Get all 18 Adeem the Artist releases available on Bandcamp and save 15%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Cast-Iron Pansexual, Merry Christmas, Urgent Care, Tiger Prince of Knoxville, Ashes in Flight, Pandemic Days, Forgotten Songs & American Dreams, Scruffy Little Christmas, Live Recordings, and 10 more.
1. |
I Never Came Out
04:08
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Oh boys in tight blue jeans are driving me crazy
Boys in tight blue jeans with legs that go for days
Boys in tight in blue jeans are driving me wild
With their poise and impeccable style
I never came out
I never told my friends about the boys I kissed and could not resist
I never came out
I know my daddy had some doubts- when I said I’m straight
With makeup on my face
I didn’t have language for the way I felt
Been taught since I was born to other everybody else
And If I was one of me,
I could not be one of them
Rainbow loving boys who chose to live in sin
I’m not saying all of this because I’m proud
I never came out
I never came out
I only told my brother how I’d spent the night in bed with pretty men
I never came out
I fell in love before I ever found the words to say
I’m not straight or gay
I don’t know that it matters to anybody else
But I think it’s important to embrace the fullness of yourself
And I am learning all the ways I let misogyny
Suppress all of the feminine inside of me
It’s pretty sad, but all of that feminine energy is still inside of me
I never came out
I didn’t think that it mattered now that I was married & settled down
I never came out
Until I found sexuality isn’t just who you kiss: it’s part of your identity
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2. |
Fervent For The Hunger
03:41
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It’s true that I’m a kind of complicated dame
I don’t even know my original name
I’ve been changing the damn thing since I was younger
A kid with a mixed up head, fervent for the hunger
And I’m a baptized, stylized blue-collar boy
A poetry, rotary expression of joy
Stitched up with sidewalks and time clocks that rattle like thunder
I’m a kid with a mixed up head fervent for the hunger
When I dream, I dream in color
But I mostly do not dream
And I have seen God through the curtain when I’m just barely asleep
She is holding out a basket full of scones and other treats
I’m starving but there’s nothing here I can eat
It is true that I have tried on different faces before
And toiled over things I’m not responsible for
Captured by every philosophy trafficking wonder
I was kid with a mixed up head, just fervent for the hunger
And I’m a holy ghost, lamppost
Poet of sorts
A rain drop, machine shop
Radio source
Sutured with lip gloss and hot sauce and Indian summer’s
A kid with a mixed up head, fervent for the hunger
When I dream, I dream in color
But I mostly do not dream
And I have seen God through the curtain when I’m just barely asleep
She is holding out a basket full of scones and other treats
I’m starving but there’s nothing there I can eat
And I’m finding new charcuteries
Mix & match until I find a meal that’s suiting me
I tire of these spinning wheels
Metaphysical combo meals, wholly illusory
When I dream, I dream in color- though I mostly do not dream
And I can see God through a curtain when I’m just barely asleep
And she is holding me in silence, and she looks like me
We are the same thing
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3. |
Apartment
03:18
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We are alone in this apartment
With an old bottle of gin
I am eager and I’m desperate to touch your skin
And if I was a woman-
Would you want to hold me then?
My lips anxious to kiss you
Disciplined to hold it in
So, I ache for your love
But I’m afraid it’s not enough: to ache
We sit and talk for hours
As I search your irises
You’re confiding in a friend
About the young woman you miss
But I am young and I am pretty
And I want to taste your lips
You will shortly leave for bed
And I’ll still be trapped inside of this
And I ache for your love
But I’m afraid it’s not enough to ache
One day I’ll be older,
bold enough to hold your hand
Unashamed to put my lips against another mans
I ache for your love
Afraid it’s not enough
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4. |
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I let you sing in my microphone
Tracked your guitars in the dining room
We mixed your song until it was late
And I asked you if you’d like to stay
You had a voice like a morning dove
A whisper that whispered to me
Welcomed you into my bedroom
When it came time to sleep
Oh honeysuckle hipbilly homo erotica
I shaved my legs at the bathroom sink
Bought a cheap blue eyeliner from Walgreens
And I posed in front of the mirror
To find all the angles that made me look fair
You were a soft, stupid serenade
Circling the base of my tongue
Beguiled by the way you incited me
To sing at the top of my lungs
Oh, honeysuckle hipbilly homo-erotica
I fell in love,
It’s indicative of the spiritual way I was raised
In hindsight I’m sure,
That it meant nothing more for you than a roll in the hay
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5. |
Going To Heaven
00:51
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On the back roads of my hometown
I was baptized once or twice
By some grifters in a storefront church
In exchange for eternal life
They said, “You’re going to heaven”
Yeah I’s told I’s going to heaven
Oh, Lord, I’m going to heaven now
I prayed what they said to pray
I can’t wait to go to heaven
Gonna have a gay old time in heaven
Fuck me, I’m going to heaven
I made a steal of a deal that day
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6. |
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I was only five years old when your song came out
I heard “Should’ve Been A Cowboy” on the radio
Screaming from the dash of my daddy’s pre-owned Camry
In between Dwight Yoakam and Diamond Rio
It was the first of many verses that I memorized loosely
Hell, it ain’t like you were Garth
But you were one of a hundred favorite artists on the country charts
I know this is a long time coming
Your mailbox money isn’t gonna go away
It’s hard to know where to start
But I’ve got a few things to say
Your twenty minute song props up Fascists
While you brag about kicking asses
With a boot in your mouth, exploiting the American South
You helped turn my culture into a parody
Milking laborers for your prosperity
I wish you would’ve been a cowboy, Toby Keith
I was only 13 when the towers fell
Heard your national anthem rewrite on CMT
You were celebrating war with eagles and star spangled anger
Spinning lives and loss into stage props and radio plays
Well i heard from Lady Liberty and she ain't happy
Says you misquoted her views
But you were confident and full-chested sitting there on Fox News
`There were not a lot of places where a kid like me felt heard and understood
But weren’t you sitting in your big house counting your money when you wrote trailerhood?
You wore my life like a costume on the TV
Milking laborers for your prosperity
I wish you would’ve been a cowboy, Toby Keith
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7. |
Womyn Who Bartend
02:29
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She’s pretty as a parakeet, works a couple jobs to make ends meet
Selling lo-fi photos of her feet to the men who sit and drink
Chain smoking cigarettes,
There ain’t a better way to pass the shift
And, sweetheart, she won’t take no lip from men who are your kind
She’s working in dim-lit, dead-end rooms; neon pits
Peddling cheap beer and cleaning messes from the floor
Womyn who bartend in dive bars off highways deserve to be given awards
She’s pretty as a parakeet, not the kind of woman you can keep
Spread thinner than a slice of cheese but still finds the time to drink
Chain-smoking cigarettes,
She tried vaping but she hated it
And, honey, she won’t take no shit if you ain’t worth her time
She’s working in dim-lit, dead end rooms; old neon pits
Peddling cheap beer and cleaning messes from the floor
Womyn who bartend in dive bars off highways deserve to be given awards
So sober up, here’s a cup of water
You might not remember what you’re paying for
Just pay the tab and stop yourself from asking for her number
As you walk out the door
Womyn who bartend in dive bars off highways deserve to be given awards
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8. |
Live Forever
02:39
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I’m a daughter of feminine wisdom,
a son of the American Dream
And my friends are addicted to alcohol
And methamphetamines
On Sunday they wake with a fever
And by Tuesday they’re starting to sweat
But by Wednesday night,
In the backporch light, they look healthy with a cigarette
If you got a book of prayers
For the folks up there stuck inside the folds of forever
When I’m dead and gone,
I hope I carry on in some way but you better never
Hold my dirt in a stuffy old church,
Lord knows I never lived by the letter
Just sing one of my songs from time to time
Then I’m in a wedding dress on Chestnut
Glass-powdered soles of my feet
Knotted hair and blood-soaked beard as they’re preparing to crucify me
Everybody’s looking for Jesus
Or anyone else they can hang
You’ve got an awful lot of nerve suspecting the urge of this undead creature to save you
If you got a book of prayers
For the folks up there stuck inside the folds of forever
When I’m dead and gone,
I hope I carry on in some way but you better never
Hold my dirt in a stuffy old church,
Lord knows I never lived by the letter
Just sing one of my songs from time to time
It’s the only way I’m gonna live forever
You just sing one of my songs from time to time
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9. |
Cast-Iron Pansexual
01:56
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Take me down to Carolina, I need mountain air
Got seasoning in the cast-iron and some color in my hair
And I could fall in love with anybody if I dare
I’m an interdimensional pansexual and I don’t need repair
Take me down to Carolina, I need my Tarot read
Got a stomach full of barbeque and existential dread
It’s hard to keep your thinker and your gut equally fed
I’m a Marxist marching on oligarchs and a connoisseur of cornbread
I’ve been reading gender theory and attending demonstrations
And I have watched my people nearing class emancipation
Take me down to Carolina on a Cardinal’s wings
Got Guthrie in my gullet, Lord, and a few new songs to sing
I’m opening up a restaurant where you don’t pay anything
Where the foods aplenty and the friends are many-
Won’t you come along with me?
I've been doing candle magick & reading Howard Zinn
and, while I'm no fanatic, I do believe that what we need
is radical movement towards equity & justice
to dismantle white supremacy entirely
brick by brick
by hand
together
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10. |
Reclaim My Name
04:03
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I remember myself as a boy
In the yard playing cars
I wore loose-fitting clothes
Still feel that obsolete joy
When the summer got hotter,
and we got out the water hose
I wore my shirt in the pool back then
I was afraid to be seen
I’ve been trying to build a machine
That can convert shame into celebration
I’ll go back in time and reclaim my name
I remember myself as a teen
Would just stand near the band with my hands towards the sky
Embarrassed of everything
Lucky for love received from an invisible guy
Stained by generational sins
I did not deserve good things
I’ve been trying to build a machine
That can convert shame into celebration
I’ll go back in time and reclaim my name
I’ve been collecting spare parts from old cars that are long since out of operation
And scraps of old steel, the frames of used wheels that feel tired of personification
I’m trying to build a machine
That can convert shame into celebration
I remember when I was still Kyle
The kids called me Cow, even now I grind teeth
Grandma said that I looked fat
From her perch on the porch looking side-eyed at me
I wish I could visit that memory now
And give him a set of the keys
To a makeshift and duct taped machine
That can convert shame into celebration
We could dance to the music it screams
In a cacophonic orchestration
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Adeem the Artist Tennessee
Adeem is a seventh-generation Carolinian, a makeshift poet, singer-songwriter, storyteller, and blue-collar Artist.
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