Blueberry Boat
Blueberry Boat is the second album by American indie rock band The Fiery Furnaces. It was released on July 13, 2004, just over ten months following their debut album, Gallowsbird's Bark. Blueberry Boat was a polarizing album with music critics due to its long, complex songs and esoteric lyrics.
Music and lyrics
More than twenty different instruments were used in the creation of this album, including the sitar, which was substituted for guitar on some songs. Keyboards, guitars, and drums are the main instruments used. As with all Fiery Furnaces releases, Eleanor Friedberger provides most of the vocals, with her brother Matt adding to a few songs. Matt is considered the main instrumentalist for the band, while both Friedbergers share lyrical duties. The album is more structurally complex than the band's debut, Gallowsbird's Bark, and most of the songs have distinct movements that sound like multiple songs combined.
The song "Straight Street" references the biblical "street called straight" in Damascus. "1917" features references to the 1917 World Series, the most recent series that the Chicago White Sox had won at the point this album was released.
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by The Fiery Furnaces
Blueberry Boat
by: Fiery FurnacesPontoon put-put with the tape on 10
Dixie cup pink wine in the Labor Day sunshine.
I'm sliding the sunfish up through the wakes
Coming up too quick, making mistakes.
Quiet climb the chrome ladder in the front
While they're all yawning, under the awning.
Astro turf green hot to the touch;
Sneak open the cooler, they've got too much.
--Past Taipei, through the Taiwan straits
We sailed on in, me and my mates.
It was my first time running my own ship
But my buddies didn't care they didn't give me no lip,
So many times we've been side by side:
But I never carried a load with so much pride.
You see I'm from Grand Rapids and up my way
We grow the best blueberries in the U.S. of A.
And when we pull into old H.K.
The little markets'll have something special next day.
--At dawn I had a scotch and made them switch off the porn
cause there's nothing that's dirty about the ocean in the morn.
The radar said nothing and nothing crossed my mind
When they came starboard side up from behind.
--Down below deck sip the south island sec
think when last put in port, I was sorting the sort:
and then a girl caught my eye as she was waving goodbye.
Tell me my dear, I said warm and sincere, who do you know on the ship
And then she curled up her lip:
I don't know no one there yet but just wait see what you get.
--Pop the top and drink your drop we'll never go home.
Curse and cry and why oh why we'll never go home.
We'll never go home.
The radar said nothingand nothing crossed my mind
When they came starboard side up from behind.
I never saw them coming even though it was light;
They beat two of my men simply out of spite.
And then they came back to the helm, kicked me over and said
Do what we say or we'll kill you and your men.
I looked back at those pirates with their beady little eyes;
I gathered my courage and I could see their surprise
When I said Go ahead you could cut my throat
But you ain't never getting the cargo of my blueberry boat.
--It's sad and it's cold at the bottom of the sea