Calexico

Calexico - Hard Hat

There was a day in mid-August 2006 when I had a chance to venture out on I-8 opposite El-Centro into the desert. On my way to Tempe, AZ, I ran into an ecotone, a geographical anomaly where two different landscapes collide, right outside San Diego. Within five minutes of drive time into the twisting, turning mountains, the road entered into a vast expanse of yellow sand floor. That's where I saw the unsuspicious traffic-sign pointing at Calexico on the right of I-8. To drive in that desert among rocky hills looking at you sideways is to disturb the stasis, the radio dial whispering long faded out signals hovering above the summits and the sandstorms. The intrusion, the spirits dwelling in the air, silent evenings descending, shadows of crumbling walls, forgotten alleys exposing everything exposing you, that queasy feeling one associate with travel exhaustion.

Calexico - Gardun Ruin album cover

Black Heart - Calexico

Spring is frozen now I'm stuck in low
Wrapped with wire, tapped to the heart
Can't find no poison, now I've got no cure
(the) fangs are stuck inside my skin
Payne county line
Watching unjust claims
One man's righteousness is another man's
Long haul, sentence carried out
Long haul, counting the miles
To the four corners of the world
Spring is rusted shut, (faith's) coiled and cracked
Apparitions worth their weight in gold
Scratched in metal, name erodes away
Hands are scarred, heart is charred
Burnt though, and ashen
Trip on fence post line
Sifting through the remains
One man's close pursuit is another man's
Last chance, make it through the divide
Last chance, suffer the weight or get buried by this
Black heart, sweeping over the land
Black heart, crawling its way

-- from their record: Feast of Wire