Get all 17 Tyler Shipley releases available on Bandcamp and save 30%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Confusing Times, Feathers They Fall, Theory and Praxis, True Stories, Fall's Autumn, Every Glacier and Crevasse, Old Trees, Three of Wands, and 9 more.
1. |
Albumtross
02:24
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Jason Molina died and I took it personal and in my cold room I cried because the world just didn't care about my overwhelming sense that everything was fixed against me and my happiness; an albumtross around my neck. After Loretta left and she cut off her hair and when I woke up in the night there were just some cold sheets where a body used to be, a body I held too close, the body of a women I never really got to know. Things and people come and go from my life at their will and they don't understand or care what they break or what they spill. And why should they? I'm all grown up. Haven't I? I can drive a car, make a chili, and keep two cats alive.
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2. |
Chichicastenango
03:52
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Narrow paths and wooden stalls, painted signs hang on the walls. Burning pine hangs in the air. Where is our love? It could be anywhere in Chichicastenango. The heat is heavy in the clouds, everybody's breaking down. It's gonna rain, I'm gonna split. Our love, there's nothing left of it in Chichicastenango. A pretty room on the edge of town, walls of blue and shades of brown. Staring through the ceiling on my back. This isn't love, this is something bad in Chichicastenango.
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3. |
Warren Zevon
03:08
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Sometimes I stretch a metaphor too many verses, too many choruses, straining to say something real, to make some meaning out of what I feel. Why do I write songs anymore? I never play shows, I hardly record, I don't have a band, and I don't have a blog, don't have followers nodding along. Still, I tinker with every word, think "ok, what if Gareth heard this? Would he cringe at the honesty? Or roll his eyes at a tired cliché? Or would he suddenly understand some shit that happened to his best friend?" Why do we desperately need to be known? This is Tyler: he wasn't alone. I could write literally any fucking thing, there's no Pitchfork listening, but one bad line and I'll be so embarrassed, picture Mat Klachefsky throwing chairs. Is this what having a problem means? I'm not Al Stewart, I'm not the Black Keys, I don't have a record deal on the line, I'm just a skinny guy spending too much time trying to write by the glow of the phone. The cat keeps rubbing the pen with his nose. Did Warren Zevon deal with this shit? Gonna get excitable if you don't watch it. Maybe someone will fall in love with the way I say I've had enough to somebody else, it's pretty weird, I write songs to people they never hear.
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4. |
Uncreator
05:52
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Honestly? This is bullshit. 2015 can eat it. I've already written an album, it's already longer than anyone's attention. If you're listening, the things that I love you keep taking. If the lesson is that you're the creator, create me a cat without cancer. When you took, in your wisdom, my father, I lay in my bed for an hour. The creature you sent to sit by me? The sentinel now you afflict. Attention, if you're listening, the things that I love you keep taking. If the lesson is that you're the creator, create me a cat without cancer. Deliver me from a sermon, cos I've got an early morning to take my best friend to the doctor. I'll write the last line when you give me your attention. If you're listening. The things that I love you keep taking. If the lesson is that you're the creator, create me a cat. Without. Cancer.
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5. |
Monuments
03:13
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Well I don't know whose house this is, but Pacquiao is throwing lefts faster than I can say "thank you friends but we all know I'm not Mark Kozelek." Won't you please keep talking to me? This ain't where I'm supposed to be. Monuments of generosity; crumbling stone and rusting steel. And how I hope for better things. Ain't no punching out of these crystal prison sentries. Oh am I a better man?
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6. |
The Old Streetcar
05:21
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Ride the old streetcar down the road, ride the old streetcar down the road, I ride the Bathurst streetcar down the road to the Toronto Western Hospital. To sit with my girl while she shimmy and shakes, to sit with my girl while she shimmy and shakes, she got the epilepsy makes her shiver and shake and the doctor don't know how to make it break. Took a taxi home, I was tired out. A taxi home I was tired out. I took a taxi cross town I was tired out, gonna watch Vancouver kick the Leafs about. When I got in, was a ring on my phone. When I got in, was a ring on my phone, it's the hospital nurse calling me at home, she said "your girl's escaped and she's all alone." She pulled a Wolverine and she's on the loose, she pulled a Wolverine and she's on the loose, she ripped out the IV and she's on the loose and my throat wanna close like a tightened noose. Call her baby daddy tell him the news, call her baby daddy tell him the news, "yes, this is real, no, it ain't a ruse" situation getting heavy I propose a truce. Took a subway to see that the kids are ok, a subway to see that the kids are ok, ok, ok, yeah, the kids are ok, "going looking for your mama, please just sit and play." Found my girl on the streetcar track, found my girl on the streetcar track, looking peaceful down there on the streetcar track, cos she took a lot of pills for to never come back. Hustled her up to a platform chair, hustled her up to a platform chair, got her sitting straight up in a platform chair, she said, "what the hell is this, I was fine down there." The girl's got trouble, yes I know, the girl's got trouble, yes I know, she got troubles I know she got troubles I don't, and I'm helping her carry a heavy load. Ain't doing my work, ain't getting my sleep, ain't doing my work, ain't getting my sleep, ain't no way to get me a good night's sleep, chasing one or another emergency. Tell me what else am I supposed to do? Tell me what else am I supposed to? If you was me and I was you, you'd be singing this song just the way I do.
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7. |
I Forgive You Ryan Adams
03:18
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I forgive you, Ryan Adams. I forgive you, Ryan Adams. Cos everybody makes a couple bad takes. I forgive you, Ryan Adams. I remember Wolf Blitzer covering the first Iraq War, and I forgive you, Ryan Adams, cos no one ever died of shitty albums. Nothing can replace Heartbreaker and you're not an internal investigator of the dirty, dirty cops. You're not letting them off. So I will always love Heartbreaker. I forgive you, Ryan Adams. As far as I know, you've never punched anyone. So I can let go of Rock N Roll and if you make another Gold I can die and get old. I forgive you, Ryan Adams.
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8. |
Smoke in the Air
03:55
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When the telephones burn out and your little girl's a teen, when New York is flooded over and there ain't no Florida Keys, when being hurt's a crime and helping becomes one too, oh maybe then, maybe then, we'll be over you. When your ashes are long scattered across some distant sea and Oliver gets cut from the midget hockey team and there's so much smoke in the air that the sky's no longer blue, oh maybe then, maybe then, we'll be over you. Well I wish that I believed that a better world's in birth. Instead I wake up and I know we might get badly hurt. Oh there's so much more to gain, and still a little left to lose, but we may never get over losing you.
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9. |
Collective Bargaining
03:25
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Can we collective bargain this? Cos I got more that I can give, if you'll please please please please live. Things are bad enough as is, don't need another reason to give up on this. I've got a grievance here to file with every poster of a person with a fake smile. I'm running out of words to write to try to bring you back to life, maybe I'm not the man for this. Can we collective bargain this? Is there somebody we can call who can fix it? Cos I think I'm about to hit my solidarity limit, I told you I'm not the man for this.
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10. |
Out of Reach
06:07
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Up on Summerhill, drifting through the mist, reaching out my hand. "That's me," I insist. The ghost of me is hovering high up above the trees, below the sky, he's just out of reach and I don't know why he's just out of reach. In the underground experts all around try to block them out, their grinding ugly sound. And the ghost of me is hovering high up above the trees, below the sky, he's just out of reach and I don't know why he's just out of reach. On the middle floor, not in the air, not on the ground, will anybody notice if and when I'm found? Up on Summerhill, drifting through the mist, reaching out my hand. "That's me. I insist." And the ghost of me is hovering high up above the trees, below the sky, he's just out of reach and I don't know why he's just out of reach.
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Tyler Shipley Toronto, Ontario
Tyler Shipley was the founding member of the Consumer Goods (theconsumergoods.bandcamp.com) and now performs as a solo artist.
Tyler Shipley recommends:
But We Don't Shoot Pistols?
by The Consumer Goods
Political pop rock from 2006-2011
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