Get all 14 Mark Lenover releases available on Bandcamp and save 25%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of A Small White Flag, All Dressed In Rags, Wandering Stars, Every Time It Rains, We're In Motion Pictures, Obliterate, Signs of Violence, The Arsonists, and 6 more.
1. |
One in Six
02:35
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He’d tell his mother how to
catch butterflies in plastic tubes
To crush, crush, crush them into paste
But now his neck-tie has him
He scours the newspaper for clues
about how his tails get tucked away
for the day, every day
Clickety-click-click-clickety-click
This bastard’s favourite threnody
is five clicks and a bang
a halting, reckless fantasy
he dreamt to chase the rain away
A dancing, dirge-ious, curious clink
One wonders what his wife will think
He’ll dance to one in six
He remembers how to type,
and when it’s best to clear the room
He remembers daddy’s hand-shake
Slap-slap, you’ll be a man soon
He wants to chill the waters
He wants to stew in silence
He wants to play the victim
wants to snap-snap the carousel shut
Clickety-click-click-clickety-click
This bastard’s favourite threnody
is five clicks and a bang
a halting, reckless fantasy
he dreamt to chase the rain away
A dancing, dirge-eous curious clink
One wonders what his wife will think
He’ll dance to one in six
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2. |
Molly Had a Little Lamb
04:01
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Molly turns the light on as she turns the alarm off
Yeah she rails against her daughter’s fits and gives the kid a cuff
‘cause she’s late to catch her bus, and mommy’s had enough
of her precocious wit today
Molly backs into the house to wipe her face off of the dirt
She forgets to eat her breakfast, so she passes out at work
Now the secretaries look at her as though she
needs the fat sucked from her head,
until she’s cold, and limp, and dead
and just as pleased as peaches
Tuck your heart away
You won’t be needing it today
We hate to say it, but you’re bound to break it
if you don’t take special care
Missed call
Dammit all!
Have you any life insurance
Cut backs
Where’s the kid?
Have you any wool?
Mama Mommy Mother-dearest don’t send me to private school
I promise, promise I’ll do better Daddy won’t cheat any more
Come now, come now
Give the girl a promise Molly
Come now, come now
Give the girl your word
Have you any life insurance?
Have you any wool?
Poor old Molly’s off her trolley
(Day-in, day-out)
Poor old Molly’s gone right ‘round the bend
Molly’s husband crawls to dinner, inspecting his lover’s work
His left hand holds a looking-glass and the other’s in the lurch
Picking up and throwing plates, demanding Molly gets a face-lift
for his forty-fifth birthday
She’s better let the baby have its way
or he’ll be sore, as sure as sugar
Molly turns to switch the light off as she turns the water on
The leaves left in her cup tell her that life’s bound to go on
Then she lays her head down, counting sheep and dreaming
about getting hers some day
Tuck your heart away
You won’t be needing it today
We hate to say it, but you’re bound to break it
if you don’t take special care
You can hide it anywhere
or you can just forget it
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3. |
Mean Old Missus Schmidt
02:55
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She showed up at her psychiatrist
She blew her nose, and he looked delighted
The tumours spilled out into her handkerchief
The good doctor lit his pipe and grinned
‘Cause everybody knows her paranoia
was solely cause by a trans-dimensional shift
She files her teeth down for all of her boy-friends
and everybody calls her Mean Old Missus Schmidt
She can’t stand romantic melodies
She don’t get, where she fits in
She just bolts and shudders miserably
Mister, mister! Try again
Don’t linger long by the cemetery
You can’t be sure where all those hands have been
Don’t let the boys help with that load you’re carrying
Gallantry’s dead, and what’s more it’s a sin
Take it as it comes and choke it down
Take it as it comes and choke it down
Take it like a lover and choke it down
Take it as it comes and choke it down
She can’t stand romantic melodies
She don’t get where she fits in
She just bolts and shudders miserably
Mister, mister! Try again…
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4. |
It Howls
03:38
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It came up from the wetlands, under Waverly Hill
It came, quiet and crazy, then it stood perfectly still
It stunk of the tunnel, it stunk of dying too young
It had ash on its eyelids and it had snow in its lungs
and the evening came running, like a slave at its beck and call
Its girls hide in letters, and they play in its halls
Its boys sleep in garbage, and they come when they’re called
It, cringing, comes at you its teeth chattering in time
It cracks at its sternum, and it’s light of its mind
It whispers and worries, as the vandals on watch unwind
It fell at Wood-haven, and lay splintered and cold
on a heavy foundation, sinking into the soil
It stinks of the tunnel, and its casts are undone
It’s got ash on its eyelids, it’s got blood on its tongue
So in a bed of old rafters it takes the wind to its lungs and howls…
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5. |
Burying Bernadette
03:50
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I buried a friend today
Poor thing, she went in a common sort of way
Such a pretty face, balanced on a bottle-neck
It makes you wonder why they’d bother
sewing it back on
Do you think she came clean in the bath?
Bernadette lost her head
for a drink and a cigarette
Now you can see,
what she missed, in the mirror that she kissed
in what was wiped clean
Do you remember that scene?
I remember it clearly
Do you think
she came clean in the sink,
holding her hair back
gulping the air back?
Do you think she
slipped out feeling sorry
for herself
and nobody else?
She should have been left with something to write with
or at least someone to die with
Did you see how they cut her hair off?
Oh, what does she care now?
Give us something to tear down
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6. |
untitled
01:53
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7. |
Finch the Flincher
02:10
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Mr. Finch collects physicians, he calls them all his own
But each of them just looks at him and tells him to go home
Then panic closes in
I hope that whiney shit gets his
He might be sick, but it isn’t catching
though he’s often left alone
in waiting rooms to wonder why his hands are always cold
He comes when he remembers why he’s scared
when the sullen gods of dirty things
are calling out and holding him
back from behind things he can’t recall,
at least not anymore
He hopes to write a book of them some day
He can’t believe how quickly things pile up
He’d wish to live forever if he had the chance to wish
He always forgets the good things that he’s got
He passed as an actor playing a spineless, flinching twit
Well composed and polite,
he hoped he’d be alright
if he kept dancing here
with his thumbs in his ears
but there was something catching up to him
and it had claws
and I know exactly what he thinks it was
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8. |
The Girl in the Window
04:06
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He writes as he tilts his head
to catch the whispering, up with
the hiss of tape recorders
But there ain't nobody there
Oh no, there ain't nobody there
Then he goes out to the shops
that line up outside his house
He'll always pause at his reflection
but there ain't nobody there
Oh no, there ain't nobody there
But he's got friends behind the glass
"How much you want for the girl in the window
I'll give you twice whatever you think she's worth
I'll give you all that and more to see her cured"
He has and argument with his lover
She'd slipped poisonous snakes into his supper
every night since they'd first met
though she pretends that she forgets
Now he puts his collar up,
and goes back out to the shops
to settle a bet with his supplier
as his lover wakes up wet
well secured and coloured in
Now she's safely pressed underneath the glass
Oh yeah, she's safely pressed underneath the glass
"How much you want for the girl in the window?
I'll give you twice whatever you think she's worth
I'll give you all that and more to see her cured."
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9. |
Love Song
02:06
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Baby girl, you know I love you
You know I’ll never let go of you
and if we ever lose each other
I’ll meet you at our table in the dark
Baby girl, you know I love you
You know I’ll never get tired of you
I’ll always be there to take you home
whenever you wander off on your own
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10. |
The Music Box
04:04
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He kept her locked,
in his mother’s antique jewelry box
and she’d always spin when he called
like a good little girl
She’d remind him of his mother and
the pin-up girls his father kept
a secret in the bottom of his dresser drawer
He’d always loved her for
the gentle way she’d tilt her head
and that sad-eyed grin she wore
With her hair tied back, she would pirouette
across her mahogany course
He’d tell her it could be worse
Then he’d shut her up in the dark again so that he
could say his prayers
And he’d search for God in a darkening room
but God’s not in the dark, and He’s not in the gloom
He’s not in the fire that follows you home
every day after school, when you’re walking alone
He’s not in those tremors that shake you from bed
and He’s not in those hideous dreams in your head
but He waits in the silence
that great guilty silence that falls
when the music stops
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Mark Lenover
Through a distinctive fusion of folk, rock, theatre and electronica, Mark Lenover critically examines pop culture’s ubiquitous influence, its moral philosophy and the potentially devastating effects of drug abuse and mental illness. His recent work frequently challenges an increasingly pervasive culture of celebrity, self-indulgence, distraction and desire. ... more
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