A change of pace today with a three-song tribute to Scott Hutchison, frontman and sublime songwriter of the band from Selkirk and Glasgow, who sadly passed away this week aged just 36. He suffered from depression and anxiety throughout his career, but found a way to cope through songwriting. His lyrics often pertained to an early departure, but did so with rare beauty, sometimes even with dark humour. But tragically, it has happened. Our best wishes go out to his friends and family.
The first song is from the band's critically acclaimed second album, The Midnight Organ Fight (2008), and the others are the first and last from Painting Of A Panic Attack (2016), their last before a new project, Mastersystem, this year. The lyrics speak for themselves:
So you just stepped out
Of the front of my house
And I'll never see you again
I closed my eyes for a second
And when they opened
You weren't there
And the door shut shut
I was vacuum packed
Shrink-wrapped out of air
And the spine collapsed
And the eyes rolled back
To stare at my starving brain
And fully clothed, I float away
(I'll float away)
Down the Forth, into the sea
I think I'll save suicide for another day
And I picture this corpse
On the M8 hearse
And I have found a way to sleep
On a rolled up coat
Against the window
With the strobe of the sun
And the life I've led
Am I ready to leap
Is there peace beneath
The roar of the Forth Road Bridge?
On the northern side
There's a Fife of mine
And a boat in the port for me
Fully clothed, I'll float away
(I'll float away)
Down the Forth, into the sea
I'll steer myself
Through chopping waves
As manic gulls
Scream "it's okay"
Take your life
Give it a shake
Gather up
All your loose change
I think I'll save suicide for another year.
It was dawn. And the kitchen light was still on
I stepped in, found the suicide asleep on the floor
An open mouth, screams and makes no sound
Apart from the ring of the tinnitus of silence
You had your ear to the ground
White noise. I don’t know if there’s breathing or not
Butterflied arms, tell me that this one has flown
Blood seems black
Against the skin of your porcelain back
A still life is the last I will see of you
A painting of a panic attack
You died in my sleep last night
You died in your sleep last night ... etc
(Even now, when asleep, I’ll tread with care)
Death dreams you don’t forget
It’s been a while since I dreamed this
Even now, when asleep, I’ll tread with care
Death dreams you don’t forget
It’s been a while since I dreamed this
Even now, when asleep, I’ll tread with care
Death dreams you don’t forget
It’s been a while since I dreamed this
Even now, when asleep, I’ll tread with care
Death dreams you don’t forget
It’s been a while since I dreamed this
Even now, when asleep, I’ll tread with care.
I need to find somebody who can tear me away
From the car crying babies and switchblade days
The bark of the unemployment hounds
And the thought of the thick, white skull on the ground
I won’t die in the bony arms of the state
To be laid to rest in the wake of the faded town.
And if the raincoats come to steal my home
There’s a big white house at the end of the road
I can see you wrapped in Egyptian thread
In a marble garden, immune to the mess
If you leave this world in a rhinestone shroud
We could finally make your father proud.
If I leave this world in a loaded daze
I can finally have and eat my cake.
I want to die like a rich boy diving
In a hydrocodone dream
You can die like a rich girl by me
Oh how the magazines will read
I‘ll die like a rich boy bathing
In a milk bath I could drown
Want to die like a rich boy
Even if we’re as poor as we are now.
I want to die like a rich boy drowning
In a lake that bears my name
You can die like a rich girl by me
Flushed and radiant with fame
I wanna lie in state on the TV
In a golden cardboard crown
Want to die like a rich boy
Even if we’re as poor as we are now.
Well I found you now so tear me away
From the feral street they lumped us in
I’ll be Shakespeare’s moonstruck king
We can lose our minds at the top of the hill
We burn cash and carry a decadent flame
Way into the night and beyond the grave.
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