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Patriot Expatriate

from White Collar Punk by Timon Marmex

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about

This was the first song written after "A Piece" which I guess makes it the first song for "White Collar Punk", although I didn't come up with the concept of WCP till after "Hello Sailor" was recorded. At that point the new record was to be called "Need Information" after a song which I later scrapped.
At the time I was very disappointed by the results an election and was harboring a fantasy about ditching the country for a while. The song is about working through that fantasy and the solid reasons why I ultimately rejected it.

Ironically, after writing the song I took off for a month-long sabattical to Japan. Perhaps it is even more ironic that I contracted the chicken-pox while there and was quarantined for half the trip...

I am especially proud of this song because every line has multiple interpretations, all of which are correct.
The opening line's "Sick-ceeding" is a combination of the words "sick" and "succeed", which was inspired by the "Dissociated Press" feature of the EMACS editor on UNIX. "Reading" could also be written "Redding" to refer to the town where I was currently living. "Lies" could also be a miswriting of "lays" meaning to exist in a place. "Check baggage" is what you do at the airport, but with the rest of the sentence "down a run-a-way" perhaps it should be written "chuck baggage", "run-a-way" obviously meaning both "runway" for airplanes, and "running away" which is what is happening... etc., etc.

Those are not even all of the interpretations for those lines, I'm not even going to bother to disect the whole song for you. Careful reading and creativity are essential to understanding this song.

lyrics

Patriot/Expatriate
Sick-ceeding of reading lies today
Check baggage down a run-a-way

Dust off a plain tomorrow
My country left in yesterday
No view and nothing left to say

I'll sit it out
Politics!
I'll sit it out

It isn't meaning so much then
I'm leaving my views at customs

Patriot/Expatriate
My ailing is an alien kind of truth
My stars and stripes they serve no use

My tongue among the heathen
They keep my soul among the fruits
No information is no truth

I'll wait it out
Ignorance!
I'll wait it out

All heads asleep I'll find myself
My mind wanders for its health

Save one more day for travel
Flying one way: unravel
Struck out alone:
Together, returned home

credits

from White Collar Punk, released June 1, 1999

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Timon Marmex Los Angeles, California

Timon Marmex never fully recovered from the fall of Atari back in the 80's.

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