Vagabonds

In den Tiefen des Internets hatte ich vor Jahren den Singer-/Songwriter Luke Dean

aus Grand Rapids /Michigan entdeckt, der unter dem Namen "Vagabonds" ein übelst (!) gutes Album mit dem Titel "(FFO: Bright Eyes) I Don't Know What To Do Now" (2017) hervorgebracht hat.

Bevor ich zu dem Album komme, hier wahrscheinlich tollste Song "Your Life Is Not A Movie", der lediglich als Single 2016 erschien:

Zitat

Well, I'm one month from my birthday,

And I'm not where

And I'm not who I hoped I'd be

I'm becoming obsolete

I've been trying so hard to stay nineteen

Because I cannot live up to the standards set for me

And I know that they won't take me seriously

Well, this year I've felt more love than in my whole life

But let rejection leave its mark on me

And at the core of everything I'm still incomplete

See, it's like Christ died for you,

But I reject his grace for me

This feels like blasphemy,

But this is honesty

Honestly, I felt it once

But now I don't

And I'm sorry

I'm not the light I wish I could see

And I've got dirty clothes

That I wash

I rinse

Repeat

But they still won't come clean

No, they still won't come clean

And I've got mud, and I've got spit

That are covering my eyes

But I still cannot see

No, I still cannot see

And I'm not worth it

I'm not enough

That's what everything tells me

That's what everything tells me

That's what everything tells me

That's what I'll always be

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Das Album ist bei Bandcamp nur beim Record-Label (Blood & Ink - Records) zu finden (hier). Da die Lyrics nicht im Internet zu finden sind, habe ich sie, mit Erlaubnis von Luke, jeweils unter den Songs zitiert.

Tracklist:

1. A Memory 00:25

2. A Self Fulfilling Prophecy 03:14

3. Déjà Vu (I Am Still Afraid) 04:06

4. Ambulance (I Am Nothing) 03:08

5. Nails 01:45

6. Thanks Anyway 03:10

7. Paralysis 03:02

8. Old Friends, Wherever You Are 02:39

9. (Un)settling 02:21

10. Nineveh 03:07

11. Teeth 04:37

Zitat von Interview mit Yong Los

"I Don’t Know What to Do Now acts as open pages of his personal diary, where he unravels the misfortunes of his life..."

So startet auch das Album mit einer Art ~Tagebucheintrag / Programm-Vorschau zu seinem Konzept-Album:

Zitat

The date is January 1 of 2015

The day after a night of sobriety

In a friend’s apartment full of drunkenness and debauchery,

a befitting end to the prior year

The busses aren’t running, and I am snowed in

Hiding away in the lightless pantry of that God

forsaking York Creek Apartment

In three days time,

I will unknowingly begin to fall in love

for the first time in my life

But here, in the absence of everything,

I wilfully mire in my winter misery

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Zitat

It’s hard to think

About where I’ll be

One year from now

One year from now

I’ll probably still be alone

And you’ve all moved on

And I gave up hope

Now the days and the nights go by too slow

I got left behind

It keeps me up late night

I lost the spark in my eyes

And our late nights

And our long drives

And just one month ago

I thought I was fine

I thought things had changed

I thought I had changed

But winter came and chilled me to the bone

And you’ll be getting married soon I know

But I still live at home

And my hope is gone

And my youth is lost

And my hope

Got left behind

It keeps me up late night

I lost the spark in my eyes

And our late nights

And our long drives

It keeps me up every night

I lost the spark in my eyes

And our late nights

And our long drives

And my life

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Zitat

Are you fragile?

Are you just good at hiding it?

Because I am fragile

And I’ve grown too good at hiding it

I live my life beneath these bedroom lights

I always feel like I’m missing out and

I’m never as happy as I was with you

I hate that I long for these things that could never come true

I wish I could be somebody braver than me

But you know I’m not

Yeah, you know I’m not

And this

This isn’t poetry

It’s not a cry for sympathy

See, this is just what I need

This is just for me

I am terrified

I am half alive and

I wish I could be somebody braver than me

I wish I could be somebody braver than me

But you know I’m not

Yeah, you know I’m not

Yeah, you know me

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Zitat

When the ambulance finds me

It will leave my body cold on the pavement

My blood runs into a stream

When the insects find me

They’ll start to feed

There is no obituary

And there’s no need

I left nothing behind me

No wife, no kids, no family

Now I am nothing

I’ve been living half a life

Been living half alive

For half of my life

For half of my life

I’ve been believing these lies

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Zitat

I think I’m alright

I’m not so bad am I?

Well then, why do they always leave?

Could someone explain to me?

Just tell me what the fuck is wrong with me

Why I can’t see it

I’ll be a good friend

Try to be a good son, but

They’ll take what they want and then they flee

I’ve been cursed since birth

Reach out my hand, and you spit on me

If we are a body, you are the nails scratching your own skin

If we are a body, I am a lifeless weary limb

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Zitat

When the people I love ask if I’m okay,

I wish that I had something different to say, but

The past few years have been ending the same

Every sense of permanence eventually decays

Yeah, but I’m still searching for it anyway

Where I wanna be at the end of the day

Is somewhere I don’t think that I should say

I don’t understand my friends and why they always go away

They move in and out of my life

more than busboys in a restaurant

Said you were here to stay

But now you’re gone

I wanna love someone

I mean really love someone

But it’s hard to find a friend to stay

It’s so easily undone

Yeah, but who gives a fuck anyway?

I do

I wish you would say/stay the same

Where I wanna be at the end of the day

Is somewhere I don’t think that I should say

I don’t understand my friends and why they always go away

They move in and out of my life

more than busboys in a restaurant

Said you were here to stay

But now you’re gone

Alles anzeigen

Zitat

I bottomed out on the first day

of the second week of this year

In the kitchen at my house with my mom,

and it ended in tears

I’m not proud of the person that I am anymore, and

I don’t believe in anything quite like I did before

The universe doesn’t know

the reasons why I stay paralyzed

Like I don’t understand the reasons

for the things that happen inside mind

I’ve been getting worse,

and now I know that I’ll disintegrate with time

I’m skipping church because

they shouldn’t have to bear this heavy burden of mine

Can I disappear yet?

Can I disappear yet?

Could I just play dead?

Or what drug could I take to forget?

To forget

I want to forget

All of it

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Zitat

You found hope in everything I didn’t, but

I thank God you did

‘Cause you’re still here

I’ll tell you all the cliches

Like “you’re loved”, “you have a purpose”

I mean it

Please believe it

‘Cause I mean this

I’m glad that we can sit here

In this smoke stained apartment

Just talking shit for twenty minutes

You know I wouldn’t change it

After days spent doing nothing

Watching TV, hardly talking

You know I wouldn’t change it

You know I wouldn’t trade this

I wouldn’t trade this

No, not for anything at all

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Zitat

There’s something troubling

When I cannot leave

My bed till 1pm

There’s something unsettling

With the feeling of settling

‘Cause I don’t feel anything

There’s something happening

But I’d rather play make believe

Because real life just doesn’t appeal to me

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Zitat

Hold up

I have everything, yeah everything I want

Yet I still can’t shake the sadness

Even with your tongue inside my mouth

I don’t know how

I don’t know how

I don’t know how

If everything doesn’t fit, I can’t be happy

An empty stomach, a muddy mind

mixed with morning coffee

I am darker than you think

Body ever sickening

I close my eyes and I see violence

I am darker than you think

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Zitat

His blood runs in my veins

Oh sweet salvation I could not attain

by my own hands I dragged through filth

I made unclean

Now, with a violence you break my chains

My soul, it quivers

My bones shake

I stand in awe

I kneel in tears at my soul’s wake

I was a thorn in your crown

I was a blade in your side

I made you bleed, but sweet salvation I’ll still claim

My debt is paid

My love, my love, I am not ashamed

Now I won’t dwell on that sadness forever

Refuse to bathe myself in the mire

of self sympathy and my body’s desires

With frozen hands raised, my flesh expires

It’s a bloodsoaked “hallelujah”

He bares his teeth

I’ll bear his name

Death meets death,

and a purest fire lays me in my grave

Oh peace at last, I’m glad I found you,

here at the end of all things

Oh peace at last, I’m glad just to know your name

I know your name

Soon and very soon, we are going to see the King

Oh hallelujah, oh hallelujah,

we are going to see the King

To see the King

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Bei einem Interview zu seiner nachfolgenden EP Liminal Space äußert er sich über sein voriges Album:

Zitat

"I wanted to make something that would be a little bit easier to play live. (I wanted) to allow myself to musically connect to a different part of myself – and express things other than fighting off the darkness, which I hadn’t done before – that had always existed, like searching for beauty and trying to take care of myself.

I think I just wanted a step away to have a breath of fresh air from songs that were more intense in the past. Not to say those kinds of compositions won’t come back in some form, but this record I tried to have just one thing kicking around in my mind going into it: I wanted to create and contribute something beautiful to the world. And create something that I really enjoyed rather than something that had to be created purely on the basis of catharsis or those types of personal problems."