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The Body You Ride Around In

by Matt McKee

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1.
When young I was the host of a keen urge To like a swallow fly so far from here But now there’s no need all earth to traverse I found the world’s wonder in you my dear Human endeavours, colossal and great Falls of nature, a northern show of light I soar unburdened from such heavy weight As long as my songbird is within sight But no end will there be to our roaming For journeys still shall we together make Through time and space ‘til we reach the gloaming Spread evenly in between sleep and wake I long for you to feel my every word I long for you to stay my perching bird
2.
Dive bomb doves in the apple tree Feels like they know as much as me About the hawkish boy from the heath With the high hairline and grin full of teeth Seven huge crows crowd the old mole tree That once held rope which snapped You fell down and skinned your knee The sight of your own blood made you scream At work I sit and stare at the screen As I recall us watching you leave And when you came back you cried at my feet Saying they’d made you a killing machine The final time I saw you was three years ago Such an awkward reunion the words wouldn’t come I wondered what happened to you Shocked I saw that you wondered what happened to me too Now in my head a scene already seen My mind hosts a horror that shall never leave It’s us hurling weak root weeds to strike Our friends prostrate by the riverside Lying dead still thought we were alive And though you’re still dead I forget you died I should have known He who fights with monsters might take care Lest he become a monster too
3.
The flicker of a thought pushed down inside That gasps at the surface once in every while Having nearly died It was another life of mine The car radio sings me into nostalgia’s grip A time held dear only for the weight of time Pressing down on it like some carbon trick Where I spin the life I led into gold My memory in alchemy’s hold Dig down deep and you will find The quotidian is rarefied I spin the life I led into gold My memory in alchemy’s hold Here’s what I thought I learnt from the first time I thought I was in love Oh I didn’t learn enough By thirty five I shall have been dead a long time though I may still be alive
4.
Stories of our lives are ones people don’t ask to read Piled under days like books on shelves that no one sees Names long left unsaid their meanings changed through the years Once familiar streets now feel weird How would you know if it’s too late for you to be the one that you want to? Doesn’t it show dear, this is how we were? Phantoms lost in an old chase present themselves once more To revive a life you’d led long before The ballast of habit you bear Desire swelled by regret The inevitable advent of a new self with each passing year How would you know if it’s too late for you to be the one that you want to? Doesn’t it show dear, this is how we were? Hearts bound safely in time Old enchantments displaced New ones like cheap wine Make you drunk make you blind steal your life away How would you know if it’s too late for you to be the one that you want to be? The death of the self, resurrect in the same place, No harm to your health, the photos show we used to be a different way Pain is to become a different person and feel no pain for voices and faces eradicated from your heart
5.
Dunno How 03:13
Somewhere in my heart was in my head today Took me to another time and place Dunno how because it was released in ‘88 I was too young to remember then Somewhere in my heart was in my head today Soundtracking my dreams before I wake Things I felt before I feel again but they’re Exhibits I can’t touch behind a pane Somewhere in my heart was in my head today A post-sentiment that I can’t seem to shake The heat generated from the blows The stasis of my heart unfroze But it seems so empty now And my mind minds And my heart is beating me up and down Like a garrison in a conquered town My heart is keeping me down Somewhere in my heart was in my head today Dunno how because it was released in ‘88 I was too young to remember when Edwyn Collins toured with them And I never met a girl like you since then
6.
I was following my breath back towards Bethnal Green At four in the morning of January three and On the corner where a girl stabbed a boy last week There’s a man heading to the car park where he sleeps He tells me that he’s from Liverpool He moved down three decades ago Sometimes he sleeps on the sofa of a friend But tonight he’ll be in a parking space again Four days later I can’t but stop and stare The front page of the West End Final bears the story of a billionaire Who paid forty six million pounds for a flat in Belgravia The only question is how does he sleep at night The only thing we know for sure is there’s not a single car in sight
7.
There is no way for anyone or anything to be. There is an end, but no way. So come shilly shally with me for a little in the middle. And if you keep this in mind, you’ll be alright And if you keep this on the right side of your brain There is an end, but no way. So I won’t waste a single day Unless it’s with you And you tell me you’re so sad it’s going so fast You tell me you’re so sad it’s going so fast I laugh because you just turned twenty five In his coat pocket they found an unused train ticket when he died That he bought while shilly shallying The end was a complete surprise I read what he wrote that there is no meaning on the outside But when I looked in I saw so little I thought I hope he’s telling lies Just last week I looked again, I found you’d found your way in And there’s no way.
8.
Tender skin grows again over the place where. Everything intransitive; I’m not waiting for anything anymore. And I don’t think I can keep up. My timeline pulled taut, it draws my hopes in a knot. Tendered skin, the makeweight in the deal for your time. Whisper soft replacing all the feeling you had of being alive. I’m wearing the finish off my teeth. You’ve worn the heart off my sleeve. I don’t think I can keep up with the days. They just keep coming, I can’t get out of their way. Whistle out, in the right key to see if I am still he. But I won’t be there. Listen up, wait and see, it’s my likeness, but it’s not me. So I won’t be there. No I won’t be there. I squint at street lights I turn them into laser beams. Slicing up the parked cars and the people on the street. I squint at who I was, confuse waking with my dreams. Splicing my memories with all these invented scenes. Tender skin grows again over the place where you last kissed.
9.
Gently humming factories made it cheaper Thought that you’ve got to have it, like a creeper. Tendrils in your brain. What do you do with your life? You buy buy buy. Everlasting growth. Where does your house of cards lie? The body you ride around in. Where does it take you to? Wearing out both the same streets and your smart shoes. You don’t know the difference between being happy and not unhappy. You don’t know the difference between being happy and not unhappy. But you’ve got your. Incessant photography. Making an object of me. Collaged mortality. A tourist’s reality. Showing us. So irrefutably there, so irrefutably there, so irrefutably there, ‘til one day we came not to be. You don’t know the difference between being happy and not unhappy. In 1930 John Maynard Keynes predicted that technology would have advanced sufficiently that we’d all work 15-hour weeks. There’s every reason to believe, He was right. But he was half right. A labyrinth we don’t know we’re in.
10.
Wake You 01:40
Please simply always wake me You once said to me You just couldn’t bear To wake without me there Once I was a good man Who fixed your broken parts Now I inhale deeply To slow my own broken heart Which races at the thought Of time stretching out forever During which I’ll never wake you
11.
Today I called where I used to work To ask if I could talk to myself The voice said no I put down the phone I can’t work out where I’ve gone Something happened to me It was the hours the days and the weeks What am I supposed to do? Traded my best pieces, I don’t know my next move Here we sit in front of your TV Places we could go people we could have been This is how distended hearts get free They shrivel up with each dose of humdrum reality Through ribcage bars they squeeze When they’re the size of smithereens I used to think your distended heart would never get away from me What am I supposed to do? I can’t shake the feeling that I’m losing you What am I supposed to do? Traded my best pieces, I don’t know my next move What am I supposed to do? With you.

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released June 3, 2015

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Matt McKee London, UK

Intricate guitar lines compliment reflective lyrics bringing to mind 90’s alt heroes J Mascis, Evan Dando and Elliott Smith.

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