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The Dispensary Sentence

by Johnny Setlist

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1.
Arrival 03:56
You could be whatever you want You could have been whatever you want Yet you're here in this old place Yet you're stuck here in this old place One by the thousand, attracted by a brand Taking over my life with unreasonable demands They think we have a cure here to make it disappear They won't get a single thing They won't get a single thing from me The cracks in my heart deepen day by day And I wonder why i've nothing to say The guile of my mind weakens play by play And I wonder why i've chosen to stay I don't want to know you, means more guilt if I do wrong If i'm staying silent, i'm not leading you along The weight is bearing down on me I need some breathing space I've got to get out of here I've got to get the fuck out of this place
2.
I am not witchdoctor For you're naked sins I am not a bubble burster For your new children I am not a public figure in which to confide I am not to be on the jury Or to be left untried But in my domain of fruitless empathy You'll develop a complex based on your dependency Hoarded in, congested Depressed and overestimated The distress to be expected With derelict confectionery Extemporaneously compiled To remain useless and vile While you go the extra unnoticed mile You'll have seen a million faces Sent to be treated in other places The eyes that were too young For the law to see what's wrong Where your ethics lose their poetic sense Replaced with metric density I am not a medley maker Of your favourite songs I am not the earworm In your head when it's all gone wrong I am not a philanthropist Who's here to speculate I am not an addict Watching your failing mental state But your feel the need to question what it is I know You take one little tablet and suddenly you're George F. Archambault Box to box and crate to crate Year to date and end of day Intervening much too late To help the sorrow dissipate Or just to help eradicate That rash of shame or that twist of fate You only now present with a belated sense of urgency You'll be singled out for a single dose One to kill, one to promote For a life that need not live Yet you insist on drugs to give To the dying kind with mind decay Watered down 'til they're washed away Five year's training to go near and far We don't need you here for what your are Our people are healthy, dead, or slow And you can only go where the money goes Your language might help you but soon you will see That patients are assholes in every country They'll warp you and bleed you and leave you immune To the reason that's led to you being marooned I am a human and these are my days Spare me five minutes to give me some praise So I might hit target, so I might survive By preparing your pills I stripped myself alive If you listen to me and take my advice I'll save you from becoming a habitual device Yes, I need you're custom but dear God, can't you see? Patient safety is my priority
3.
It was the morning I remember that, I remember that And it was her 10am feed And she took it normally And it was strange Even after a month, things started feeling normal Which I was fine with This was gonna be my life I was fine with that This was my normality now But anyway she feel asleep And I feel asleep And i'm usually tired after i've come to see you guys And I just remember there was this scream And I swear I almost fell out of my skin And it was the Mrs she screamed And it was fucking terrifying And she was crying, she was crying so much And Tia had gone purple, purple and still I couldn't have been asleep for more than an hour, an hour at most Yeah, just a few minutes off the New Year's prize Just a few minutes off Would have got the prize Yeah, just a few minutes off
4.
Your shoes do seem a little big for you And I know your words will get misconstrued But now you're slipping on your words And it cuts so deep to hear you curse In a different language, in a different tone The way you let little things get overblown Is a tidal wave waiting within Asking: "Are you playing to avoid losing, or are you playing to win? "Are you playing to avoid losing, or are you playing to win?" Oh, what a difficult sight you must be To the men drawn in by your beliefs And a charming set of rotten teeth That would be more suited to a shop in Leith I wonder if a move has proved it success When the dress you wear gets you no notice Leaves lungs longing for an asthma attack And blends you in 'til the blood flows from your back Blends you in 'til the blood flows from your back Now I hear you're exempt from society After getting yourself dosed up on Preconceive Now I work to music up above my head Leaving rumours of a miscarriage left unsaid But part of me will miss those jagged rocks And a heart that was born from an Eastern Bloc But I won't get eaten up by despair Cause like you I didn't come here to care Cause like you I didn't come here to care
5.
Model Day 07:02
Be a man and suffocate Learn to love the place you will inevitably hate Succumb! Succumb! to the clientèle Who will kill your butterfly and leave you in the diving bell Befriend all the company They're the only ones to remind you of your sanity Bolster up your vigilance It's the only state of being that'll mean you'll ever stand a chance So you begin with an illness And i'll begin with a cure Once i've had it checked This remedy is yours So your return for another Which the doctor has put on to repeat Despite the fact he has no idea What he's trying to treat Script after script after script after script Came each one I wish I could have ripped And thrown out of the system But can they really not afford to to buy Sumatriptan? Suits and salaries would come And empty out our galleries And regurgitate some fallacy About an agony-ridden family And yet my apathy can understand your tragedy Risk after risk after risk after risk From the spitting addicts afflicted by existence When the law doesn't help you as a form of resistance Script after script after script after script.... But that doesn't mean i'm conflicted by my interest That doesn't mean i'm conflicted by my interest That doesn't mean i'm conflicted by my interest That doesn't mean i'm conflicted by my interest That doesn't mean... I'll leave every day Knowing I didn't change the world Thinking about the different ways Conversations could have unfurled There's no recognition And you can't expect there to be From a job this menial That somehow means everything to me So you will create a false sense of worth When you join the patients on Fluoxetine When a job begins to hurt So you will learn to tolerate this mess And you will learn the art of Keeping your feeling suppressed
6.
Mhairi Mhairi, marry me Scar me with an inch of my life Show me what it is that's not right And i'll help you out of this nightmare Mhairi Mhairi, marry me Take hold of that bottle like a knife Admit to me that none of this feels right And i'll bury it deep in a hole I'll anaesthetize what keeps you From closing your eyes I'll dismantle the image Of the man who was trampled that night It's life-changing, not life-threatening But you have to question who you're letting in And Mhairi, I beg you To let me go, or to tell me we're through
7.
Will you hush? Will you leave? Little thrush We can't alleve But we'll suffer through it Cause you think that we can heal Another reason rang not to answer the phone An overblown bag of bones wants me dethroned Now I want to cry but I won't, I swear I wouldn't want someone thinking that I care With a heavy voice, hands, and a head of disdain I swear i'll do something that'll make it all change
8.
I have seen round triangles I've counted out the days It took me to formulate And conceive the perfect phrase That would efficaciously Manage to displace All the flames around your heart Made of burning paper lace Which made it hard to keep a grasp Of any situation Where I imagined that we overcame Every single contraindication Can't you see What it is you mean to me Oh please Cause you're Clostridium to my Botulinum You're the strings on my harmonium You're the face I see when I go to sleep You're the secret I wish that I could keep But your interest in me Was minimal at best It took a dozen beta-blockers Just to regulate my chest To rid me of the heartbeat And leave me with the thought That I could win you over And you could not be bought Can't you see What it is you mean to me Oh please Cause you're Clostridium to my Botulinum You're the strings on my harmonium You're the face I see when I go to sleep You're the secret I wish that I could keep And every single type of vaccination Won't separate my cardiac cells And eradicate this infatuation Cause you're Clostridium to my Botulinum You're the strings on my harmonium You're the face I see when I go to sleep You're the secret I wish that I could keep And if like cures like Then love needs love I need your atoms Or lack thereof To reconstitute and stabilize This contentment that i've devised And every single contraindication Could be mitigated by hands Wrapped around your lymph node glands
9.
On Leaving 05:27
Nothing lasts forever and I knew this time would come Yet all I feel is anger about the ease which I succumb To the laws of outer management, to the rule of a company Who fail to look past profit and see individuality I don't care about the area, I don't care about it's needs I don't care if it hits target, I don't care if it succeeds Fuck you, I don't wanna go - my life is in this shop You honestly thought i'd be happy with a mandatory swap? But this simply is the rule of life 'til I can cast aside DHC Continus and Bendroflumethiazide You've just got to grin and bear it and pretend you've got a handle Despite every second person you meet being someone you want to strangle So i'll arrive with potent bitterness, sadness, and despair I know now in this company that no one will be spared The moment you hit "legendary" your life is gonna change They'll pick you off like targets hanging in a shooting range So introductions will be made again, it's time to start anew Fifty different people I guess i'll have to get used to You'd think I might enjoy the change, so I can start again So why does my contentedness feel more like a stranger than a friend? No, I guess that feeling's locked inside until I can walk away From cytotoxic triangles and Enalapril Maleate I've been sucked into the system trying to acquire myself a skill And i've lost the dignified part of my rational free will But you might as well shut your mouth cause no one's listening to your plea This sorry excuse is the person that you've chosen to be

about

At some point in our lives our work becomes a part of who we are. Whether you have unbridled passion for what you do day in/day out, or whether you have a brooding disdain for an occupation you keep for a necessity-rooted reason, our job changes us. They teach us skills, introduce us to people we would otherwise have not met, and afford us countless tales to be retold to significant others or internet forums. Johnny Setlist is no different, and with The Dispensary Sentence he captures his own personal experience after too many years working in the world of retail pharmacy.

Completing a trilogy that started all the way back in 2009, The Dispensary Sentence is both an invitation into a world many would not give a passing thought to, and also an embodiment of how it served to morph Johnny Setlist’s outlook on life. Ideally The Dispensary Sentence is best consumed as a whole; it’s a small shard of his life that lives in him, and is sought to be purged in the execution of each song on the album. Medicine bottles, tablets, capsules, till scanners, paper bags, and the noises of the world outside the glass doors of the pharmacy (along with some more traditional instruments) all make up the sounds present here. Granted you probably don’t want to spend your free time listening to someone else make noise about their job, so, if possible, listen to The Dispensary Sentence at your work.

credits

released March 23, 2015

All music and artwork by Johnny Setlist

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Johnny Setlist Edinburgh, UK

Johnny Setlist is musician of sorts. Sometimes he talks in the third person.

Available for weddings/funerals.

johnnysetlist [at] gmail.com

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