This Much Counts as One · Track 23 · middle
Noggin
Noggin — ~1/4 pint — and also, the head. Volume: III. VESSEL. ANGLE: The same word for the cup and the skull. What each can hold, and which one empties first. Sing the person or animal inside the unit, never the definition.
No audio yet — generation pending.
Lyrics
Your fingers know the curve of the cup before you even look. The carpenter turned it on a pedal lathe down by the mill. Then a man with a brass weight came and wrote in a ledger book, Pressed a tiny iron crown in the rim to make the thing real. It’s a comfort, they say, to know you aren’t being cheated. A comfort to hold a solid, geometric fact in your grip, While the tavern gets louder and the arguments get heated, And the fog rolls up from the river to swallow the ships. Oh, the cup is carved from apple wood, the skull is built of bone. The law can put a stamp upon the vessel in your hand, So you know that the liquor is exactly what you own, And the volume is the same for every working man. But nobody can standardize the vessel on your shoulders, Or guarantee the bottom isn’t falling out of you. You fill them both up as the evening gets colder, And wonder which noggin is gonna shatter the room. Thomas is staring at the bottom of the little cup. The rim is stained black with 100 nights of the dark. He’s trying to keep his heavy, weary spirits up, But the thoughts in his head are starting to miss the heart. The crown gives us fairness, it gives us an even pour, No man gets a drop less than the fellow on his right. But it doesn’t do a thing for the shadows by the door, Or the widening cracks that are swallowing the mind. Oh, the cup is carved from apple wood, the skull is built of bone. The law can put a stamp upon the vessel in your hand, So you know that the liquor is exactly what you own, And the volume is the same for every working man. But nobody can standardize the vessel on your shoulders, Or guarantee the bottom isn’t falling out of you. You fill them both up as the evening gets colder, And wonder which noggin is gonna shatter the room. A perfect measure. A flawless little shape. You can buy a momentary quiet for a copper coin. But the mind is a sieve, and the hours escape, And the ache settles deep in the shoulder joint. You pour it in the mouth, but it leaks out the eyes. Stack the cups high on the shelf in the dark. We are orderly creatures under a chaotic sky, Trusting our souls to a tiny government mark. Carry your head heavy into the night. The measure is true. But the vessel is leaking. Yeah, the measure is true.