Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild

Merce Lemon - Backyard Lover (Official Video)

Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild

by Merce Lemon

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veenstar From the first listen to "Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild" prior to the release I knew I was going to buy this album. It doesn't disappoint. Beautifully direct songs with lyrics that spill out like mantras. One of my favorites of 2024 so far. Favorite track: Crow.

James Champion This is beautiful, impactful country rock, but that’s not saying enough… I can hear the room these songs were written in. I can feel the draft through the open door, some wistful ghost. A sadness that is a spirit. A porch view distance full of mist. A horizon not seen but felt

Favorite track: Backyard Lover.

simon nice collection of folk/country/rock ❤️ Favorite track: Birdseed.

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Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Merce's new album 'Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild' on classic black vinyl.

Includes unlimited streaming of Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Download available in 24-bit/48kHz.

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Purchasable with gift card

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Cassette + Digital Album
Merce Lemon's new album 'Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild' on pink cassette. We'll probably limit these to 200 copies, but we're not 100% sure yet.

Includes unlimited streaming of Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Download available in 24-bit/48kHz.

ships out within 5 days

Purchasable with gift card

$11.99 USD or more
Limited-Edition Bubblegum Pink Vinyl
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Limited-edition Bubblegum Pink vinyl pressing of 'Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild'. We only pressed 300 copies, so grab one now before they sell out!

Includes unlimited streaming of Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Download available in 24-bit/48kHz.

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1.	Birdseed 04:02	lyrics	buy track
There's seeds between all of my teeth I've been eating like the birds So maybe I'll grow wings Wouldn't that be something And maybe in the trees I could do my watching Watching of the blossoms Turning to fruit and then dropping And my droppings land where you're walking I'm the bird that sings so goddamn loud It wakes you up at dawn There's seeds between all of my teeth I've been eating like the birds So maybe I'll grow wings Wouldn't that be something I can feel life easy when I'm flying Only coming down for A nose dive in the ocean And my wings turn to fins when I'm swimming And my droppings land where you're walking I'm the bird that sings so goddamn loud It wakes you up at dawn There's seeds between all of my teeth I've been eating like the birds So maybe I'll grow wings Wouldn't that be something Wouldn't that be something Something And my droppings land where you're walking
2.	Backyard Lover 05:28 video	lyrics	buy track
I am aimless in my lovin' Caught the tail end of your set Before I went to bed But I don't get out much Met a lover in my backyard Watching from my room Honey I'll come down soon Now I am falling to a dark place Where just remembering her death's About all I can take But I don't get out much Is being swallowed by a room Supposed to feel this way? Maybe I'll come out Babe Now I am swimming in a river Showing off the butterfly Enraptured by light But I don't get out much And nothing's held me so soft As this water tonight Maybe she was She was right What dying felt like A wooden spoon tossed in the fire 'Cause nothing's good enough You fucking liar You fucking liar A sliding hill A quick refrain A frozen bird Melting An eyelash For wishing
3.	Window 03:44	lyrics	buy track
I'm not your body anymore But this crying at your door I'm not made like that I've got a calling I've got a window Where my cat sits Where my cat licks my face The skin is peeling away Peeling away, peeling away In the shadows of the morning light With all the curtains open wide And across the room a wilting plant And upon my lap my folded hands How long can I sit like this? Been a couple weeks Since I've moved these hips Just to touch myself When I'm alone Just to fold my hands back up Just to fold my hands back up Just to fold my hands back up And in the wanderings of my nothingness In a wading through of uncrossed lists
4.	Foolish and Fast 04:12 video	lyrics	buy track
There's nothing like an open road But what do I know about driving It's only been a couple years Since I've been behind the wheel And that one time at the beach Nineteen and the weight of my body Made phosphorescence glow And a friend go crazy If home is where the heart is It's where the waves come crashing My tapes are blasting a country song "Put the bottle on the table Let it stay there 'til I'm not able To see your face in every place That I go" And I don't play sports to win the game Foolish and fast And a highway straight through the mountain Foolish and fast Foolish and fast Foolish and If home is where the heart is It's where the waves come crashing My tapes are blasting a country song "I'll keep drinking, it won't matter Just remember that I once had her I don't know why I sit and cry Everyday" And I don't play sports to win the game Foolish and fast And a highway straight through the mountain Foolish and fast And my love just passing through you Foolish and fast Foolish and fast Foolish and
5.	Rain 02:42	lyrics	buy track
This sounds like a song I barfed out in the drought A love song for the rain I miss you like the wind hugs wings Like the mountain's fingertips On the tops of trees Tickling The sky's belly Like soupy clouds And washing the blue bowl clean With the spoon in your eye I can see you relentlessness In the muddy puddles Where retting is Shattering the splintered stalks Where golden braids Pour into drops
6.	Crow 03:29	lyrics	buy track
A murderous flock, beating the wind They don't need any friends They're up to their necks in them Say I was a lonely gust of wind Could I redirect them? I'd make a city of this ghost town Even let the crows come Rest their necks and nest their young Even let the crows come Rest their necks and nest their young Troubles are gone on the horizon So I stick a finger in Just to test the sweetness Say you gave all of your troubles To someone deserving? They'd make a city of this ghost town Even let the crows come Rest their necks and nest their young Even let the crows come Rest their necks and nest their young Rest their necks and nest their young
7.	Slipknot 03:33	lyrics	buy track
My lover comes, she rests her head She warms my lap with her hot breath My lover claims that summer's face Is looming over our embrace Burning our skin With our thoughts of escape No matter what, no matter what, no matter what I'm gathering choices And setting them free I'm tying our tails in A slip knot What hell have we asked for? What delight we've been fed (In secret) That wasn't ours, your wicked smiles When fingers devour and hunger's ignored I can run sideways With our thoughts of escape No matter what, no matter what, no matter what I'm gathering choices And setting them free I'm tying our tails in A slip knot No matter what, no matter what, no matter what My lover comes, she rests her head She warms my lap with her hot breath
8.	Blueberry Heaven 02:52	lyrics	buy track
You can call this heaven 'Cause when you close your eyes You see branches hanging low With blueberries You can call this heaven 'Cause all the money is buried Deep below our feet, you wonder You can call this heaven 'Cause all the money is buried Deep below our feet You wonder how the fruit Got so sweet Guarded by the ducks Secret to the dream Secret to the orb is in their Webbed feet And our offerings to thee You can call this heaven 'Cause when you close your eyes You see branches hanging low With blueberries You can call this heaven 'Cause all the money is buried Deep below our feet You wonder how the fruit Got so sweet
9.	Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild 04:50 video	lyrics	buy track
Old man howling Laughing his teeth out With the dogs down the hill And a tree fell, I smell the wood And the bark is coming off I write my words down on it And honestly The thoughts of a husband Weighing on me I smell the wood Lime zest on a bed of leaves Frozen over by the creek I write my words down honest And honestly The thoughts of a husband Weighing on me The thoughts of a husband Weighing on me Watch me drive them Watch me drive them Watch me drive them Dogs wild, dogs wild, dogs wild And the thoughts of a husband Weighing on me The thoughts of a husband Weighing on me

about

“I could not be alive alone,” a longtime family friend said to Merce with a smile. “None of us could be alive alone.”

Within the quiet, cascading corners of Pittsburgh lies a community – nothing short of one large family – that spans zip codes, histories, occupations, and generations, always tumbling into itself, propped up by steadfast pillars of conviction toward spiritual and emotional mutual aid. The kind of earnest community scaffolding that gets bandied about, wielded as conjecture, particularly in an age of increasing fracture through digital sublimation, is alive and quite well within the universe surrounding Merce Lemon.

When asked how the city has inspired her creative practice, she responds with a characteristic joke wrapped in an earthen warmth – “There are big hills, three rivers, and more bridges than anywhere in the whole world.” Growing up in a family of art and music in a city with a small, but vigorously supportive scene, Merce has been going to shows here her whole life, even playing them with the “grown up” friends of her parents – as recently as a few years ago, her band was comprised of her own father and his peers in the Pittsburgh music community.

Merce took a step back in 2020, after releasing her last album 'Moonth', to reassess during an era of anxiety and lockdown – even the reliably nourishing exercise of sharing and playing music felt precarious. “I was grappling with what kind of relationship I wanted with music in my life. It was just something I’d always done, and I didn't want to lose the magic of that – but I was just having less fun.” In this time of restless non-direction, she turned her gaze inwardly, down to the roots – figuratively and literally.

“I got dirty and slept outside most of the summer. I learned a lot about plants and farming, just writing for myself, and in that time I just slowly accumulated songs.” A never-ending creative hunger, supported by the community framework she’d always been able to depend on, had been newly fertilized by the wide-eyed inspiration that came from plunging her hands into both the earth’s soil and her own. Rooting around for an answer, finding and turning in her palms what had been buried there all along – from this rediscovery, imbued with the vitality of earth’s green magic, 'Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild' sprouted forth.

The album emerges, enveloped in propulsive guitars and saccharine-sweet songs of blackbirds and blueberries, from the dead-calm center of a pastoral frenzy in a manner that one could argue as erratic, reckless — a grave misconception, as Merce is just as aware of where she’s being pulled from as she is curious about where to go next. Her sound is built upon a reverence and gratitude for the natural world, how paying respect to it charts a more confident path through the choppy waters of the heart. On the soft and confessional “Rain,” she maps memory onto the stillness of the landscape around her, panning for clarity in an endlessly blue sky: “I can see your relentlessness / in the muddy puddles where retting is / shattering the splintered stalks / where golden braids pour into drops."

In her music, romantic and familial love rips into and out of itself, barely registering as disparate feelings in the flurry of reckoning. Lead single “Backyard Lover” is an honest and incisive exploration of this confused, raw intimacy. In it, a warm memory gently meanders alongside warbling steel and guitars, tinged with a classic outlaw haze, before it suddenly erupts with the frustration of a broken promise, making way for a cathartic sonic fury – “what dying felt like / a wooden spoon tossed in the fire / cause nothings good enough / you fucking liar.“ The song’s climax deftly uncovers the formidable heartbeat hidden underneath the floorboards of her creative expulsion: loss. “So many of my songs are touched by and explore death, specifically in relation to the loss I experienced of my best friend when I was fifteen years old” says Merce. “That loss has forever changed me and who I am in my relationships to lovers, friends, family." In reconciling the quiet conflict of a desire for closeness and a solitude cultivated by distrust, there is a fierceness, a persistence in her vulnerability, matched in droves by the wildness of her band.

These songs range, often within the structure of a single track, from ballads to blown out electric riffs combating feedback, harmonies concealed behind wailing guitars, both dependent on each other as they careen towards new meaning. They build slowly, synthesizing a naturalist’s penchant for romance and nihilism to create the warring, triumphantly escalating nature of Merce’s lyrics and her band’s heavy entropy. For Merce, the only certainty is the endlessly shifting nature of a river, roaring straight past a dogwood, never missing the opportunity to watch a petal fluttering to the ground in the rear view.

They are songs of belonging just as much as they are songs of longing – ”Say I was a lonely gust of wind / could I redirect them,” she muses in “Crow”, one of the more hopeful tracks on the record. Its structure is simple, gentle acoustics pushed forward by an ever-present and fluid percussion that guides the song as naturally as Merce hopes to guide the “murderous flock,” forgoing the voyeur in all of our hearts and comfortably settling in the supportive role of a shepherd – “I’d make a city of this ghost town / even let the crows come / rest their necks / and nest their young.”

There is an oaken strength in 'Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild' that makes it easy to love – once wild, still free, honest and familiar. Its genesis is timeless, its restlessness eternal – it is one cohesive yet unanswered question built around, and dependent upon, the life-giving force of nature that came before Merce. The album’s closing track also inspires its title – a lonely ballad of forlorn projection into an unknown future, forever protected by the comforting green of Pittsburgh’s hills, rivers, bridges, and homes:

“Old man howling / laughing his teeth out / with the dogs down the hill.
And a tree fell / I smell the wood / and the bark is coming off in sheets / I write my words down on it.
And honestly / the thoughts of a husband / weighing on me.”

credits

released September 27, 2024

Recorded and mixed by Alex Farrar at Drop of Sun Studios
Produced by Alex Farrar, Colin Miller, and Merce Lemon
Mastered by Adam McDaniel

Merce Lemon: Vocals and rhythm guitar (except on "Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild")
Reid Magette: Guitar and vocals on "Foolish and Fast"
Ben Brody: Bass, harmonica on "Blueberry Heaven", and vocals on "Window"
Pat Coyle: Drums & misc. percussion and harmonies
Spencer Smith: Piano and synth
Colin Miller: Bojo on "Window", "Rain", and "Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild"
Xandy Chelmis: Pedal Steel on "Birdseed" and "Backyard Lover"
Landon George: Fiddle on "Birdseed" and bowed cymbal on "Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild"
Alex Farrar: Rhythm guitar on "Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild"

Front and back cover photographed by Greg Freeman
Designed by Merce Lemon and Greg Freeman

All lyrics by Merce Lemon except "Rain" (adapted from a poem written by Justin Lubecki)

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about

Merce Lemon Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

New album 'Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild' out 9/27

shows

Oct 18

Bottlerocket Social Hall

Pittsburgh, PA

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