Songs For Staying In lyrics

The official release date for the new EP is May 11th. However, you can get a digital copy of the EP now, when you pre-order the CD. Just go to our site and click the appropriate buttons. Also, you can see the first of six promo videos that we made, the first for "How Do You Do It?" You can also stream that track, if you like.

Since people are going to start having the record now, I figured I might as well go ahead and post the lyrics. They are, for the most part, pretty straight forward love songs. It's probably not my best work, which is why some of them were left off of Everyone You Love..., but there are some moments I'm pretty proud of in there as well. Enjoy.

How Do You Do It?
You belong to me, and that's that (no need for explaining).
And I belong to you, and I've got nothing to complain about.
I just want to see your smile in the morning. I just want to wake up next to you, love. Because you are the one, you know you're my only one.
And I don't know what I would do if I didn't have you. Oh, I'd probably die. I can't seem to take care of myself.
You're a part of me (the best part of me, darlin').
You're a part of me, so I try to be good.
How do you do it? You're always on top...of everything.
Oh, come to me. Oh, you never leave my head, so let's never leave the bed.
At least, not for a while.

Things You Already Know
The sun will be gold and the skies will be blue, when you're holding me, and I'm holding you. We'll pace ourselves until the sun steps over the hill.
Because nothing's as good when you're not around and I go quietly out of my mind. Oh, I come undone. When the sun steps over the hill...
I'm only saying things you already know. So close to perfect from your head to your toes, and I'm in love with you, body and soul. You know I am.
You can be sure, I'll make you believe, I am all of a man that you'll need. I've got what it takes, and my bones don't break.
I'm gonna love you for the rest of my days. I carved a place out in my heart where you'll stay, and I will always keep you happy and safe. You know I will. And when the sun steps over the hill...
When the sun goes down and the lights go off, well, you and I will frame up the scene. There we'll be slightly pornographic, but life is always better when your fairly obscene. So when the sun goes down and the lights go off, well, you and I will frame up the scene to be completely pornographic b/c life is always better when you're fairly obscene, and I'm gonna love you til I die.

Hold My Head Above The Water
Do you want to know me forever?
I do, I do.
Do you want to love me forever?
I do, I do.
Will you hold my head above the water when it's rising so fast?
I've never known any other that could make me feel so blessed.

Jezebel or 'A Song For My Friend About That Whore He Dated'
Jezebel, I can hear you moaning in my head. As I toss and turn, you do the same thing in some new lovers bed, while I'm wishing I was dead. Did the heart that was so soft just turn to lead?
It might be wrong, but I'm leaving. I'm gonna find me a wife, and it ain't hard to believe in love in a city of lights. It won't take long, because I'm leaving, I'm leaving tonight.Time will tell if I'm gonna make it through this little Hell, my prison cell. The walls all seem to shrink and swell, in the apt. where I fell and screamed "Oh god, don't let me rot here by myself!"
And after all that I gave you, you still want to be something a little less respectable. After all that I gave you, you still want to be so far away, so far away from me. Come back to me.

If You Want
Lift my head out of my hands, and I'm begging you to say, "would you please take me home with you?" I shutter to think of all the horrible things I could be if I'd never have held you. And if you want, we can go out tonight and be alone. And if you want, we can stay in tonight, be at home, let the whole wide world just worry about it's own. It's you and me.
I'm sure I'll give you plenty of reasons to leave but you won't. No, you won't leave me hanging. We spring from and return to the earth but in between, you will always belong to me.
It's you and me, a nation of two. Let's do what we please, let's love what we do.

The Biblical Sense of The Word
When the morning comes, we will wake, and the sun will kiss you beautiful face.
And if you want to know the truth, I can say "You are my favorite part of every day."
Oh, love ain't so tough, you will see. Just open up your arms to me, and don't make no vow you can't keep, and I'll lay my pride down at your feet.
Because neither the heavens nor the earth can equal what you're worth. I know you.
I would fall apart if I didn't have your heart. I know you would too.
We make our lives worth living when we love each other. Yeah, we can move the mountains with our love.
You whisper you love me in my ear. When you tell me you love me, suddenly, I'm not scared. You've got me right where you want me and I will stay here, because when you tell me you love me, suddenly, I'm not scared.
We make our lives worth living when we love each other.

Smile, like you've got nothing to prove. No matter what you might do, there's always someone out there cooler than you.

Have you ever seen anything this adorable? C'mon 5 o'clock!

Last night, Tommy was feeling under the weather and couldn't make it out to practice. Rather than reschedule, Jeff, Matt, and I got together to start working up a new song. At the end of the night, we did a rough recording of what we'd come up with for Tommy to have to familiarize himself with. The song we were working on last night is called "Preaching to the Choir Invisible, Part I (What Do You Think Happens When We Die?)" We're almost done fleshing out "Preaching to the Choir Invisible, Part II (What Do You Think Happens When We Live?)" and it's coming along nicely. As you can probably tell, album 3 will see my return to ridiculously long song titles. On the EP, there's only one such title.

I'm trying to think simply with the writing of the third record. At least, as far as instrumentation is concerned. My default idea for any song is "make it build to the end and when we get there we'll put every fucking instrument we can find on it. It will be EPIC!" It's worked pretty well for me so far, but what's the point in making new art if you're not at least trying to push yourself out of your comfort zone?

I'm certainly out of my comfort zone with some of the lyrics. If I were to write a cheesy promo bio for the songs thus far it would probably be something like "Quiet Company comes to terms with disbelief while relishing love and fatherhood." or maybe just "Quiet Company calls 'bullshit' on organized religion, remains optimistic." This will probably be the closest thing to a breakup record I'll ever get to write, and sometimes it feels too personal for comfort. I wrote a lyric the other day that really kind of hurt a little. Songwriting for me is very introspective and revealing and the truth seems way more potent when you sing it. Anyway, if you've been waiting for Quiet Company to get more theatrical and minor chordy, then you just may be in luck.

If you are feeling sinister, go off and see a minister. He'll try in vain to take away the pain of being a hopeless unbeliever.

Hey bands, if a band from out of town is playing a show with you in your town, then they're counting on you for certain things. First off, have the common sense and decency to not be playing in said town in the surrounding weeks. People stop coming to your shows if you play all the damn time. Secondly, advertise for the show, especially if the band from out of town has taken the time and effort to supply you with posters. This is how show trades are supposed to work. You do your best to give us a great show in your town, and when you come to our town we do the same. We're starting to think we can't afford to play in the DFW area if we can find any bands or promoters who are actually willing to promote.

So our show in Denton this week was pretty middle of the road. Not a horrible experience by any means but not a terribly profitable one. Unfortunately, we're all at a point in our lives were we really just can't afford to be constantly losing money on DFW shows. All the bands were great though and my buddy, Jerry, came out to the show, so it was great to get to catch up a little bit with him.

On Saturday, we went and hung out with Paul and Gina and Leah took pictures of them and their new daughter, Anna. We were really impressed with how good their son Ryan, who's like 2 and change, is with Harper. After that, Leah went to take engagement pictures for a couple downtown and Harper and I partied. When Leah got home I took Darcy to the park. Our park has a huge field attached to it and Darcy and I had the whole thing to ourselves. I have a phobia about my dog running away, because I've never had a dog who didn't want to run away. But I've never had a dog who was like a part of the family, either. So I decided to test my luck and let go of the leash. I was so happy. Darcy just wanted to hang out with me and run with me and explore the creek (yes, I'm 12 years old) with me. As long as there are no other dogs around for her to freak out about, she's a damn good dog.

The next day I tried my luck again and it was going well until she spotted an old lady walking her dog on the other side of the field and I had to haul ass to catch her before a fight broke out. I really don't think she wants to hurt the other dogs, she's just curious and nervous. Maybe I should spend some more time trying to socialize her with other dogs. Anyone have any suggestions about the best way to do this?

A lot of boring Quiet Company stuff that has nothing to do with religion or politics

Time for EP news.

We're done recording, we're done mixing, we're done mastering. We are currently finishing the art and then it's off to manufacturing. I wanted to share the cover with you and get some outside opinions about something.

This is the original concept. I love it. I love everything about it, really. The dimensions will have to change to fit the digipak format but what I really want you to look at is the text. It's a little smaller but I feel like that puts the focus on the picture where I feel like it should be and seems very elegant.


Now here the picture has been cropped to the proper dimensions for the digipak and the text has been enlarged. To me, this doesn't seem as balanced, almost crowded or overly busy. I like albums where the artist and title aren't even featured on the front, because I'm cool and indie like that, but some of the other guys feel like having our name bigger is better for marketing purposes. What do you think? Which is cooler, is really all I'm concerned with.


It also just dawned on me that "Quiet Company Presents..." isn't grammatically correct. It should actually be "Quiet Company Present..." Is that awkward sounding to anyone?

None of this is terribly important, I guess, but it's the little things, you know...

Last night we all got together and filmed ourselves talking about the new EP (recording process, songwriting, instrumentation, whatever, etc). Our friend Justin, who did the video for "On Modern Men" is going to edit it down and we're going to start putting out a small intro video to coincide with a streamable track from the EP once a week until our release show on May 7th. So if you care about that stuff and want to see us being awkward, self congratulatory, a little pretentious, and very occasionally, (possibly) funny and/or strange, it will be available next week...I think.

If anyone is in or around Denton tonight, please come to Hailey's and see us play music at you.

What's better than texting while driving? Sexting while driving, of course!

Nothing much to say. It's one of those rare days where I actually spend a lot of time reading a book. I'm reading The End of Faith by Sam Harris still. I take forever to get through a book. I just don't feel like reading a lot of times. Apparently, checking my email and other internet bullshitz 1000 times a day is more important.

I guess I've been on a Sam Harris kick since I saw his TED talk about science informing morality the other day. I thought it was good. Did anyone else see it?

One surefire way to lose a little faith in humanity is to read or watch or smell Ann Coulter.

This image is in honor of my friends, Bleach, getting back together.

So health care reform has been passed. No matter how you feel about it, let's all hope for the best, shall we? My favorite thing about it, so far, is when Joe Biden leans over and says to the president "This is a big fucking deal." This is the kind of thing that makes me really like Joe Biden. I supported him in the primaries, and its partly because he's the kind of guy who says "This is a big fucking deal" when the thing in question is, obviously, a big fucking deal.

My least favorite thing about health care reform passing, so far, is that Rush Limbaugh promised that, if it passed, he would move to Costa Rica, and now it's passed and his fat ass hasn't gone anywhere. Oh well, I'm sure that if there is a hell, then there's probably a special realm of it reserved for the kind of hypocritical, right wing, assholes who have the gall to mock Michael J. Fox. He gave us Back To The Future and Teen Wolf. What has Rush done to make the world a better place? I assure you, he hasn't done anything even as good as Family Ties.

I'm still totally fine with playing shows for Church youth groups.

Quiet Company has fans. Not a lot of fans, in the grand scheme of things, but a handful of devotees, nonetheless. And that is amazing to me. I try and do a good job of stopping and taking stock of the progress that we've made, periodically. I think it's healthy to look back and remember when I had no fans, and the lessons I learned when I was only a fan of music, myself, and not an artist.

I've been listening to a band called Stavesacre today. Unless you were into Christian music in the late 90's, you probably don't know who they are. But since I did, I do. I don't listen to them very often. Partly just because I've outgrown bands that try to sound like Tool, but mainly because I can't listen to them without reliving the experience of meeting them.

It was the summer of 1997 and Tooth and Nail records had almost single handedly saved and revolutionized Christian music. That label has put out some pure unadulterated shit, don't get me wrong, but they're also responsible for some of my favorite records of all time (Luxury, Starflyer 59, Bleach, mewithoutYou, etc). My brother and I were obsessed with the whole scene and spent all our money and time going to shows and festivals, buying cds, videos, and t-shirts. If it had a Tooth and Nail logo on it, it was worth checking out.

My brother and I grew up in a huge, east Texas, Baptist church called Mobberly Baptist. It was big then, it's a damn mega church now. Anyway, church was always the biggest, lamest, pain in my ass until 7th grade. In 7th grade, you became part of the youth group. Youth group was fun. I feel like that was about all we did, have fun. We went to camps and mission trips and bible studies too, of course, but even those things were a lot of fun. Because of the youth group, I met Jacob Bailey, one of the most ruthlessly talented, and good natured evil geniuses you're likely to meet. Jacob played guitar and he's largely responsible for me knowing how to play guitar, as I learned most of what I know from him, rather than my actual guitar teachers. So we started a band, or rather I joined a band that he and his cousin had started. 20 Watt Shed was our name and we were probably about as good as our name would suggest. Anyway, we were young, we were loud, we were in a band, and we had a demo tape.

So because my youth group was so cool, we brought in bands. And we actually brought in some good ones. The first one was Bleach. Strange that I would meet them as a 15 year old fan boy, and they would later become some of my better friends in Nashville. But in 1997 we brought in a tour featuring The Supertones, Ghoti Hook, and Stavesacre. Everyone was out of control excited about the Supertones and Ghoti Hook. Everyone but me. As far as I was concerned, the only band that mattered was Stavesacre, and I even liked the Supertones a lot. Their second record had just come out and I was obsessed, feeling like it really ministered and connected to me in a deeply personal way.

Jacob and I, being naive young musicians, had deluded ourselves into the idea that if we gave Stavesacre our demo tape, they would like it (we liked them so why wouldn't they like us, right?), and they would give it to Brandon Ebel, the owner of Tooth and Nail, and he would make all of our teenage rock star dreams come true.

Needless to say, that isn't what happened. Mark Saloman, Stavesacre's singer, manned the merch table for the band after their show, and Jacob and I hung around like flies on a carcass. I don't remember exactly everything that Mark said to us, but very quickly things weren't going our way. Here's what I remember.
1. He was annoyed at the gift of a demo tape, and obviously so, though he did take it.
2. He made it abundantly clear that they would listen to it but that they probably wouldn't like it and it would "hit the highway" because "Hey man, sometimes brutal truth is the only truth."
3. Almost everything he said was jaded beyond belief and when he wasn't being condescending or belittling, he was being dismissive.
4. By the end of it, I really felt like he was mad at me for liking his band.
5. He wouldn't sign an autograph (though the rest of the band did) and his reason was that he didn't think it would be important enough to me.

Now for self awareness:
1. I'm sure we were annoying to a degree, being awkward youngsters meeting their idol.
2. I'm sure we asked the questions that he got asked all the time.
3. I'm abundantly sure that the demo tape was, in fact, awful.

The experience shook me. When Tom Fest came around months later, I was scared to meet another T&N favorite, Jason Martin, from Starflyer 59, but I'm glad I did because it helped me get over the Stavesacre debacle. Jason was the epitome of "nice guy." He was appreciative of my adoration and was so encouraging when I asked him about music and his gear. It was the opposite of arrogance, cynicism, or any kind of rock star cliche', and I'm sure it plays a big part in why I still buy every Starflyer 59 record that comes out but I haven't bought another Stavesacre record since 1997.

I made up my mind then, however, that if I was ever fortunate enough to have fans, I would do my best to appreciate them and treat them like equals because that's what they are. Because I can string some chords and a melody together doesn't give me the right to belittle anyone, even obnoxious 15 year old fanboys. I hope to god that there's not someone somewhere blogging about the time they met that asshole from Quiet Company, right now.

Interestingly enough, Brandon Ebel eventually did learn that I existed and came to scout one of my last band, the Connotations', shows in Nashville in 2002. Unfortunately, it was in one of his "T&N is a really Christian label" phases, and Cameron had talked us into putting the lyrics "Shit happens" in one of our songs. It was apparently some sort of deal breaker. My foul mouth actually cost The Connotations more than one Christian record deal in Nashville. Maybe if I'd kept it shut, I could be having dinner with the Gaithers now or touring with Stryper.

So it goes.