Wedding ring and a hard hat
That was all that Christine got back
From the pile of woodchips
They found Paul

It wasn’t even the summer yet
It was a gig to get back on track
Overnight
At the trash burn plant

He wasn't taught how to stand on dust
The cops told her the lights had gone bust
They said m'am
Can you hear me m'am?

She says she’ll just keep driving
Driving down the canyon
She says that she’s tried talking
And sure sometimes it helps
Gotta try to give ‘em something
Try to get yourself remembered
Got a Coca-Cola vigil
Try to give ‘em
Hell

Every morning she's parked outside
Truck windows all taped with signs
In green sharpie
It says safety

But all the workers can do is nod
It's just a gig to get on and off
No m'am
You wanna talk to the boss

They put ash in the orchard dirt
They put grief in a stiff old shirt
But I believe
What I believe

She says she’ll just keep driving
Driving down the canyon
She says that she’s been talking
And sure sometimes it helps
Try to give ‘em something
Try to get yourself remembered
Got a Coca-Cola vigil
Try to give ‘em
Hell

There was someone that Paul called Cuz
He had a couple dogs he loved
They had a place
Above the lake

***

from Tell Yourself You're Going Home
© 2023 Clementine Was Right | The Blue Turn
All Rights Reserved

Lyrics by Mike Young
Arrangements by Clementine Was Right
Executive production by Gion Davis

Dick Darden — Heartbeat
Anne Holmes — Oboe
Evan Jeffers — Upright bass
Lisa Kori — Vocals
Nate McEwen – The other guitar
Scott Smerage – The guitar
Mike Young — The acoustic guitar, vocals, synths

Recorded in 2023 by Scott McEwen
at Memphis Magnetic Recording (901-310-8386) in Memphis, TN

Mixed by Ben Pisano at The Astuary
Mastered by Joe Lambert

Coca Cola Vigil

Trying the handle of every car
In the parking lot of the motel
Selling the gold from your tooth in the cold
To somebody who says you can’t tell

Visit your mother who’s washing her boots in the sea
Visit your father who’s shaving his face with his keys

Ask about those promises you couldn't get to float           
Ask em if there's something you should know

I didn't
Know your hands were cold, I didn't
Know my friends got old, I always
Threw the peels of oranges out
Somewhere in the snow

Buying the cans of beef stew with the stamps
That your teacher slid under your desk
Signing the names of the people ashamed
To be seen with your head on their chest

Visit your sister who's doing the numbers by hand
Visit your brother who's filling his mouth up with sand

Ask ‘em if this burning here will make it to the coast
Ask ‘em if there’s something you should know

I didn't
Know your hands were cold, I didn't
Know my friends got old, I always
Threw the peels of oranges out
Somewhere in the snow

I don’t
Remember how you laughed, I always
Thought I'd get the chance to ask
About the things we’d finally learn
How to both let go

Promises / your hands were cold
Promises / my friends got old
Promises / the oranges
Promises / the snow

Trying the handle of every car in the parking lot of the motel

***

from Tell Yourself You're Going Home
© 2023 Clementine Was Right | The Blue Turn
All Rights Reserved

Lyrics by Mike Young and Gion Davis
Arrangements by Clementine Was Right
Executive production by Gion Davis

Dick Darden — Drums, percussion
Isadora Eden — Vocals
Ben Pisano — Vocals
Nathan Smerage — Bass, guitar, more guitar, even more guitar
Mike Young — A little guitar, vocals, synths

Recorded in 2023 by Scott McEwen
at Memphis Magnetic Recording (901-310-8386) in Memphis, TN

Mixed by Ben Pisano at The Astuary
Mastered by Joe Lambert

Secret To Let Go

The sad old men drive up to the levee
In their widows’ motorhome
Say hey won’t you be my happenstance baby
Wave once they won’t leave you alone
Cassie got a job with a nice ring light
Mama got to get paid
Y’all make us out like we’re so damn sad
Cuz you made it out of this place

Why don’t you go out walking?
Cut through the river of smoke
Why don’t you tell me something
I don’t know?

There’s a scarecrow down in the tire stacks
My hair in the kitchen sink
There’s a skate or die sticker on the mother orange tree
Pretty sure it don’t care what I think
Drive your white Mustang to the rock quarry
Bring a Louisville slugger too
You named your kid Brooklyn Antoinette
What the fuck did you think she’d do?

Why don’t you go out walking?
Cut through the river of smoke
Why don’t you tell me something
I don’t know?

You always thought that the secret
The secret was something you touched
In the clay pits, the casinos, and the pickups
You always thought that the light
It poured out like some kind of syrup
But it’s ketchup, so we’re fuckups, so what?
It’s ketchup, so we’re fuckups, so what?
It’s ketchup, so we’re fuckups, so what?
It’s ketchup, so we’re fuckups, so what?

***

from Tell Yourself You're Going Home
© 2024 Clementine Was Right
All Rights Reserved

Lyrics by Mike Young
Arrangements by Clementine Was Right
Executive production by Gion Davis

Jude Brothers — Vocals
Dick Darden — Drums
Nathan Smerage — Bass
Angus Smith — Vocals
Mike Young — Guitar, vocals, piano, synth, percussion

Recorded in 2023 by Scott McEwen and Raif Box
at Memphis Magnetic Recording (901-310-8386) in Memphis, TN and Holy Anvil Recording in Fayetteville, AR 

Mixed by Ben Pisano at The Astuary
Mastered by Joe Lambert

It's Ketchup (We're Fuckups)

I wanted to live
in this junk drawer 
of a city with you
among the pyramids 
and piles of ripped up 
rebar like wads of hair
from a bristle brush 
beside the Mississippi. 
A rehabilitation of pigtails 
in the constant twilight 
of a motel room.
A Sudafed with your 
cold brew. I will feel out
how impressive 
I want to be today. 
Tennessee is a hallway 
stretching between 
the lottery numbers 
in a gas station
and sprays of redbud trees 
in some unmarked canyon. 
It’s important to be honest. 
It’s important to be 
emotional. I’m sorry
if I was bullshitting you 
before. I have measured out 
my life in Cook Out trays,
the synth in the middle
called insane glory,
the wisteria piled 
all over everything
like a beautiful rash 
and knowing which NASCAR
drivers died of AIDS. 
Life is a rental. 
Bad idea in cowboy boots.
You can be a hinge
in the door of reality
and give up 
on significance 
but I wanted 
to write something 
so full it felt empty,
an ornate bowl from the past 
filled with nothing
but what happened. 
I wanted everyone 
to tap me in the chest 
with the back of a hand 
to say goodbye 
like men do.
I wanted you to know 
I loved you the way
a concrete wall loves 
the color of the sky at dusk.
I loved you when you felt 
me up dirty and secret. I loved 
you when you cried while
you sang. It was as easy 
as Sunday morning leaving 
Athens where we stayed up 
eating curry with the hardcore
band and shouting 
about Defiance, Ohio. 
It was as hard 
as the wet, blue linoleum 
illuminated by the storm light
in Knoxville. It was invisible
until you couldn’t miss it
like the black dog 
in the black night
you hit with your ex 
wife’s car. It was that time
of day when even the pebbles
have shadows. It was a lot of things 
and couldn’t save us,
not even sympathetic magic
or rainbow flag decals,
summer looming
over the ocean
smelling like peaches
rotting off the branch
and never ending. 
I would have crossed 
state lines for less.

***

from Tell Yourself You're Going Home
© 2024 Clementine Was Right
All Rights Reserved

Poem by Gion Davis
Arrangements by Clementine Was Right
Executive production by Gion Davis

Gion Davis — Vocals
Jake DeMarco — Bass
Sumner Erhard — Drums, field recordings
Mike Young — Guitar, synth, piano

Recorded in 2024 by Mike Young
at Cold Den Studios in Denver, CO

Mixed by Mike Young
Mastered by Joe Lambert

Goddamn Universe

Let all your worries breathe
Let all your worries breathe
Fall off your horse, take an ax through your knees
Let all your worries breathe

Let your little eyes fill up
Let your little eyes fill up
With sawdust and mucus and moonlight and blood
Let your little eyes fill up

Let all your skin turn off
Let all your skin turn off
Let all your friends tap ignore on your calls
Let all your skin turn off

Lose all the people you love
Lose all the people you love
The only thing dust has to teach us is dust
Lose all the people you love

And everything that you
Were scared of is already true
Everything that you
Were scared of is already true

And I hope you lose all your dreams
The ones where you mop up the past
And you have to listen as God gives you reasons
Oh I hope you lose all those dreams

And I hope it’s nothing but dark
I hope it’s nothing but dark
No way to see all that's already lost
I hope it’s nothing but dark

And I hope the next time you’re back
There’s less that you have to pack
And I hope the next and the next
There’s less and there’s less and there’s less

And I hope the next time you’re back
There’s less that you have to pack
And I hope the next and the next
There’s less and there’s less and there’s less

Tell yourself you’re going home
Tell yourself you’re going home
Imagine a fire you can wear as a coat
Tell yourself you’re going home

***

from Tell Yourself You're Going Home
© 2023 Clementine Was Right | The Blue Turn
All Rights Reserved

Lyrics by Mike Young
Arrangements by Clementine Was Right
Executive production by Gion Davis

Dick Darden — Drums
Joseph Engel — Cello
Nathan Smerage — Bass, guitar, e-bow symphony
Mike Young — Guitar, vocals

Recorded in 2023 by Scott McEwen
at Memphis Magnetic Recording (901-310-8386) in Memphis, TN

Mixed by Ben Pisano at The Astuary
Mastered by Joe Lambert

Imagine A Fire You Can Wear As A Coat

Weer Weer Weer

This is the sound of archiving 42,000 slides into boxes after a day of photographically archiving them with a camera.  Humming the way that you hum when you are snapping beans or doing some other kind of tedium or chorelike thing.

Humming Like Home

"viv and the things" is the self-titled debut album from the Athens based trio. The album examines the impulse of cyclical behavior and the justifications we give for repeating ourselves, again.

candy mountain

gun to a pillow fight

welcome mat on an aircraft carrier

MAD DOG BITES

what i did for love

animal extraction club

TIME LOOPS OVER

All of the songs on Echoes and Experiments are created from a ukulele that has been detuned into an open chord with a pleasing sound.  I don't know the actual chord structure.  People have told me it's a G of some kind.  The songs are a product of figuring out how to play a detuned crappy instrument.  Mistakes are left and simply worked around, the way that trees with a broken branch accomodate by growing.  This album was written, and recorded during my Saturn Return, and is basically about it.  I am a Capricorn, Virgo Moon, Leo rising with a heavy emphasis on Scorpio and Sagittarius.  Let there be messes. Let there be sittings, standings and participation. 

Thanks to Benjamin Frederickson for photographs!  Cover art is an ink drawing by Heather Clark.  Thanks Mom and Dad, Bec and Hanuh, all my former lovers, all my future lovers, all my teachers, to Judy McHugh, to Nan Bishop, Meg Stern and all of the entire extended family of 1250 you know who you are, to Chris Farnetti, Noah Church, Sasha and the Spectrum.  To everyone who has ever come to a show anywhere - the stage doesn't exist without your participation and I hope this album, above all, can inspire you to get up and just do it.  We will clap for you.  

boygirl in athens that makes noise and lofi music across genres
1/3 of the things <333

like a long dark train decked in tinsel
like a horse eating a popsicle at night

New tracks tagged #bootgaze