1. |
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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
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2. |
Waldeinsamkeit
04:03
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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
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3. |
Alchemy and Other Tricks
04:24
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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
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4. |
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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
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5. |
Dunno How
03:13
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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
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6. |
Trouble Sleeping
02:17
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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
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7. |
Shilly Shally
03:05
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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.
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8. |
I Won't Be There
04:57
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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.
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9. |
Photography #2
04:07
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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.
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10. |
Wake You
01:40
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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
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11. |
Something Happened
04:11
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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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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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