Get all 17 Mark Lint releases available on Bandcamp and save 35%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Mark Lint's Dry Folk, The Sinking and the Aftermath (Songs From the Year 2000), The Cheese Stands Alone, Songs from the Partially Examined Life, Madison Lint 2001-2004, Might Get It Right, Impossible Things, The Easy Thing, and 9 more.
1. |
Chad
02:59
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You’re weak, you speak haltingly
You feel, you think sketchily
You want to want desperately
You don’t, you won’t, depressingly
You’re leaving nothing but a hanging chad
A piece of tissue of tissue with a little scab
A small annoyance in a world so sad
So doubt your doubt, and flag your flag
And sick your sickness on your drag
And seize the slowly sinking slag of you
And all your mess is getting cold
And all your food is feeling old
And all your bugs are dressing bold
‘Cause soon your dreams’ll start to mold
Aren’t you the loudest thing you’ve heard?
You think you’d never slipped a word
It seems your vision’s blurred
You speak, you freak cautiously
You tweak your needs constantly
You seek to seek endlessly
You don’t, well not especially well
Seize the slowly switching sides of you
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2. |
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Used to believe that I was pretty damn smart
And I still do, I guess
Though I know now that that has very limited uses
And it doesn’t do much to keep me out of a mess
Used to believe that the be all and end all
Was to think our way out of this idiocy
And while I still know it’s a requisite to not be a Republican
That only gets you just so far
Used to believe that if there isn’t a God
Then there still must be some kind of force under the world
And though that may be I don’t think it matters in the least.
Pretend what you can stomach, hey, whatever gives you peace
Who cares what I believe?
Just shup y’all now, and stagger where you please
Do you believe? I don’t care.
It doesn’t matter what you think or say
When what you do says otherwise
And what most of us are doing is work
And we will work and we will work
And then come home to other work
And the illusion of vacation doesn’t make you less a jerk
And when your leisure’s a reaction to the sucking things upon you
So the time that you kick back in
Is spent kicking back at the rest of the time
What the hell could it possibly matter what you’ve got to say about it
You can talk about the system, but you’re in it, and you are it
So who cares what you believe?
Just shup y’all now, and stagger where you please
What we think we might achieve is most often still diseased
As we define ourselves in terms of something foreign
Used to believe, when I grew up I’d be a god
I honesty did, sort of
When you see yourself expanding as a kid
You can imagine that it’ll keep that pace forever, but it won’t
And though your thoughts get much more nuanced
And you get over stupid fascinations
With what first might seem trippy or divine
You might no longer think you’re clever
When you “break out of the box"
'Cause you can see that you live in it
And your head is full of rocks
Just shup y'all now and leave
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3. |
Yours to Keep
03:18
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I’ll rent the sky for you
Make it the bluest blue over you
I’ll get the birds to sing
Melodies only God could think
I’ve ordered the universe to be on its best behavior
But there’s only one thing I can guarantee
I’ll be yours to keep
I’ll bring you the atmospheres
Of all that I know you hold dear
I’ve brought in the sounds and smells
Of all that you love so well
And there’s only one thing I can guarantee
I’ll be yours to keep
And if the bluest blue becomes a darkening gray
And if those atmospheres chase all the birds away
I know it’s still okay if the world misbehaves
I think, I know you’ll still be happy
'Cause all you want is me
And whatever else will be will be
I’ll be yours to keep
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4. |
Stop
04:03
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You terrify me, all of you
You dent the space that I live through
Your sweaty and invading hands
Your constant and implied demands
Just stop making me nervous
Just stop stealing my peace
Just stop boring me senseless
Just stop looking at me
I’m lost for words, I’m not to plan.
I shrink inside me if I can
My spinal cord is poised to strike
Well, I don’t judge, but I don’t like
Just stop making me conscious of not feeling myself
Just stop feeding my sadness
Stop bleeding my health
Your emotions spear me through
I feel two inches close to you
I’m feeling scarce and out the door
I’m wanting to cling to you more
Just stop leaving me lonely
Just stop making me boil
Just stop feeding me envy
Just stop being my foil
Just stop scaring me badly
Just stop feeling me sink
Just stop loving me sadly
Just stop making me think
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5. |
Lock Them Away
05:04
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Long drawn suffering action
Losers us all around
We keep our distance for to feel ourselves
Our roots burned into the ground
And if we singly should drop or be thrown down
We hope to collect on the love that we're owed
And we can break those who would dare to defy us
Remove them, lock them away
Lock them away, now they’re gone while we stay
The wreckage caused is without us
The tragic just passing by
When you're the one who's just lost all that he has
It's harder, then, to deny
And if we don't want to live with each other
We close eyes, as we may
If we're disgusted by some parts of ourselves
We remove them, lock them away
Lock them away, now they're gone, there they stay
Lost and criminal actions
Emerged from sources we've traced
What do we find if we examine this Other?
Hate I don't want to face
And so we close up and strike out again
Reacting as people have always done
Gather our decency and common sense, and
Remove them, lock them away
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6. |
Ring of Fire
02:43
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7. |
Boatyard
03:38
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In the boatyard I believe you
When you say you feel the mast collect and cast on through
In a warm space between your eyes
There’s no pain in spilling droplets as you capsize
When the hair below your temples stands itself on end
And your brow unfurls to heaven till you sleep again
In the boatyard I can see you
Though we lack collective dreaming I can need you
In a moment I’ll be with you
I’ll be drifting off to sea world with my head opened wide
In gaping moments when the lake floods in
And off floats my medulla and I don’t control
Relationships or work, or sex or maintenance
Of home or my accounting or the way I want to go
Then I unfold
In the boatyard I believe you
When you say you feel the heaving, well, I’ve been there too
In a warm space, spraying outward
Careful wash of euthanasia pointing onward
When you care the mold is simple and it’s got no end
If you’re pulled below the deck to take it yet again
You can flake out to the pulse of what I’m feeling inside
Waking headfirst open wide
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8. |
Something Else
04:29
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And with the pain in your head comes something else
And when you’re gone, I can feel it in myself
And I am on and on and off again
And when I’m on I don’t need your help
Wave, your life is passing
Wave and smile and down we go
Take my lovers
Take my friends
Take my good intentions
Take them, cast them to the wind
Wake my anchor
Wake my wrath
Wake my inner pissing
Wake it, thrash it, mix me up with love
Wave to Mommy
Wave goodbye
Wave until your hands rot off
Because they will, I tell ya, soon enough
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9. |
Words & Numbers
05:32
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Do you trust me?
Do you hate me?
Though you mock me
You still date me
And you know why
One forward
Two backward
Said absurd
Say that word
You’ve got fourteen, let seven go
I think that finally
You understand me
So you can truly
Be set against me
Tight against me
One forward
Two backward
Sweet absurd
Say that word
You’ve got fourteen, let seven go
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10. |
Cold
07:19
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In this cold I feel something wrong?
In my nose, on my lips and tongue
Kissed this dog I just met
Is that wrong? I forget
I‘m starting to
Slip and falter much too often
Feel my frozen eyeballs soften
Feel my blood; it’s slowing down
Lose my sense of sense, of center
Areas I should not enter
Beckon me to hang inside them
Knowing I’ve already tried them
Asked myself, am I really here?
Can I help feeling what I fear?
I don’t arrest myself, don’t indict myself
Don’t belittle, beat, or spite myself
But this northern clime is beating me
And I’ve let in time that’s cheating me
Shake a pen to spell out the abrasions
Even then, I’m asking for invasions
Of rocks and stones and sticks and bones
And things that might have hurt me in the past
Come around, they come around, and their irritations last
And I’ve known, yes I’ve known what they’re chasing for
In this weather my life looks piss poor
Some regrets just won’t leave
In this cold I believe
Pleading for some slim reprieve
I’m starting to
Feel my fingers turning rotten
Relive actions best forgotten
Coming back to sink on me
Feeling pressure on my shoulders
Shouldn’t I, by now, be older?
Long outgrown the stink of me
Wiped that stupid wink off me by now
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11. |
Feeling Time
03:07
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Hey, ho, watch you go
Tint my memory with a passing glow
Changing all, I think, I don’t know for you
Fine, fade, passing time
Seal my senses with a glossy grime
Drawn in full and resting my mind on you
I feel I hope
You won’t look back on me and feel you have to look away
You, when I was mine
Come off empty with an ass in line
Maybe the years will take off the shine from you
Love, loss, aftertouch
Pray the premise won’t amount to much
Pretty darn free, but left in the clutch of you
I feel I hope
You won’t look back on me and crack on me and
Fade out into black on me and wither into fact on me and
Feel you have to look away
Hey, ho, watch you go
Wipe my memory with a glancing blow
Changing what, I don’t care to know, for you
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12. |
Billie Jean
05:11
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13. |
Boatyard (Acoustic)
03:07
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14. |
Cold (Early Version)
04:14
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15. |
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16. |
Stupidly Normal (Live)
03:02
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17. |
Poor Lover (Live)
04:16
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18. |
When I Was Yours (Live)
02:24
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19. |
Axiomatic (Live)
05:09
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20. |
Raspberry Beret (Live)
03:45
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Mark Lint Madison, Wisconsin
Catchy, homespun tunes ranging in style from power pop to folk ballads to alt country, laced with a sense of the absurd.
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