Aaron Weiss
American musician, frontman of mewithoutYou
Aaron Weiss is the lead vocalist and lyricist for Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-based band mewithoutYou. The band's music is generally dominated by Weiss' dramatic spoken-word vocals and singing as well as free-ranging drums, bass, and guitar; their Christian roots can be seen through the Biblical allusions found throughout the songs.
Quotes
edit[On rumours he is autistic]
"For me, yeah. It's almost just like, a curiosity. It's sort of funny. I laughed when I heard that. People have asked me, 'so I heard you're autistic,' and I'm like, '....no?' It's funny that people would say that without knowing. Obviously, it's not true where ever they got it from. It just goes to show that you can't believe everything you hear or read. When you read things about yourself that you know aren't true, it's just sort of like, 'okay, this is just the way things go.' But no, it's not hard. People can say whatever they want. I've never been terribly private about guarding my business or, 'hey, don't talk about me.' The way I see it, nobody is my judge except for God and nobody is going to convince God of anything any different than the truth. It's not even saying something bad about me, like, 'he's a rapist or a murderer,' or something like that. And even if people started to say that, again, our God knows the truth. It doesn't matter what people say."
From an interview by Drew Ailes for Lambgoat, January 2007
Song lyrics
edit- She put on happiness like a loose dress over pain I'll never know.
- Silencer.
- And so it goes, it's the Devil I suppose
But it doesn't matter much to me.- The Ghost.
- Put music to our troubles and we'll dance them away.
- The Ghost.
- I was once the wine, and you the wineglass.
I was once alive, when you held me.
God became the glass:
All things left were emptiness.- Nice and Blue.
- I'm not the boy that I once was, but I'm not the man I'll be.
- Nice and Blue.
- If you look out and see a trace
Of dark red that used to be my face,
In the clarity of His grace:
Remember me.
- As we melt let's make no noise
Oh, the profanation of our love
To tell the world our passing joys!- Everything Was Beautiful And Nothing Hurt.
- Her soul in the balance, my heart in her hands
I made her a widow, she made me a man.- We Know Who Our Enemies Are.
Catch For Us The Foxes (2004)
edit- Tell all the stones we're gonna make a building...
We'll be cut into shape and set into place.
Or if you'd rather be a window, I'll gladly be the frame,
Reflecting any kind words, we'll let in all their blame...- Torches Together.
- Why pluck one string when you can strum the guitar?
- Torches Together.
- Why tear off a single page when you can throw away the book?
- Torches Together.
- I was floating in a peaceful sea, rescued by a sinking ship.
- January 1979.
- My life's a cup of sugar I borrowed before time began and forgot to return.
- January 1979.
- Brother! I am far away from everything good.
- Tie Me Up! Untie Me!
- When I satisfied each need invented by my eyes,
I was a nest by a fox's hole or dirt underneath your boot soles.
Then I satisfied each need invented by my eyes,
Till it was nothing like I'd imagined.- Disaster Tourism.
- You knew better than to pay mind to what people and the devil say.
- Disaster Tourism.
- He made the world a grassy road before our bare, wandering feet,
Then crushed the stones into the softest sand between our toes...- Seven Sisters.
- And You dance inside my chest where no one sees You!
- Seven Sisters.
- Oh, rejoice, the Cleansing of my lips... rejoice, Salvation of my soul!
I still have a thousand half-loves... oh, my God!
I want to shoot myself just thinking about it!
And you think I don't mean what I say?- Seven Sisters.
- I threw the stones down at the reflection of my image in the water
And it altogether disappeared.
I burst as it shattered through me like a bullet through a bottle...
And I'm expected to believe that any of this is real?- Seven Sisters.
- God is Love and Love is real, yet the dead are dancing with the dead
- The Soviet.
- Please, catch for us the foxes in the vineyard... the little foxes.
- The Soviet.
- So turn your ears, you musicians, to silence
Because they only come out when it's quiet,
Their tails brushing over your eyelids...
Oh, wake up, sleepers, and rise from the dead!- The Soviet.
- I was dead then alive,
She was like wine turned to water then turned back to wine;
You can pour us out, we won't mind,
As scratch around the mouth of the glass, "My life is no longer mine."- Paper-Hanger.
- Even the wind lay still,
Our essence was fire and cold and movement, movement...
Oh, if they ask you for the sign of the father in you,
Tell them it's movement, movement, movement and... repose.- Paper-Hanger.
- I said "water" expecting the Word would satisfy my thirst,
Talking all about the second and third
When I haven't understood the first.- My Exit, Unfair.
- What unseen pen etched eternal things
on the hearts of human kind
but never let them in our minds?- My Exit, Unfair.
- Ya sabur, subhannallahi, a'udhu billahi minash-shaitanir-rajim,
al-hamdu lilllah, bismillahir rahmanir rahim.- My Exit, Unfair.
- Stealing a bicycle chain as the handlebars crashed to the ground,
And the back wheel detached from the frame, it kept rolling, yeah,
But aimlessly drifting around.- Four-Word Letter, Pt 2.
- Oh, doubters, let's go down...
- Four-Word Letter, Pt 2.
- You strike the match... why not be utterly changed to fire?
To sacrifice the shadow and the mist of a brief life you never much liked?- Four-Word Letter, Pt 2.
- Who's ever heard of a singer criticized by his song?
- Four-Word Letter, Pt 2.
- On a bus ride into town, I wondered out loud, "Why am I going to town?"
As I looked around at the billboards and the stores I thought, "Why do I look around?"
And I kissed the filthy ground... the first dry spot I found...
I didn't have to wonder why I was laying down.- Carousels.
- But if I didn't have You as my guide, I'd still wander lost in Sinai.
- Carousels.
- And You surround me, You're pretty but You're all I can see,
Like a thick fog...
If there was no way into God,
I would never have laid in this grave of a body for so long.- Carousels.
- Down by the tracks watching trains go by
To remind me: there are places that aren't here.- Carousels.
- Grape on the vine... why not be crushed to make wine?
- Son of a Widow.
- The Son of the widow
You raised from the dead...
Where did His soul go
When He died again?- Son of a Widow, the final lines of the album.
Brother Sun, Sister Moon (2006)
edit- Caught me making eyes at the other boatman's wives,
And heard me laughing louder at the jokes told by their daughters,
I'd set my course for land, but you well understand
It takes a steady hand to navigate adulterous waters.- Messes of Men.
- I drank a thimble full of fire and I'm not ever coming back.
- Messes of Men.
- I do not exist, we faithfully insist,
While watching sink the heavy ship of everything we knew.
If ever You come near I'll hold up high a mirror
Lord, I could never show you anything as beautiful as You.- Messes of Men.
- Isa ruhu-lah 'alaihis-salat was-salam!
- The Dryness and the Rain.
- When the dryness and the rain finally drink from one another
The gentle cup of mutually surrendered tears!- The Dryness and the Rain.
- A fish swims through the sea
While the sea is in a certain sense,
Contained within the fish!
Oh, what am I to think
Of what the writing of a thousand lifetimes
Could not explain
If all the forest trees were pens
And all the oceans - ink?- The Dryness and the Rain.
- ...as I go showing off again
Self-impressed by how well I can put myself down!
And there I go again
To the next further removed level
Of that same exact feigned humility!- Wolf Am I! (And Shadow).
- Shadow am I!
Like a suspicion that's never confirmed
But it's never denied!
Wolf am I...- Wolf Am I! (And Shadow).
- One day the water's gonna wash it away
One day the water's gonna wash it away
One day the water's gonna wash it away
And on that day, nothing clever to say.- Wolf Am I! (And Shadow).
- You made this world to look so nice
I wonder what the next one's like?- Yellow Spider.
- What new mystery is this?
- A Glass Can Only Spill What It Contains.
- The invisible is seen among the shadows and the mist:
Before my doubting eyes,
The infinite appears this time,
The unquestionable is questioned
But makes no reply!- A Glass Can Only Spill What It Contains.
- There, strapped like a watch on my wrist
That's finished with gold but can't tell time,
Was all of what little pleasure exists
Seductively sold and uselessly mine.- Nice and Blue, Pt 2.
- And all of what little joy in the world
Seemed suddenly simple and endlessly mine.- Nice and Blue, Pt 2.
- Daniel broke the king's decree,
Peter stepped from the ship to the sea,
There was hope for Job like a cut down tree,
I hope that there's such hope for me.- The Sun and the Moon.
- Blind as I'd become, I used to wonder where You are-
These days I can't find where You're not!- The Sun and the Moon.
- The sun and the moon,
I want to see both worlds as One!- The Sun and the Moon.
- The sun and moon are my Father's eyes.
- The Sun and the Moon.
- Orange spider, orange leaf,
Confirms my deepest held belief.- Orange Spider.
- Open wide my door, my Lord, to whatever makes me love You more.
- C-Minor.
- The harder the rain, the lower the flowers in the garden bend:
I'd rather never talk again
Than to continue to pretend that this never ends.- C-Minor.
- The needle's worn the grooves too deep!
- In a Market Dimly Lit.
- I wrote a little song for you
With a melody I'd borrowed put to words that didn't rhyme
To repeat what you already knew;
As the stones thrown at your window tapped in syncopation,
You kept a distance out of fear you'd break,
But what good's a single windchime, hanging quiet all alone?- In a Market Dimly Lit.
- The music our collisions make!
- In a Market Dimly Lit.
- Given my tendency to err so on the sentimental side,
I'll spare you my goodbyes:
The truth belongs to God,
The mistakes were mine.- In a Market Dimly Lit.
- A speckled bird, humbly inspired,
Ran across the road when it could have flown,
And it made me smile.- O, Porcupine.
- Now you say you wanna be set free?
And wanna set me free?
Well I'm told that can only come from
A union with the One who never dies.- O, Porcupine.
- In darkness a light shines on you and on me.
- O, Porcupine.
- What in her do I require?
The face of gratified desire.- Brownish Spider.
- No more spider,
No more leaf,
No more me,
No more belief.- Brownish Spider.
- The trap I set for you seems to have caught my leg instead!
- In a Sweater Poorly Knit.
- I do not exist, only You exist.
- In a Sweater Poorly Knit.
- You wear a thin disguise,
O, Light within my Brother's eyes!- Every Thought a Thought of You.
- The Angel of Death came to David's room,
He said, "Friend, it's time to go."- The Angel of Death Came to David's Room.
- But good Angel, don't I get a warning sign
Before it's my time to go?- The Angel of Death Came to David's Room.
- But I slew Goliath with the sling and stone,
It's not my time to go.- The Angel of Death Came to David's Room.
- The Donkey whispered in His ear:
"Child, in thirty-some-odd years,
You'll ride someone that looks like me (untriumphantly)."- A Stick, a Carrot and String.
- And the snake who'd held the world, a stick, a carrot and string
Was crushed beneath the foot of Your not wanting anything.- A Stick, a Carrot and String.
- You've got it all turned upside-down.
Does the rain that's sent each spring anew to fall on her not fall on you?
You project on her your inward scenes, she's a blank, external movie screen.
But the One who looks out from your eyes looks through hers and through mine.- Bullet to Binary (Pt.2).
- So may we old-fashionably suggest the Unmarried not undress?
- Bullet to Binary (Pt.2).
- You think you're you, but you don't know who you are, you're not you... you're Everyone Else.
- Cattail Down.
- As the Moon rose and the hour grew late,
The day help on a Coconut estate raked up the dry leaves that fell dead from the trees,
Which they burned in a pile by the lake.
The Beetle King summoned his men, and from the top of the Rhododendron stem:
"Calling all volunteers who can carry back here, the Great Mystery's been lit once again."- The King Beetle on a Coconut Estate.
- In everywhere we look,
In everyone we meet,
In every blade of grass,
Allah, Allah, Allah, in everyone we meet.- Allah, Allah, Allah.
- What effect is without a cause?
- Allah, Allah, Allah.
- Let’s return now to the dust as the dust we are
- February 1878.
- I’m clearly not as handsome or caring as what you seem to want,
but I’d gladly walk you home,‘cause those streets can be dangerous- Grist for the Malady Mill.
- Fortune Teller: Let's give up 'sacrifice' next Lent"
Rabbit: Eh, that joke's long since been spent!"- East Enders Wives.
- We've both been untrue but i'm still counting on you like an invisible rosary
- East Enders Wives.
- I often wonder if I've already died,
Or if the 'I' is an unintelligible lie- Cardiff Giant.
- Megalomania’s only mania if you’re wrong
- Cardiff Giant.
- Elephant refused to swear the oath,
Said, "I don't know anything about truth,
but I know falsehood when I see it,
and it looks like this whole world you've made"- Elephant in the Dock.
- Lord, for sixty-so years I've surrendered my love,
to emblems of kindness, and not the kindness they were emblems of,
Trammels and rings, with the strength of old strings,
and some hobble skirt spring, by the old problem caught,
Children, sometimes I think all our thoughts are just things,
and then sometimes think things are just thoughts"
and the rabble rang.- Elephant in the Dock.
