Warfrat Tales (Warfrat SLP 0183) - May, 1983

Contains the songs:
Try to Rise (Real Audio)
Brand New Drug (Real Audio)

Avebury Records' CD reissue (DL 14008) - Sept 6, 2005

Contains the songs:
Try to Rise (Real Audio)
Brand New Drug (Real Audio)
Anything That's Out There (CD Bonus Track • MP3)

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Click here to buy "Warfrat Tales" from Avebury Records

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Try to Rise (Vitus Mataré/Joe Nolte, Summer 1982)

The first embrace you said
Came dancing through your dreams
As you lay still upon your bed
And somewhere out of reach

Oh, then the day
Oh, in the light
You knew what you wanted
And you knew you had the time

And in a clouded dream
Again, upon your soul
A chill embrace engulfed you
As the night your vision stole

All the days
Lost in the night
You'd do what you wanted
But you hadn't got the time

Oh, in the rain, in the cold, in the night
They'll find you in your night dreams
Embrace you in your fright
And hold you when you try to rise

And turning softly
To the ones who wait
You rise to meet their eyes
And far below you hesitate
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Another manufactured Joe song with a Vitus riff - this time the riff came first. He would play this organ bit frequently, but hadn't come up with a song to go around it. So I wrote one.

I actually like some of the chord changes I did for this one, but as a whole the thing is kinda meandering, musically.

Lyrically, forget it. For the first few months there weren't even any words - I would just mouth garbled syllables. The words I finally wrote weren't much better - another song about nothing. This is from our Warfrat Tales compilation.

—Joe Nolte
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Brand New Drug (Vitus Mataré, Summer 1982)

Somebody on the outside's gained admission
No one caught him when he scaled the wall
Now he comes and goes without permission
Likes shouting down the hall:

"Got to have a brand new drug
Not everybody's brand new drug"

He sees you and your party locked deep in a coma
Wall to wall with empty heads
Someone ordered monkeys from Oklahoma
Got a wherehouse packed with Feds

One alone is too alone
Is three and we're beggin' for more
We're all up here waiting
We don't know just what's in store

You're feeling quite unhappy when your side's not winning
Don't care if both teams lose
People look funny when your head is spinning
Don't care – I'm on the loose

For who am I
For you I cry
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Also from Warfrat Tales.

I should probably mention that "Wharf Rat" was a song I'd written in high school for a rock opera Vitus and I were concocting with our co-conspirator Henry Spiller (I stole large parts of it for "Everybody Had It With You"). It became the name of our new independent label in the '80's, since former manager Randall Wixen had co-opted the name "Backlash". I think Vitus deliberately mangled the spelling to Warfrat to avenge himself for all his songs I'd butchered in '79 and '80. Fair enough.

This one is Vitus', start to finish. My favorite bit is the ending, where my backup singing is actually my only contribution to the thing - as I recall, Vitus played all the guitars.

—Joe Nolte
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Anything That's Out There (Joe Nolte, Dec 2, 1980)

Ah look around - look at you
Ah look at what you want
I've seen the girls - so many different girls are you
Is it what you want?

The game that you're playing
With the brand new friends you've found
Do they make you happy - really happy
Is it quite enough to hang around?
You always have a different dress - woh oh
You always have a different face - oh yeah
You always keep your hand in if you can woh oh
But I don't even think you care

The faces you try on
Brand new face for every day
I once knew someone
Who used to mean the things she'd say
But now I cannot see that girl anymore
And I am in despair - woh yeah
'Cause now she changes day to day - woh oh
Till I don't even know who's there

If I were you I'd stop a second, girl
And take a look outside your little world
And see if what you get from it girl
Is really what you want

Ah look around - look at you
Ah look at what you want
Anything that's out there
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Originally called "What You Want". The lines "But now I cannot see that girl anymore, and I am in despair woh yeh" were originally: "And now that girl is gone I hear Woh oh, a puppet master took her place woh yeh."

—Joe Nolte
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