Get all 37 Color Theory releases available on Bandcamp and save 50%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Without a Doubt, Disappear, Thoughts Can't Hurt You, Underneath These Dying Stars, Underneath These Dying Stars Remixes, Ghosts Again, Death of You, Just an Echo, and 29 more.
1. |
Second Best
04:06
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The phone shocks you out of sleep like a fire alarm
He reaches to answer it but you restrain his arm
She cries so hard it distorts the speaker
On the answering machine
And there you lie in between
You ask him if he loves you and he tells you yes
But he’s never going to settle for second best
It’s natural to want the thing you can’t possess
Which is why to him you’ll always be second best
Against your own advice you fell in love with him
After she let him go on just another whim
But now she sees that somebody treasures him
Suspicion fills her mind
What did she leave behind?
He needs to have something just beyond his reach
Drama and action and uncertainty
The relentless pursuit of insecurity
All those things he provides for you
Though you’ll never admit you crave them too
At their computer screens
They talk without a sound
His wallet still hides the proof of paradise unfound
He never finished the song he wrote for her
The ending wasn’t clear
When would she reappear?
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2. |
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Penny for my thoughts
Make a wish and toss it down
Into the well
But the well’s run dry
Every thought evaporates on my tongue
Promised I’d try
To show you what I feel inside
I keep to myself
Because there’s nothing left
Nothing really there to hide
Or confide
This is something I have to do
Maybe not thought-provoking
But it’s just what I promised you
And you thought I was joking
This is my life
Like someone else’s diary
Edited out
Factual and dry
Sterilized for public view
Nothing new
Still I hold hope inside
That someday my words will run free
To play out my part
In something bigger than me.
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3. |
Stranger on the Street
04:19
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I’m haunted by a false reality
A victim of my own conspiracy
My mind fills the vacuum when the details are left out
My senses give you the benefit of any doubt
I sometimes hear your voice ring from afar
And smell your sweet perfume trapped in my car
When I’m waking up I feel your arm across my chest
But since we went our own separate ways
My bed has kept no guest
You are the stranger on the street
But we’re familiar as best friends
One glimpse of you on the crowded sidewalk
And my heart is obsolete
At a distance I see your face
In the stranger on the street
Don’t keep me at a distance
I wonder how you are all through my day
Chronic nostalgia pulls me away
I want to be whole again
I know it’s up to me
But I’m reluctant to cross the bridge
From love to apathy.
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4. |
Realist
04:07
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It may not always be like this
I hate to be such a realist
If someday your lips should touch another’s
And I should come between two star-crossed lovers
If someday your strong but tender fingers
Should close around the heart of some rose-bringer
As they grow tight around mine still
Then grant me this one thing
This one small thing
It may not always be like this
I hate to be such a realist
But if someday you should lay your silky hair
On his smiling face in that silence that we share
If you should hear the same bewildered words
That spill out in an incoherent blur
From the exposed and helpless soul
Then grant me this one thing
This one small thing
Let me know
Just let me know
You who own my heart
If we must be apart
Let me know
Just let me know
Send a little word
When you know for sure
Let me know
So I can go to him and take his hands
And cut the anchor free
Look into his eyes and say
“Accept all happiness from me”
Then at last I’ll turn my face
To see the dying day
And hear a single bird’s faint song
From somewhere far away
So far away.
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5. |
In This Afterglow
04:11
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Sitting on a porch swing
Looking out across New Haven Bay
An eastern seaboard sunset
Decorates a warm September day
We must look so old-fashioned
I never thought that I’d end up this way
Happy to surrender
Marry you again and again
Linger in the flow
In this afterglow
Dusty shoebox photos
Document my history with you
When the shutter opens up
The lens takes in the world around you too
My heart is like a camera
In love with all the world through loving you
The feeling overwhelms me
Waiting for our favorite song
On the radio
In this afterglow
Now the night has fallen
The fireflies in dazzling disarray
I begin to lose myself
In the glow of nature’s fireworks display
All at once it hits me
Marriage is the afterglow of two committed lives
A growing promise that surrounds us in its light
Sometimes this ever after
Is bigger than my heart can contain
Let it overflow
In this afterglow.
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6. |
Something Beautiful
04:17
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You live your life anonymously
Stuck in this world of beauty queens and nobodys
You’re not a star or a millionaire
Tinseltown snubs its nose but you don’t really care
Your unassuming figure hides
Something beautiful
Behind the t-shirt and Levi’s
Something beautiful
And I want you to know
That I’m honored to be a part of
Learn the art of
Journey to the heart of you
When did we all start judging so fast?
Stuck in this world where first impressions always last
Book jacket praise just doesn’t suffice
Why should a classic novel have to be concise?
And I know that you’re somebody special
And I know that you’re more than you seem
Cause I see so many things in you
That are missing in me
I open up, confess all my sins
Stuck in this world where people hear but don’t listen
You disapprove but you understand
You never act as if you're better than I am.
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7. |
Alpha Centauri
03:51
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The sun fell down an hour ago
But I still hike these foot worn hills
The letters above spell Hollywood
Welcome to my great escape
The sun fell down an hour ago
But I still walk these foot torn hills
The letters above spell Hollywood
And though the irony’s lost on me
The stars don’t shine much here
Through the blanket of smog
Still there’s more than I can count
And it makes me feel so small
To be so far away from them
Because no matter what I do
I can never touch these stars
I scan the sky for Alpha Centauri
The closest star to ours
Whose light travels five years to get here
For all I know it may have died out by now
But I see it with my own eyes
A memory of what it used to be
And so I remember you
As you were when you were most alive
You shine on me from heaven
As real as these stars above
That I can never touch again
I can never touch again
Never touch these stars
Again.
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8. |
Numb
04:51
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Seems like all they want to talk about is love
It makes you feel so insecure
Have you ever truly been in love before?
If you want to know for sure
Catch a wild bee and
Hold it in your tightly closed fist
Wait until your hand goes numb
If it doesn’t sting you
Then you know that you’re in love
But you will end up getting stung
Either way
You’ve been feeling happy but not overjoyed
Satisfied but not content
Maybe lost your head but it’s not in the clouds
Guilty yet so innocent
Either way people change
You’ll wake up cold and call his name in vain
He can’t deny his legacy
The endless search for novelty
Why did you decide to take such tender care
Of the flowers that he gave?
After all he hasn’t called you for a week
Doesn’t that make you feel strange?
Either way the flowers die.
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9. |
Covering Up Your Tracks
04:53
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On an ordinary Wednesday night
With you and her and me
We met at the club to take in the scenery
When she asked you where you were last time
You said that you worked late
But you had told me that you had a special date
I looked into your eyes
In search of any sign
Of recognition or anxiety
But there was not a trace
Your perfect poker face
Persuaded me to doubt my memory
Always calculating who knows what
Always thinking back
It’s natural when you spend your life
Covering up your tracks
On a legendary Wednesday night
With only her and me
There was some other place that you had to be
Though I tried to steer the topic clear
She wouldn’t let it go
The first of your lies fell down like a domino
Comparing mental notes
Recalling anecdotes
Mythologies you made on our behalf
We wallowed in disgust
You couldn’t earn our trust
If you were hooked up to a polygraph
You live in a parallel dimension
Where the laws of honesty do not apply
A twilight zone where the past is always changing
To corroborate the latest of your lies
So go on and weave your fragile web
You won’t entangle me
Now that I’ve seen your subtle duplicity
Still I find it hard to hold a grudge
Because you seem to be
Lost in your own subjective reality
Not wanting to deceive
You struggle to believe
The lies you tell for your own benefit
Entirely immersed
In your own universe
And really who am I to question it?
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10. |
Eiffel Tower
04:36
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So good to hear your voice
Yeah I know it’s been a long time
Sometimes I miss those years
The melodrama that we went through
I dropped the telephone
When I heard you’re getting married
Take a step back with me
And see your life from a bird’s-eye view
Forgive me if you’re feeling pressured or harassed
If there’s a chance I have to ask
Will you meet me at the top of the Eiffel Tower
This coming Friday at eight?
I’ll make the arrangements
Don’t think of it as a date
When you see the view from the Eiffel Tower
The Paris skyline at dark
Then you’ll understand that we’ve travelled too many miles
To stay apart
How many people said
That we were meant to be together?
I don’t believe in fate
Still a part of me won’t let go
Tell me I’m not too late
It may seem a desperate measure
But if you’ll humor me
By next Monday we’ll truly know
I’m terrified of living life under the threat
Of lasting doubt, of slow regret
Don’t think that I
Am only clinging to the past
My life’s too short
The world’s too vast
Maybe you’ll decide that you never want to depart.
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11. |
Perfection
02:44
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I held you in a dream
Your back against my chest
In your beauty I put my faith
Though I never even saw your face
You whispered warm
Syllables soft as your skin
Firsthand I learned
In heaven the poetry doesn’t have words
But you fell out of the sky
A pillow in my arms
Your tender voice lost without trace
Smothered by the static and the bass
I closed my eyes
Started to fall back asleep
But I couldn’t risk
Tainting our tryst with an unforeseen twist
It’s alright now
It’s alright now
If I can feel that way
If my mind can comprehend perfection
Then just maybe it exists
It’s alright now
It’s alright now.
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Color Theory Huntington Beach, California
Somehow I never outgrew the 80s.
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