Another one pulled from the songbook — over 1,600 songs written since 2007, and I’m working to record as many of them as I can.

“Midnight in the Gutters” features my vocals and guitar recorded and mixed in Cubase with Waves plugins, AI-assisted mastering, and an AI-generated drum backtrack underneath. Straightforward about the tools — I want the process to be as honest as the songs.

It’s a ring in a drawer. A coat that still smells like her. Fingers crossed behind a promise. The kind of song that walks the same cracked block until morning cuts the night.

Verse 1
The streetlight hums a lullaby
To no one but the dead leaves and I
I’ve walked these blocks so many times
The cracks remember every line
I whispered to a younger face
The one you kissed, then laid to waste

Pre-Chorus
Now every window’s just a mirror
And I look older than last year
I drink the dark, I breathe the smoke
Still choking on the words you spoke

Chorus
You said forever with your fingers crossed
A diamond lie, a heavy cost
Now I’m bleeding youth on broken stone
Just one more ghost without a home
And I cry, I cry — but no one hears
Not the moon, not the bar, not the chandelier

Verse 2
The ring’s still in the drawer upstairs
Beside the pills and unpaid fares
Your perfume haunts my winter coat
Like some cruel joke, a sinking boat
I wander ’til my knees go numb
Each footstep knows what I’ve become

Pre-Chorus
The man who stayed, the one you left
Half a heart and out of breath
I trace your name in condensation
Cursed by my own hesitation

Chorus (Repeat)
You said forever with your fingers crossed
A diamond lie, a heavy cost
Now I’m bleeding youth on broken stone
Just one more ghost without a home
And I cry, I cry — but no one hears
Not the moon, not the bar, not the chandelier

Bridge
I saw you through a window pane
Laughing like you’d shed no pain
While I rot beneath a lover’s grave
With every vow I couldn’t save

Outro
The clock don’t stop, it only mocks
This ticking box of paradox
Still I’ll walk ’til morning cuts the night
Too old to rage, too numb to fight
And I cry, I cry — but no one hears
Just the gutters full of yesteryears

Part of the ongoing Fracture & Form songbook. More at my soundcloud page.

— Matthew