It's Exit Clov's Vinyl District!

Welcome to the 2nd day of Exit Clov's TVD Takeover :) So, several people have asked us to post the lyrics from our latest release, Memento Mori. We're planning to upload them to our website soon, but in the meantime, we're offering up little factoid blurbs about select tunes from the record.

Yesterday, we wrote about 'Blue is Your Heart' and 'Free Zone.' We have three more for today, including 'District Menagerie' which is available for free download (exclusively on TVD). The rest of the album tracks can be streamed from our website. You can buy digital copies online (see exitclov.com for a list of vendors), or a physical copy of the CD at our webstore.

District Menagerie | This song is pretty melancholy and has to do with the fear of failure, which anyone can relate to. No matter how successful you are, I think you reach a point where you look around and say, "Is this it?" or "Is this all there will ever be?" It's not that you haven't achieved anything, it's just that the way you always envisioned it - where all the things in your house will one day be in its right place - hasn't actually happened. The default reaction is to feel trapped or confined, or to blame the things around you, which is why a 'menagerie' seemed to be a good way to describe the feeling.

Ritchie Valens | No matter how many times we tell ourselves to appreciate life and live it fully without regrets, we get mired in petty and negative things. And inevitably your tower crumbles, and you hurt and regret. But then you build it back up, a newer and better one than before. There is an art to suffering, a way to not let hardship break you. Maybe you just have to learn to be ready to let go, of everything, because at any moment you just might have to. Things you think you want and need in your life but don't, things you always try to control but can't. It's a learning process to not live safely but to love or what you will, and to love now because in the end, "everything becomes, then goes."

Death is a Song | We remember writing portions of this song on headphones while sitting in a hospital room just weeks before our father passed in May 2007. The song is a tribute to who he was and what he gave us. There was an African woman who worked in the hospital parking garage, and she'd seen us come into the hospital every day for several weeks. We were surprised one day when she asked about our dad, we weren't sure how she knew our story. But she told us to take heart, that God is the healer, and to leave everything to him. It was strange, she was such a minor character in the whole experience, not a doctor or nurse or surgeon ... just a lady who worked in the parking garage, yet those few words gave us so much comfort and wisdom.