Sculptor
FEiN Little Homes cosmetic-surgery satire: age of the surgeon, staple me baby, any price to be young again: fear of aging and dying.
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ISRC QZ2QB1600002 (soundexchange)
Track two on Little Homes (May 31, 2016), after American Man. BMI lists cosmetic surgery among the album’s themes, and this is where it lives. SoundCloud; Walton and Woodward co-write. It is the body-as-project song, the one little home you carry around with you.
The trick is how it makes the knife sound like a lover. Staple me baby, yeah staple me good / make me so pretty like you promised you would: consent to mutilation phrased as romance. By the second verse the surgeon has become the sculptor of the title and asks for a little more blood; the patient agrees to look thin / how you wish I had been, accepting someone else’s fantasy as her own face. Self-love arrives only on permission: I’ll love mah body when you say that I should.
Underneath the dark comedy is a plain fear, all my life I’ve had a fear of dying, aging and dying, and the chorus keeps answering it with the same purchase: any price to be young again. The song never lets her off that hook. It leads into Girl You Can’t Hide It, and BMI’s “haunting and intense” read fits it well.
Written by Luke Francis Walton and Brandon Michael Woodward (FEiN). Produced and recorded by FEiN at Tiny Giant; engineered at LMU; mixed and mastered by Frank Rosato at Woodcliff (Discogs). Brian Robert Jones, bass (album). Brandon Woodward, cabasa, oil can percussion.
Lyrics
Living my dreams in the age of the surgeon Cover my eyes, navigate with my hands Keep it clean, not a trace of emotion I'll be beautiful, wait til the bruises are gone Look at us now, Peel off my skin, S titch it back up Where I wish it had been. Staple me baby, Yeah staple me good. Make me so pretty, Like you promised you would. Oh what a time to find yourself living in, Hell, we are living in, Any price to be young again. Oh all my life I've had a fear of dying, Aging and dying. Any pr ice to be young again. Living my dreams in the age of the sculptor , Gonna require a little more of my blood. Honey I'm not afraid of your needles. I'll be beautiful no matter what it costs. Look at us now, Make me look thin Stitch me back up How you wish I had been. Staple me baby, Yeah staple me good. I'll love mah body, When you say I that I should. Oh what a time to find yourself living in, Hell, we are living in, Any price to be young again. Oh all my life I've had a fear of dying, Aging and dy ing. Any price to be young again.