Our recurring feature series Track by Track sees artists guide readers through each song on a release. Today, Pittsburgh singer-songwriter Merce Lemon breaks down her new album, Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild.
Merce Lemon has spent the past couple of years toiling away with new songs, playing shows across the country, and bringing a growing number of eyes and ears to her humble collection of expertly written, emotionally raw folk tunes. Now, the Pittsburgh songwriter arrives with the immaculate Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild, a remarkably realized document that arrives as a result of both creative and personal growth.
“I was grappling with what kind of relationship I wanted with music in my life. It was just something I’d always done, and I didn’t want to lose the magic of that — but I was just having less fun,” she said in a statement, reflecting on the early 2020s. “I got dirty and slept outside most of the summer. I learned a lot about plants and farming, just writing for myself, and in that time I just slowly accumulated songs.”
The songs that she “slowly accumulated” just happen to be some of the most honest, compelling folk rock numbers of 2024. Over the course of the record’s nine tracks, Lemon muses on themes like love, loss, and nature with a poetic, but never pretentious, pen. She’s often lost in thought, in the depths of her own mind, but her feet are always firmly planted in the dirt on the ground.
“I spent [two winters] carving wooden spoons,” she tells Consequence of some of the songs’ origins. “The simpleness of carving such a utilitarian item struck me. I became obsessed with hunting for fallen green wood, getting to know trees not just by their bark or leaves but their smell, and grain, too.”
Listening to Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild isn’t all that different of an experience. You can smell the wood shavings, hear the rustling of leaves, and start to know Merce Lemon not just by the content of her lyrics, but the timbre and emotionality of her voice, too.
Stream Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild below, and read on for Merce Lemon’s Track By Track breakdown.