Merce Lemon – Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild
Today, Pittsburgh-based artist Merce Lemon has shared the title track from her highly anticipated new album Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild, due out September 27th via Darling Recordings. Serving as the album’s closing track, “Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild” is a lonely ballad of forlorn projection into an unknown future, forever protected by the comforting green of Pittsburgh’s hills, rivers, bridges, and homes.
“This song is really the first time I collaborated with someone from the early stages of writing,” shares Merce, “my friend Spencer Smith, who was playing keys in my band at the time, sent me a voice memo of a chord progression he had written. I had been toying with an idea for a song based on a story my friend had told me about Michael Hurley, but I hadn’t found a home for the lyrics. This song came to life singing over Spencer’s piano on loop until the melody settled in.”
Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild emerged from a time of rediscovery and reconnection with nature. 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. Watch the video for the title track below, which was filmed by Matthew Reed, who has painted several of MJ Lenderman’s album covers. Merce shares “I asked my buds Colin Miller and Landon George if they would dance in cut off shirts with knives in a not scary way to my most dramatic song down at Haw Creek. They asked our mutual friend Walker Rider to send us footage of him flexing. I stitched it all together.”
Tour Dates:
9/9 – Morgantown, WV @ 123 Pleasant Street *
9/10 – Columbus, OH @ A&R Music Bar *
9/11 – Toledo, OH @ The Ottawa Tavern *
9/26 – Pittsburgh, PA @ The Government Center (Vinyl Listening Party)
10/3 – Catskill, NY @ The Avalon ^
10/4 – Burlington, VT @ Radio Bean ^
10/5 – Brooklyn, NY @ Baby’s All Right ^
10/6 – Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda’s ^
10/8 – Chicago, IL @ Sleeping Village
10/18 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Bottlerocket
* w/ Teethe
^ w/ Greg Freeman
#mercelemon