Crocodile tears pa is a bedroom pop project from Philadelphia. I know very little about it or this release on the project’s Bandcamp page, except that this collection of four morose songs are dedicated “in loving memory of cathy stevens”. The first song ‘all saints day’ is my personal favourite, a sad and lo-fi bedroom pop track which mixes Elvis Depressedly’s lonely gloom with Frankie Cosmos’ honest and naively intimate songwriting.
“It’s all saints day again
another year I can’t pretend
I don’t talk to saints”
[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=635003799 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=2981227111]
‘CROWNS’ is a song about losing someone, about grief (“am i stronger if i can say it out loud
wherever you are now could you say you were proud? / i didn’t get the chance to say good bye / but the world’s moved on now so why can’t i?”), while ‘dirt naps’ is a song from the opposite perspective, about being dead and dissatisfied with life as a ghost.
“cemeteries close at 5’o’clock
they shut the gates and put on a lock
so if i die and if they put me in a box
you’ll never see me
never see me
never see me
never see me after work”
[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=635003799 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=2314616321]
The EP closes with ‘gloomy sunday’, an acoustic Billie Holiday played over the ambient sound of rain splashing on a roof, a fittingly sad and reflective finish to a really nice collection of songs. You can get the mourning after now on a name-your-price download via the crocodile tears pa bandcamp page.