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fade into the dawn

by Field Medic

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1.
i need a cigarette  those fuckers talked over my whole set but i don't have anytime to reflect i gotta sell some shirts  to try & make the rent i think i'm sick of transit my anxiety is spinning on a compass i used to be a romantic  now i'm a dude in a laminate i can't see shit i'm blinded by the light i swore that i'd quit but i need a drink tonight i'm on the road with no one i love in sight & make that drink stiff i gotta drown out this emptiness i'm tired of playing all my old hits but my new songs are too depressing i'm hungover in a hotel bed i'm gonna hop in a big red van go to some city do it all again i hope tonight it turns out different
2.
i was wrong 02:38
i was wrong but one day im gonna find me a mermaid one day i’m gonna be a vampire one day im gonna live that dream with a house on the hills  grass blowing in the breeze i was wrong, but wrong aint me!! i was wrong about my strength i was wrong about the weight but one day im gonna have me a calico kitty named “joni” named after my hero one day im gonna have a doggy leash a dalmatian with spots like rorschach ink i was wrong but wrong aint me i done wrong but one day i’m gonna dress up like a penguin talkin tuxedo party for all my real friends one day these broken songs we sing gonna help somebody find a remedy  we done wrong but wrong aint we
3.
the bottle’s my lover, she’s just my friend i’m thinking of drinking when we’re lying in bed she tells me “come over” i’m drinking instead cuz the bottles my lover, she’s just my friend i can’t write myself out of this twilight the words they won’t come out  i’m buried alive try to recover, impossible to mend so the bottle’s my doctor & my prescription pop-gun cowboy run with this symbol you were born it’s carved into your arm now fade into the dawn my spirit is half sure like the love i refuse & i’m looking past her so she’s cutting my loose can’t find any reason or cause to believe in so the bottle’s my savior  like it’s always been
4.
henna tattoo 02:25
i was struck by a mighty gust of wind seeing you seeing him… is this love? jealousy sinking in seeing you seeing him i’ve been feeling so insecure like is it gonna come true if i say it? rolling blackouts in your heart gave you a henna tattoo  & it’s fading your eyes close slow like poppies in starlight & i feel your breath white paper fan you’re my love can’t you see i’m your man tell me  when you’re seeing me you’re seeing it
5.
hello moon 03:15
tough when the sun goes down hello moon i’m your broken child your dog in denial  do what you’re gonna do… all of a sudden that dark thought ink blot rorschach ghost mask  all i need in my paradise is light in the room all i need in my paradise is you
6.
she’s the only one to pick me up right off the ground she’s the only one to help me put the bottle down she’s a saddle made of leather she’s a tournament horseshoe she’s the only one i’m gonna give my lovin to back in some dark age when i would stumble as i walk & prowl the streets for fire just to burn away the scars she saw heart thru the sorrow took my hand & saw me thru she’s the only one i’m gonna give my lovin to  still on the water like swans in the afternoon wrap ourselves up in each other like a wine key corkscrew how many chapters has it been  since we began to write this short? the story’s getting better yeah it feels like living art for you i’d write a novel or else i’d carve you a statue you’re the only one i’m gonna give my lovin to 
7.
i’d like to be somewhere near to my friends when the bombs start to drop & the world starts to end love won’t protect us when the firing begins but with my last breath i’ll kiss you  as the bullet goes with my big imagination i could never think of this people killing people  just after hurricanes hit it sounds like a story  i wish it was a myth i can hear the hooves pounding sounds like apocalypse words fail me now songs are worthless now
8.
so you wanna get close? if you were the artist & not the muse you’d be lonely like me too but you’re the beautiful girl uninhibited & i’m the cowboy with the handkerchief you’re green, you’re purple, you’re a silver ring of moods i love you always i’ll carry you you’re so scandalous  you know exactly what you do tease those boys with your crystal charms while im at home whittling bamboo cuz you’re the princess on a pillow seducing the moon & im the poor boy with just a song to see me thru you’re origami paper i don’t know what to make of you  one day you lick my wounds the next day break my heart in two
9.
she cooks in a fever while i write out my sickness when we’re both done we make love & then we go to bed tomorrow it all starts over again everyday’z 2moro she’s heading off to work she leaves me with one sleepy kiss now i’m all alone in my girlfriend’s clean apartment fuck it up all day with beer cans & dirty dishes clean it up before she gets home i don’t have a job & i’m always gone on tour yeah i don’t even have a place of my own anymore i’ve been eating taco bell & sleeping on the floor i’ll be hungover for weeks when i turn up at her door but she lets me in to stay  lets me in to stay she’s the one part of my life that don’t change lets me in to stay , says i missed you yesterday i said baby i aint going nowhere lets live like everyday’z 2moro
10.
it helps me forget for a moment to kneel down & drink from the lake it helps me forget for an instant to build a fire & swallow the flame it makes me believe for an evening that the child inside of me  remembers it’s name i wake up a mess in the morning i swear i’ll pay whatever it costs  to forget it all again help me get back to that place when i can be something else -  …a bird song on the breeze… when the day dream was far away how did i get here? & how in the hell am i going to escape it helps me forget for a second to lay down & cover my face or prance around the house  dancing naked listening to all the old we used to play it makes me convinced i’m just changing that someday soon i’m gonna wake up strong, bold, & brave but i can’t help but feel i’m just broken…

about

“Any song that’s true is a good song in my mind,” says Kevin Patrick, the lo-fi bedroom folk artist better known as Field Medic. “That’s why I never find it necessary to add too much stuff to my recordings. I’m just into songs themselves.”

That principle is the guiding light behind Field Medic’s hypnotically beautiful and fearlessly honest new record, ‘fade into the dawn.’ Patrick’s first proper full-length release for Run For Cover and his first since making the leap to full-time musician, the collection features ten sparse, acoustic tracks that reckon with our perceptions of success and self as they face down the inevitable complications that arise from realizing any hard-won dream. Patrick has always written candidly about doubt and darkness and anxiety, but he digs deeper than ever before here, blending black humor and bold introspection as he weighs fantasy against reality and searches for meaning in the mundane. “I used to be a romantic / Now I'm a dude in a laminate,” he sings of life on perpetual tour, encapsulating at once both the tantalizing allure and endless tedium of the road.

“You always expect that in having some portion of your dreams fulfilled, your life will get better on a day to day basis,” reflects Patrick. “But I discovered that in the process of getting here, my desire to drink ramped up and my own internal self was actually a lot darker than I thought. That felt like something I wanted to work on.”

At the time, Patrick found himself going through a number of tumultuous changes: he relocated to Los Angeles from San Francisco, where he’d lived and recorded on and off for several years; he left the world of day jobs behind in order to tour year-round; and he decided to quit drinking, only to return to it halfway through a particularly grueling run of shows. It was the sort of emotional rollercoaster that he would normally work through in song, but even the simple act of writing seemed profoundly more complicated than ever before.

“I struggled after I got signed because every time I started writing something, I’d get nervous about whether it was good enough, and that went against my entire initial philosophy, which was to record and release absolutely everything,” says Patrick. “I had to learn to let go again, because the best songs are the ones that happen inexplicably, that feel like they come out of me almost against my will.”

While Patrick decided to record this album digitally for the first time (his self-released 2015 debut, ‘light is gone,’ and the 2017 Run For Cover-issued collection ‘Songs from the Sunroom’ were both recorded straight to a four-track), he managed to faithfully preserve his DIY ethos, recording each song in a maximum of three live takes. The result is a collection that feels higher definition and more ambitious than ever before (live drums and lead guitar appear on this record for the first time), but still maintains the raw, spontaneous character that’s defined Field Medic from the start.

“Back in the beginning, I’d record a song a few times, walk away, and then just choose a take and be done with it,” says Patrick. “I tried to take that same approach this time around even though I was recording digitally and didn’t have the same restrictions as I did with the four-track. I just find that if I dwell too much on any recording, it loses the feeling. You have to accept it for what it is in that moment.”

Patrick’s ability to capture specific moments in all their messy, complicated ambiguity is a large part of what’s earned him both his devoted cult following and his widespread critical acclaim. Philadelphia NPR station WXPN hailed Field Medic as a “West Coast freak-folk poet who will capture your heart,” while the San Francisco Chronicle praised his “intensely emotional” voice as a “melodic quiet storm,” and the Chicago Reader swooned for his “charming, unvarnished acoustic bedroom songs.” Patrick’s tracks racked up well over a million collective streams on Spotify, and his captivating live performances (in which he’s accompanied by nothing more than his guitar and an old school boombox) landed him dates with everyone from The Neighbourhood and Wallows to HEALTH and Girlpool.

“With the boombox, I have a few different cassettes with beats for songs on them to back me up live,” he explains. “I played in a band for a long time, but I was always more into lyrics than anything else, so when I started Field Medic, I wanted to find a way to give my songs some rhythm without taking any focus off the words. Now when I’m out on the road, the boombox is my bandmate.”

The road is precisely where “fade into the dawn” picks up, with Patrick recounting a particularly brutal night on tour in the infectious album opener “clam chatter in the heart of brooklyn.” “I swore that I’d quit / But I need a drink tonight,” he sings, setting up the album’s central struggle between restraint and release, moderation and obsession, sobriety and surrender. The woozy “hello moon” calls to mind Jose Gonzalez as Patrick meditates on the nightly loss of control he felt when using alcohol to temper his anxiety, while the waltzing, Neil Young-esque “the bottle’s my lover, she’s just my friend” confronts the ways in which escape can seem helpful even when it’s destructive, and the tender “it helps me forget…” (recorded in a single take into an iPhone’s voice memo app) searches for relief from the pressures we impose upon and the walls we build around ourselves.

“It seemed like alcohol was popping up in every aspect of my life,” says Patrick, “whether it be during my career, which is touring, or during my love life, when I felt like I’d rather be drinking than chilling with a girlfriend, or just in the day-to-day, when I was trying to forget all these things I felt anxious about.”

Rather than succumb to the siren song of oblivion, though, Patrick finds resolve and redemption in human connection. The banjo-driven “tournament horseshoe” draws strength from devotion to a lover, while the charming “henna tattoo” (recorded once again on the trusty four-track and backed by a simple drum machine) throws worry to the wind for a chance at real love, and the dreamy “songs r worthless now” spins a romantic fantasy about baring your soul at the end of the world.

“I had this thought recently that in my songs, I feel like I’m this super version of myself,” Patrick reflects. “In my day to day life I’m reserved and quiet and do my own thing, but in my songs, I can share how I really feel and say all the things that I’ve always wanted to say.”

In that sense, Field Medic isn’t just a stage name for Patrick, it’s a permission slip, an invitation to shed his self-consciousness and become his truest self. And truth is what it’s all about, after all. It’s where love and satisfaction and all the best songs come from. ‘fade into the dawn’ is proof positive of that.

credits

released April 19, 2019

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