A Badly Broken Code

by Dessa

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Cameron Callahan
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Jacob Carson
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Timofei Gerber
“Dessa's singing and rapping are both amazing, the songs intimate, but with a great pinch of pop.”
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03:11
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01:38
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02:43
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03:40
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04:41
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03:31
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02:55
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03:03
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02:35
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about

A Badly Broken Code is the long-awaited full-length album from Dessa. The disc features production from Paper Tiger, Lazerbeak, Cecil Otter, MK Larada, and Big Jess. The fifteen songs emphasize Dessa’s wingspan as a singer, rapper, and lyricist—the tracks range from melancholy a cappella arrangements to vintage torch songs to infectious rap cuts.

credits

released 19 January 2010
Mixed by Joe Mabbott at the Hideaway
Mastered by Bruce Templeton at Magneto Mastering
Photos by Bill Phelps
Layout & design & typewriter photo by MK Larada

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tags: hip hop hip-hop/rap indie rap doomtree Minneapolis

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about

Doomtree is a collective of seven friends who live in Minneapolis and make music together. They’ve earned acclaim for genre- defying recordings, explosive live performances, and their fierce loyalty to one another. Members include P.O.S, Dessa, Sims, Cecil Otter, Mike Mictlan, Lazerbeak, and Paper Tiger. The DIY outfit has built an international fanbase one city, one show, and one song at a time. ... more

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Track Name: Children's Work
My father was a paper plane
My mother was a windswept tree
My little brother’s nearly twice my age
He taught me how to meditate
I taught him how to read.
I grew up with a book in my bed
I got these dark circles
Before I turned ten.
Heard my mother with her friends
Worry it was something she did
To get such a serious kid.
(Chorus)
Now I’ve learned
How to paint my face
How to earn my keep
How to clean my kill
But some nights I still can’t sleep
The past rolls back
And I can see us still.
You’ve learned how to hold your own
How to stack your stones
But the history’s thick
Children aren’t as simple
As we’d like to think.
Before you came along
I was a lone cub,
Fell in love with language
Tried to tell the grown ups
About the storm clouds,
The weather in my head
Hadn’t learned the word for
Melancholy yet.
Then you came in five years behind
We thought you couldn’t talk
Turns out you were just shy.
Mom said it was serious
Dad said you’d be fine
I thought you were the prophet of 1989.
You were so tender
We thought something was
Wrong with you
So patient
We thought that you were deaf
You were so solemn
So tiny but so ancient
Ma took you to see doctors
You scared her half to death
And I made you a library
Of tiny books
With spines two inches high
You didn’t say too much, but smiled
Taught me how to
Quiet down my mind.
Chorus
You slept in my bed
And if I kept quiet…
I could hear all the voices in your head.
When the wagon tipped
I prayed over your body
I asked God to take
the damage out on me
Ten years later
He finally got the memo
Sent it to accounting
And knocked out my front teeth.
But you came to
And took my hand
And held my eyes and
Me and you
Had a long walk home
So we decided not to cry.
Now we’ve got a grown up love
And I know that’s how it’s
Supposed to be, same old story
Mom gets Easters,
Lets Dad have Christmas Eves.
But I won’t pretend I don’t remember
How unusual we were
The little mystic and his handler
All some children do is work.
I’ve learned how to paint my face
How to earn my keep
How to clean my kill
But some nights I still can’t sleep
The past rolls back
And I can see us still.
Track Name: Poor Atlas
I’m building a body
From balsam and ash
I’m building a body with
No god attached.
I’m building a body
From blueprints in Braille
I’m building a body
where our design has failed.
There’s a book full of plans
at the feet of poor Atlas
Titled ‘For Man’
But the architects Only drew blanks,
Now there’s nowhere to go
But go back, go back, Go back, go back.
Track Name: The Crow
That old crow
Came back today
Sitting in my window
Like a prophet
out on the fire escape to say
Anger
Is just love
Left out, gone to vinegar
You wake up a stranger
To yourself and then you
Learn to live with her
Sit in her clothing til you
Fill out her figure
You know life’s no
Bella telanovela
The tightrope bows with
Your weight in the center
The slide show don’t put
All the pictures together
You try to do it right though
Right though
Until you let the kite go
Death and romance:
The riddles of our lifetimes
Tryna get a slow dance
Middle of a knife fight
You get up and you
You give blood.
Even on a good night
Even on a good night out.
You send signal,
You listen for an echo
At the first splinters,
You run to tell Geppetto
And in the worst winters,
The whole thing feels untenable
Crow took me by the shoulder And he told me ‘Honey,
Don’t let go.’
(Chorus)
Nobody fears the height,
You all just fear the fall
Go to the edge sometime
And prove your body wrong
You land badly
But you crash standing
You land badly,
But you crash...
He took me to the workshop
Showed me where
They built the bodies
A blacksmith, a mason,
A carpenter
And in the darkroom,
Where the whole assembly started
All the clothesline
Where the hearts hung to harden.
You come as fragile,
Soft machines
And you’re bound to fast,
You’re bound to grieve
But you’re built to
Balance on two feet
So why you living this last year From your knees?
Oh please put me down again.
I know you lost a bet
G’head and catch your breath
But when the worst relents
You learn to live on less
You duck some,
You take some square
Your luck runs out,
You’re there in midair
And when the big one comes, You’ll know by the snare roll
You can be too careful,
Ignore all the scarecrows.
Time flies like the crow does
No regard for the grid
I can’t ask you to show love
But would it kill you if you did?
Chorus
Track Name: Dixon's Girl
Oh someone taught
Your walls to talk
But if they ask me
I ain’t heard a thing…
(Chorus 1)
Back to the wall
Bat to the ball
Back to the drawing board
Back to the wall
Bat to the ball
Back to the drawing board
Back to the wall
Bat to the ball
Back to the drawing board
Again.
There was a snowstorm in Jackson
When you and I met
At a club called Saint Sebastian’s
But the sign said
Something different
I remember thinking that I Didn’t have a shot at Mississippi
Television told us which Roads they were closing—
There goes a rap show.
Everybody knew you
As the wife of a famous man
Everybody who knew said, ‘There goes Dixon’s girl again
Even the walls will lean closer
When she plays the
Piano real slow.’
I haven’t met too many women
In this business that I really like
But you could hold a little liquor
You could hold a conversation
You could hold your own mic
And even that night
I learned
The truth about your man
You gotta be big
To treat pretty girls bad.
(Chorus 2)
It’s not much,
But my money’s on you
It’s not much,
But my money’s on you
It’s not much, but my money—
Not much but my money—
Not much but my money—
My money’s on you.
Well I heard from the rest of The world you’re in trouble
Bad news moves like fire
That you fight on the phone.
And I’m too far away,
My well-wishing can’t touch you
But I think of you still,
More than you might suppose.
Everybody wanna see you
With your hair down
Wanna hear you hit the high note
Wanna know if they
Can get you for a little less
Girl, I don’t.
I know how the stones can fly
Had some hard goodbyes
Call me up
Day or night
Free drinks and bad advice.
Chorus 2
Chorus 1
Track Name: Mineshaft II
Fifteen years from tonight
You have to make a decision
The greatest love of your life
Is gonna call during dinner…
From the home of the girl
That he’s living with now.
The guilt he’ll say is killing him
He’s wilted in the middle and
He knows how bad he acted
Knows he can’t have you back
But the fact is he can’t be happy When you’re angry and you’re so angry
He says you stayed so mad.
He heard it on the street that
You moved back in with your dad
You were drinking something awful
And that makes him sad.
Then he says it’s good
To hear your voice again
And that it’s hard to ask it,
But he’s calling with a question.
He’s been working real hard
Tryna make a new start
An honest-to-god fresh beginning
So maybe you could try to
Finally find in your heart
To forgive him.
(Chorus)
You’ve already been here before
You already know where it goes
You chose this, you know
It’s supposed to be over. Refrain.
He hung up the phone
You listened to the dial tone
And you stared at the stove
Until the beeping started
You read some love letters some threats
And some you couldn’t tell apart
That you keep under the bed
At the apartment, and then you did
What he asked you to do
You opened your heart up
Right there on a napkin on the carpet
And part of it was frostbit
But you’ve always been a smart kid
Could still distinguish
The blood black as pitch
Valves had gone stiff
Veins and scar tissue
Four chambers just a standard issue
But none had room. Forgiveness is huge
And you had two full of ice water
One fulla salt, one packed with coal
Eager and ready and willing to find fault.
Chorus
Then, with your heart in your lap
And your head in your hands
Suddenly you had a plan.
Wrap the mess in newspaper
Headed west on Hennepin,
Heavy with a huge favor
For a kid that just turned ten.
A flat-chested gap-toothed girl
Was the best that I’ve been so far
And now I’m too big to forgive him
I need just a moment with me,
A moment when I was still little.
I used to sing on the roof
Outside my windowsill and
I came hoping some ghost of me Would be here still
And here you are
Stick figure and a busted grin
Still ignorant of the all trouble I’ma get us in.
Hoping we could trade, just for tonight.
Like I could borrow your heart and I could leave you mine
It’s not much for collateral,
Tattered and battle-scarred,
But I can promise you solemn
That I will be back for it tomorrow.
I only need yours this evening,
So I can call an old friend.
And I can tell him
That we’re finally even.
Track Name: The Chaconne
Now the bough breaks.
The books I read
Said you were a fragile kid
Just as I imaged it, your story goes
Another nosebleed,
Roses on the pillowcase
The fever breaks
And you’re back on earth again.
You rehearse
In the living room
The nursemaid
Comes mid-afternoon
To say you’ve practiced
Long enough today.
She takes your bow, it’s suppertime
But oh, your only appetite
Was fixed on the chaconne
You’d hoped to play.
So soon you’re off
To the academy
The honors
And the accolades
First a darling, then a marvel
When we met, I was still a young girl
But you had changed
Already famous
Your name was a contagion
You were vain and hard to take.
All the same, I was brazen.
How the tides rise.
I don’t suppose you’d tell the truth
So I won’t ask you anymore.
Oh the things that we all do
To pass the time between the wars.
I don’t regret a single day
Heard your chaconne
On every stage
But your love sleeps in a velvet case
So what’d you bring me,
Bring me for?
What’d you bring me,
Bring me for?
I hear you keep
Your pretty wife alive
On only brie
They say a dozen years ago
She could have passed for me.
She doesn’t trust you with the baby
Maybe better that way
Safe in your study
Going grey.
You’re at your best
When you’re alone
Above the fray
With your chaconne.
Now the bells toll.
Track Name: Matches To Paper Dolls
I changed the locks
But your key, your key’s still working
Can’t train a moth I guess
Each beast gets her burden.
So we circle this old flame
Too much at stake
But too late to change
My nerves are shot
My reserves exhausted
It’s a tired plot, but we bought it
Now we’re lost
Between love and cholera
Saccharine read—
Such a sentimental novel
Give you cavities
If it doesn’t drive you to the bottle
As for me, I’ll take another kerosene,
If you’ve got it something harder.
Built like a moth you see
I still get chills when you talk to me
But the years pass by now
In twos and threes
These thrills ain’t as cheap
As they used to be.
(Chorus)
If you’re asking, I can’t say no.
Just one more chapter,
Our book won’t close
And I know it’s madness
To play these odds
It’s like giving matches to paper,
To paper dolls.
I know it’s madness, I know.
Tried sweet talk, tried dynamite
But I sleepwalk
Back to the battle site
Fight fire with fire
But the fire won’t fight
We just fly these circles like tired kites.
You flash some fang
And I bat my lashes
And we’re back again,
No end to this game with matches.
We’ve been lovers and strangers And friends who get angry
Made mistakes and amends And brief moments of magic
We forgive and forget
And give in to attraction
This whole thing depends on
Amnesia and magnets.
I’d be leaving for good,
I’d be looking for better
But I got this broken habit
I keep gluing back together.
The fervor the fire the feathers
This fever defies measure
And good sense won’t venture Where the moth won’t let it.
Chorus
Track Name: Go Home
It’s too dark
Just the passing cars
Illuminate the room
And it’s harder every time I see you
And then when you leave
I’m wondering when
Would be too soon.
But you ain’t mine to miss
And it’s time we put a
Line down in the dust
I know what friendship is
And it sure doesn’t feel like us.
(Chorus)
Go home to her
While you still can.
It’s much too late now
For drafting up new plans.
Your woman’s got an honest man
I always thought
So don’t do nothing now
To make me take it back.
Well I’m sure
That you’ve seen
A girl go flush before
But I don’t want to get touched
I don’t want to be moved
I don’t want to think much
I just want to get through
With my hands in my pockets
While we can let’s just stop
Already have my own problems
I’m not trying to get sainted,
I don’t need to be good
I’m just trying to stay blameless.
Chorus
I’ve seen our better natures
Flashing like a
Pair of flipping coins
And I know it’s getting late cause
Cause I can see exactly what’s been Running through your mind.
I don’t pretend it’s easy
I like it less than you
It’s been a long time lonely
I’ve got less to lose
But here’s a chance to do right
This is the stuff of real life
Let’s just let this one slide
Say our good byes.
Chorus
Darling go home.
Track Name: Seamstress
(Chorus)
I kept an angel
In a box beneath my bed
Little beast had broke her jaw
And I tried to fix her head
They said I had to put her back
That I had to put her back
Exactly where I found her
But I know, I saw
She was doing good
Until the cat got her.
I came to write a letter
But my pen was full of hymns
I came to drown a sorrow
It seems they learned to swim
Mouth full of pins
Heart pumping gasoline,
It’s late
I’m still at the sewing machine
Stitching up strays
For fifteen years,
But this one’s mean.
I picked you up
When they said
You were past repair
And I stitched you up
I thread a needle with my hair
And I fixed you up
When you were still
A common sparrow.
But look who’s on the shoulder now
When the road goes narrow.
Chorus
Well I’m putting you
Out of my misery,
We ain’t got much, but
We’ve got history
It was a mercy kill, nah
It was a suicide, nah
It was an accident, nah
Well at least I tried.
With soft drugs and a seam ripper
Tough love and tape measure.
Stitching up boys
Is different that way
You fix a bird, you buy a cage.
You fix a man and
You fix a man and he flies away.
When I ran out of thread
I couldn’t let go
But that’s not sewing that’s
That’s just poking holes.
And it’s a strange breed,
A different kind of creature
Looks for love
Through the eye of a needle
But the creed of the seamstress is
That you’re pretty in pieces.
Chorus
Take a seat
And let me get a look at your face
Busted, back’s been broke for days
Not much,
Little something for the pain
Don’t fuss or I’ll never get
A seam to lay straight.
I keep it clean as I can with just
Just the machine and a mattress plus
I never did need for a pattern, Just some good restraints
And my bedside manner.
When I ran out of thread,
I couldn’t let go
But that’s not sewing that’s
That’s just poking holes.
When I ran out of thread,
I couldn’t let go
But that’s not sewing that’s
That’s just poking holes.
Track Name: Dutch
Mind your step
I keep the overhead the low
Just the bed
And the books
And the rotary phone.
Chicago Manual of Style
Keeps the prose right crisp
The Minneapolis edition,
Well it goes like this:
I talk way too fast
And I shoot from a glass
I keep Poe in the glovebox
Plath on the dash
And there’s nobody shotgun
I got enough gas
To get Vegas by daybreak
I’m not coming back
I’m pushin this luck
All the way to the coast
I’m throwin it over
Just to see if it floats
I’m taking my chances,
I’m making my own
Cause I’ve been pretty and patient, I’m ready to go.
(Chorus)
I’m the book
That beat the speed reader,
And I’m the card
The dealers won’t touch
And it’s just not true
I’m a maneater,
All the same,
We should probably go Dutch.
Refrain.
Careful kid with that wolf whistle
You never know what you’ll attract
And you shouldn’t make noise To which you wouldn’t
Want to listen
What’s good for the goose is Good for the gander back—
And I’m packed and
I’m out before dawn
Leave a tip on the sink,
Ah the staff they work hard
I hit rain, I hit sleet,
But mostly weather stays good
Hit a deer in on I-80,
Fucked up the hood.
But you can’t play for keeps
If you never draw blood
You just brace and you breathe
You drive through the dust
You go through people and places
You hope the engine can take it
They get you up on the blocks
On a regular basis.
Innocence is overrated
Based on what you haven’t done
I don’t need a poker face
Open book, smoking gun
Renegade agent,
I got no taste for their races
I run on whiskey and risk
And ennui and impatience.
Chorus
Love is like liquor
It burns as it moves you
Far as I figure
There’s nobody fireproof
So thank you for the offer
It truly was kind of you
I’d take you up on it,
But just passing through
Cause I talk way too fast
And I shoot from a glass
I keep Poe in the glovebox
Plath on the dash
And there’s no one in shotgun
I got enough gas
To get Vegas by daybreak
I’m not coming back.
No I’m not coming back.
Chorus
Track Name: The Bullpen
(Chorus)
Forget the bull in the china shop
There’s a china doll in the bullpen.
Walk with a switch, fire in her fist
Biting at the bit,
Swing at every pitch
Coach put me in.
Forget the bull in the china shop
There’s a china doll in the bullpen.
It’s all in the wrist, fire from the hip
Talk a little shit, roll thick,
Whole clique
Let’s begin.
It’s been assumed
I’m soft or irrelevant
Cause I refuse to
Downplay my intelligence
But in a room of
Thugs and rap veterans
Why am I the only one
Who’s acting like a gentleman?
Good form bad taste
Pity what a waste
All that style, not a thing to say
Looks to me like
A little of your true school
Is at the shallow end
Of the typing pool
All cloak, no dagger
Just smoke and swagger
I hope that your battery’s charged
Cause I found this here ladder
Now your ceilings don’t matter
Check me out,
Now I got glass floors.
Chorus
They love me, they love me not
Pulling pedals off my bike.
You gotta strike
While the irony’s still hot
No telling what the kids might like.
And I love this job,
But ah, good god
Sometimes I hate this business
It’s all love backstage
But then the boys get brave
Gotta say,
I hope your mother doesn’t listen.
Excuse me, where you going?
Doomtree, Minnesota
Population’s growing all the time.
And if you feel this
You know what the deal is
Grab a chisel tip and add one to The number on the sign.
Chorus
Oh, just nonsense really.
Chorus
Track Name: Momento Mori
Here we are
Rounding the edge again
And I wonder if
You recall what you said
When I asked to hear your
Largest as yet unanswered question
And you said, ‘Why bother at all?’
I just arrived by the
Train from Bombay
Never heard anyone
Say it so plain.
The prettiest girl in the room
Stood, collected her things
Fastened her coat up
Around her fine throat
And though you didn’t notice there
For just one moment well
I was the prettiest woman with you.
Half a world away
Trying hard to stay
Aware of why I came.
You forgot the comment
Forgot the moment
Went on your way.
There’s got to be a better way
To waste a day.
Your mother, you told me
Had been a great beauty
And suffered profoundly
The loss of her looks.
You gave a practiced,
Exhausted expression
Recited a line from
A quotations book.
My father in his youth set off With a kite and a liter of wine
Mad to determine
The height of the sky
And the breadth of
One human life.
No ribbons, no starting guns
Sprinting around the sun
Man’s quaint little race
The heaving contenders
Get one thing to say
And it’s always the same:
Our names,
Chiming through space.
We stayed up late
Until it became early
And camped in the cold
On the hood of your car
The neighbors, the papers,
The radio, TV
Said this evening we could see Thousands of fast-falling stars
And that sort of thing happens
Just once in lifetimes like ours.
I’m hopeless nearsighted
Not much for stargazing
But couldn’t let all of
Those meteors pass.
This was our first
This was our only
This was our very last chance.
Track Name: Crew
Bartender says,
‘Kid one day you’ll be famous
Which is lucky,
Cause Honey I hate to say it
You ain’t much of a waitress
Even on a dayshift
Clumsy as you are
It’s like we’re paying you
To break dishes.’
Now the records break like plates
Wrecking stages state to state.
Getting bigger like every day
And they say the game’s changing
Doomtree stays sharp
Raise a blade up.
But ‘member when
We didn’t have a dime to stop on
All night tryna write a
Decent pop song
Dot-net cause somebody
Already had the dot-com.
Get in
Let’s go
G’head
C’mon.
Boys in the basement
Beats through a bass amp
Paper’s on the breaks
And we’re all the radar now,
I guess
Digging in and gaining ground, And yes
No matter where we go,
I do believe we’re all related now.
(Chorus)
There’s no love
Like crew love
And that’s true
Cause to me
My friends and my family,
My clan is Doomtree.
There’s no love
Like crew love
And that’s true
Cause to me
My people and my partners,
My plan is Doomtree.
It’s been a long walk
And it’s a steep hill
No time for small talk
No place for weak wills.
You mind your business
And you try to stay real
Half Dorothy Parker
Half April O’Neal.
This rock rolls over
Light on the horizon
Real slow strobe
Night day and night again
No time now
To wonder bout
What might have been
Eyes on the prize
No matter what the critics think.
What’s got nine lives
And lands on its feet?
The Doomtree Franchise
Rep wings and teeth.
If the hinges creak
Then break the door down
All I need is a beat
A break
A four count.
Chorus
Maybe ain’t a lot
But it’s an honest wage
And what we’ve got
Is what we’ve made.
There’s no love
Like crew love
And that’s true
Cause to me
My friends and my family,
My clan is Doomtree.
Track Name: Alibi
Well I’m sure it’s complicated
And I’m sure your story
Goes way back
But you’re looking desperate lately
And now is not the time
To look like that.
I don’t know if he did it
And I won’t ask
There’s a lot of good women
With a lot of bad backs
Your man’s in something heavy,
It already looks bad
Careful what you carry
On his behalf.
And I’m sure he’s
Thinking of you too
Not the type to snitch and run, but
But sometimes they say
It’s the plain truth
99 problems…
(Chorus)
Well I don’t don’t need need
Need to know
But there’s a set of my keys
Left under your door
And if you need a place
To sleep tonight
Well that’s what family’s for
And I don’t don’t need need
Need to know
But I’d put on my best fresh
Little black dress
And go get seen tonight
Work on that alibi of yours.
Now I don’t mean
To be your mother
Got my own kids to raise
And I don’t aim to blow your cover
It’s your own hell to pay.
But the word on the street
Is a page out of Blake
Your man made money
But he made mistakes
And now that Revelation’s coming
Looks to you for a break
You’ve always been cunning
With those brave escapes
But take a minute now,
Think this through
Give it a second
And a bird’s eye view
Think of the moments
You’ve got left to lose
How much time
Are you really down to do?
Chorus
Now I’ve seen the way
That you count your blessings
With hatch marks on the wall
And I’ve seen you coming out of Sunday confession
With a numbered list and all.
Now I don’t bow
My head for supper,
I never do kneel beside my bed,
But it looks like
Your afterlife is covered,
I hope on Earth
You’re careful kid.
Chorus
Track Name: Into The Spin
So here we go back again
Slow climb but quick To descend
Arms out, arms out
Turn into the spin
It’s lovely and brief
With just gravity and me.
Refrain.
And if we choose to fall,
Who’s to say it isn’t flight?
So here we go back again
It’s lovely and brief
With just gravity and me.