Get all 13 the matthew show releases available on Bandcamp and save 25%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Rewired - a radio play {podcast}, singles {ep album}, Mystery Man {single}, Swear Jar EP {ep album}, Variations {album}, The Band That Never Was EPISODES {podcast}, Songs for Legacy - Volume II {ep album}, Songs for Legacy - Volume I {album}, and 5 more.
1. |
Down Before I Know It
04:21
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(©1998 the matthew show and Jeff Simms)
Someone says I'm down
I'm down before I know it
And I need a friend
'Cause friends will always show it
CHORUS:
But no one ever tells me no until I know it
And no one ever feels me out before I feel it
And I know it's been a long, long time
What do you do, how do you know
Why do I feel like marrying you
How do you see the things I see
What makes you believe in me
And I know it's been a long, long time
Everybody thinks
Yeah, they think the world's a picture
And all the people in it
Are there for just their pleasure
We all have wide screens
Making us believe
That we are the center
That we will always be
(CHORUS)
This time it will be different
And I need to remind myself
Things don't always stay the same
And I need to remind myself
Turnabout is fair play
And I need to remind myself
Nights can turn to day
And I need to remind myself
It's been a long, long time
It's a long, long time
(CHORUS)
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2. |
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(© 2010 the matthew show)
There’s a love song that I hate
And it goes like this one doesn’t
Brings in moons and stars and smoky bars
And cheap tricks by the dozen
So I wrote this to correct it
And I hope that you select it
From the jukebox in your mind
Let me tell you what you’ll find
CHORUS:
It’ll get old, it’ll get numb
You’ll get smart where you were dumb
You’ll thank god for what you’ve got
And then you’ll wonder whether or not
You were talking to anyone, and you’ll hear
Of pastures greener and you’ll fear
That you’ve made the most terrible mistake
If you listen to the love song I hate
It gets written every day
By some fool who knows the way
To make money part from wallets
To make people scream and call it
But wait, there’s more, they can’t sustain it
Then they’ll sing about the pain it caused
Pay the lawyers’ bill and then
Write the thing again
(CHORUS)
P.T. Barnum said each minute
There’s a sucker born who’ll buy it
Sense or no, they’ll want to try it
And who are you to deny it
So they buy until they’re dead
With this dreamland in their head
That they’ll never, ever see
But yea, the truth shall set you free
(CHORUS)
Don’t get me wrong, love is great
But it’s such a big mistake
To listen to the love song I hate
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3. |
In the End
03:12
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(©2011 the matthew show)
Don’t get caught between the fact and the expectation
Between the question and the observation
Between the rumor and the confirmation
No, don’t get lost inside the story of your own creation
Made of outside information
You have to be the doctor and the patient
Before you realize it’s there
You’ve built a fortress of thin air
And have to tear it down layer by layer by layer
CHORUS:
And in the end, you’ll never find the world you were thinking of
Don’t set up shop between the promise and the consummation
Between the power of your own persuasion
And the actual observation
Take a look up top before you rush to the battle stations
Before you find that your concentration
Is on a fictional destination
Tilting windmills in the air
And you’re the only one who cares
Do you wonder if it’s really really really there
(CHORUS)
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4. |
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(©2012 the matthew show)
Pretty white people with problems talk all night about nothing at all
They say “good times” to convince themselves, they're blown away by a half-assed song
Pretty white people with problems carry ‘em down to the coffee shop
Spectacle beard hats, blue screens glowing, fair trade mocha for five bucks
And I could complain, but then here I sit
Pretty blue eyes and a guitar spilling songs about all this pretty white shit
Born on second, running for third
Hoping like hell for homeward bound
And I’m trying hard to keep my head on straight
With these pretty white people around
Pretty white people with problems dancing drunk under the LEDs
Nodding to songs about dust bowl hard times, it ain’t easy being Snoop D-O-double-G
Pretty white people with problems, Howard Zinn up on the bookcase
Minimum wage down at the craft-beer co-op, somehow the bills keep getting paid
And I could complain, but then here I sit
Made a whole forty dollars fifty singing songs about pretty white shit
You play with the cards that you are given
And fish in your pocket when you hear the sound
Of a tin cup down an alley with all these pretty white people around
If I was anybody else, wearing any other face
They probably wouldn’t even let me near this place
Pretty white people with problems smoking pot under a knick-knack shelf
Talking about the ones that got away to be pretty white people somewhere else
And I could complain, but then here I sit
Pretty blue eyes and a guitar spilling songs about all this pretty white shit
An echo of a tortured history, an unspoken hand-me-down
A picture fading through the memories of all these pretty white people around
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5. |
Here in the Dark
02:22
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(© 2005 the matthew show)
I’m sorry I called you here in the dark
I’m sorry I called you here in the dark
I love you more here in the dark
I’m sorry I called you, but now let us talk
About times left alone, Navarrone
Long dreary nights in the service of one
Cables to mothers and fathers back home
I know you know
I know you know
I’m sorry I called you here in the dark
I’m sorry I thought that we never should part
But I love you more here in the dark
I’m sorry I called you, can we still talk
About sweet golden moons, girls all in bloom
Running in overcoats, over too soon
Practicing lines on a dusty bassoon
I know you know
Lord, how I know
I’m sorry I called you here in the dark
Where once we did say that we never would part
And I still love you here in the dark
I’m sorry I called you too late to talk
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6. |
The Railroad Man
02:27
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(2004 the matthew show)
He said, brother, pass the hat
Like we told you you should do
All railroad men must die
But the train it moves right through
I resolve to take more pictures
Of the people doing time
And I resolve to drink more liquor
And I resolve to kill more time
And as long as there are bones in me
I will not make my stand
And I resolve to stay away
From the railroad man
He said, give me one good reason
Give me one good dream
But not the things that your kind can't do
All those special ones you've seen
He said, do it for your mother
Do it for Diane
Just as long as what you're doing
Won't outdo your old man
I resolve to think more clearly
I resolve to wash my hands
And I resolve to find a river
And I resolve to build a dam
And as long as you'll believe me
I'll make up what I am
And I resolve to stay away
From the railroad man
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7. |
The 99 Percent Blues
04:05
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(©1998-2012 the matthew show)
Well, the money for my car payment
Just went in the gas tank
I said the money for my car payment
Just went in the gas tank
‘Cause I gotta go to work
To have a car to put its payments in the tank
Now, the money for my insurance
Should be in the mail next week
Yeah, the money for my insurance
Should be in the mail next week
‘Cause I gotta have insurance
To go to work to put the money in the mail next week
Well, the credit counselor said it ain’t so bad
‘Cause you ain’t got no mortgage
but that’s ‘cause I ain’t got no pad
I got a kindhearted woman lets me sleep in her bed
She can’t be after my money, so I give her love instead
I went on down to Wal-Mart
Bought myself an American flag
That shit was made all up in China
And they put it in a little white plastic bag
That bag’ll outlive all you people
And the aliens, they’re gonna mark it with a tag
Now they’re frackin’ up Fort Worth
Big D built a bridge on sand
They fired all of my kid’s teachers
To make an extra hundred grand
And if I were a rich man
Yadda-dadda-dadda-dadda-didda-didda-dum
They’d play this song on the radio
And my woman’d have her own damn fashion mag
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8. |
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©2013 Jeff Simms
And it’s hard enough
Living on your knees
Giving ten percent to someone
You never see
It’s this Southern way
With absolute certainty
That is inexorably
Killing me
But I don’t know how
To live any other way
Burning embers that never fade away
I may be lost
In a cruel deception
It doesn’t matter much either way
The wake up’s hard
Lying on a concrete floor
As your arms reach out to find
The empty air
And the living’s long
Underneath this guilt machine
As you beg and plead for love
Or clemency
But I don’t know how
To live any other way
Burning embers that never fade away
I may be lost
In a cruel deception
It doesn’t matter much either way
Yeah I may be lost
In a cruel deception
It doesn’t matter much
And I won’t be too long
And never know that this is all there ever was
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11. |
the matthew show Fort Worth, Texas
the matthew show's songs, books, and podcasts are acclaimed widely, and have been featured on NPR & PBS. He has worked with Grammy-winning producers Matt Ross-Spang and John Hampton. He is also half of Ah Pook the Destroyer.
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