We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Get Me a Ladder​.​.​. Get Me a Ladder!

by David E. Williams

/
1.
2.
Get me a ladder Get me a ladder I'm trying to change this lightbulb. Get me a lightbulb Get me a lightbulb I'm standing on this ladder. Sparks are flyin on an eyelid styin. Better hand me a flashlight. The battery's dyin The battery's dyin Now the battery's dead.
3.
Lamented space between rescinded. Gravity renders many to one like the guts of a pie brought together in a simmer. Death puts you inside of me inside of you inside of someone else. Beef meet ham meet bird meet fish pre-devoured on the dish.
4.
Body parts in birdbaths… All over town they’re finding body parts in birdbaths while sparrows bathe and sing in their own shit. Body parts in birdbaths… Call the police, there’s something bloody in the bird bath reminding me that I am only meat. Torso slices, fingers, toes moderate interest from the crows but a red red robin doesn’t know an acorn from a severed nose. Everybody wonders if the pieces come together to make a single guy. Everybody wonders if the pieces come together to make a single guy. He’d have a heck of a story to tell.
5.
Pandemonium green the gangrenous nebula… I saw a sign through the cloud: “No picknicking dogs allowed!” Was I proud? These numbers on my arm add up to nothing. Old man shouts at cocoa: “you listen to this, Swiss miss.”
6.
The man who invented ketchup. He spent his life in a tomato mine. He would come up every day with paste on his face that he'd wash off with vinegared wine. The man who invented ketchup lived in a house made of mustard seed. He had a pickle for a nose and wore lettuce for clothes but he was just like you and me. The man who invented ketchup... I bet you think that his name was Heinz. But he was just a guy who made sandwiches from stuff that he found on his face.
7.
All at once, the ear was clean. The wax flew out in shards. Your dizziness, a standing proof, of how you blew too hard. Girl, go forth into the light your dad and son have let in. Make a list of what you’ve got and what you’ll soon be getting. The state once took your pens away. Now God has tamped your flow. You once wrote poetry in blood. We know, we know, we know.
8.
A seed is scurrilous a hobo hanging in the wind, friend of detritus, her beloved dust. Divine caprice dictates destination: some hole in the ground. "Look at me," she says. "I am life." "I told you so." I took a bath and went to bed in a bowtie in a brothel in Bedford Stuy. I was calm with calamity close by my callosum calcified. Turn your back on sodomy and turn your front to me. Turn your back on sodomy and turn your front to me.
9.
Hats off to William Frawley sometimes it hurts to be Fred Mertz. Conniving Ethel begs to bleed Lucy, Ricky and little Ricky quarterdrawn by the quarter dozen. A baboon screams in babaloo dreams. A gibbon gives up. A chimpan sneezes. Hats off to William Frawley holding off the Vivian’s advance. Vaudeville calls. The hearbeat stalls. Carpets fall from the sky. And we are truly stranded landlords duly branded. 623 East 68th Street exists on no map.
10.
We the ill are not so well. Can't you smell the way we feel? No pills or medical derring do will make us feel the way you do. and we are coming coming coming coming and we are coming for you. I’m pissing out my urethral scabs. I’m pissing out my urethral scabs. I’m pissing out my urethral scabs. I’m pissing out my urethral scabs.
11.
Testosterone as poison? Baby you don't know the half you don't know the one twenty seventh (of) 27 cocktail forks into the walnut in the purgatory of closetry. And yes we fought ALL wars in honor of the womb wounded for the womb, bled dry through and from. Friars! Into the fryer! Like firemen into a fire. Note for note, measure for measure Moses and Rommel in the desert.
12.
Throat Wound 04:33
13.
The monsters dance from monstrance to microscope. Marigolds bloom from the martyr’s torso. Crude oil crucified the coalminer’s daughter. Now what you gonna do when the eyes of the Son stare into you? Leukemia v. Eucharist. Eucharist v. Leukemia. Incontinence redefines itself as brown lactation. Your body, your self, His body your salvation. Footbath in a broth of melted Easter Candy chocolate mint so cool and sweet on skin.
14.
15.
Things 02:08
Things have crawled out of the mattress. Things are dining in the sheets. Things are gonna change forever. Things will never be the same. All is sorrrow. Most is sorrow. Much is sorrow. Some... All is joy. Most is joy. Much is joy and sorrow.

about

Whether re-inventing the showtune or expanding the subtleties of a single note, David E. Williams remains one of the catchiest visionaries of classic international songcraft.

His NINTH solo album nestles fingersnapping earworms into varied pigeonholes of postpunk, darkwave, orchestrated melodrama and even anomalous heavy industrial electronics (in curious reunions with Deathpiles's Jonathan Canady).

Existential terror and body horror unfashionably dominate the lyrics, whether the characters are dying in plane crashes, changing lightbulbs (the title track) or finding human body parts in their birdbaths. His incomparable rhymes dominate ("he had a pickle for a nose / and wore lettuce for clothes") but many of the lyrics are in the free verse style of beatniks, zen koens or psalms of the Old Testament. While remaining eminently singable!

Guest vocals from the incomparable Lloyd James (Naevus, Crisis), Andrew King and Jane Elizabeth. Radioactive disco guitar stylings from Erin Martz. Mastered by James Plotkin. Digipack design by Thomas Nola. Digipack includes original art by Gustavo Roberto Mateo, Alison Lee Chapman and a collage by Mr. Williams himself.

credits

released August 9, 2022

Composed, Performed and Recorded by David E. Williams
at home in Fishtown, Philadelphia, USA
in six seasons
Winter 2021 through Spring 2022 (“Girl, Go Forth!” recorded in 2015)

with
Lloyd James - Lead Vocal on “Body Parts in Birdbaths”
Andrew King – Lead Vocal on “This is my play's last scene”
Erin Martz –Electric Guitar on “Plane Crash People”, “Gangrenous Nebula”, “The Man Who Invented Ketchup” and “Testosterone as Poison?” Source Guitar sampled and processed on “Throat Wound”
Jonathan Canady – Synthesizer on “Testosterone as Poison?” “Throat Wound” and ““This is my play's last scene”
Jerome Deppe – Source Guitar sampled and processed on “This is my play's last scene”
Jane Elizabeth – Backing Vocal on “The Man Who Invented Ketchup.” Field Recording on “Throat Wound”
David Talento – MIDI Software Guidance

Jonathan Canady recorded himself in Portland, Oregon. Lloyd James and Andrew King recorded themselves in London UK.

Mastered by James Plotkin.

Digipack and booklet design by Thomas Nola.

Album Cover:
“Sketch XXXI XII MMXXI -La Cepa Mitrozón Paseando por la Playa "
watercolor by Gustavo Roberto Mateo, 2021.

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

David E. Williams Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

DAVID E. WILLIAMS has released 9 albums of demented chamber pop over 3 decades, but he has also collaborated with many other artists, including Rozz Williams (Christian Death) and Deathpile (on the classic GR). He was a fulltime member of The Muskets and Destroying Angel, as well as the subject of two tribute albums, THE APPEAL OF DISCARDED ORTHODOXY and WOMEN SING WILLIAMS. ... more

contact / help

Contact David E. Williams

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

David E. Williams recommends:

If you like David E. Williams, you may also like: