Get all 53 Hussalonia releases available on Bandcamp and save 75%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Keep Hussalonia a Secret, It Is Right to Give Me Thanks and Praise, Miscellonia: a Compendium of Refuse, Volume Three, The Somewhat Surprising Return of Nefarico™ Soap Operas, Make Like a Tree and Appear to Die, The Somewhat Surprising Re-Recording of Marsupial Garamond Hussalonia, Nefarico™ Chalet, EXIT, PURSUED BY A BEAR, and 45 more.
1. |
Right and Just
01:18
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I mourn the death of my younger self,
though I am the one who took his life.
It’s right and just. It’s right and just.
Look down the stairwell eye.
A heartbreaking view of my
pathetic former flights.
It’s right and just. It’s right and just.
I’m as clueless as the day I was born.
I’m a waste of a man.
Can’t you understand
that I’m trying to impress you?
The more you want, the greater the cost.
The value of love is measured in loss.
My face is straight. My fingers crossed.
It’s right and just. It’s right and just.
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2. |
Life After Death
01:39
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I’m making up a cast of friends
that run the streets and write my name
on bus stop benches.
They’re writing great American novels
and songbooks, and I’m in them all.
They stay up late with me
watching My Man Godfrey.
I don’t believe in heaven or hell, but I know that there’s life after death.
I don’t believe in spirits, but I’m haunted by your shade.
Hoofed friends and dramatic gestures,
my hair is just crawling with spiders.
What should befall me now?
I think I’m going to die for a minute.
You can look into my casket just to see who’s in it.
All I can ever be
is a thinly-veiled version of me.
I don’t believe in heaven or hell, but I know there’s life after death.
all I really I want to do
is be a thinly-veiled version of you.
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3. |
The Nearest Exit
02:39
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What keeps us alive
sometimes keeps us from living,
but that’s the part of story
that we will leave out.
And like god, we’ll lay waste to all our creations,
joylessly eat our cake and regret it, too.
Let go of all the opinions
we died on hills to defend
and leave.
The nearest exit may be inside you.
The nearest exit may be inside you.
Apart or a part — measure the distance between that space.
And all new ideas are just old ones rearranged.
The nearest exit may be inside you.
The nearest exit may be inside you.
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4. |
What Doesn't Kill You
02:58
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Put the past away before someone gets hurt,
or let it slide for something meaningful.
No use in blaming poison fruit
born from trees of poisoned roots.
Too busy curing side effects.
Diseases running wild.
Don’t throw out the childhood
with the child.
Sound and safe. Lost and confined.
Barely done and doing time.
Greatness happens by small degrees,
a series of largely ignored victories.
What doesn’t kill you sometimes feels like it’s killing you.
Ain’t no mountain high enough, but this valley has got me beat.
There's so many unremarkable days to live,
so many stories not worth repeating.
What doesn’t kill you sometimes feels like it’s killing you.
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5. |
Qualifiers
04:48
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You don’t have to choose between giving up and giving in.
While everyone decides that they just can’t take it anymore,
I’ll be in the basement mixing up the metaphors.
You don’t have to choose between the beautiful lie and the awful truth.
Walking upright is a balancing act
requiring equal parts fiction and fact.
Just say “oh no” for all my misgivings.
We’re going to pay for all this living.
I'm not saying I’m a liar.
I just have to use a list of qualifiers:
kind of, sort of, almost
Aesthetic pursuit
only fools the eye and denies the truth
I’d rather act like the man that I want to be
than act like the man I am.
Is that just the human thing to do?
I can’t tell if that’s the human thing to do.
Look for the border between yourself and the world.
Where does one begin?
Where does one end?
We’re just a little bit of everything.
Are you building yourself
or allowing yourself to be built?
And what do you need to be yourself?
Maybe I’m just aiming for exhaustion.
I don’t want to die with anything left inside.
Got to let it all out until I’m empty.
These are all true lies, all true lies.
Kind of, sort of, almost
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6. |
Sentimental Shit
02:57
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Salted shoes on cast iron dreams.
The stores are all closed and the car won't start.
Bleached and bothered, but I’m hearing things
from loose piano keys and used auto parts.
Hanging my head to a familiar sound,
all these forlorn faces tethered to this town,
sentimental shit done got me down tonight.
I’ve made way around the sun since then,
and I’m afraid there’s nothing new to fear.
Accepting stock answers of the modern age,
through a yawn, I wonder why I’m here.
Hanging my head to a familiar sound,
all these forlorn faces tethered to this town,
sentimental shit done got me down tonight.
Searching all our lives and this is what we found,
Another how you been another I’ll see you around.
sentimental shit done got me down tonight.
There I am
and there’s my old man.
Can you believe that’s me?
I can’t believe that’s me.
Hanging my head to a familiar sound,
all these forlorn faces tethered to this town,
sentimental shit done got me down tonight.
Searching all our lives and this is what we found,
Another how you been another I’ll see you around.
sentimental shit done got me down tonight.
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7. |
Dreams Come True
02:25
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Plots thicken and deepen.
The wretched few will be weeping
when you’re dead and gone.
The rest of us will yawn.
There goes that, there went this.
There I go to the dentist.
Got to cut the grass, my hair, the wasting time,
the failure to live up to my values.
Dreams come true, but not as often as they fail to.
Dreams come true, but not as often as they fail to.
A life tailor made to your desires but
nothing seems to suture.
You do, in fact, have to answer to me.
And I’m so glad that I knew you.
I’m angry. I’m sad. You can’t get more human than that.
I’m outdone. I’m in love. I keep selecting all of the above.
Dreams come true, but not as often as they fail to.
Dreams come true, but not as often as they fail to.
Slow and steady, one and only.
Found my way, lost the trophy.
I waved goodbye when I knew you were not looking.
Life is short. Say so long.
When you want me, I’ll be gone.
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8. |
Get Alone
03:15
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The powers that be
I know don’t include me,
so I’m honoring my right to remain silent.
With headphones on,
breaking my heart with islands of song,
saved from surrounding sea,
seven inch to mp3.
Depressed like pages in a book
that I misread and then mistook
for answers to the canyon call:
Hello, hello? and then that’s all.
And it’s too easy to be animal.
I speak two legs, but I’d really rather crawl.
Never let on how miserable you are.
Dream up close, stand afar
I want to get alone.
I want to make my bad ideas work.
Take me home, take me home, take me home.
I’m safe on the chain,
no safer than I can explain,
peering through the chain link fence,
present perfect future tense.
So won’t you put your pretty ear to the ground?
Hear me wishing that you were around?
In some made up place, some invented time
You are here, you are mine.
I want to get alone
I want to make my bad ideas work
Take me home, take me home, take me home.
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9. |
Sorry, Kid
02:51
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I could be a season. Something you can count on to come around and leave.
Time don’t need a reason, to erode, dissolve and undermine something you believe.
Nothing said, but something heard.
Nothing saved, but something earned.
Forever lost and nothing left to lose.
I’m sorry, kid, for all the things that I barely did.
When it’s my time, I’ll go easy,
‘cause no matter what you think I think of myself, I know I’m going late.
And after all that's been said and done, I see you didn’t need me
And I can say freely now, what I couldn’t bring myself to say then.
Direction learned and lessons lost.
Something paid at some great cost.
You knew me long before I knew myself.
I’m sorry kid, for all the things that I barely did
No right answers, just a choice of regrets.
A cocktail of sadness and nervousness.
Do what you will with all my lies
The future can always revise.
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10. |
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All of my feeble attempts to escape are for show.
If ever I were to be free, where would I go?
Wander where we’re lost, it’s all the same.
Wonder where we are. Missing from whence we came.
All of my feeble attempts to escape are for show.
If ever I were to be free, where would I go?
Tracing lines, simple wants, difficult means,
honorary achievements and municipal dreams.
Lives get smaller until they capsize.
Go ahead and push me under with your pretty little lies.
All of my feeble attempts to escape are for show.
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11. |
Turn a Prophet
03:20
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I need to get away.
I need to get back.
I sort of only seem to want what I lack.
Exactly what should I be banking on?
Exactly how should I be holding up?
Even when I’m barely making sense, I make believe.
I desperately cling to what has saved my life
and it sends me adrift
on a vast and lonely sea.
where I dream without an oar for sail, merrily.
But don’t turn a prophet,
don’t turn a prophet out of me.
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12. |
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There's a place in the shape of things familiar and strange.
Seems like they were here a moment ago,
but they were barely here at all.
It’s good to ache. It’s okay to break.
All of your suffering is a reminder you’re not ready
to let go of life.
Sometimes I can't accept how stupid and awful it is,
in light of how beautiful it can also be.
This can't be the same place.
This can't be the same place.
This cannot be the same place.
All your friends, all your enemies, every sinner and saint,
are made of the same matter,
different shades of the same pain.
There is no value but the value we assign and defend,
and the only certainty is that
everything will end.
Sometimes I can't accept how stupid and awful it is,
in light of how beautiful it can also be.
This can't be the same place.
This can't be the same place.
This cannot be the same place.
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13. |
Stage
03:01
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The house lights now grow dim.
The kids are all tucked in.
Act three is about to begin.
Here’s where I come in.
I make a better window than door.
I make a better roof than a floor.
I thought I was broken, but now I’m gonna break.
Here’s where I belong.
I am here, but I’m not.
Help me remember what I forgot.
There’s the part I play, and then the part I’ve got.
A stage I’m going through.
A stage I’m standing on.
Memory’s not been kind to me.
Ask and ye shall deceive.
I don’t think you’re even listening.
Here’s where the strings come in.
When all your dreams come true, what does that mean?
Some local band ponzi scheme.
I feel like some kind of Everly.
All I have to do is dream.
I am here, but I’m not.
Help me remember what I forgot.
There’s the part I play, and then the part I’ve got.
A stage I’m going through.
A stage I’m standing on.
There’s greatness in me, I know.
And maybe you can coax it out.
When I can’t will myself to care,
Why won’t you get me out there?
Why won’t you get me out there?
Why won’t you get me out there on the stage?
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Hussalonia Buffalo, New York
Hussalonia is largely the work of a multi-instrumentalist known only as The Hussalonia
Founder.
Founded in 1997, Hussalonia is a "pop music cult" and claims to be owned by Nefarico™, a fictional soap company.
The Hussalonia Founder lives and works in Buffalo, New York.
... more
Hussalonia recommends:
Commuter Fatigue
by Charlie Crane
Wonderful, lo-fi, quirky pop mania. Charlie also interviewed the Hussalonia founder for an episode of his equally wonderful podcast, Stereo Hysteria.
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Manic, lo-fi pop miracles. It pains me that Foibles isn't better known to the music-loving world. Start with "Solid Rock Baptist Rummage Sale" and "Holly Ann Place," but they're all amazing.
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What's a Rutabaga??
by Will Sings Songs
This is good and enjoyable even if you are not children.
go to albumIf you like Hussalonia, you may also like:
Garden of Earthly Delights - An XTC Celebration
by Various Artists
supported by 4 fans who also own “It Is Right to Give Me Thanks and Praise”
XTC had their moment in time...this recording extends it...Full of small, tight , quirky songs it juz rolls along. Recommended but maybe only for XTC fans..
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The Rest Is History
by Thomas Walsh
supported by 4 fans who also own “It Is Right to Give Me Thanks and Praise”
Gorgeous, melodic, harmonic. TW is wearing his influences on his sleeve in a great way.
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Through the Soil II
by Various Artists
A 37-track compilation benefitting the Trevor Project, featuring tracks from Julien Baker, MJ Lenderman, Parannoul, Ratboys, and more.
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