The Execution of All Things is the third album released by Los Angeles based rock band Rilo Kiley. Expanding on their previous musical sound that mostly incorperated guitars, vocals, percussion and pianos, "Execution" contains heavy electronica sampling mixed into the songs in a rather unusual and displaced-sounding way. Also, unlike their previous tracks which were written in very traditional manners, the lyrics to the songs on "Execution" are very wordy and read like prose.
The album is also strung together by a song that is broken into pieces and that trails between several tracks. Called "And That's How I Choose to Remember It," it tells the story of lead singer Jenny Lewis' childhood and her parents' divorce. This theme is visited throughout the album, which is lyrically filled with childhood recollections of loss, displacement, anger, and hopelessness.
Tracks
- 1.The Good That Won't Come Out
- 2.Paint's Peeling
- 3.The Execution of All Things
- 4.So Long
- 5.Capturing Moods
- 6.A Better Son/Daughter
- 7.Hail To Whatever You Found in the Sunlight That Surrounds You
- 8.My Slumbering Heart
- 9.Three Hopefull Thoughts
- 10.With Arms Outstretched
- 11.Spectacular Views
- Bonus Track: And That's How I Choose to Remember It
"The Good That Won't Come Out"
- Let's get together and talk about the modern age/All of our friends were standing there with their pets just talking shit/About how we're all so upset about the disappearing ground/As we watch it melt
- And oh, I'm not going back to the assholes/That made me the perfect display of/Random acts of hopelessness, I wish I could stay here/but I think we're all ready
- Someone come quickly, this place was built for movin' out/Leave behind buildings, the city that planners got mapped out/Bring with you history and make your hard earned feast/Then we'll all go to Omaha to work and exploit the booming music scene/and humility
- And roads can't hold us down/Winds will move us around/With no need to return to this gray town
- I don't mind waiting if it takes a long, long time/and I don't mind wasting the best years of our lives/and I don't mind racing through our goodbyes/This is your last line of defense/you could sell your baseball cards just to pay your rent
- Sometimes in the morning I am petrified, and can't move, awake but cannot open my eyes/and the weight is crushing down on my lungs, I know I can't breathe and hope somoene will save me this time
- Hail to whatever you found in the sunlight that surrounds you/pretend all the good things are for you/pretend all the good things are for me too/and the weather that changes not halfway between your house and mine
- And I've become just like a chemical stress/searching the lines in my face for/something more beautiful than is there/but I've barely been gone dreaming
- And I hope that you close your eyes/block out the pain of a thousand lives/I hope that you die tonight/just close your eyes, there goes the light
- It's 16 miles to the promised land and I promise I'm doing the best that I can/Don't fool yourself into thinking you're more than a man/'Cause you'll probably end up dead
- We can see the stars from where the birds make their homes/staring back at us/Indifferent but distanced perfectly, projected endlessly/it's so fucking beautiful
- My mom she cried about money and time/and how she felt older, and I didn't understand much/she left, I stayed, my dad played in the bar/and I wondered if I would love like him/he was small even with boots on
