Get all 20 Mayhem Lettuce releases available on Bandcamp and save 25%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of FHTAGN! An Abhorrent Album of Lovecraftian Loathsomeness, Imported From China, Creepier by the Minute, There Goes the Cake, Ashes, Whispers, & Lies, Sin & Tonic, The Titles of the Songs on This Album Are Complete Sentences., The Totally Haunted EP, and 12 more.
1. |
22
02:41
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Excuse me, I'm falling faster than hope
Faster than secrecy, too fast to cope
Falling down and filling up these useless, empty years
Fill another grimoire with the memoirs of my tears
All in all, it's all been fun
Said and done, sad and dumb
A sudden kingdom of Papa's ash
A party crashing throne for one
The sire opens his jaded heart
To soon to finish, too late to start
Too familiar to my fading faith
To foreign for me to see it safe
All in all, it's all been fun
Said and done, sad and dumb
A sudden kingdom of Papa's ash
A party crashing throne for one
St John, this seems so familiar, and yet, there are so many differences in today's story that I can barely whisper in the rain.
A pox on both mice and men.
It's all afire again.
All in all, it's all been fun
Said and done, sad and dumb
A sudden kingdom of Papa's ash
A party crashing throne for one
Luck needs a lady
Misery needs a friend
Nature hates a vacuum
World without end
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2. |
Frederick
02:16
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The boy with no father brushes the past off the purple sombrero and hangs it on the wall next to the orange face his grandfather carved out of the trunk of a palm tree.
He thinks that he can mold himself a new past, and maybe he will, but not yet. So he keeps on hanging things on his wall.
And sometimes, when the children come to visit, they ask if they can play with the boy's purple sombrero and always, when the children come to visit, he tells them the story of how he found it in a dumpster and brought it home to hang on his wall.
In the evenings, when the sun snuggles up in the moon's dark blankets and the world leaves great poets and lovers to their arts, the boy often gathers his thoughts, and his pens, and his notebooks and falls asleep among tear-stained blank pages.
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3. |
All Else Fails
04:14
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That's why there's no heartbeat
That's why it's all so cracked
That's why the wings are burning
That's why it hurts to laugh
My Sunday best was never very good
My Sunday best was never very good, no
My Sunday best was never good enough
and that's why I keep on hangin'
Fathers, Sons, Holy Smokels
and the last thing he ever said
to my sad scared young scarred body was this:
"Be good."
"Be good."
All else failed so I was good
All else failed so I was good, yeah
All else failed and so did I
All else failed...
That's why the wings are burning
That's why my heart is cracked
That's why my home is gone
Obscured by my past
All else failed so I was good
All else failed so I was good, yeah
All else failed and so did I
All else failed...
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4. |
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The most magnanimous thing a man can do is to take care of another’s child out of love alone.
Of all of the losses I’ve endured in these last 5 years,
I think yours is the one that brought the most tears
Nothing has been harder in my entire life
Than watching your mind and body decline
Than seeing the hands that fixed so many cars
Shake uncontrollably, and pick at invisible scars
Than hearing you ask the Dr. why
Than knowing you were just waiting to die
Mom said you kept seeing me as a young child
When you weren’t having nightmares of a bus gone wild
Or a house full of ghosts, even that of your firstborn
Lost in the past as your memory was torn away
After seeing you suffer from that fucking disease
Your absence is actually more of a release
And it’s easier to grieve for you when I know
That you had made your peace and were ready to go
There are so many things that I see and do
That every time now will always mean you
From Godzilla to Gumby to pizza on Fridays
To RC Cola and cars from the fifties
You showed me that being a man
Could mean being both strong and gentle at the same time
You were the bedrock my whole life was built on
And I am honored to have been your stepson
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5. |
44
03:00
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Excuse me I’ve fallen past every hope
Too old for secrecy and so far from home
Falling down and filling up these useless empty years
Failing to live up to all your greatest fears
All in all it’s been no fun
Unsaid
All done
Sad and numb
And you left me after I left you behind
And we were both too stubborn to see eye to eye
And your third wife denied me the right
To say goodbye
To apologize (agonize antagonize)
And I have to wonder if you were proud of your boy
Who you hadn’t seen since 1994
And I have to wonder if you really found faith
And did it bring you comfort at the end of your days?
And now I’m the dad and I’m doing my best
Which is not to say that I pass every test
But when all else fails I think of your dad
And the last words for me that he ever had
The same last words you never got to say
And I try to be good every single day
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6. |
The No Dad Club
01:45
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Mayhem Lettuce Port Byron, Illinois
Mayhem Lettuce was formed in Port Byron, IL in 1993 when two sad teenage boys decided to channel their angst into music.
That music sits at the crossroads of King Missile and Portishead with a dash of The Cure and a pinch of They Might Be Giants.
Mayhem Lettuce recommends:
Monster Classics
by Pitch Black Manor
Fellow Quad City natives, Pitch Black Manor is the greatest goth band of all time. It says so right in their bio.
go to album
President Snakes
by The Doubleclicks
This nerdy sibling duo's folk rock is equal parts hilarious and heartwarming.
go to album
The Illusion of Chaos: 1995 - 2001
by Holy Roman Empire
Holy Roman Empire was an absolute gem of a band. Who doesn't love some good old-fashioned anarchic brit-pop?
go to albumIf you like Mayhem Lettuce, you may also like:
Laughing In My Sleep
by The Cradle
On his latest LP, Paco Cathcart sketches life in Brooklyn in remarkable detail.
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CRYING AROUND AND IN COLOR
by BELOVED SUN
The duo of Artist Named You and Sol Galeano present their debut together, a conceptual and adventurous modern R&B album.
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Four songs from Glasgow artist Eli Hermit that explore moods that are trancelike and hypnotic.
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