AKA 'Penthouse.' A lo fi dream pop meditation on class, identity, and dharma... you know, the usual.

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A sorta-trippy, sorta-dreamy meditation on class, identity, and fate. one blue nine's TK says: "In the movie Dead End, there's a scene where the poorest kids in depression era New York look up from their dingey tenement street to a glittering cocktail party on the penthouse terrace of a nearby riverside highrise... and even though the guests arrive at the guarded entrance across the street from the kids, that penthouse is scraping the stars... I wanted to play on the image of the penthouse as a sort of Mt. Olympus -- I wanted the refrain to hint at that whole classic tragic mortal-deity love affair and to play on the ambiguity like a classic broadway show tune. I wanted to, but I ended up with this."

The sweat stung his eyes as he wiped his forearm across his grimy brow, shifted his weight to the broom he'd been using to sweep in front of the little bodega, and looked up toward the 7th floor penthouse terrace. For a few moments that steamy summer night the city was quiet and he heard melodic laughter skitter across the rippled surface of some subdued piano jazz. It sounded like a real piano and he knew from delivering there once that they had a big white one shaped like an ocean wave.

A handful of people drifted out to the edge of the terrace and he saw her once again. She leaned back against the terrace wall as she seemed to listen to someone he couldn't see, her pale hair drifting in the summer air as though in the languid waters of a rowing pond.

In the apartment over the bodega, he could hear his kid sister suddenly rolling through the city's radio stations on her big old portable aimlessly, looking for somewhere she'd never been before.

(C) 2001, TK Major

I've been up to your penthouse but
I-- I-- I--
I was afraid to look down

I been all around the world but I'm
only at home on my
own side of town


I've been up all night
tryin' to find
the right way to come down

I been inside out
and I know all about
the emptiness all around

everything happens for reasons
but we never get to find out what they are
from way down here it all looks pretty big
so how does it look from the stars


you laid it all out
and I wanted so much
to just pick up
what you put down

I can taste it right now
but still somehow
i've finally found the power to shine on

everything happens for reasons
but we never get to find out what they are
from way down here it all looks pretty big
so how does it look from the stars


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