Joe Peppercorn

Volume II · The lyric edition

Suffer
Successfully

Thirteen songs about work and worth, winter and family, ordinary lives, imaginary worlds, and the difficult art of carrying on. The official edition is planned for February 2027.

Words by Joe Peppercorn13 songs · February 2027
Hear the early 2022 edition on Bandcamp ↗

Wrong Side of the Floor

I’m at a loss for what to say
Even a broken piano is right twice a day
I know it’s tedium
But at least it’s a good time?

Woke up on the wrong side sorry (I’m so sorry)
Woke up on the wrong side sorry (I’m so sorry)
Woke up on the wrong side of the floor

Is it happiness wherever you go
Or is it happiness WHENever you go
The straight and narrow path
Can still lead straight to hell

Woke up on the wrong side sorry (I’m so sorry)
Woke up on the wrong side sorry (I’m so sorry)
Woke up on the wrong side of the floor

Forgive me if I’m out of line
I promise to do better next time

Am I so easy to beguile
With your cat on the table smile?

Woke up on the wrong side sorry (I’m so sorry)
Woke up on the wrong side sorry (I’m so sorry)
Woke up on the wrong side sorry (I’m so sorry)
Woke up on the wrong side of the floor
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Talking to My Cats

Walking my daughter to school
The sidewalks are dirty
The air is cool
Driving my son to practice
The clouds like lattice
On a silver sky

The temporary nature of life
Is so brutally beautiful

Now I’m talking to my cats
I guess I’m alone
(An empty nest feels so alone now)
Talking to my cats
Guess I’m alone
(Oh so alone)

Oh this pain in my chest
It’s so hard to rest
In an empty nest
So I get in my car
Oh it’s not too far
To the coffee bar
Started hanging out with the old men there
Then you realize you’re one of them

Now I’m talking to my cats
I guess I’m alone
(An empty nest feels so alone now)
Talking to my cats
Guess I’m alone
(Oh so alone)

Oh I thought this would be breezy
Change is never easy

Now I’m talking to my cats
I guess I’m alone
(An empty nest feels so alone now)
Talking to my cats
Guess I’m alone
(Oh so alone)
Talking to my cats
No-one else to talk to
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Imaginary Worlds

Getting lost in a chocolate factory
Sounds like such a nightmare to me
Falling down a fantastic rabbit hole
I won’t know how to find my way

Oddities curiosities
Symphonic pale atrocities
The subtle light leaks under hidden doorways

We laugh less look for a better place to be
It’s in our nature to think creatively
We make worlds with imagination
Project them with our narrations now

Oddities curiosities
Symphonic pale atrocities
The subtle light leaks under hidden doorways

Can we all just come together and agree
Waterworld is the world thing we’ve seen

Oddities curiosities
Symphonic pale atrocities
The subtle light leaks under hidden doorways
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Somewhere Near

The sun says hello through my window
But she doesn’t know Ive no need for her glow
That train stopped running this year this year
I want anywhere but here
I was happier when you were somewhere near

Fingerprints in the dust on my piano
We know whose they are but feign that we don’t know
It’s harder than it would appear
To hold close what you hold dear
I was happier when you were somewhere near

You take it for granted and then it’s gone
Oh you take it for granted and then it’s gone

The moon makes its way to my bedroom floor
A shadow is changing in my darkened door
With no-one now to cheer
You have another beer
I was happier when you were somewhere near
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Suffer Successfully

You spend your whole life
Waiting for a sense that you feel free
They just shake your hand and say
Learn to suffer successfully

Oh the persecution complex
Is this world just run by kids?
Whose offspring will inherit their fortune
No matter what they ever did?

If you want to be free
Suffer Successfully

I’ll never understand why people
Build their identity
Around their work and career and status
Collecting amenities

Oh they say on your death bed you never regret
Not working more
Then why do I get such dirty looks
When I say career is a lifeless bore?

If you want to be free
You gotta learn how to Suffer Successfully

When you try to make things better
They say you’re being naive
Be careful a sneak attack yeah
Always have something up your sleeve

I’ve learned I’ll never be rich oh
That’s ok with me
And now I’m ready to live yeah
Suffer successfully

Oh yeah judge lest not ye be judge it’s something
You never really understand
Until it feels like the world dis convicting you and putting you on the witness stand

If you want to be free
Suffer successfully
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Spanish Moss

The love I want
The love I need
The love I want
The love I need

Still hanging Spanish moss
Wisdom of the ancient trees
Silver strands waltz in the breeze

Phantom limbs strum their harp strings across
Pluck a southern gothic melody
All our worries now a casualty

The love I want
The love I need
Mona Lisa sprung from a single seed
The love I want
The love I need
Mona Lisa sprung from a single seed

Tendrils swaddle my weary soul
Seize the night and sleep the day
Our fleeting visions transport us away
Sprinklers softly sing in the breeze
The moss like tired wigs on the trees
I want to live between my life and my dreams

The love I want
The love I need
Mona Lisa sprung from a single seed
The love I want
The love I need
Mona Lisa sprung from a single seed

The love I want
The love I need
Mona Lisa sprung from a single seed
The love I want
The love I need
Mona Lisa sprung from a single seed
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Bridge at Both Ends

The bombed out streets
The mobilizing fleets
There’s a howling when we
Try to sleep

Tyrant tantrums
The low beat of war drums
Suspend disbelief of hope

Burn the bridge at both ends
Burn your bridge at both ends

Underground children don’t
Make a sound
Head down into
The metro

Burn the bridge at both ends
Burn your bridge at both ends

Bullies come and go it’s time we let them know
You don’t speak for us and you won’t control us
Poets in the cafes only weeks ago
Smoke rises and your spirit sinks so low

Burn the bridge at both ends
Burn your bridge at both ends
Go burn your bridge at both ends
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Making Coffee

I can fall in love but I can’t fall asleep
I can fake a smile and know how not to weep
Oh the people round me they always love and ground me
But I get so insecure I wonder am I doing right by them

I make the coffee I make the bed
Try to do anything to quiet all the voices in my head
It’s only when I am by your side
I feel ok to be myself and I have nothing left to hide

History of frustrations with temporary elations
Why has it been so hard to maintain any stability
And I don’t always want to be the one who
Takes up so much energy

I make the coffee I make the bed
Try to do anything to quiet all the voices in my head
It’s only when I am by your side
I feel ok to be myself and I have nothing left to hide

Yeah nothing to hide
There’s always something to hide
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Occupy

We have to remind ourselves
We are not crazy
Maybe we’re the ones who had it right
All along

The rat race takes the place and every face
You look into screams if this is all there is
I don’t know if I’ll go on

I guess it will have to do
That I occupy the same world as you

The brightest winter sun can only do so much
The world is unforgiving and the world
Holds back our dreams

I guess it will have to do
That I occupy the same world as you

In the garden I’m alone
Amidst the fog we hear a groan
From a chapel abandoned gravestones
Arise
Scratching away at your pain
You foment demons in your brain
The will of the smallest glories
Will get you by

I guess it will have to do
That I occupy the same world as you
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Ordinary Extraordinary

Ordinary people
Do extraordinary things
Trudging by you on the dirty streets
Work will drain the life of them and leave them
Half asleep
Trying to read a paper in a bus seat

We were promised more
There’s nothing left to be
We know this is no meritocracy

The world is falling apart
The world is falling apart I know
The world is falling apart
Don’t look out the window
It would only break your heart

Ordinary people do extraordinary things
Ruled by boastful bland and boring kings
Poets pour your coffee genius sweeps up your floor
You call them boring on them shut the door

We were promised more
There’s nothing left to be
We know this is no meritocracy
Merrily running out of steam
Oh life is but a dream
We forget things are never what they seem

The world is falling apart
The world is falling apart I know
The world is falling apart
Don’t look out the window
It would only break your heart

We can live without looking down
We can live without looking down again

The world is falling apart
The world is falling apart I know
The world is falling apart
Don’t look out the window
It would only break your heart
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Secret to Life

You work your way through a bucket list
Check things off one at a time
Keep tabs on your sleeping and eating
Make idleness a crime

The weight of the day
When the sun gets out of the way
And you’ve got nothing to say

Glory fades along with desires
You swam in water now you swim in fire
The secret to life
Is there’s no secret at all

I fold the follies of my furrowed fate
Into a pillow I cry into
Learn you’d give up everything
For one thing that holds true

You start to see the hidden locks
That they’ve put on everything
And brace for what tomorrow might bring

Glory fades along with desires
You swam in water now you swim in fire
The secret to life
Is there’s no secret at all

Oh the price you pay for your humanity
Oh the price you pay for your humanity

The center won’t hold
Oh is everything designed just to fall
Today though it was really enough to see
That you tried to call

The weight of the day
When the sun gets out of the way
And you’ve got nothing to say

Glory fades along with desires
You swam in water now you swim in fire
The secret to life
Is there’s no secret at all
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Sigh of Relief

The slow drift of the winter mind
The rapid decline and the sudden unwind
Every year I ask how I survive
The constant grey where
The dead only thrive

Salt stains on the dirty sidewalk
Broken ice scrapers on the car floor
Goodbye birds and goodbye spring
I wish I were in Aberdeen

There’s a haunting loneliness
When your shadow is someone
Who you miss
This winter grief is never brief
Oh for the sun and a sigh of relief

Clean the house turn some music on
Dream I’m anywhere else but here
It’s enough to make a grown man cry
But I don’t cry do you? (Boys don’t cry)

Say to myself I’m moving south  (motherfucker right)
Words like bait in a fishes mouth (yeah motherfucker right)
You can only go so far
When you have to shovel your car

There’s a haunting loneliness
When your shadow is someone
Who you miss
This winter grief oh how I need a sigh of relief

I wish I could fly away
I wish I could fly

Dead leaves dead grass and dirty ice
Nothing to say, nothing’s nice (don’t worry baby)
I’ll be fine I know but still what I’d give
For the sun’s warm glow
February blues got me down
The water is all frozen but still I drown
What a shame that we can’t find
A warmer place to be

What a haunting loneliness
When your shadow is someone who you miss
This winter grief oh how much I need
A sigh of relief
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Happily Wrong

A hopeless optimist
I have no place
Lost my standing in the human race
I’ve been a lone before
And Ill be alone again

Survive exist stripped of all your will
Uninvited still they send
A bill
Play it by fear
And confront all your beers

Surrounded by the lunatics
You forget your one of them

I’ve given up on being right
I’ve given up on being right
I’m so happily wrong
So happy and wrong

The birds have quit
There is no sign of life
Midwestern winter blues
The constant strife
I swear my dog is wondering what’s wrong with me

Surrounded by the lunatics
It’s familiar company
The less you try and break your chains
The more that you feel free

I’ve given up on being right
I’ve given up on being right
I’m so happily wrong
So happy and wrong

Thunder lightning rain
Hopeless darkness pain
It’s predictable you say

The empty furnace murmurs in our sleep
The smell of lilacs slowly starts to creep
Maybe they’ll be a sense of peace for me

Surrounded by the lunatics
You forget you’re one of them

I’ve given up on being right
I’ve given up on being right
I’ve given up on being right
I’m just happily wrong
Yeah happily wrong
So happy and wrong
So happy and wrong
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Afterword · From the early edition

Nice Day for a Walk
with You

A family snapshot from an earlier version of the record, featuring Joe’s daughter singing when she was ten years old. It will not appear on the final album, but it belongs in the archive.

Listening transcription

Birds scatter over the trees
Leaves rustle in the breeze
Dogs bark so far away
Oh, I wish this was every day

Nice day for a walk with you
Flowers bloom and the sky is blue
Nothing else that I’d rather do
Nice day for a walk with you

Flowers sometimes make you sneeze
[Floating] in the summer breeze
[Hummingbirds and butterflies and bees]
[Squirrels carrying their summer seeds]

Nice day for a walk with you
Flowers bloom and the sky is blue
Nothing else that I’d rather do
Nice day for a walk with you
Brackets mark words transcribed from the recording that still await Joe’s confirmation.
Hear the family recording on Bandcamp ↗
Joe Peppercorn seated at a piano with a baby on his lap
Music at homeBefore the record