving up on what you set forward to do at the beginning Cause that's gonna get you nowhere, I can promise you that. Verse 3: And I'm falling down a thousand times for every one that I succeed And I concede it's foolish, clueless I may be but I believe That I can reach a level high as eyes can lead, desires, dreams Combine to seize the day and reach where sky and the horizon meet And keep marchin on, sparkin dawn with the ammunition Of the mission that you're livin's given me a brand new vision And a glimpse into the riskin that you wager when you're wishin And decisions that you make with strength as great as atom fission
3.
Everything 04:45
Chorus: Left, left, left, right, left Step, step, step, high step Rest, rest, rest, strike, rest Breath, breath, breath, light, death V1: Death is coming for us and it doesn't matter where we stand We began or what we planned or if we had the upper hand Or try to scram and run from fear or keep it in the rearview mir Or steer it clear from stopping cold, we're moving on a oneway road Exposed, the wrong way, the light inside the tunnel's end's A semi truck in dead of night to crash the party where we spend Our time like a commodity, a never-ending shopping spree And free to spend it how we choose, but we all will always lose So what we trying to prove, and who we trying to prove it to? Forbidden fruit we're products of, maybe why we all are bruised What's stopping you from chasing truth before your time to vamoose The noose and concrete boots aint shaking loose they're getting tighter And consumption's the fire that eats us alive Wired to the hive, too late we decide We're addicted to the highs from the things that we buy Hanging in and on the line until the day we flat________ V2: The feelings that we harbor 'shorely' make us capsize And drown in the drink, our holy water used to baptize Sin, never we win, til we begin, to see our flaws As power to change, not as the stains, of a vengeful, god Damnit, this planet's gassed up, so we can it So it's warmer, but we manage to be colder to each other Than the days that killed the mammoth and hide behind a screen And use our thumbs to say things we don't really mean Jim Beam, Jack and Coke, big dreams, blackened hope Listening to the smoke, Sistine where we wrote An epitaph - that used to list the lives that we touched But robots don't really die… We just rust Chorus (x4) Left, left, left, right, left Step, step, step, high step Rest, rest, rest, strike, rest Breath, breath, breath, light, death Bridge: And we're on to the next Fish on the chessboard, pawns in the net Looking at the neighbors front lawn from the fencepost Ven Diagram all our flaws then we get ghossssssst Or broke, whichever's primero Cause everything's a competition, on the straight and narrow Until we realize we're sparrows Singing caged songs to the fish in a barrel V3: Everything I gotta get Consuming is my drug and so I gotta get a hit I mean I gotta get my fix to fix the empty pieces In my species so I need this or I'm gonna feel like shit Lord Jesus, I feed this when I see a new commercial For a product, happy people, I don't got it, so my happy hurdle's Cleared when I buy this, bank is minus High is one day, but antibiotics don't clear a virus Cause when the next new-new is revealed It opens up my dopamine, no hope I mean, we healed My track marks in the snow to the sto', I left em yesterday I know because the chills I still got, waiting for the Black Friday deals For real, for two days Waited patient 'for' the 'station' everybody 'plays' My American 'duty' I answered the 'call' It's a shame that I can't fit them all in my grave
4.
Will 04:55
Intro It's like I'm ready to jump, but I aint ready to fall Like I'm ready to fly, but I'm afraid I will stall Like the meaning is gone, but I aint answered the call Like I'm ready to quit, without hitting the wall Chorus But I will never give up, nah I will never give I will never give up, nah I will never I will never give up, nah I will never give I will never give up, give up, give (up) Verse 1: Down the rhythm of life with precision It runs like the pistons in Formula 1 engines I trust my decisions as much as religion And rush to revisions in a book already written So what choice do I have, but try to find the right path Through the mines designed to blind the foresight for the hind path Out of sight Out of mind Out of fight Out of time How to climb the day you find the summit's always out of view: You can do one out of two things Blame the past Until you're blue in face and wave the flag of white Then fade to black like mood rings .Or keep on marching knowing you will never reach the peak But peek the head up through the clouds And keep the ground beneath the feet Which means you seek your dreams in truth and leap above the obstacles And bow your head for no one, though the steps are steep impossible Is nothing that you worry bout, nothing of concern to you An eagle flying higher than the crows who work to murder you Vultures, let em circle, let em have a feast Those who stand on shoulders of the giants only do it Cause their own two feet are too, too weak Too meek to seek beyond the heap Of bucket crabs who grab and claw and pull before they go to sleep Verse 2: .No point to snatch a crown of king or queen cause that hill's Littered with bodies, on meadows turned to landfills Of royalty of past trapped behind the looking glass Who grasp at straws to find a crack before the rabbit hole is snapped Shut without a hope of coming back, their depth is bottomless No rock to break their fall, on a quest to find accomplices For misery, but we're all on the same journey All seeking happiness before we see the gurney All seeking love, so it's up to every one of us To lift, cause we're all in the same abyss With everything to risk, and nothing left to lose No matter what we try in the end we all do Verse 3: Nothing left to prove and everything to gain We can do anything, so what's a little pain in the end game It don't matter one bit A tower doesn't fall when it loses one brick So who, where, when, and what's to be afraid of When legends and the universe are everything we're made of The pain is a paint brush, our veins are decayed rust Framed to refrain through the painters that made us Pieces of the master, masterpieces in training .Chistling away to help those remaining ,To know when the road roamed grows more treacherous Than the Yungas in an earthquake and monsoon we better this All - by knowing we could fall any hour Any minute, any second, what is fragile gives us power To devour the demons, devil dancing in our limbic Turning cynics to believers, give reality to mystics Til we're finished - the work never is But no better gift than weather this shit storm we're left to live And use it as the fuel for the fire from the match To illuminate the path at the start so the next kids going through it, too Chorus: Will never give up, nah they will never give They will never give up, nah they will never give They will never give up, because you've lived Verse 4: Iron with the will, like a lion on the kill Never falling, never folding, never holding onto doubt that you will Keep on going, never slowing, never knowing where the finish Line is, mind is made that you won't cave and raise the finger to the limits Gave and fate is fake and failure takes your strength From good to great and wave goodbye to hate And fear because they both create a slave And chains are made to break, so shake em til they make The two step music of life - we all learn Burn the pages of your past that never will return Turn the mazes of your path to better, still we earn Our stripes and stars, cause while it's hard, it's always worth it Though serpents on the surface try to strike their venom's worthless We're all servants to attachments and desires that will ratchet Up the tension sending us into the void if we let em Never ending, never resting, you will never give up Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah you will never give up.
5.
Be 04:50
Verse 1: Watched, yesterday slip past Today spent trying to get that back But you can't grasp what moves light speed So perhaps letting go is all I…need To just be…to just breathe…we Talk about killing Time But in the end whose blood's spilling Mine And yours so good love willing I'm With you for a long, long, time So this is how magic feels Pushing on until we push daffodils Grave mass appeal, for the mask I peel ,One skin cell at a time To show you that the scars and the wrinkles and the blemishes And beauty of the stars that twinkle in the nebulas Is equal, there's no difference ,Both atoms spin on long after we're finished So what are limits? When we've witnessed time's beginning and everything since Stones that are thrown at the rock of gibraltar won't make, dents - So dense I may be But I believe in good in every single seed Of every family tree - So greener, maybe, on the fences other side Keep my eyes on my weeds and my head in the skies .Open wide for the lightning to strike With fire in the eyes, make tomorrow...bright Bridge: And we know, we know We don't make it out alive, live, live So why lie, lie, lie So why try, try, try Cause we've held on for too long, now Just to watch it all disappear And tomorrow we could be gone How's that for a motive to live right here? So hold steady So hold steady while Hold steady while shooting for the moon So hold steady So hold steady while Hold steady while shooting for the moon And writing your name across the cosmos Cause god knows we'll be there soon Cause god knows Cause god knows Cause god knows we'll be there soon We live an endless encore Cause god knows Cause god knows When the curtains will finally draw close Verse 2: I don't really sleep anymore Eyes bloodshot feels like I forgot How to be myself And I see my health Start to flee, I've felt When I breathe, I melt It's a feeble wealth All that we are dealt And I'm too proud to say that I need your...help . But I could use some To help me thaw from this cold world where I grew numb Gruesome, dog eat dog, kill or be killed But I'm a product of the world I build And "will wright" And still life Is still bright even in the darkness . Spark this light Or electric sheep I'll dream, as an android heartless .Grim reaping what I sew, and this is why the harvest Is fruitless at times - cause it's a bear market But that's bull Is the glass half empty or half full? It's both And success is learning how to hold em close And not flinch or fold or choke ,I'm only whole when I go for broke (fade broke) Bridge 2: So hold tight Cause you're in for the ride of your life (x4) Verse 3: Now is the time when I can choose which plan To pursue: stand, or fall in the quicksand Move through the minefield on the tip toes Or knowing that I'll blow still smell the primrose Garden, beg a pardon, there's no bartering with karma Carve a part of paradise before the pair of dice will harm ya Start to lose it, start a movement, helping others moving through it Be as fluid as the river where we're floating til the ocean Forms a tidal wave erodin, lonely islands we've become Runnin back to where it's done, exactly where it all begun Losin track of where the sunrays fade into our lung's Baited breath and fated steps in shades of death there's only (one) No matter where we come from, no matter can be destroyed No need to fear the day we work to avoid All we are is all there is, ever was, or will be All we are is broken cells united, we're already free
6.
Alright 06:38
Verse 1: Well it's been quite a trip - I took some hits - I'd be remiss if I said I didn't slip - A time or two hundred Run it from summit To plummet Repeated over and over To learn To rise from the fall and to love it Uh, Name a mistake, I've done it Thrown rocks and pointed fingers Though I wish I were above it My hands are plenty dirty And the same hope I float on Has been the thing that made me drown When action's something separate from it Half my life I couldn't stomach who I was - Two times the other half wished I believed in god above But I don't And I hope it understands That I'd rather build change instead of folding my, hands See I've broken some plans and some hearts To try to find light in the dark And fight to do right from the start I burn who I try to save But no lifeguard or boat can shake us from the waves Or breakers That'll take us To the end of, our, days So say your goodbyes Or decide the impermanence Is what gives it meaning Meaning for every heart beating The fleeting's the perfect gift No light without dark without light Or flight without fall without flight So life without death isn't life - Right? Well that doesn't help Or make it easier to hold your head When pictures on a shelf Of loved ones that are gone smile back at you We're passing through It never gets easier, but it's something that we have to do Now: we're all products of the same star Dust So where we're from and where we'll go is all the same, our Trust In one another is the only thing that keeps our Crust From busting at the seams, or so it seams - I've learned that nothing can replace Being present, being human, as the lines across the face Start to move in Carving ruins Youth I'm losin As the sands Of time, erode the edifice And slip through these hands of mine I've learned no matter how hard you try to run From your secrets and lies, one day they're gonna catch you I've learned unless you are honest with yourself It's pretty tough to be so with anyone else That love will be dependent less it's met with self respect And if there isn't trust and faith, those walls will keep us held in check Or set the weight in others just to fill a void in you And you can't love yourself if you avoid the ugly, too And what's true is we're all in pursuit of the same End conclusion: how to dance in the middle of the rain To sustain a little happy in the middle of this travesty And weave a little thread in the middle of this tapestry I've learned that empathy's your pain in my heart - Not fully understood, but a good place to start I've learned there's limits, but most are just figments And everything is beautiful, even when it isn't Chorus: Voicemails Bridge: Til the day comes where we greet the light We will not run, we will see the fight Through to the end, cause we only get one (One life) everything will be all right Til the day comes when we greet the light We will not run, we will see the fight Through to the end, cause we only get one (One day) everything will be all right (2X) Verse 2: Another day comes, another day goes And on, on, and on, on, and on it goes Til we're old and we're gray And we start to decay And the writing on the wall's for the skyward toes And we find our home where we scribe our poems: In the minds of those holy lives we've known Til the mileage shows and the island goes Where the silence grows and the eyelids...close Til we can't hold on And we grind those bones for just one more song Wrote in one more dawn Yeah we all float on Cause the river flows though the boat is gone - So our soul lives on forever - and that won't fade Just a drop in the bucket, yeah, but we all make waves So goodnight, but never goodbye Forever in each other's hearts and minds we reside When we realize We've all got a piece of god inside Disguised as separate drops of rain We ride The waves, together, make the tide

about

Most of my 2013 was spent volunteering in orphanages in 7 countries (Vietnam, Cambodia, Nepal, Kenya, South Africa, Romania, Peru) for 1-2 months each. In addition to many hours of manual labor, helping with homework, and (repeatedly x infinity) getting schooled by the kids in soccer, I filmed and photographed a documentary about their lives and their caretakers lives. My goal was to learn about their lives in their own words: what makes them the most happy, what their dreams are, and how well-intentioned people can help in their lives the most.

When I had downtime, which was rare, I wrote a lot. Usually about the experiences in the orphanages, but sometimes it was lyrics: my best form of therapy.

Ratatat is one of my favorite groups in the world. I downloaded their discography and decided to piece together an EP from some of their instrumentals, inspired by my time on this trip and the countless lessons I learned from the incredible kids.

This is a mixtape. It's free. You can also donate money if you wish. Any donations you make for this album will be sent equally to each orphanage where I volunteered. 100% of it. I will not be keeping any money from this. Additionally, please support Ratatat's incredible music at www.ratatatmusic.com

For more information on the orphanages your donations would support, please visit www.thevolunteeradventure.com

Peace.Love.Respect.,
Bodi

credits

released December 23, 2014

Produced by Ratatat.
All lyrics and vocals by Bodi.
Recorded, Mixed, and mastered by Bodi at The Elephant Room.
Cover Art and Photo by Bodi.
Please support Ratatat and their music at: www.ratatatmusic.com
Bodi: www.thisisbodi.com

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Bodi Washington

Bodi, formerly Alexipharmic, has been making music since he started watching YO! MTV Raps in Cookie Monster pajamas. He has toured the United States several times, made tracks with Eyedea, P.O.S., Emancipator, Budo, Kristoff Krane, and performed with many more. 50% of all his album and merch sales are donated to Mercy Corps' relief efforts in the Congo. He loves you, them, and sometimes himself. ... more

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