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BAY 3 · SCOPE RECORDS
Cleared to Retire
The farewell. Released three months before Big Tommy Bilotta announced his intention to retire (which he ultimately did in 1998). World-weary. Seven tracks; ends on "The Break" — eight minutes of the sonic memory of a controller's last shift walked out of the facility. Scope Records printed two thousand copies. N90 bought most of them.
- 01Twenty-Five and Out5:20
- 02Cleared to Retire7:30
Read back
Twenty-five years on the scope and the coffee's gone cold Twenty-five years of vectors and the pilots never told The lady with the pension and the union rep behind Everyone at the party thinks the shift is finally mine And they said Cleared to retire Cleared to retire Twenty-five years of clearances And this one's mine to keep Cleared to retire Cleared to retire The scope will show another face The sector goes to sleep The kid took the position over and I watched him for a while Every read-back was correct — every heading was in style He'll learn the ones that aren't in the book, that only get spoken between the strips The way I did in seventy-nine when a controller named Miller taught me tricks And I thought Cleared to retire Cleared to retire Twenty-five years of clearances And this one's mine to keep Cleared to retire Cleared to retire The scope will show another face The sector goes to sleep Aiello's bar tonight — the crew is buying rounds I'm listening to the pilots at the far end of the sound They're telling punishment-vector stories — the legend I could sing They don't know I wrote the book, and the book is retiring Cleared to retire Cleared to retire Twenty-five years of clearances And this one's mine to keep Cleared to retire Cleared to retire The scope will show another face The sector goes to sleep Cleared to retire
- 03The Last Shift6:15
- 04The New Kid5:45
- 05Traffic Said6:00
- 06Radar Contact6:30
- 07The Break8:10