released December 6, 2023

POMEGRANATE

Produced by Frank Orrall & Martin Stebbing

1. "Pomegranate"
2. "Catacombs"
3. "Complicated"
4. "The Chain"
5. "Big Constellation"
6. "Sandra at the Beach"
7. "Diamonds and Buttermilk"
8. "Shu Zulu Za"
9. "God's Gallipoli"
10. "The Shake of Big Hands"
11. "Al le Luia"

Frank Orrall – guitar, drums, samples, synths, bass, vocals
Dave Max Crawford – keyboards, clavinet
Paul Mertens – sax, clarinet, flute
Susan Voelz – Violin
The Parallax String Quartet:
Kathrine Huges - Violin
Peter Szczepanek - Cello
Jeri Lou Zike - Violin
Richard Halajian - Viola
Patrick Brennen - Viola
Michael Lawson - Viola (on God's Gallipoli)
Katherine Pisaro – Oboe
Dag Juhlin – guitar
Rob Amster - Bass
Rafe Bradford – bass
Tom Ray – Bass
Steve Goulding – drums
Leddie Garcia – Percussion
Arlene Newson – backing vocals
Kornell Hargrove – backing vocals
Robert Cornelius – backing vocals
Scott Ramsayer - Synthesizer
Matt Warren - Additional synths and beats
Nick Kitsos - Percussion on "Shake of Big Hands"
Brigid Murphy – Alto Saxophone
Lloyd Brodnax King – Alto Flute
Jason More – Berimbau
Ellen Fullman - The Long Stringed instrument


All songs written by Frank Orrall

Except
Big Constellation: music by Frank Orrall and Dag Juhlin, lyrics by Frank Orrall

All songs arranged by Poi Dog Pondering.

String and Wind instruments arrangements:

Catacombs and Al Le Luia
arranged by Paul Mertens & Frank Orrall

The Chain arranged by Paul Mertens

Pomegranate, Big Constellation
arranged by Susan Voelz

Sandra at the Beach
arranged by Dave Max Crawford


_________ LYRICS
Pomegranate

Pomegranate...
Like God's ankles, like God's feet.
Pomegranate...
Smooth like God's skin, smooth like God's bones.
Fruit so wet, my tongue laid upon.
She rises with the night, she sleeps with the dawn.
Pomegranate...
The tooth is a stone, the eye is a pit.
Nipples are seeds, and the mind is the culprit.
Milk blood flowing, stardust sleeps.
Water light glistens, and the fireflies beat. Pomegranate...
The pull of palms, along the skin of dreams.
Discotheque and light beams.
You know you're holding something, you know you see.
Bring it to me, gimme seed.
Pomegranate...
Time is a bastard it won't let me patch things up.
It's all firecracker paper and empty tin cups.
Eyes to the sky and feet on the ground.
Weighing all the consequences, pound by pound.
Pomegranate in the palm of my hand.
I was ruler of the kingdom, I was ruler of the land.

Catacombs

I'm dusting off the old ghosts now
and they're giving me a run for my money.
I'm down here with the skulls and bones,
down here in the catacombs.

Swimming through the blood of years,
chipping away at this wall of tears.
With no muslin hands to hold me,
in the dark I was left, to find the light.
Down here in the catacombs.

Chorus:
Open my mouth, the air dilutes my thoughts,
words are like a string that I pull out of my mouth,
like a tapeworm eating me from inside out,
words are like a string that I pull out of my mouth.

I can hear my friends and family
walking and talking up there on the ground.
We are all truly alone, down here in the catacombs.
They can't help me now, I gotta chase these demons out,
with no muslin hands to hold me,
in the dark I was left to find the light.

Complicated

Wanna Get it right this time.
Complicated is all right
Complicated it's all right.
Sorrow is an angel that comes to you in blue light
and shows you what is wrong just to see if you'll set it right
and I've fucked up so many times in my life --
that I want to get it right this time.

Complicated, it's all right.
So tell me something someone and help me get it right,
or hit me over the head, box me up and say good night.
I can't stand to see myself go through the motions
that bring me back into these same old sad emotions.

Wanna get it right this time.

what to get free with it
(Tell me!)
what to get free with it
(Tell me!)
what to get free with it
(Tell me!)
what to get free with it
(Tell me!)

Sometimes I get so afraid of life
I'm not afraid of death
I'm scared of going through this thing twice

Wanna get it right this time
Complicated it's all right

The Chain

Darling I'm giving you all my love.
Don't want to do anymore of those things I've been guilty of.
Show me the way to always be renewed.
I want love to be our only food.
Now I want to give it all for love.
I was so blind with pain,
I never thought I could find my way again.
I was fading away, night was becoming day,
I was killing myself in the subtlest of ways.
Now I want to give it all for love.
Got to get through to you, got to get you all over me.
Now that I found you I'm part of a chain,
I'm gonna gather you up and pull you in again.
Let cynical tongues twist and spit, I want what lovers own.
When you came into my life and said you wouldn't go away,
I was astounded how everything seemed to fade away,
everything of unimportance lay split open and splayed.
Darling I was tired and you have given me strength.

Now I want to give it all for love.
Now that I've found you I'm part of the chain,
gonna gather you up and pull you in again.
Let cynical tongues twist and spit,
I want what lovers own.

I'm not dressing for success, I'm undressing for my lover.
I'm not dressing for success, I'm undressing for my lover.


Big Constellation

Big constellation hanging over my head,
a crooked and thorny starry crown.
Illumination shine a light on my dreams.
The last time I wore wings I was only three.
The dead leaves of old life's longings crackled under my feet.
But now the moonlight stalks me and the sun never lets me sleep.
Seems my dreams will make a mockery out of me.

Try as I might, blind as I am.
I'm doing everything, I'm doing all that I can.
But now the moonlight stalks me,
and the sun never lets me sleep.
Big constellation shine a light on my dreams.
Big constellation shine a light on me.

Sandra at the Beach

I see Sandra at the beach,
she's in her blue swim suit.
And her breasts are lifted high
by that tight seal skin knit, I know,
cause they usually pull more towards her navel.
She is moving out into the waves
with long sinking steps pushing into the sand
and the surf, it beats her chest.

Well Sandra's with another woman of 35
who's much more reserved,
standing just out of reach of the waves
licking up her feet.
She's watching Sandra's every move.

Sandra looks so good today I think that she is in love.
Sandra feels those eyes and they feel good.
Just like pin prick lips on the seat of her suit.
And she is moving out into the waves,
and she is so inspiring in love like this--
and you know,
it makes me wonder what kind of night they had last night.
"Some kind of love," to steal a phrase or two--
"No kinds of love are better than others."*
Sandra looks so good today, I think that she is in love.
Sandra looks so good today, I think that she is in love.

Sandra's lover moves away from the beach
into the parking lot, or the bathroom, I don't know, I couldn't see.
But alone on the beach with all those faceless people
Sandra loses her strength, somehow. Alone on the beach,
her strength is lost.
I don't know but I have seen
that one and one don't make two, one and one make three.
Sandra looks so good today, I think that she is in love.
Sandra looks so good today, I think that she is in love.


*From "Some Kinda Love" by The Velvet Underground (Lou Reed)


Diamonds and Buttermilk

I wanna suck your guava juice,
get down on my knees and slip in your passion fruit.
I come in Diamonds and Buttermilk
and swim right in and out of you 'til you shake-a like the chills.
Licking the butter from your lillycoi lips
and deep-sea diving for the oyster in your hips.
Gonna suck your Kiwi right through my teeth
and split your Pomegranate,
gonna suckle on your seeds.
So slippery I'm feeling greedy,
gonna take you like smack to the needy.

I seek the thunder of your love's blind wonder --
give me everything. Give me everything.

Love takes my clothes off, love pulls me down,
I'm on my hands and knees crawling around on the ground.
A man must make a beast of himself if he is ever to be truly free.

So slippery, I'm feeling greasy,
gonna take you like smack to the needy,
gonna slip right in and pull you out.

Shu Zulu Za

The expulsion from the Garden of Eden
is the beginning of life as I know it.
Pressed from the bright light and into the darkness
where the diamonds in the rough shine so brightly.
Grappling apples and suckling grapes,
savoring their sweetness and dissecting their tastes.
Singing songs from the true life scenery,
tales told in tongue, like J.J. Johnson's trombone bursting his lungs.

Hey hey Shu Zulu Za, pow pow pow!
Gonna pass right through you, gonna slip inside your skin.

Cream lined lotion, liquid love light,
flowing over folds of flesh -- slippery slow slide.
Smooth of stone and the cut of cloth,
smooth of skin, where the silk slid off.
Milk like ladles, poured over shoulders,
ponds of light, flowed over boulders,
birds in branches called out like gunfire,
and their wings set the sky afire.
Black was clouds against the sky as the
mountains disappeared into the night.

There must've been angels after all!

(Robert's monologue
from "Story in Harlem Slang" -- Hurston)

Wait till I light up my coal pipe
and tell you about this zig called, Jelly.
He was seal skin brown and papa tree top tall.
He was born with this rough dry hair
but when he laid on the grease
and pressed it down over night with his stocking cap
it had so many waves you got sea sick from lookin'.

His Mama named him Marvell
but after a month on Lenox Avenue
he changed all that to, uh, Jelly.
How come?
Well he put it in the street that when it came to fulfilling the needs
of the ladies,
he was in a class by himself.
And he told em, his name must be Jelly,
cuz jam don't shake
and that was what was on his sign.
The stuff was there, it was mellow
and whenever he was challenged on the right of his title
by a Hardhead or a frail ear,
he would just look em dead in the eye
with a slice of ice and say,
"You must just be dumb to the fact -
you know I don't need no help,
not with all the stuff I got."
And then he would give em the pimp sign
and percolate on down the avenue...


God's Gallipoli

Sloping head bent to wind as always.
Slugging it out 'til the end, the boxer
going over the top, in God's Gallipoli.

Set me up Joe, body lean but mind obese,
maple angel leaves once shifted in the trees
when light was a truly wondrous thing.
But now they crackle under my feet
like the old life's longings
of sailors once robust
in buttons and coats now just mud and bone
and teeth beneath me.

Grist for star dust, the bone crushing rock of ages.
Cancer took the spring from my lover and gave us forever Autumn.
No thoughtless smoke now, no blind drink.
No idle lunches dreaming of a whole 'nother world of things.
It's down to brass tacks and saline sacks,
vincristin injections and early detections.

Take me in one swoop God don't let me dwindle.
I watched the light leave my mother's bed-sick eyes.
She's so scared--once gone, I kissed her cheek,
and the cold of her skin held on my lips.
It's hard to think, "so this is how it ends?"
stretched out on a bed sheet,
sorting through a wreckage of regrets.

Back in the ring now,
with eye held just high enough to see the prize.
Head bend forward at hip into wind as always.

Slugging it out 'til the end, the boxer.
Going over the top, in God's Gallipoli.

You know the thing that haunts me the most
are all those crystalline moments,
where adrenalin and light filled my belly and head.

And the moon winked as if to say yes.
And I ran in the cold night and sweated and it felt good.
And I could hit the nail on the head
and drive that fucker home.

Going over the top, in God's Gallipoli...

The Shake of Big Hands

Could we ever feel as solid as the shake of big hands?
It's such a long time getting over you.
So many wimpy love songs.
With I love you, I hate you.
But know not what to do.
The feel of your words makes food stick to my throat.
You've got a piece of me now please let go.
Listen to me now, it's so pathetic.
What I've let the thought of you do to me.
(the last verse that used to be there has apparently been cut out of the song:)

I think about you still quite often in fact
Especially when it rains
And though you made me quite miserable
I'd still see you again

Al Le Luia
We are in Heaven.


Words by Frank Orrall. Music by Frank Orrall & Poi Dog Pondering. Guava Juice Music 1995.