Make the Clocks Move is Kevin Devine’s second album. It was released in 2003, being the first of two albums released by Triple Crown Records. The German record label, Defiance Records, released a double LP set with both Make The Clocks Move and Kevin’s following album, Split The Country, Split The Street.

It is the first of his albums produced by Chris Bracco and Mike Skinner, who would later produce a number of Kevin’s recordings including the albums Split The Country, Split The Street and Brother’s Blood. Bracco and Skinner are also members of his band (playing bass and drums, respectively), “The Goddamn Band”. Mike Skinner was the drummer of the band Miracle of 86, in which Kevin was the lead singer/guitarist.
-From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Purchase on iTunes

Tracks:
1. Ballgame

2. Wolf’s Mouth

3. Noose Dressed Like a Necklace

4. Not Over You Yet
5. Flatline Blur

6. Whistling Dixie

7. People Are So Fickle
8. Marie

9. Country Sky Glow

10. Longer That I’m Out Here

11. Tapdance

12. You’re My Incentive

13. Splitting Up Christmas

14. Thanks

Lyrics:

Ballgame
A good man doesn’t drink
And I’ve been drinking alone
So what does that make me?

My hands they always shake
And no one’s calling my phone
So what does that make me?

And I know the kid with his guitar
So drunk and anxious
Has been done to death
But tell me what hasn’t
I’ll try it

Because I’m selfish enough
to wanna get better
But I’m backwards enough
not to take any steps to get there

And when you realize it’s a pattern
And not a phase
It’s what you’ve become
And it’s what you will stay
That’s ballgame

‘Cause I don’t got room in my life
for anyone else
And I’ve driven away all the
people that could help
And I still don’t even know what I
need to do to fix myself

And there’s a clamp around my chest
It tightens every time I lapse into
Another sorry story

About my miserable collapse
A bronze box I keep encased in glass
And dust off whenever I want your pity

‘Cause lately I’ve had to come to grips
with scope and figure
How my problems stack up in a world
two steps from ruin
(Or maybe it’s rapture)

Well, either way, I realize that my shit’s
about as small as it could be
But that makes me feel worse for even feeling
this bad in the first place

‘Cause there’s a war starting soon, and all
the flags’ll be waving
And Daniel’s 20-year-old friend will be ready,
and willing, and waiting
He’s a Marine and he told me

And that makes me sad
Really, really fucking sad
But at least he’ll act

I’ll just bite my tongue and then say:
“Daniel, you wish him luck”
I pray that he comes back
For his mother’s sake, and then I’ll drink
those thoughts away
I’ve gotten good at that

‘Cause when you realize it’s a pattern
And not a phase
It’s what you’ve become
And it’s what you will stay
That’s ballgame
Oh oh oh

Yeah when you realize it’s a pattern
And not a phase
It’s what you’ve become
And it’s what you will stay
That’s ballgame

Yeah when you realize it’s a pattern
And not a phase
It’s what you’ve become
And it’s what you will stay
That’s ballgame
Wolf’s Mouth

I got a wolf’s mouth
And it suits me
I chew the sides out
With my sharp teeth

I cut my tongue up
I make my gums bleed
I scare the people
That pay to see me
When I sing

And I see white steam
Above your blue face
It makes my hands hot
It makes my lips bake

And the sweat just makes my shirt stick
To that scratch across my ribs
That space where you fell from
And I haven’t sewn up since

I’m trailing off again

And the strain just makes my face tic
And it messes with my head
That space you tore open
Well, I’ve had trouble closing it

Noose Dressed Like A Necklace
A cadillac drives down my street
A bead of sweat pourin slow down a palm line.
I see a bumper sticker
it’s a bearded man with a wanted sign.
A myth we’ve made to scare out fears away
A slogan that we slap on all our misdirected hate
A muddy symbol meant to mitigate our pain
But it’s really just a desert corpse
We’ve painted on the wall out in some cave.

Anyway…
I don’t know where he’s gonna park that thing.

My neighborhood drunk’s on-line at the deli
with his shaky hands and his swollen face he waits for his coffee.
He blacks out curbside every night
and every day crawls back towards wall street.
So I don’t see it like it’s us and them
I just see everybody working for that same eternal weekend
Droning on and on and on and never doing what we wanted
Heavy legs two steps behind some forever dangling carrot.

and I’m tired of this
So who’s to say that we can’t just fucking change it?

and I know it seems dramatic
but I treat it like a crisis
The office to the coffin
All our time and talent wasted
and that weight against your throat
is that a noose dressed like a necklace?

From here I couldn’t really tell the difference
either way I say let’s not take any chances

cause I don’t know where he’s gonna park that thing
Well I don’t know where he’s gonna park that thing
No I don’t know where he’s gonna park that thing

Not Over You Yet
You were always cute
But goddamn! you got hot
Hot enough to streak the streets white
with sunspots when you walk
And I’m still obsessed with cowboys and Indians
And you bitin’ your lip when you lose your breath

I’m not over you yet

I know I will not call
It’s this decision I’ve made
So I’m up all night chanting,
“Vow I can’t break”
I might bite my nails so I can’t scratch my face
But I’d still cut my hair if you asked the right way

I’d at least comb it anyway

You’re still on my towels
In my eyerolls and scowls
And I know what I did, and why
But that don’t mean I can’t regret it
When I’m watching my TV all night

Im not over you yet (x2)

A Flatline Blur
My friends are working on avoiding me
So when we meet I keep my mouth real busy
Talk out my nervous energy
It never works
I throw darts at the wall and get sloppy

But it’s alright now
If I seem surprised, it’s just a joke I’m trying out
But if it floats, I guess I’ll keep it around

A woman gestures lazily
Through the hoods in my eyes I see her shaking her jewelry
It casts a perfect light on me
I feel moved and that’s strange
But lately, I’ve been acting really strangely
So it’s alright now
I’m keeping distracted to blunt my reactions
And anyhow
You think less when there’s less for you to think about

A paralyzed puppet sits stiff in the window
Grinding his teeth and playing piano
All his songs bleed together in a flatline blur
A broken litany of worthless words
Creating space while your drinks get served
I know it gets on your nerves
Just try to pretend like it’s not work

A little denial never hurts

Whistling Dixie
We’re a nation full of dumbbells
pulling nightshifts at the gym
And we’re a nation full of bookworm girls
dumbing down to fall in love with them
We’re a nation full of suspects
whistling dixie at the scene
And we’re a nation full of bad detectives
selling clues to everyone we meet
We’re a nation full of envy
insecure and losing sleep
We’re a nation full of jealous boyfriends
driven nuts by facts and history
We’re a nation full of ivy
it’s wall to wall to wall all green
And we’re a nation full of soundbyte bloodcells
bound in knots and swelling down the stream
We wrap bibles up in blankets
just in case we’re watched in sleep
But it’s the slingshots underneath our pillows
that keep us calm and rested and relieved
‘Cause we’re a nation built on egg shells, bandages, and apple seeds
attractive homes on top of bruised foundations
that come apart gradually…
before they’re leveled completely
Yeah, before they’re leveled completely.

People Are So Fickle
Oh baby, baby please
I feel an urgent need to apologize
I did a terrible thing in a terrible dream
And now I can’t look you in the eye

It started:
We were out on a date
When you turned to say,
“I gotta tell you something odd
I know I said we’d get married
But I’m already married”
And that’s when you laughed so hard

So I turned and swung
I woke in a shock
My nails digging blood from the base of my palms

It’s just that people are so fickle
They fall in love at different angles
So really I could lose you just as quickly
as I’ve gotten you
And that’s the kind of thought that
makes me nervous
And worried if you’ll really think I’m worth it
When the rush wears off and you’re left with
this busted person
But if you tell me you will
I will do what I can to believe it

So baby all this things that I’ve seen
Last night while asleep
This morning, they’re messing with me
And now I’m anxious as hell
And looking for help
Something pleasant and painless
Some story to tell
With a throughline of calm
That could stop me from being myself

‘Cause all I think is how I wanna be your fever
Just to know I make you heated
‘Cause I worry you might see me more like a blanket
Who’s there for comfort and for cover
From the glare of former lovers
All that passion that kissed you and bit you
’til you were devoured
And I’d like to get better ’cause thinking
like this is torture

And if I can’t stop it you’ll get sick of
bearing crosses
And you’ll jump to cut your losses
You’ll go get quarantined somewhere far
from me
Where it’s much less dangerous
But maybe if I wake up and quit dreaming
I can shake the shit I’m fearing
And I can feel like I’m just freaking out
for no good reason
I’ll tell you what
If there’s a line I can cross, once I get there,
I’m not ever leaving

Marie
Marie, you got me thinkin’
Long term and being careful with my drinkin’
And looking forward to my holidays and weekends
Marie, I love the way you got me thinkin’
But Marie, I’m always workin’
Long drives, bad food, stale air, and such boredom
When I get home, we’ll take a trip or just sit around and do nothing
Rent a movie or something
Whatever gets your blood pumpin’
My Marie
You’re all the pretty music that I need
So lay down on that couch and sing for me

Longer That I’m Out Here
The longer that I’m out here the better you sound
You’re scrunching up your face in this picture I found
And I’m chasing after you, steadily losing ground
I don’t wanna forget so I’m writing it down

Have you ever? No, never never?
I find that hard to believe
So let’s burn the furniture
To see how angry a fire could make me

Now you say that there’s someone that you need to reconnect with
Some scarecrow from high school that you loved but never slept with
A baby with a pipe dream playing hopscotch on your bandages

And I’m singing all his songs while I sleep on your couch
I’m coughing up a lung but I’m covering my mouth
And I paint you on the wall
Yellow, red, green and brown
I miss you all the time but I’m blocking it out

Are you better? No, never never?
What does that say about me?
Now let’s break the smoke alarm
To see how scared locked windows’ll make me

So you say there’s a stranger staring sideways in a deep freeze
A loner draped in ivy playing slumlord in his city dream
A faker with an art form pulling magic tricks
on the weak girls up his sleeve

And I’m choking right along with the words in my throat
I’m falling back in love with the letter you wrote
And I think that I was wrong, but I guess I don’t know
I figure that I’ll wait until you tell me so

Tapdance
You get back here
You do it slowly
Do it calm, now
Don’t be so angry

I got something
I’ve been chasing
Every day since I started walking

It just sits there
In the distance
It always flirts with the tips of my fingers

You thought that
You could love it
Until it touched you
And now you just wanna stop it

Well I’m sorry
It’s not likely
It was here when you got here
And it’ll be here when you’re not here no more

And then some days
I get lucky
I can focus and things are less shaky

And I scrape you
Off the pale moon
And I slip you
Into soft shoes

And you tapdance
To a jazz band
On a cruise ship
Near an island

And your hair’s up
You wear a short dress
And a wide smile
You’re movements are careless

It’s a daydream
I keep having
To make the clocks move
While I’m working

Or a bad joke
I can’t sit through
And I smile because I feel like I have to

But if you’d look under the table
You’d see I’m playing with my knife
I’m slicing stripes into my kneecaps
And I’m struggling just to come off polite

And we could be a snapshot framed,hung like a portrait
And what if that’s true and I’m the only one who knows it?
Yeah what if that’s true and I’m the only one who knows it?
What if that’s true and I’m the only one who knows it?

Country Sky Glow
You carry the beach in your way-too-short hair
That you shaved off last week cause you freaked and got scared
That when it’s longer, you remind me of her

So you offered it up with what passed for authority
Some strict sort of challenge you directed straight at me
You said, “Forget her, I don’t care what you two were”

But it’s a trick on your ego
A two-step off tempo
A solid gold bracelet
Under lights, in a window
In some shopping mall where I never go

You play coy and count tiles, drag your toes through the water
Raise your eyes, bite your lip, and my mind’s in the gutter
You move at me and take my face in your hands

I feel light bulbs explode in a fire-cracked thunder
Sense the slow seismic shift of the sprawling cloud cover
But when we’re finished I feel awful again

So it’s the same sorry story
Just the cast changes nightly
And it skips like a record but it glows like a movie
Or the country sky that I never see

The shake in your voice makes me feel empty and ugly
All scattered anger like a windstorm, howling violently
And I wanna fade out and wake up somewhere else
Where no face is familiar and I’m left by myself
To keep plugging away on my own wasted time
To eat badly and spend all my money and write
To not feel too guilty to be tired at night
Since I’m not fixing things here, I’ll leave them behind
So you make your decision
I’m through making mine

Now I walk where the street swallows light like it’s water
I see the slant of your smirk on every kid at the corner
But if you called, I’d never know what to say
So I just hope you never will
Things are easier that way

Splitting Up Christmas
So what if I’m freezing, I’m awake and I’m happy
The sun’s steepling its shards on my floor
I drag my feet to the shower and I hear someone singing
I keep the lights off as the water gets warm
Now I knot up tie and toss my books in a schoolbag
They keep my priorties straight
So I can sleepwalk through work like an outpatient program
I don’t buy but I’ll get through anyway
And at some point I’ll call you and tell you I miss you
And you are the point of my day
And my face will get flushed and my throat will choke up
When you tell me you feel the same
So I have been thinking of splitting up Christmas
To see everyone I’d like to see
And your first on that list
Your the lotto I hit
You’re the star at the top of my tree
And I have been feeling this good for a reason
My friends and my family
You are all the backbone
You keep me balenced and settled
And I”m in debt to you all endlessy
So tonight I will call you and try to say
“Thank you for being the sun on my face
I know the world’s almost over but you make it seem better
And I hope for you I do the same”

You’re My Incentive
your bearings are shot
and your car’d only work like she used to
your friends don’t call and they don’t even bother
with offering excuses
the tv is on but its always on so its useless
its just the awful news and the sorry truth
tho we’re definetely sinking
so i wouldn’t hold my breath if i were you
you’ll just hurt your chest and your face will turn bright blue

this is how its gonna be
this is how its gonna be
this is how it will be and theres nothing that we can do
and if you start believing then i’ll stop holding my breath too

you’ve been praying for change but you aint been to church since the 10th grade
and you cry at your jobdon’t believe in your voting
never celebrate your birthday
so you set up for dinner to make you feel less desperate and worthless
but your dad gets drunk so your mom throws a fit
while your man hits on the waitress
so i wouldn’t waste my time if i were you
you’ll just snap your spot and strip away your youth

this is how its gonna be
this is how its gonna be
this is how this will be and theres nothing we can do
if you start believing then i’ll stop wasting my time too
cause you’re my incentive and if you go i’ll go too

Thanks
I never knew things could be so slow
I could wait so long
Be so still and calm
And get where I want, on your arm

Thin streaks of tar spill off your right eye
Where my fingers find
Their way there every night we sleep side by side
Your hands in mine

When you get here, it’s so nice
It’s just the part where you leave I don’t like

Such a happy accident
A note in your sneaker at 10 in the morning
And all of my worry that you were offended
And the catch in my breath when you weren’t
It’s like I woke up and got handed a present
And I’m thanking you for it