American Maggot
Album
American Maggot is an alt-country requiem for the American soul — a concept album that stares straight into the wound beneath the flag. Its roots are in country blues storytelling, but its veins pulse with trip-hop beats and electronic textures that turn dust and steel into rhythm. Across its ten songs, the album moves through ghost towns, battlefields, and backroom bars, tracing the moral corrosion of a nation built on both beauty and brutality. The title track, “American Maggot,” is both anthem and autopsy: a hymn for a culture feeding on its own myth, dressed in Sunday clothes while the earth below whispers as it’s scorched.
The songs are portraits of exile and endurance — outlaws, drifters, lovers, and ghosts inhabiting a landscape equal parts fever dream and documentary. From the sea-haunted elegy “Only the Sea” to the lawless fatalism of “Devil’s Child” and the cracked neon of “Paper Crown,” the album fuses analog grit with digital atmosphere. Its downtempo shadings echo of a modern machine grinding through a country’s conscience. American Maggot lives where prayer meets distortion, where faith is frayed but melody still insists on being heard.
1. American Maggot
Fields of bones beneath the grain,
Ghosts still work the southern chain.
Smoke from cities, blood in rain,
Dollar signs tattooed with pain.
Bright clean flag waves above the barn,
Dreams embalmed in the graveyard.
Gold runs slick down the preacher’s sleeve,
Truth’s a wound you can’t believe.
American Maggot — chew and grow,
On the body you don’t know.
The light went some wars ago,
But the TV swears it’s a morning show.
American Maggot — hum that hymn,
Of rust and oil and seraphim.
You wear the crown, the rot, the sin,
And call it a resurrection.
Steel and shadow, glass and gun,
Children coughing in the sun.
ICE vans crawl where the workers run,
Freedom limps — the laws undone.
Church bells ring, don’t cure all,
All the empires learn to fall.
Blessed are these blind and numb,
Who burn the Earth for their kingdom come.
American Maggot — creep and feed,
On every broken prayer and creed.
The scar’s the only vote you need,
Waving on as the country bleeds.
Somewhere under Wall Street’s floor,
History whispers, “Never more.”
The gangrene won’t heal, it just keeps score —
While the Maggot eats the core.
2. Wicked Hearts
(Oooooh!)
Midnight tide,
smoky crow!
Rum and kegs —
let’s go!
Rum and kegs,
blood-red eyes.
Stamp those feet,
devil’s cries.
Yo Ho Ho,
Ho again!
Bad men bend,
born again!
Ooooooh —
we’re the crew!
Wicked hearts,
briny blue.
Sing and fight,
drink all night,
sea alone,
wind takes flight!
(Ooooh!)
Stamp and beat,
Ironleg Joe.
Pistol butt,
moonlight glow.
Keg goes round,
rum runs down.
Laughs of fire,
sharks that drown.
Yo Ho Ho,
Ho again!
Bad men born,
born again!
Ooooooh —
we’re the crew!
Wicked hearts,
briny blue.
Sing and fight,
drink all night,
sea alone,
wind takes flight!
(Yeahhh!)
(Oooooh…)
Moon-dark tide,
smoky crow.
Rum and kegs,
let’s go.
(Oooooh…)
3. Devil’s Child
Men went in dread,
of his hand and lead,
two guns shining,
ears ripped red.
He roamed the hills,
just for thrills,
blood and thunder,
unshaken will.
Smoke curled slow,
hoss stood still,
heart ran dry,
he learned to kill.
High on the cliff,
cool breeze smiled —
broke the faith,
of this devil’s child.
High on the cliff,
cool breeze smiled —
broke the faith,
of this devil’s child.
Steel-eyed men,
posse near,
fifteen marshals
hot with fear.
Powder and dust,
the law rode down,
the iron hands
came from the crown.
Back to the wall,
his shadow tall,
he took his shots
to end it all.
Up on the ridge
the wild wind moaned —
fire found flesh,
and called it home.
Up on the ridge
the wild wind moaned —
fire found flesh,
and called it home.
No one fled,
and redwoods swayed,
the hoss walked quiet
rider slayed.
Desert Rose
was cold as hell —
Silver Jack
an empty shell.
The road was long,
the night distilled,
a rattler’s face,
a sudden chill.
The sky looked on,
the west ranged wide —
and silence fell,
where lawmen died.
4. Only the Sea
(Oooooh…)
Thin wind, slow rain,
ghosts drift over the stones.
(Oooooh…)
Cold sea hunger,
white bone tide.
Frost and feather,
salt-worn hide.
The green leaf fades,
the petals wane.
The moon forgets,
and names the pain.
(Ahhh…)
Lost beach dreaming,
nothing replies.
Desolate voices,
low and wide.
Only the sea.
Only despair.
The rain wind sings —
and I am there.
(Ooooooh…)
Only the sea.
Only despair.
The rain wind sings —
and I am there.
Grey gull shadow,
thin and high.
The otter gone,
the heron dry.
At the edge,
wet rocks gleam.
A bitter shore,
a broken dream.
(Ooooh yeah…)
Throats whispering,
through the wind.
Weeds like hair,
where stars begin.
Lonely surf,
its crumbling roar.
Time like hunger,
asks once more.
(Oooooh…)
The tide sighs low.
The day grows bare.
The leaf is gone —
and I am there.
(Ahhh…)
5. Knife and Flame
Ahhh…
White fire,
Cold skin.
Ahhh…
Painted claws,
Eyes of hail.
Wolf and woman,
Light turns pale.
Ash and silver,
Knife and flame.
Darkness smiling,
Drum in veins.
(Ooooh…)
War-path heat,
Cherry mouth.
Sharpened bone,
Tear your insides out.
Ash and silver,
Knife and flame.
Darkness smiling,
Drum in veins.
(Oooooh…)
White fire,
Cold skin.
Ahhh…
6. Undertow
Rain on chrome — the siren comes,
Footsteps echo — lonely ones.
Your hand was salt, your voice was smoke,
The sea replied but never spoke.
We laughed beneath the trembling crane,
The tide erased our borrowed name.
Motel light flickered, soft and low,
The city drowned in undertow.
Your eyes were glass, the night was wine,
The moon forgot what’s yours or mine.
Dreams broke slow where water turns,
And love sank deep beneath the churn.
7. Forget Who You Are
Floor lit up, the crowd leans in,
Heat curls close against the skin.
Hair sticks, breath runs fast,
Hands pull tight — the spell is cast.
A cymbal cracks — the air turns red,
The sound shakes dust over our heads.
Floorboards shake beneath our feet,
Bodies grind to the drum’s repeat.
Smoke drifts white across the bar,
Wild cries echo — forget who you are.
Your mouth tastes iron, your eyes half-closed,
You find the pulse — but not your own.
8. Weightless Heart
Rain pounds hard where the clay is deep,
The land won’t move, the roots won’t sleep.
Wind breaks bone and steals my breath,
The hawk hangs still above the death.
His wings are stone, his heart is steel,
The storm remembers what I feel.
The earth’s mouth swallows every sound,
Blood in the mire turns holy ground.
The eye is sky, the air is thin,
The grave drags down what won’t give in.
The weightless heart forgets to fly,
And silence climbs the screaming sky.
9. Paper Crown
Stare through glass, the monster wakes,
A shadow crawls, the mirror breaks.
Ordinary bones, but thickened skin,
The spark long gone, a noise within.
Famous fire turned cold and thin,
The night folds in, he drinks again.
Half-life ghost with a paper crown,
Eyes still burn as the lights go down.
Ambition’s wreck, the stage long dead,
Funeral choirs sing in his head.
Crowds still cry for the life he shed,
He mouths their words, but nothing’s said.
Rust and steam in the afterglow,
The monster grins where the lost things go.
Behind the bars, the fire’s low —
Muse or memory, no one knows.
Applause falls hard on the radio,
And the night won’t let him go.
10. American Maggot, Reprise
Fields of bones beneath the grain,
Ghosts still work the southern chain.
Smoke from cities, blood in rain,
Dollar signs tattooed with pain.
Bright clean flag waves above the barn,
Dreams embalmed in the graveyard.
Gold runs slick down the preacher’s sleeve,
Truth’s a wound you can’t believe.
American Maggot — chew and grow,
On the body you don’t know.
The light went some wars ago,
But the TV swears it’s a morning show.
American Maggot — hum that hymn,
Of rust and oil and seraphim.
You wear the crown, the rot, the sin,
And call it a resurrection.
Steel and shadow, glass and gun,
Children coughing in the sun.
ICE vans crawl where the workers run,
Freedom limps — the laws undone.
Church bells ring, don’t cure all,
All the empires learn to fall.
Blessed are these blind and numb,
Who burn the Earth for their kingdom come.
American Maggot — creep and feed,
On every broken prayer and creed.
The scar’s the only vote you need,
Waving on as the country bleeds.
Somewhere under Wall Street’s floor,
History whispers, “Never more.”
The gangrene won’t heal, it just keeps score —
While the Maggot eats the core.
