“‘Return To The East’ is about going back to your roots, back to simplicity and in turn overcoming doubt, reclaiming personal identity and finding clarity and strength in who you are. 

It was written during a visit to my hometown of Montrose, on the East Coast of Scotland. I was on a bike ride towards Lunan Bay on a sun-drenched day when I entered a deep reflection triggered by the landscape around me. The sea, wild grasses and ploughed fields transported me back to my childhood. I was not long out of university at the time and was trying to find my feet, figure out who I was and what I wanted away from the external noise of city life in Glasgow and the influence of others.”

Return To The East

Written and Produced by Euan Blackman
Mixed by Tarek Musa @ Musa Studios
Mastered by Graeme Lynch @ 209 Mastering
Photo credit: Stu Price
Ripe Records 2024
With funding from Culture Liverpool/SIF

Lyrics:

Quarter life crisis
I don’t wanna grow old anyway
Cut my hair and I stain my shirt
All the darkness blocks the hurt

Is it always like this?
Struggling with the bills and microwave
Crush the bugs beneath my shoe
Make a wish that won’t prove true

‘Cause I am nothing to you
You’re just a child with eyes of blue
Sitting in a Metro ’95
Windows down keep the dream alive

Small town with nothing
Working 9-5 no extra pay
But I am proud of where I’m from
A little valley where no-one comes

I used to know her mother
She got forced to move out by the state
Corporate greed with a fancy bow
Take a memory, ruin a show

‘Cause I am nothing to you
You’re just a child with eyes of blue
Sitting in a Metro ’95
Windows down keep the dream alive
Oh alive

Oh I am nothing to you
You were my brother I never knew
Sitting in a Metro ’95
Windows down keep the dream alive

I am nothing to you
You’re just a child with eyes of blue
Sitting in a Metro ’95
Windows down keep the dream alive

NOTHING2U

Vine Song

Can't Catch Me Now!

a queer love story told through song 🌈

Sally the Monster Slayer

This is the third chapter from my upcoming album, Hearts Get Started. 

This album is a collection of songs written over several years, some of them being my oldest. It feels a little like a puzzle, with each song being its own world and story. When you put them together, they are stepping stones along the way of my musical adventure. I like to think of it as a prequel to our first album Disco Lasers. It's all the music that got me to that point.

Hearts Get Started

I Think I Just Saved My Own Life

There’s a permanent click track in my mind,
The metronome like a clock.
Tick tock Tick tock.
Within the head space.
The grasses grow long in the overground garden.
A simple mow will fill a wonderful smell of freshly cut grass into the metasphere.
Another track, control New, controlling you!
Press record. The subtleties of presumption transpire into a grey triangle.
A click track, bait, got to catch them all.
A catcher in the rye.
Slowly we sigh, expanding air through our mouths.
Clickerty clickerty clickerty clack.
The stop bar stopped so did our track.
We derailed, we failed, we bailed.
CTRL N, CTRL N, CTRL N.
We renewed and sat back and observed for a while.

Where the Wood Pigeons Coo,
Where the Wood Pigeons Coo,
Sat waiting for the news,
Sat waiting for the news,
Soon they can renew,
Soon they can renew,
Sat waiting for the blues.
Sat waiting for some clues.

Badgers stripe, scutterling, connected to ground.
Above the majestic kite, circling.

Where bats wings flap, 
Where bats wings flap,
Sonar waves.
Bouncing bouncing.
Soon we can renew.

In the forest; pine scent tickles nose hair,
Bare feet in bracken.

Baths of magnesium sulphate, floating, floating.
Stagnant Meres, Where wood pigeons coo.
Floating floating.
Ducks bath, floating floating
In stagnant Meres
Floating floating.

There’s a permanent click track in my mind,
The metronome like a clock.
Tick tock Tick tock.
Within the head space.
The grasses grow long in the overground garden.
A simple mow will fill a wonderful smell of freshly cut grass into the metasphere
Another track….
In stagnant meres.
In stagnant meres.
Stagnant meres.

High and Wasted (Radio Edit) [feat. Sock Drawer]

The Big Drink