Uploaded December 2020 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago
Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.
From: Curtains (1997)
Lyrics:
Don't bring that stuff to bed
I've gotta fall with a clear head
Don't tell me of those mirrors
I'll show you what you want to see
Pay no mind to those voices
I'll show you what you want to hear
Of course, it doesn't matter what you see
You're beautiful to me
It doesn't matter what they say
I want you anyway
So we live in the city
Come over here
No, leave on the light
Beautiful things get run down
There's no more to say
To let you know it's alright
There's a fine door that you open
There's no door
There's no option
You knew this from the start
You made a fist around your heart
I don't need to know
But she must want to show me
It's just for yourself
I can't forgive you anything
It doesn't matter what you see
You're beautiful to me
It doesn't matter what they say
I want you anyway
Don't bring that stuff to bed, I'll touch you here
Gotta fall with a clear head
Does it make you cry?
Don't bring that stuff to bed
Don't hide those tears
Gotta fall with a clear head
You know they're alright
Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.
From: Curtains (1997)
Lyrics:
Don't bring that stuff to bed
I've gotta fall with a clear head
Don't tell me of those mirrors
I'll show you what you want to see
Pay no mind to those voices
I'll show you what you want to hear
Of course, it doesn't matter what you see
You're beautiful to me
It doesn't matter what they say
I want you anyway
So we live in the city
Come over here
No, leave on the light
Beautiful things get run down
There's no more to say
To let you know it's alright
There's a fine door that you open
There's no door
There's no option
You knew this from the start
You made a fist around your heart
I don't need to know
But she must want to show me
It's just for yourself
I can't forgive you anything
It doesn't matter what you see
You're beautiful to me
It doesn't matter what they say
I want you anyway
Don't bring that stuff to bed, I'll touch you here
Gotta fall with a clear head
Does it make you cry?
Don't bring that stuff to bed
Don't hide those tears
Gotta fall with a clear head
You know they're alright




![Protomartyr - A Private Understanding (Album Version)
Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for fair use for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.
From: Relatives in Descent (2017)
Lyrics:
Not by my own hand
Automatic writing by phantom limb
Not with my own voice
Pleurisy made to stand on two legs
Thats how I bar my door
In this age of blasting trumpets
Paradise for fools
Infinite wrath
In the lowest deep a lower depth
I dont want to hear those vile trumpets anymore
Conscience wakes despair
The night is an accumulation of dark air
The scholar will be forever poor
Gross gold runs headlong to boor
I dont want to hear those vile trumpets anymore
Call me Heraclitus The Obscure
Constantly weeping because the river doesnt move
It doesnt flow
Its been leaded by snider men to make a profit from the poor
I dont want to hear those vile trumpets anymore
People live with a private understanding
Sorrows the wind blowing through
Truth is hiding in the wire
Elvis outside of Flagstaff
Driving a camper van
Looking for meaning in a cloud mass
Sees the face of Joseph Stalin
And is disheartened
Then the wind changed the cloud into his smiling Lord
And he was affected profoundly
But he could never describe the feeling
He passed away on the bathroom floor
Shes just trying to reach you
[Guitarist] Greg [Ahee] had given me a demo of this song at the very beginning of thinking about the next record. Even in that form it sounded like it could be the opening salvo and he was thinking the same thing. After that agreement, we put it aside and it cleared up my anxiety knowing that it was lurking in the background somewhere. Any little inspiration or dumb bit of line I came up with got thrown in there at some point. Pretty early on I had, ‘She’s just trying to reach you,’ but I didn’t know who ‘she’ was or what she was trying to say. I’m still not one hundred percent certain. I also knew I wanted to start the album with an apology or a warning that whatever followed was maybe not completely true. Those two ideas were all I had — the one line and feeling I needed to cover my ass.
Reading The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton was a big inspiration. It was heartening to read that a guy in the 1700s was wrestling with the sadness of living and the inequities of the world. ‘The more things change,’ and all that. It’s where I found out about Heraclitus, which gave me a roundabout way of singing about the Flint water crisis. I guess that part is about the unceasing wheel of tragedies and how the Flint story has receded from the headlines even though the man-made suffering remains. The Elvis story is from a biography by Peter Guralnick. Al Stewart also wrote a song about the same part in the book, which I didn’t know about until recently. I guess that proves it was the most interesting part.
–Joe Casey Protomartyr - A Private Understanding (Album Version)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/u4Vjrd-ziR0/mqdefault.jpg)





