Get all 12 Doug McKean releases available on Bandcamp and save 35%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of The Stars Have All Fallen from Your Sky, Wildfire Sun, Kissing Booth, Mutatis Mutandis, The Second Golden Age of Piracy, Between Gray and Silver, The Sprinkler Song, Dear Santa, and 4 more.
1. |
Cowboy Show
03:33
|
|||
|
A new source and a familiar sound
Whispering “Hell goes round and round”
All they want is for time to stand still
And if it won’t, then they will
They want a cowboy show
On the streets of upper Manhattan
They want a cowboy show
Where anything can happen
Throw your hands up in despair
Shrug your shoulders like you just don’t care
It’s a land full of fear, the home of the proud
And the quiet desperation is getting loud
I thought I was immune to
Anything I was attuned to
I came from the place that I left
And now I’m gone for good
The wild come home
But I’m gone, for better or for worse
|
||||
2. |
Shoot the Light
02:54
|
|||
|
Flesh and blood
I am human
I am second in command
Light of love
Guide my movements
In better times I was a better man
Feel the heat
My surroundings
Have crowded my domain
Feel unclean
My heart pounding
I shoot the light into my veins
What was once outside has now moved in
What was once inside has now moved on
Heed the words
Of the healers
There’s a destruction in this land
As my conscience
Put out feelers
I was exactly what I am
|
||||
3. |
Kangaroo City
02:51
|
|||
|
He’s a quiet man with a big mouth
A stoicism that cannot keep out rain
Lashes out at a mere suggestion
Lashes out if you dare to question his name
Brings rules where they don’t belong
He’ll scoff when you try to plead
If you’re out in the cold he’ll advise you
Why you’re obliged to freeze
Doesn’t owe it to you to be honest
You can see the disdain written on his face
Hasn’t even his own perspective
He doesn’t know anything except his place
The beer is cold and the grass is green
Who cares if the girls are pretty?
Calling all aboard the last train
Next stop, Kangaroo City
There’s always someone sitting in judgment
Everything appeared alright until it wasn’t
Justice is slow and sudden
Grabs no whip when he draws the curtain
Bears no mark of his own uncertainty
Wears neither hoof nor horn but
Brings forth the face of a cornered beast
|
||||
4. |
Runaway Helicopter
04:24
|
|||
|
Can’t run
Can’t hide
Inside
Come around to the bad religion
Bad faith
Wearing at you
Knowing that you
Can’t shield yourself forever
Pull the curtain
On the cradle
Now we’re able
To decipher the contents of your mind
Eavesdrop
Behind the curtain
Now we’re certain
It’s gonna be this way forever
There’s a war going on
It’s a million years long
She speaks
From the mountain
And she’s countin’
As her flock gathers 2 by 2
One shot
To the choppers
Can’t stop her
She’s a runaway helicopter
There’s a war going on
It’s a million years long
Then the devil crept in
Using doubt as a weapon
“I want to make you mine
Until the end of time”
Hedging bets against deliverance
Gunshots
From your neighbor
From your savior
Come around to the bad religion
Bad faith
Tearing at you
Knowing that you
Can’t run, can’t hide inside forever
|
||||
5. |
Suddenly Summer
02:02
|
|||
|
Hear those motors running
Now we’ve had our silent spring
As the world moved on
While we didn’t do a thing
It’s suddenly summer
And it feels like something major
Our eyes as bright
As quarantine agers
It’s suddenly summer
And the kids are making lemonade
Step out into the world
As the mountains start to fade
It’s suddenly summer
Someday fall could come sudden too
As the birds and the bees and the flowers and trees
Tell us how we grew
Sheltered and we distanced
Surrendered our dominion
Left the fate of the world
Subject to opinion
It’s suddenly summer
We’ve communed with the gods and the spirits
Left a tree to fall
With no one to hear it
|
||||
6. |
Howlin'
03:14
|
|||
|
Night falls on the desert
We trace ourselves in the moonlight
Measuring ourselves against circumstance
Hear that coyote break through the serene
Hear him howlin’
Come a little bit closer
Don’t you be afraid
What’s a pretty thing like you doing in a place like this?
I know the things to do to you
To leave you howlin’
Tonight we have no past
And no one knows the future
You look like you could use a friend
Would you be an outlaw for my love?
I’ll leave you howlin’
|
||||
7. |
Kintpuash
04:31
|
|||
|
Four men sing
Over a three-eyed skeleton
In harmony
That turns bone to gelatin
Armies line
Up information
Allies scheme
To save their own skin
I saw my future in your face before you died
Now I am hunted for my loyalty
I misjudged
On your arrival
Now I run
For my survival
I look out
For six-legged horses
As I’m pushed
By familiar forces
I surrender to you all dressed up in blue
Knowing what lies ahead
There are many secrets
There are no mysteries
|
||||
8. |
||||
|
It’s Thursday the 12th
He’s got a premonition
Exorcism left him empty
There’s no cure for his condition
And he daydreams
About a long lost kiss
He’s run aground
On memory bliss
He’s the kid who jumped the turnstile
At the only game in town
Grasp caught up to his reach
Or was it the other way around?
He don’t think of himself
As a troublemaker
Troublemakers never do
It’s Thursday the 12th
And they’re breaking ground
On a new cemetery
Across the way from the zoo
He looks out on creation
It’s majestic where it’s not shoddy
A world full of ideas
Men are too small to embody
The bullet from the rifleman
The arrow from the archer
Are locked into place
And prepared for departure
Been in one place for years
Only advice he’s kept
When you’ve lost something
You retrace your steps
As the world learns
To speak in code
There’s still a big bag of money
In the middle of the road
When life seems so lifelike
Look in his eyes and you’ll see
A bottled ship
In the second golden age of piracy
Out where the gannets and the petrels
Patrol the sea
High above
The second golden age of piracy
|
||||
9. |
||||
|
Maintaining order does not come free
Now you must water the tree of liberty
Maintaining silence as foundations crack
Requires violence, requires your neck
You’ll be an MLK, you’ll be a Kennedy
On that fateful day when everybody sees
In a twisted mirror where things seem strange
Things disappear because nothing may change
|
||||
10. |
Dreams of Oblivion
03:00
|
|||
|
Dreams of oblivion haunt my sleepless nights
Breaking an ocean, bending darkness and light
And when I wake in the morning the fear does too
If it hasn’t been at me the whole night through
It’s the terror that comes from telling myself
The world’s gonna end somewhere else
Dreams of oblivion haunt my waking thoughts
Soft resignation, hard to change or turn off
We feel for each other as we straddle the fence
Or empty our lungs when there’s no consequence
We sink ourselves deeper, ensnared in the trap
Of putting this place on the map
We’re going backward because we’re tired of going nowhere
Dreams of oblivion, pictures of faceless men
Driven by forces that may or may not come from within
When anonymous visions of divisions appear
Commanded by men with the grim reaper’s ear
They’re not coming for you, get a hold of yourself
The world’s gonna end somewhere else
No path leads away from what’s happening to us now
It’s not our place to do less than endure
Dreams of oblivion haunt my sleepless nights
And when everything’s gone and they tell me the news
I’ll be back in my laboratory lighting the fuse
Now that history’s over and the future is here
The world can slowly disappear
|
||||
Doug McKean Cleveland, Ohio
Catchy songs and biting lyrics with a variety of sounds ranging from punk to soul to folk.
New single 'The Stars Have All Fallen from Your Sky' out now!
If you like Doug McKean, you may also like:
The Chicago queer power pop band gets genuine and giddy on their debut album.
go to album
South Philly band Grocer has all the sly disaffection of classic ’90s indie rock in their wonderfully unruly songs.
go to album
Quarter Life Crisis
by Pinksqueeze
The self-described "queer mom-rock band" bring their playful sound to their second project.
go to album
Oakland artist Kevin Nichols blends his love of pop melodies and Nirvana guitar tones on this first single from an upcoming full-length.
go to album
World's Strongest Dog
by Long Neck
A churning indie-rock meditation on relationships and personal struggle from the New Jersey band, propelled by powerhouse vocals.
go to album
Wry indie rock from Melbourne with ambling guitars and perfectly calibrated, wonderfully aloof lyrics.
go to album
A side project of Drew Auscherman of Hoops, Permit cram a truckload of hooks into songs the size of a Smart car.
go to album
