The Wreckage
by Mark Lenover
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Full Digital Discography
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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.
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1. |
The Hunger
02:53
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Give us your daughters
Bring us your sons
We’ve got some graves to fill
and a slaughterhouse to run
You will curse our names
over and over and over and over again
Follow your master’s lead
Yeah, he’s so hungry
He’s got a beast to feed
Yeah, it’s so hungry
Lay down your bodies
Leave us your souls
Trade us your hardened hearts
for sulfur, death and smoke
Follow your master’s lead
Yeah, he’s so hungry
He’s got a beast to feed
Yeah, it’s so hungry
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2. |
The Coup
04:44
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It’s so dark, underground
We’re drunk on Marx
A dozen rounds plus one
Come out with your hands up, or you die
Throw your guns down and reach for the sky
The chopping block
The cold gray cells
We’ll make them talk
We’ll give them hell
Come on…
Come out with your hands up, or you die
Throw your guns down and reach for the sky
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3. |
Orpheus
04:14
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She was the picture of beauty and grace
He bottled her magic and fixed her in place
His music was written all over her face
He mined her perfection and chipped it away,
reducing his lover to poems and paint
As his gaze grew distorted his subject grew faint
Howling, Eurydice covers her face
as we carry her off to the vanishing place
Shuddering, Orpheus opens his eyes
A look nullifies her,
he blinks and it flies her
away…
His tributes were clumsy and tainted by lust
Her features were blunted and cold to the touch
She covered his failures with lipstick and blush
He’d harvest the melodies caught in her throat
He’d belch out the rhythm and raise her a toast
Of all his abortions, he loved her the most
Howling, Eurydice covers her face
as we carry her off to the vanishing place
Shuddering, Orpheus opens his eyes
A look nullifies her,
he blinks and it flies her
away…
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4. |
An Indelible Stain
02:41
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I am rushing at a bullet
and the bullet’s standing still
My heart’s racing toward a precipice
that contracts as winter kills
I am offering my poverty
I am offering my name
I am offering my sympathy
and an indelible stain
I am rushing at a bullet
and the bullet’s standing still
My heart’s racing toward a precipice
that contracts as winter kills
I am offering my silhouette
my physical remains
my naked triviality,
and an indelible stain
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5. |
The Plagiarists
04:32
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When the knell sounds
we’ll be called to account
and to justify
all the time that we’ve wasted ironing the emperor’s new clothes
The cuckoo’s are repeating,
“I know it all, I know.”
Just an echoing parody passing it’s dross off as gold
I know
I know
Well, I know
of that stylish chapel
where the plagiarists babble
and smoke
I know
of that great, worm-ridden apple
Yeah, the parasite’s addle-brained host
I know
With trend-setting arrogance
fashionable mannequins take their turns
They’re all blank and ridiculous, wrapped in thick blankets of smoke
Now their mockingbird’s singing,
“I know it all. I know.”
It’s a pompous, preposterous, grotesquely meaningless joke
Well, I know
of that stylish chapel
where the plagiarists babble
and smoke
I know
of that great, worm-ridden apple
the parasite’s addle-brained host
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6. |
Vampires
02:55
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A parting kiss
A black arm-band
If you can’t have it, no one can
I feel like I’ve been condemned
I feel like I’m burning at both ends
How did your spooks make out?
What are your informants on about?
Stop scratching at my bedroom door
and get out from underneath my floorboards
Give me a sign
Give me a sign
Get the hell out of my deathbed
I never invited you in
so collect all your friends and go
and don’t forget the demons in the radio
You’re all vampires
Never come back,
you pigs
you haunted filth
Make your way to the place where the weather kills
Give me a sign
Give me a sign
You’re all vampires…
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7. |
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I’m just a bundle of suppressed nervous ticks
My medication is making me sick
A fog upon the brain
A stagnant cloud which neither storms nor dissipates
I was a fury of force and holy fits
I was a turbulent, productive narcissist
But as I live and breath I am being erased
by tiny increments, with every pill I take
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8. |
Medusa's Hair
03:23
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We’ve all learned how to hide
behind decadent tricks of the mind
We savour the distance we sow
between us and the rest of our kind
We’re all mixed up
each in noxious, insulating clouds
We’re all mixed up,
decked out in blinders and burial shrouds
I was walking on eggshells
spitting filth at the sun
Medusa’s hair was everywhere at once
So it goes…
A soft, secretive fear,
settles and stops up my ears
against the crazed, smouldering cries
of my brothers and sisters in tears
We’re all mixed up
We’ve set our broken hearts in stone
We’re all mixed up
We’ve made our haunted hovels home
I was walking on egg-shells
spitting filth at the sun
Medusa’s hair was everywhere at once
I hid behind a blindfold
gulping brimstone and stunned
Medusa’s hair was everywhere at once
So it goes…
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9. |
Down
02:47
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Now, to face the sunrise
the breaking of the waves
Come all yea feckless invalids
It’s time to face the day
As you walk upon eggshells
you swallow the flame
as you baulk at the mirror
you plaintively make your way
down
Now, to face the evil eye
the thunderheads and blight
Your withered guide
comes slinking by,
he crumples and sighs
As you wallow in victimhood
you clutch at your sides
Come all yea cloistered lunatics,
it’s time to say goodnight
As you crawl upon eggshells
you bask in disgrace
As you baulk at the mirror
you wearily make your way
down
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10. |
Malice
03:16
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I’ll leave you to sleep through your delicate fantasies
Leave you your eyes and your agonized smile
I’ll leave you to hide behind sheltering lunacy
Tricks of the mind played out in black and white
I’ll leave you alive, and this merciful cruelty
sucks all the life from your fetid remains
I’ll leave you your mind, just to watch you go out of it
Leave you the time to befoul your good name
I’ll leave you to lie with your own executioners
Leave you alive, to die over and over again
I’ll leave you alive…
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11. |
Repent
03:13
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Blank manifestos
The rustling of leaves
The lives of the scarecrows
The wind in the trees
The unnoticed rapture
A simple refrain:
“How is your master, and what is his name?”
How can what’s lost be saved?
How can our debts be paid?
You fall asleep and you fall apart
You fall in love and it breaks your heart
To a sinner on Monday, it’s a long way to Sunday
We sleep with the dead
An ancient infraction
A common excuse
A joyful reception
A loving rebuke
How can what’s lost be saved?
How can our debts be paid?
You fall asleep and you fall apart
You fall in love and it breaks your heart
To a sinner on Monday, it’s a long way to Sunday
We sleep with the dead
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12. |
The Sober Few
03:22
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The sidewalks are spinning underfoot
I think another drink would do me good
I think another round should set me straight
I’ll raise another to the sober few
I wouldn’t get too close if I were you
It’s bound to put me past all self-restraint
Dancing under lights upon a crowded floor
a hair beyond oblivion and shame
I wouldn’t mix with us if I were you
I wouldn’t mess with us if I were you
Men of straw are easily blown astray
I do miss you
I do miss you
The sober few
I do miss you
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13. |
The Recital
04:05
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Give us a proper taste of lunacy
Stand up and give us a recital
Tell us of your psychotic fever dreams,
of sickness of the soul and survival
Tell us all about degeneracy
and thick pharmaceutical pollution
Tell us all about the blight you’ve seen
and your frantic struggle for a solution
Don’t forget to mention
the dragons at your back
The apocalyptic engines
that burn the blue sky black
Tell me all about the people you meet
when you’re paralyzed and idle
Smoke and drink a blend of vodka and bleach
and await the speckled serpent’s arrival
Raise a glass and tell us, how does it feel
to drown your pale and languishing virtues
You live in fiction, but your weakness is real
and what you don’t know can hurt you
Don’t forget to mention
the dragons at your back
The apocalyptic engines
that burn the blue sky black
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about
I would like to dedicate this album to my loving parents, to my brothers, and finally to my good friend Dave Disher for his invaluable contributions and continued support. I hope you enjoy listening to The Wreckage. - Mark Grayson Lenover
credits
released March 27, 2012
All songs written, performed and recorded by Mark Lenover.
Mastered by David Disher.
Cover Design by Mark Lenover.
All songs written, performed and recorded by Mark Lenover.
Mastered by David Disher.
Cover Design by Mark Lenover.
license
all rights reserved
tags
about
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
discography
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Jul 2019 -
Oct 2018 -
Apr 2016 -
Jul 2014
contact / help
Mark Lenover recommends:
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Nightmare House
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Recent solo album by my good friend and mastering engineer David Disher. Inspired by modern technology's capacity to alienate.
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That Christmas Feeling
by Scarlett & DisherMy friends and collaborators Scarlett & Disher have crafted an inventive and dynamic Christmas EP consisting of 4 traditional songs and one original.
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