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Released March 14, 2025

10 tracks, 38 minutes

Written & Recorded By Patrick Swain

Mastering Nick Ceppaglia

Cover Art Gaby Michel

Tracklist

1. An End Is Not the End 03:33

If I really focus I can still recall where my mind was the last New Year’s Day A brain awash with butane igniting tiny crises Like flotsam and jetsam just Washing up and washing away It’s something quite peculiar I feel like I’ve been here before An end is not the end And the big kids they’re all kissing And swearing off their addictions An end is not the end A revolution around the sun and I don’t feel the same A different man with a different name My resolution remains the same Staying sensible and sane But we don’t deserve them So we’re brushing our teeth with bourbon An end is not the end I’ve been waiting the whole year For the sunshine to appear An all along it was right here Oh, an end is not the end Oh, an end is not the end Oh, an end is not the end

2. Pittsburgh and Its Proper Nouns 04:27

Nighttime knocks at my door I’ll be on my feet by the weekend Making amends with the floor Hunger and haziness greet me just like an old friend I’ve been walking all over town Around Pittsburgh and its proper nouns As the prime number years of my life begin to spread out I rode the bus to Squirrel Hill, to mount an escape from South Oakland I’ve got so many evenings to kill, mending a piece that lies broken in me Cause I see you in every river, every bridge, every ache and every itch Every staircase, every street, every stranger my eyes meet Every square inch of this place has got traces of you I get carried away by the weight of your eyes locked with mine in my mind The only time I feel alive, that everything’s fine But I know it’d be a mistake to sit down and wait for some fantasy fate There might be a light in the world outside of one girl But I have gone blind to it If only the days would slow down I’d live in a model train town I guess I’ll say see ya around To Pittsburgh and its proper nouns

3. Counterclockwise Sunday 03:09

It’s a counterclockwise Sunday, the breeze is blowing backwards On a Pennsylvania morning, companionship of coffee At Pamela’s when we can’t be bothered to cook On weekends all the booths adorned with the opposing colors worn By visitors from out of town, a couple sips and they’re northbound And they’ll drive back to Ohio later on So I’m going on a walk over futures drawn in chalk That wash away with falling rain, down the hills and sewage drains Seeping deep beneath the cracked cement All my values, all my cares are pacing up and down the stairs All my fears and growing pains, senses that still keep me sane Sprinting over stories that came and went It’s a counterclockwise Sunday, the rivers ebbing eastward Past smokestacks spent like ruins of Rome, and Andy Warhol’s childhood home Under rusty coats of yellow paint If we should meet, don’t think me rude I just prefer the solitude The hills can hide the city’s folds Summer sunburns and autumn colds We are all just sinners playing saints Above the hue turns black to blue Sun evaporating dew I’ll give myself an interview A solitary rendezvous Make a mental maelstrom stir and brew This morning I’ll leap out from bed And let my feet outpace my head And nobody can stop me Nobody can stop me It’s a counterclockwise Sunday, the breeze is blowing backwards, yeah Counterclockwise Sunday, the rivers ebbing eastward

4. There Will Never Be 03:41

I make a point to count the years of youth receding To bask in the power of yes and no So what is the point of anything if it’s all fleeting Lovers will leave and friends will go We all have breakdowns, some more severe I’m not as collected as I appear We all have burnouts, some more sincere Do I deserve to burn and yearn for what’s not here Will there never be another one for me Do I have to be my own best friend So how can I stick around when everything reminds me That everything beautiful will end But I’ve been changing Rearranging my point of view Taking down all of the pictures in my room So I wrote a few pages And send them in a letter or two And I’m still not certain if they were for me or for you There’ll never be another one for me, I know it Nobody else can fill the void There’ll never be another one for me But why should I be so paranoid That there’ll never be another sunrise, no more songs to sing But only by forgetting ourselves can we truly lose everything

5. Flagstaff Hill 04:01

I never knew just what I wanted I never found the foresight to say The bridge to Schenley Park is haunted By the ghosts of bygone love still locked away But when I look into the mirror I don’t see me I know we look the same, but we just cannot be Cause he’s Mr. Man and I’m a scrawny little kid with crooked teeth So if the dream is over, why won’t I wake up I never knew just what I wanted And I know next to nothing still Laying on the grass feeling exhausted Bathing in the sunset on Flagstaff Hill I’m someone different from the one you knew If you don’t like me now, just give me a year or two And I’ll change with the seasons’ autumn leaves and springtime bloom So if the future’s calling, why won’t I pick up I never knew just what I wanted I never knew just what I wanted

6. Abacus 03:13

The neighborhood’s in bloom this afternoon On stairs down to the hollow of cats and mice The early birds will croon like a choir of bassoons Conspiring for a piece of paradise Listen like a phonograph To mourning doves’ strange epitaphs Singing songs of virtue and vice If I could count them on ten fingers I would say All the times my mind has veered astray So I’m thinking of building an abacus For minuscule arithmetic Additions and subtractions of the day A few dozen books sit stacked unstably upon my shelf With margins scribbled in a script that isn’t mine On the wall are taped up paper maps to somewhere else Above a classroom globe from 1989 A studio apartment is a microcosmic canvas that no Young professional pair of eyes can deny If I could find it on a map I’d be the first to cross A line of demarcation, a sign with “turn around” embossed So I’m thinking of building an abacus For life’s little tabulations To visualize the ground I’ve gained and lost

7. Like Plastic Stars 03:50

A bottle of wine in the drawer Resting dormant over Photos from the drug store That I taped up on the wall before The world collapsed in on itself Like it’s 2012 and I am lying on a bunk bed Staring at the clock Don’t it feel so dangerous just sticking around Scared of every corner, digging through the lost and found The heaviness that hides behind my eyes, she has a name But I would find a way through it again Cause I remember everything Take me back to where two strangers met Whisper something I cannot forget Pittsburgh I love you, but I have to go Cause every street sign’s a reminder of a life I used to know And isn’t it impossible to live in such a place Where I see the past in every passing stranger’s face The heaviness that hides behind my eyes, she has a name But I’d still live it over again If only I could blink and it’s September And I cannot remember That you’ll never know me again Until the sky is peeling from the ceiling Like plastic stars that glow in the dark I would find a way through it again Cause I remember everything

8. Farewell Secretariat 03:41

I am a mosaic of all I’ve ever known Painting every tile, arranging every stone The years unfold like a tapestry That wears and tears then lives under the stairs Like a moment’s fleeting although we’re still pleading For a spare breath of fresh air And when I see a hole I’ve got to sew it up So farewell to my youth The blanket’s fraying at the ends Like a quilt depicting memories Of some long gone unknown ecstasy But I felt it in abundance when I was a child When the world felt new and after school I couldn’t wait to go outside So farewell Secretariat, it’s sure been nice to know you while you’re still around And I have found a new lease on life so I will say goodbye to you And when I see a hole I want to sew it up Ah, sewing up a hole Ah, sewing up a hole

9. Already Gone / Noah's Ark 04:34

Standing at the curb under at an umbrella made of metal painted blue Gazing at the concrete just to hide my face in case I run into you If I could wear a mask I would but it Wouldn’t do me any good Because all around the neighborhood There’s no disguise my eyes won’t burn right through And I do the best I can To plant my head deep in the sand And watch the time slip from my hands You get one good look and I’m already gone A chauffeur with his checks all signed by the port authority’s on time So if our eyes should lock while you’re passing by You get one good look and I’m already gone I’m already gone I’m already gone Stand clear of the closing doors We carry the same bags but go to different grocery stores The vessel rocks with each new face aboard I’ll sit in an accordion while we’re rounding all the corners A world lives in each passenger’s brain Every cortex lighting up with love for someone far away It seems like everyone’s a fraction and they share with someone else But I belong to Noah but myself

10. A Bottle in a Shoebox in the Closet 03:54

Where you been my friend I’ve been trying to make the best of what we have before it ends And time’s been flying like a jet I only learned to love the daylight after sunset I wish that I could catch this feeling and keep it in a bottle In a shoebox in the closet where no one else can take it away No one else can take it away I picture everybody I know We’ll scatter in the breeze like autumn leaves when we believe it’s time to go So look up and look around At all the faces and the places you’ll remember years from now I wish that I could keep this moment in a nook under the staircase Where no one else can find it and nobody can take it away Nobody can take it away

Pittsburgh and Its Proper Nouns

Nestled between three rivers, hidden in the nooks and crannies of hills and ravines, lie streets, staircases, buses, and benches where I learned live and be alive. I scoured the city for some unknown beauty and found it in a world that feels new again. I ceased sacrificing myself at the altar of what was. I experienced profound heartbreak and ecstasy in tandem and felt grateful that I could feel at all.

This is my album about life at the poignant precipice of adulthood, in perpetual awe of the flux of people and places that make up a mosaic of each human experience — about trying to be a person in Pittsburgh and the ones who taught me how.

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Demos

Patrick Swain · Pittsburgh and Its Proper Nouns Demos