1. |
Sweet Macedonia I (1996)
02:30
|
|||
|
Goodbye Macedonia
Though you are far away from me
You remain here in my heart
My sweet Macedonia.
|
||||
2. |
||||
|
To be desired
To be desirable
To be lovable
To love
But, baby, we are reprobates
Each other’s light alone reflects, illuminates
Our darkest parts
Baby, we are reprobates
Our bodies are not templates we can consecrate
Or desecrate
Or tear apart
Am I defending my right to get a happy ending that I never will, and I don’t know why?
I cannot be content on this side of the fence, it’s just the chlorophyll on the other side
To be desired
To be desirable
To be lovable
To love
But baby, I’m a reprobate
The lights in my life are too dark to navigate
To anywhere
Baby, I’m a reprobate
If I seem diluted, I can’t even concentrate
On anything
|
||||
3. |
||||
|
This is what I wanted to say:
I shoulder some of the blame
For disconnections and misunderstandings at speed
But any glimpse of yourself
Is like a book on a shelf
I cannot reach, in a language I cannot read
And it’s one thing to love and one to show it
It’s one thing to be loved and one to know it
It’s one thing to screw up and one to accept it
And another to expect it
Just one more twist and I’ll complete the Rubik’s Cube
Just one more seven or higher
But at the death, I fail the hero’s quest
The same old mistakes, the same poor decision-making
Gary Lineker with the highlights:
Football matches at twilight
Drives in mountains and crazy golf by the sea
And at the end of the line
That is connected to mine
Someone is wondering why they can’t get through to me
(I peeled the stickers off the cube
Put them in different spots
Hoped that it would make a solution more plausible
But it didn’t help, not at all:
It just got further away
It made the puzzle completely unsolvable.)
|
||||
4. |
Couldn't Get It Right
02:38
|
|||
|
I took a risk and invited you
To a barbecue
And you said “I’m vegetarian.”
I sent you ‘Ten Ways You Can Be Sure
You’re A Capricorn’
And you said “I’m Sagittarius.”
Wasn’t meant as a slight
Shouldn’t lead to a fight, but
I couldn’t get it right.
I’m well aware of the creature features
Bugs and features
Bug-eyed features you rate.
I’m well aware of the fictional planets
Moral panics
Descending chromatics you hate.
But try as I might
Try as hard as I like
I couldn’t get it right.
And I could paint you a picture
But I can’t do noses or hands.
Would I make you any richer
If I don’t understand that there’s choice in my hands when I’m making a stand? It’s just useless.
I’m sorry for all the dross I wrote
Abstract post-it notes
That I expected you to harmonise
I shouldn’t need all these second takes
All these fixes and breaks
That I expected you to empathise
I maybe got it half-right
Thought of all your favourites from ‘Twilight to Starlight’
But I couldn’t get it right
100,000 ways to make it alright, too late
I couldn’t get it right
I couldn’t get it right
|
||||
5. |
Voynich Manuscript
05:20
|
|||
|
I guess it’s hard to be
The only branch of your family tree
And everyone just leaves
Bears no fruit and never seeds
You’re the only book on your shelf
The essential core of yourself
A forgotten code
No-one solves or no-one reads
And you follow the paper trail
Up to the point of the first known sale
But the line goes dead
The trail goes cold
And no documentary
Series on the BBC
Can help you get ahead
Can get you solved
Viewers love a mystery
But it’s not an easy thing to be
Written in unknown writing
With no Rosetta
And they think that the enigma’s the point
That any answer’d disappoint
In fact, you’re hoping it’ll happen,
It’ll make you better
If nine people die in the snow
And you shrug and guess we’ll never know
Why they died, well that doesn’t help the survivors
You can give a kid a brand new start
You have their best interests at heart, but you can’t show
Where the landing site is
Am I attracted to the mystique?
Is it the glamour that makes it unique?
Is the mystery a guest or an intrusion?
And if I could complete the puzzle
Maybe it’d be nothing but an empty bubble
But at least it would be an answer, a conclusion
|
||||
6. |
||||
|
We were always playing at the thrill of it, thrill of it
Kissed in secret chambers that looked out on the ocean
Now it’s taking me over, now it takes me out
Just a little pleasure for the hell of it, the thrill of it
Just a little lightness in a life dark as the ocean
Now it’s taking me over, now it takes me out
You said you’d left him, but you didn’t
I guess you thought that you’d just keep that hidden from me
Well I thought you were more empowered
It doesn’t suit you, being such a coward
He’s everything that I’m not, I get it:
Likable. Successful. It’s all to his credit
But I was left with one clear impression
Outside the reach of my self-expression
When I saw you together
It stung my face, like a prick
Of frost in the January weather
Like a burn in a lace top to pick
And I guess being single
Is something I must face, like a prick
Of my finger on a poisoned spindle
It made me tired, but now it makes me sick
You said you could explain, but you couldn’t.
You called me up to clear the air, but you shouldn’t have tried
I don’t know what made me so vitriolic
You weren’t even that hyperbolic
He’s everything that I’m not, I see it:
Talented, positive, yes, I agree it’s quite nice
I never wanted to leave you damaged
I wanted you to do well, to manage
And I guess that I misjudged you and I
I was your crime and your alibi
Under cold night skies
(We were always playing at the thrill of it, thrill of it, just a little pleasure for the thrill of it, hell of it)
And I was a secret you could hold
Close when you came in from the cold
And the cold, the cold, the cold, it burns my face like a prick.
|
||||
7. |
||||
|
I want to go back to where I came in
I want to regain some optimism
The kid who wrote this song, I’m thinking of him
This evening
I have his four-tracks and his exercise books
I even retained some of his looks
And here I am, stealing his decades-old hooks
This evening
I’m not saying he found everything came easily
He had it as hard, even harder, than me
He didn’t really know himself or anybody,
Like any 14-year-old
I wouldn’t swap me for the teenage me
And be bad at talking to girls and chemistry
But I knew then that my whole life was in front of me
Not behind me
I want to be glad for the life I’ve been given
And for knowing there’s places to go more exciting than Lytham
And say “You’ve done me wrong but you are forgiven”
And mean it
Even if I’m recording still in my home studio
Even if I never made it, or got to turn pro
Even if I never got better at piano
I want to be comfortable
Sometimes my teenhood feels like a foreign country
Which I left years ago but which still affects me
And it’s no longer UN-recognised and never will be
But I remember it, maybe fondly
Goodbye Macedonia
Though you are far away from me
You remain here in my heart
My sweet Macedonia.
|
||||
Year Without a Summer Coventry, UK
Beach-shack post-punk. Solo play in the bedroom. Sailed from St Annes, washed up in Coventry. Interests include apocalypse survival, false memories, moths.
Year Without a Summer recommends:
Raising money for the Tin Music and Arts is a jam-up thing to do.
go to albumIf you like Year Without a Summer, you may also like:
Live In... New York City
by Tex Crick
Australian artist Tex Crick takes a low-key, 70s singer-songwriter approach to his latest collection of songs.
go to album
Market, from Melbourne, fuse soul and chillwave on a wonderfully woozy song with rubbery guitars & breathy harmonies.
go to album
These four songs from Melbourne-based Market are low-lit and soothing, soft vocals swaddled in tender guitar lines.
go to album
Sun Of A Gun
by Good Good Blood
Moody and moving, Good Good Blood’s “Son of a Gun” has a richness and breadth that belies its home-recording roots.
go to album
Kite Without a String
by Beach Moon/Peach Moon
One-man, shoe-gazey band's suitably summery follow-up to Paper Trail's last sunshine-kissed release by Cloud.
go to album
