MADISON CUNNINGHAM | S5, E11

"All I've Ever Known" and "Inventing the Wheel" written and performed by Madison Cunningham.
Recorded January 31, 2024 at The Village Studios in Los Angeles, CA.
@MadisonCunningham
https://www.madisoncunningham.com/
https://www.instagram.com/madicunning...

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Producers: Madison Cunningham, Roger Brown, Beane, Liza Levy, Jennifer Roe
Recording and mixing: Hope Brush
Video direction: Maximillian & Madison Shelton
Video editor/producer: Adam Jones
Color: Parker Foster
Theme music: Julia Gartha @juliagartha

LYRICS (Inventing the Wheel)

She's missing in action
You can read her like the times
Splitting hairs and giving airs
She's guilty of the crime
Don't underestimate the murder
Your eyes can commit
Killing me so tenderly when you won't just admit
You're suffering
Gold rush and mercury indoctrination spoon
Some buy their way in mercy
Some get taken out too soon
The rest of us run underneath
Like rain in the ravine
Flowing with bloodline and pollution
Trying to get clean
Life and all its fragility
Leaving her imprints upon me
A riddle I cannot begin to guess
She's not inventing the wheel
She's not the first to feel
Like she's the only one coming up against herself
She's the spitting image of her old man in a spiral
The more responsibility, the more you crave denial
The wind speaks like an orator, some message from the wild
With the courage of a mother letting go of her first child
Life and all its fragility
Running at the center of living
A riddle I cannot begin to guess
She's not the crop or the cream
She's not about to seem
Like she's the only one coming up against herself
How long, how wide, and how deep?
How bad could it be
To blow it off and run away from yourself?
Waking up to a heavy cup
Ambition drinking me
Helpless I watch another death
Play out on TV
I render it down to size and sound
'Til it comes as no surprise
To sleep all through the night and still wish
To open my eyes
Life and all her fragility
The midwife of this urgency
A moment I may never get again
Oh, a moment I may never get again
A moment I may never get again


LYRICS (All I've Ever Known)

In a fifteen passenger van to Ohio
The Chrysler invention hums and blows
Warm air through the vents sends it straight to the bone
Outside it's nine below
It's a pain I've never known

I lost my heart to the great golden state
And the lanterns in little Tokyo
If the fumes don't kill you first, then the dreaming surely will
You tell me on the phone
It's a pain you've never known

I look out the window and let my mind wander
From order to the open sky
And sometimes I swear I'll just never return
But it's all I've ever known
It's all I've ever known

Will you take me as I am?
In perfect obedience to all these demands
I'm a child to the wonder but a victim of the change
When I see you again, will I know what to say?

I'm not immune to a piece of bad news
I just do what I must to move on
Give me truth but put me under so I don't feel a thing
It's the only way I know
It's the only way I know

I hear nothing, no rescue coming
Just church bells drawing out the dogs
I'm afraid that you were made by invention and odds are
I may never know
I may never know

Will you take me as I came?
In this resistance to the sound of my name
I'm a daughter to the mystery but a servant to strain
When I see you again, will I know what to say?
Will I know what to say?
Will I know what to say?

You're all I've ever known
You're all I've ever known
You're the only thing that I know
And I'm afraid of what I don't, don't know
You're all I've ever known
You're all I've ever known