We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Me and the Kiddie KGB

from Berliners by Surprise Flapjacks

/
  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    An actual CD! Digital download included.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Berliners via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 5 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $7 USD

     

lyrics

There’s a place in Berlin where I used to do my drinking – just a bottle of milk spiked with gin to let things sink in. There were girls to finesse and to press for information. There were nations to save before my mother came for me, back in the Kiddie KGB.

Now we’re two decades on – what’s become of our bold bruisers? Some are dead, one was Putin, but mostly they’re all users. As for me, I’ve got cribs in the States, Moscow and Rouen (where Monet went to paint when his eyes began to ruin). I picked my wife and mate just for the interest rates she’s accruing. I bought a lot of dinner plates with the towel I threw in. But they don’t taste nothing like ’88.

And when the Wall came down, I lost it. They found me crying in the mud, all the curtain calls exhausted, left with the iron in my blood. And they called me a child and they said to go home, so I shredded the files and I ditched the cologne, but I still have a dream of a red telephone, and it’s ringing out a secret code:

“COME BY SEA! COME BY SKY! COME BY – I DON’T CARE, JUST COME IN!” There’s a place in Vienna we used to do our slumming. But I’ve seen the old haunts, and the rats are overrunning, and the plumbing is gone. I guess the curtain’s done with me – me and the Kiddie KGB.

But I ran into Shokovich – man, that guy hardly is aging! Yeah, he looked pretty good for a German double agent. He said, “Anton! You balalaika-playing bastard! My god, you’re uglier than my sister!” I said, “Hey Shoko, did you know that I kissed her? Just a peck on the cheek – we were young, she barely knew how to speak – but hey man, would you tell her I’ve missed her?

“And the truth of it, half comrade, is I’ve been missing you like hell, and the way I never knew if you’d put me in the ground as well. And I know that you dream of a red telephone, and I know that the dream it won’t leave you alone. And maybe one of these days – Shoko, who knows? Maybe the world it ain’t so savage that it can’t be truly above average fucked up again.”

We’ve got the moxy.
We’ve got the dreamers.
We’ve got epoxy and we’ve got the cleaners.
We’ve got the boxes in the opera theatre.
We’ve got the tuxes, and the demeanor.
We can’t be bothered with misdemeanors.
We’ve got the rhythm; we’ve got the meter.
We’ve got the Waltons. We’ve got the cleavers.
We’ve got the Caucasus and all its feeders.
Come on, Odessa! Come on, Batumi!
Roll over, Moldova! Kiev, sock it to me!
Come on, contessas of the old Muscovy!
We’re gonna rock you down to your rubies.
We’ve got more sleepers than Ray Romano.
We’ll stop a bullet faster than Keanu.
We jam deluxe. We jam econo.
We jam for bucks, and yeah, we jam with Bono.
UH-OH! (x 8000)

credits

from Berliners, released September 29, 2011

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Surprise Flapjacks Durham, North Carolina

Surprise Flapjacks makes music about communists, existential crises, zombies, and lovesickness (and, of course, zombie lovesickness). The Carrboro and Durham-based five-piece creates melodic, energetic pop awash in sugary hooks and group harmonies, shot through with nervous surrealism, and tempered with submerged melancholy. ... more

contact / help

Contact Surprise Flapjacks

Streaming and
Download help

Shipping and returns

Redeem code

Report this track or account

If you like Surprise Flapjacks, you may also like: