We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Life and Back

by Ben Levin

/
1.
2.
3.
Porn Sucks 05:40
4.
Grown Up 04:06
5.
Waiting 05:11
6.
Preach to Me 06:06
7.
8.

about

Life and Back

Interactive Music Video for Bad Chemicals: benlevinmusic.itch.io/bad-chemicals

credits

released February 26, 2016

Written, performed, recorded, and mixed by Ben Levin
Guest Vocals by Jessica Kion
Mastered by Randy Roos at Squam Sound
Thanks to my mom and dad for encouraging me to explore

LYRICS TO THE WHOLE ALBUM:
Life and Back Lyrics:

Your Mind is Wrong:
Beast or beggar
I am around for pleasure
I am down for whatever
If I’m aroused

Animal or accident
My consciousness is furious
It makes me think there’s more to life than being aroused

I’ll sort the logic I scrap the project I burn the body I drop the diamond
Celebrity oh puberty go hold to the ankles and tell the priest no
10 for a dollar you eat the playdough
Kill me or spill me I’m hydrogen flow
I’m not h20 I’m bonding for more
A monstrous molecule ain’t seen before

Completion is validation for another day without deletion
Excreting meaning when I’m weaning off of browsers
Show me who’s tweeting I’m salivating
And the idiot engine won’t fly
Without a pilot won’t die
Let me drive

Animal or accident
My consciousness is furious
It makes me think there’s more to life than being aroused

Your mind is wrong

Take it shake it
Shape it till you wake up in it
Covered in cling wrap so you don’t mutilate it
What now? You’re alive
What next? You survived
I know you can make something good with your life
But everybody tell you that you’re crazy
It’s just an excuse to look away see
You remind them that there’s something to be afraid of
Wars you don’t see aren’t made up
Wars you don’t read are full of babies that bleed and all capable of loving like me

Cannot guarantee it’ll ever be easy for you
Can you wait to take time until you break
Not enough well keep in mind I adore you
Rooting for you to make it through

Your mind is wrong

Take it to the mine to dig things up
Take it online to push and shove
Take it to the stage before it’s gone
Bury it again it turned out wrong

Why do I bother reaching out
Why do I think my message counts
Why does my brain demean itself
Why am I obsessed with branding me every chance I get to preach
Tell them all you’re a star
It’s me it’s me
Is that not so exciting and fun?
I pray and I hope and forget easily
All the good in the world
Aren’t I handsome? So handsome.
Look at me look at me
Don’t forget to buy the mp3

Falcon 9:
Falcon 9 just landed and it feels amazing
Simply knowing human kind is still trailblazing
Knowing this the first is just so crazy
How many billions of years went by to bring us to this point
But still I’m thinking about you thinking about me and feeling lonely

In 1969 we landed on the moon
Next we looked to Mars and said we’d get there soon
People want to reach so far but we’re forgetful too
When wars are waged and won and we are scrambling for food
But now the will of the people is strong and the technology is coming along
We’re cleaning up this planet, soon we’ll visit worlds beyond
Backup the flame of consciousness so we can live on and be obsessed
With what we hide beneath our dress and where we find true happiness
I’m thinking about love thinking about truth and feeling lonely

Feeling lonely

My friend called up said he wants die. Trying not to fuck things up I asked him why. Said he can’t feel said he’s numb inside, said he opens up his body just to stimulate his mind. I said, “the chemicals this and the chemicals that,” but my speech was trite and it flew right past him. Searching for the words but I should of just asked him if he knew that I loved him and if he were gone it’d be a disaster. Just thinking about thoughts, thinking about truth, and feeling lonely.

How special is a neuron?
How crucial is a question?
How stupid is a suggestion?
How deep is love expression?
How large is a country?
How vast is the sea?
How many trillions of life forms are invisible to me?
How far does a song reach?
How many menstrual cycles lead to a baby?
How many ears are ready to hear a siren from another vessel full of proteins
DNA that flickers in a random chain that helps transfer energy through time and space
And 4th dimensional beings see all shapes of a face, understand that we are missing just about everything while we are thinking about love, thinking about truth, and feeling lonely.

Lift me up I’m astonishingly heavy
We’re on the run from the force of heavenly bodies
And of course the hardest part is sucking in and deciding
To dare in the face of danger to look for happiness wherever it’s hiding
I’m on a drug that takes me
I’m on a pill that conspires to replace me
And what’s scary is I could go either way
See I can remember at one point music was coursing through my veins
But now it makes me compare myself to who I was before I lost, before I forgot how to not
Compare myself to who I was, before I lost, before I forgot how to not
Compare myself to who I was, before I lost, before I forgot how

ow crucial is a question?
How stupid is a suggestion?
How deep is love expression?
How large is a country?
How vast is the sea?
How many trillions of life forms are invisible to me?
How far does a song reach?
How many menstrual cycles lead to a baby?
How many ears are ready for love, ready for truth?
How scared will I be when you say you love me too?

Porn Sucks:
Things I’ve seen on the web scare me
Junkies fucking in HD
Zoom in on the skin and it’s not looking healthy
These women these men, what a world they swirl in
Watch a soul implode and I’m feeding the fire they burn in
Girls used to be older than me, now they look like babies
I’m having trouble separating their lives from their bodies and when I do I feel guilty
Cold handed stroke till I choke and the joke lands you’ll know man
And hold can I float to heavens door with eyes closin’
Underbelly of the world in a suit clicking mute in my room
But the moans cut through
Exposed animalish
Hypnotized by scarred tits
I’ll be a hypocrite but I don’t want to be alone anymore
I don’t want to be alone anymore

I went walking with you to the lake late at night just you and me
In my thoughts though there were 3
Scrolling through my memory
Hold your body to a standard that can only be caught on camera
Twinkle in your eyes, damn you’re a convincing actor
I still see you in the scene with the 2 CGI doctors
When I see you naked it just don’t look the same so I close my eyes and make love to the harem in my brain it’s the best my mind has to offer

I can’t remember the last time I saw love really getting made
I’m not saying it’s evil it’s just dangerous in a way
I can’t remember the last time I saw love really getting made

Keep my eyes closed a bit
I see a collage of the usual clips
Unaddressed clits women getting called bitch, oversized dicks that make me flinch
Faces lie so much
I see they never touch
And It’s been with me since growing up
I keep the door shut
Imagination don’t make the cut
I keep the door shut
Imagination don’t make the cut

Grown Up:
Snow hair, frost brow, brick house move out, stuffed box, moth balls, drove so far to rock out
When flat screens were a new thing
No car self driving
Wait online for grocery
Screenshare bad latency
Bow our heads at punk shows
Push forward to the front row
Fingers tap on smart phones cause we’re forgetful when we’re old

Punk bands be sweatin’
Ingest carcinogens and estrogen
Misfits gender morphin
Everybody mess with them

Punk bands be freedom
Jailed cause they got weed on them
Inhaled cause we beat on them
Before losers were users and safety pin abusers
Raging out on headphones
Writing songs with 3 tones
Cranking shaking cracking bones
Not pretty just pugnacious
Take a shit they rub your face in it
Hunting down the hypocrites and flailing at the government
Had enough of it tried to quit
Addicts in the attic
Teen center pussy was inadequate
Need something deeper for habit before the hard shit sees the gap and inhabits it
Stick a static steel ring through your nose and let the vultures grab at it
Snow hair, frost brow, brick house move out, stuffed box, moth balls, drove so far to rock out

We say hello, we say goodbye

Grown up fast and bitter
Sex came easy
Cars and Xbox freebies
1000 shares of GE
Gee golly is that for me
Crashin’ parties stashin’ molly glitter bodies no apologies, we’ll see

Go to the same place when we elderly
Put on the same face in the box they bury
The room twisted with our energy
And kids of celebrities hear the hum of generations heckling me

Follow your genetics closely
Mammograms just for comfort mostly
Likely to occur but not for sure
40, 50 age is a blur next to one word that aches when you speak it
And makes people whisper, spirits creaking
Memories of a hairless sister brother mother lover father daughter dead grandmother
Everyone can relate in some small way so they scared when you mention its name
Think about it on the regs, regulate it like my pain meds
Don’t let it get to my head

We say hello, we say goodbye, and through it all we wonder why
Just barely getting by, growing brittle, waiting wild
Changing shape and looking more like the ones the young ignore
I’ve given up on staying young, I will bare the bruise with love

There’s wisdom in the children
Push their limits till their prime
Who am I to judge them
We’re all running out of time.

Waiting:
She’s off the hook
They took her rook
Her queen is pinned
Her pawns are stuck
Easier to play
There are fewer moves to make
No more pieces left to take
Just shake hands and walk away
But she don’t have the choice to quit
And she don’t have that final say
To let go of everything
Push off her raft and let her bones sink
It’d be better if she didn’t have to think

She is hurting and waiting
And panicking and waiting
And stretching and waiting
And choking and waiting
The nurses talk her ears off and treat her like a baby
When they wipe her when they wash her is she just another lady
Skin and bones in her 80’s

She’s lost the tongue to speak and she’s waiting
She’s lost the right to scream and she’s waiting
Forgotten all her dreams and she’s waiting
She’s shrinking toward the emptiness we run from all our lives
The black and white we see when we’re waiting

That’s not right, that’s not right
She’s still got love in her life
When she looks in my eyes
I know she’s glad to be alive

Memory is all we’ve got but she can’t remember if I visit or not
And who can hear her, her voice is shot
I move in close but can’t read her thoughts
Where will I want to be when I’m waiting
Who will I want to see when I’m waiting
What will love even mean when I’m waiting
What will be left of me when I’m waiting

I don’t want to spend my days disintegrating
Stuff juice in my mouth when I don’t feel like eating
Mind full of ideas I’m not articulating
Being here is degrading when you can’t wait for death and you spend your days waiting

That’s not right, that’s not right
She’s still got love in her life
When she looks in my eyes
I know she’s glad to be alive

Hours days and years pass by
It never feels like enough time
Though she’s ill and asks to die
Each time I leave I can’t say goodbye


Preach to Me:

Preach to me, I’m listening for the last time.

Faith in another
Behave like a brother
I run onto the scene the same way as my mother

Skin off my back
Keep you warm when you shudder
We look out for each other we look out for each other

Lines full of Legos
A block in its place
Next thing you know got a beard on my face
Next thing you see that beard’s turning grey

Next thing I’ll be is dead for the rest of your days
Hard to swallow but we must anyway
Now and then raise your hand and make amends

Cause tomorrow isn’t coming
I’ve turned my back on so many someones
And I’m ready to see that
See that my potential be summoned
So let’s see you turn your head to the left and
Raise your right hand and lower it again onto the shoulder of a stranger or the hand of a friend

Preach to me, I’m listening for the last time.

I take it personally
Bear the burden fully
Well I think I do
I say I do
In my gut it don’t seem true
Put on your friend face
Make plans for a play date
But I think naturally I want to shut my friends away
Check the message mark unread
I’ll soon forget
I’ll move on I don’t give a shit
I do what I want bitch

Don’t depend on me
I’m lazier than I seem
I do things when they’re fun for me
Cause I’ve never had to worry
About the petty little things for which you’re scrambling

Don’t depend on me even when you’re desperate
Unless I find a way to benefit
Which Ben is this?
Not the one you miss
Which Ben is this?

This year has been another perfect sample
Friends on the brink of death
Waiting rooms with my mom
Some didn’t make it
Others are going strong
There aren’t enough cliches in my head to really say what’s going on

When I give advice, my perspective is small
I’m a subatomic particle in a cell in a moth
That doesn’t know its own reflection
But is so helplessly drawn
To tiny lights and mirrors
Just as I am to a song

In all my petty musings in all my unheard prayers
There’s only one thing I hope for next year
In all my petty musings in all my unheard prayers, there’s only one thing
Regardless of the fury or flow that roles through me
I hope you make it to 2017
Regardless of the fury or flow that roles through me
I hope you make it to 2017

Bad Chemicals:
Waiting for hours
Then two hours more
Leaning twin towers tap down on my skull
Is anyone in there anyone home
Anyone making my bed wet when I’m all alone?

I used to get naked under the mound
Lay by the entrance
Hoping to be found

Not quite a body
Not quite a corpse
Still in my mind with these 3 little words
Kill the lights
Still in my mind with the trouble it stirs
Kill the lights
I’m reaching for cocktails of prescription pills but none of them work
Kill the lights
Kill the lights

Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4
Step 5

Life in a week
Berries with Mama Bear
Now you’re a freak
Unglued to the chair let the worry wood speak
And let the goods leak telling lies till your toddler is ready to shriek
Dreams of Dianna one person to call
Pull out from the wreckage mirror and all
Step
Kill the lights

Ianmyboorlwishtalkwebandatdagrophy

I tried to listen but I could not relate
Decode the message no pattern or meaning
Just suicide message congressional addresses
What’s mind trying to say where’s my body anyway?

I tried to listen but I could not relate
Decode the message no pattern or meaning
Scrambled suicide message
What’s mind trying to say where’s my body anyway?
I tried to listen but I could not relate


Alone After the Rapture:
They take my children away from me
Fly fly away from me

They take my children away from me

Uno gonna snap the neck
Uno gotta live
Uno gonna clip the spine
Uno plug it in
We all gonna follow it
We all gotta live
We all gotta write the script before we plug it in

Lay low
Stay with me
I don’t wanna be alone
The stars are melting
We can’t run anymore

Rising spinning falling flying

Oh please don’t leave me
There’s nowhere else to go
Tell me your story and keep my body warm

Rising spinning falling flying

My body is a memory
A mere 60 megabytes
My memory in standard D
To save room for the afterlife
My mother’s eyes and father’s hands
Were trashed in compression
I hold onto what I can
But surely must delete them

I saw the night sky in daylight
Shaking wonder
Droplets frozen in place

I saw the night sky in daylight
Shaking wonder
Bodies bowing in the streets

I saw the night sky in daylight
Marionettes
Rising to the heavens

I saw the night sky in daylight
Shaking wonder
Droplets frozen in place

I saw the night sky in daylight
Shaking wonder
Bodies bowing in the streets

I saw the night sky in daylight
Marionettes
Rising to the heavens

I saw the night sky

Uno gonna snap the neck
Uno gotta live
Uno gonna clip the spine
Uno plug it in
We all gonna follow it
We all gotta live
We all gotta write the script before we plug it in


Naked buzzing life
Cut the cord and walk outside
Push my sister down the hill
A reflex anger
Body still
I am innocent
I am innocent
I am innocent
I am innocent
I am innocent
I am innocent
I am innocent
I am innocent

Broken nose and shattered glass
Family torn in half
Hide from window crash
Sniffing glue and breaking hands

I am innocent
I am innocent

I’m trying to remember what I was doing here anyway
I’m trying to remember what I was doing here anyway

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Ben Levin Boston, Massachusetts

We're all in it together, I hope this helps a little.

contact / help

Contact Ben Levin

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like Life and Back, you may also like: