Get all 9 Stephen Rippy releases available on Bandcamp and save 35%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Lamplighting, Anvil: War of Heroes Original Soundtrack, Chemistry of Confusion, Dungeon Boss Original Soundtrack, Mainland Static, Points, Diplomacy of Distance, Somewhere Close to Near, and 1 more.
1. |
Milliarium
01:40
|
|||
2. |
||||
Shell shock
Always a battle at the front lines
Fall back
It’s only me on your land mines
Spring trap
An answer waiting for a question
Wind up
The bumper sticker impression
Toe the line right up to the blame
What side would you choose for me
If you didn’t know my name?
White noise
I couldn’t disagree at first blush
Drowned out
Something gets lost in the onrush
You try to take my wonder
Wonder what you’d do that for
‘Cause there can’t be much value
In not hoping anymore
Size up your targets and take aim
Which shot would you save for me
If you didn’t know my name?
BABY, WHAT’S COME BETWEEN US?
POLITICS OF THE WEDGE
CONQUER AND DIVIDE
IN THE KNOW – I GET THE POINT
‘TIL IT KILLS OFF THE JOY
THAT YOU KEEP INSIDE
The compass demagnetized
And I’m at my most adrift
You’re selling me an anchor
But I’m asking for a lift
Losing time always seems a shame
How much could you spare for me
If you didn’t know my name?
|
||||
3. |
Air on Fire
04:12
|
|||
The blessing and the curse
Of living in interesting times
Something’s wrong, something’s wrong
With the thinking
For better or for worse
This is an impossible climb
Can it fly? Can it fly?
Feels like sinking
Hope the landing’s soft
Can hardly stay aloft
With the air on fire
Next to a monolith
Of messages meant to malign
Who are you? Who are you
To raise your hand?
Like running a race
With a parachute opened behind
Can’t move on, can’t move on
Past where you stand
Winded from it all
It’s hard to breathe or call
With the air on fire
Don’t mind the drinking, baby
It’s not a permanent thing
Climb down to this mood with me
And we’ll ride out the swing
Tough to know where we are
When everything is a crisis
Magnified, magnified
Out of balance
Who thought we’d go so far,
Left to our own devices?
Burning off, burning off
Time and talent
It’s a national bruise
Addicted to bad news
Now the air’s on fire
Can’t catch a breath with the air on fire
(A million points, a thousand days
That could have gone a different way)
|
||||
4. |
Come and Gone
03:48
|
|||
Aerial view of a life
Slip through the borders of time
Somehow you get the feeling
These memories outlived their prime
Well, that shoe fits and you’ll wear it
On the one foot you keep in the past
Still only half-expecting that
The latest will be the last
Nothing quite disappears
Jump decades and leap years
It’s the magic you’ve been waiting on
But this idea, its day has come and gone
Aerial view of a life
Distance a kinetic flow
Why the rush to reminisce
With people that you barely know?
Reach out again, but to what end -
Really, can there be much left to say?
Pinwheeling cigarette sparks
That burn out along the highway
Goodbye to a good dream
As close as it can seem
To conclusions that were never drawn
‘Cause this idea, its day has come and gone
Continents drift, the universe expands
Things move apart; it’s according to plan
We lose track of the ties, far off and scattershot
Throw ourselves to the wind and find out who we’re not
|
||||
5. |
||||
Wake-up call sounds like the end of the world
So, like it or not, you’re moving
Trying to shake off the years
That appeared from nowhere
Seems like the greater the distance becomes
From home, the more at home you feel
All those doubts can dissipate
With a change in the air
Done with the limitations
Done with the expectations
So it’s not what you designed
Get off your chest what’s on your mind:
The path of least resentment leads away from here
Same old same old on a different night
Well, like it or not, you joined in
Trying to outrun the years
That appeared from nowhere
There may be no answers in a glass
But it always seems worth looking
While promises dissipate
With the smoke in the air
They want more than you can give
They’ve taken more than you have lived
Keepers of a different kind
Get off your chest what’s on your mind:
The path of least resentment leads away from here
GLINTS OF DUST IN AN EVENING SUNBEAM
ENGINES HUM OUT A LAZY THEME
YOU’RE WAY UP IN THE AIR TONIGHT
IT’S ALL UP IN THE AIR TONIGHT
SOMEHOW EVERYTHING WAS LESS THAN IT SEEMED
Summer of your discontent -
You don’t need help to take that hint
Something lost, something to find
Get off your chest what’s on your mind:
The path of least resentment leads away from here
|
||||
6. |
Light at the Windows
03:08
|
|||
What have you done with my lost loved one?
Blood on your fingers
And blood on your tongue
Powder keg-bright, warm up to the fight
There’s light at the windows tonight
Knots to untie, excuses to buy
Rail at your life
With both fists to the sky
Tetherless kite drifting out of sight
There’s light at the windows tonight
Light at the windows and shouts from the door
A sign in the front yard would hardly say more
Cut glass shattered by the rocks thrown within
I’m tired of singing this story, but here I go again
Stuck in our past – wear it like a cast
Craving the grudge
Enmity built to last
Tinderbox spite; you watch it ignite
There’s light at the windows tonight
|
||||
7. |
Texas Shade of Sky
03:49
|
|||
Took the long way between the trees
The heat and the humidity
Pollen-dusted furniture
And blood-dusted knees
The heat and the humidity
Landscape of my dreams
Hurricanes and schoolbook reams
Heart so full it felt like
It could rip at the seams
Just below a Texas shade of sky
Took the long way east of the dome
Hills in a shadow of green
Conté colored fingerprints
And letters from home
Hills in a shadow of green
Lakes and late-night shows
Funnel clouds and bruised egos
Couldn’t match our differences
And that’s how it goes
Just below a Texas shade of sky
Love and life and loss
Cling to us like hanging moss
Keeping up as we cross the county lines
Left my common sense
Torn across a wire fence
The beauty’s yours, the contradictions mine
Took the long way over the plains
Windswept and bleached in the sun
Marriage license, mortgage
And another eight lanes
Windswept and bleached in the sun
All those aging fears
Lightning storms and used-up years
Can I really miss them
While I’m still standing here?
Held beneath a Texas shade of sky
Just below a Texas shade of sky
|
||||
8. |
At the End of the Day
03:41
|
|||
Took the long way between the trees
The heat and the humidity
Pollen-dusted furniture
And blood-dusted knees
The heat and the humidity
Landscape of my dreams
Hurricanes and schoolbook reams
Heart so full it felt like
It could rip at the seams
Just below a Texas shade of sky
Took the long way east of the dome
Hills in a shadow of green
Conté colored fingerprints
And letters from home
Hills in a shadow of green
Lakes and late-night shows
Funnel clouds and bruised egos
Couldn’t match our differences
And that’s how it goes
Just below a Texas shade of sky
Love and life and loss
Cling to us like hanging moss
Keeping up as we cross the county lines
Left my common sense
Torn across a wire fence
The beauty’s yours, the contradictions mine
Took the long way over the plains
Windswept and bleached in the sun
Marriage license, mortgage
And another eight lanes
Windswept and bleached in the sun
All those aging fears
Lightning storms and used-up years
Can I really miss them
While I’m still standing here?
Held beneath a Texas shade of sky
Just below a Texas shade of sky
|
||||
9. |
Uphill Slide Downhill
03:33
|
|||
Candlelit waitresses glide down the stairs
Through the space heaters that circle the bar
Single-malt distractions don’t do the trick
I’m still aware of how distant you are
All alone with time to kill
On an uphill slide downhill
Pictures of tourists taken by tourists
All of those cameos we must have made
What do we look like when our guard is down,
Caught in a smile, or when our nerves are frayed?
Fighting for the bitter thrill
On an uphill slide downhill
Years are sand-dollar currency
Invested in our memories
They crumble and catch the wind
I hope we’ll have more to spend
Blood on our fingers, there’s blood on our tongues
Tough to recall all the damage we’ve done
Held fast to this ground by my own headstrong
Feet that failed me when I wanted to run
And your love keeps me here still
Through an uphill slide downhill
|
||||
10. |
Memory Device
04:32
|
|||
Anonymous in the old world
While the rain blows pixel-slight
Music as archeology
Someone’s digging deep tonight
Well, I come undone in slow motion
And the crashing is so easy
I don’t notice it’s begun
I need something to remember me by
Carry something to remember me by
Skipped like a stone through the jet stream
To arrive still in my skin
Sucker-punched by my indifference
And it’s down the hole again
So I take my shots at all I’ve got
Turning lightning in a bottle
To a storm in a teapot
I need something to remember me by
Carry something to remember me by
I dreamed of the ocean
Covered by a curtain of blue
Heaven knows, I’m predisposed
To have that view
But it’s not what I want for me
And it’s not what I want for you
Always fighting that tendency
Covered by a curtain of blue
In the sober light of mourning
Cut the losses of those days
All of the times I missed the point
In all of the many ways
Struggle with my soul for some control
A crisis of self-confidence
Collecting too high a toll
I need something to remember me by
Carry something to remember me by
I need someone to remember me by
Carry someone to remember me by
Let it be you
|
||||
11. |
Centerville
04:44
|
|||
And so we go away
New lives from a window display
My pocket’s full of Monopoly money
The weather’s cool with a chance of sunny
But it doesn’t bring us closer
No, it doesn’t bring us close to Centerville
And so we speed along
Outrun all the things we’ve done wrong
Your bag is filled up with maps and hand lotion
Well, all those things may help us cross an ocean
But they haven’t brought us closer
No, they haven’t brought us close to Centerville
Your state of mind’s not in the state of mine
From behind our own Maginot lines
Warning shots fired
Hot words aspire to a longer burn
What if we tear so much of it down we can’t return?
And so we’ll wait and see
What turns out eventually
The noisy streets and hotels of a new town
These memories collected and reduced down
I hope they bring us closer
Yeah, I hope they bring us close to Centerville
|
Stephen Rippy Dallas, Texas
Stephen Rippy is a Texas-based game soundtrack composer; notable releases include the "Age of Empires" series, "Halo Wars,"
"CastleVille," and "Dungeon Boss."
Maintaining a separate body of work as a singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, Stephen has independently released numerous solo albums as well as 2 EP's with Dallas band The Presumptions.
... more
Streaming and Download help
If you like Stephen Rippy, you may also like:
Bandcamp Daily your guide to the world of Bandcamp