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  1. Tracks
  2. Pavement
  3. Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
  4. Range Life
Range Life by Pavement

SINGLE

Pavement

Range Life

Release date: 14th February 1994

From Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
Track 9
4:55
AlternativeMusicIndie RockRock
Spotify Apple Music More on Pavement

About This Track

Pavement's 'Range Life' arrives with a freewheeling, breezy country-folk sound that sits apart from the band's usual indie rock posture. The song unfolds as a series of snapshots: skateboard nights, walkman fade, the weight of paying dues before rent. Stephen Malkmus sings the central refrain with a kind of weary resignation, the repeated desire to settle down pitched as something just out of reach, a fantasy that keeps slipping away. The track's directness is notable for the band. Where Pavement often obscure their meanings in abstraction and irony, here the lyrics land with unusual clarity, moving from small domestic struggles to pointed observations about peers and pretence. A passing reference to other bands in the final verse carries a sharpness that cuts through the song's otherwise loose, almost conversational tone. The result is a song that sounds effortless but carries real weight, a snapshot of a particular moment in the band's own trajectory.

"Range Life" is a single by Pavement, from the album Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, released 14th February 1994. The track is 4:55 long. It's filed under Alternative. Full lyrics are available below. Dork has published 5 articles about Pavement.

About the Artist

Pavement

Pavement

Lyrics

Range Life

After the glow, the scene, the stage
The sad talk becomes slow
But there's one thing I'll never forget
Hey, you gotta pay your dues
Before you pay the rent

Over the turnstiles and out in the traffic
There's ways of livin', it's the way I'm livin' right or wrong
It's all that I can do and I wouldn't wanna let you be

I wanna range life
If I could settle down
If I could settle down
Then I would settle down

I wanna range life
If I could settle down
If I could settle down
Then I would settle down

Run from the pigs, the fuzz, the cops, the heat
Pass me your gloves
This crime, it is never complete
Until you snort it up or shoot it down
You're never gonna feel free

Out on my skateboard the night is just humming
And the gumsmacks are the pulse I'll follow
If my walkman fades
Well, I got absolutely no one
No one but myself to blame

Don't worry, we're in no hurry
Schools out
What did you expect?

I wanna range life
If I could settle down
If I could settle down
Then I would settle down

I wanna range life
If I could settle down
If I could settle down
Then I would settle down

Out on tour with The Smashing Pumpkins
Nature kids
I, they don't have no function
I don't understand what they mean
And I could really give a fuck

Stone Temple Pilots, they're elegant bachelors
They're foxy to me, are they foxy to you?
I will agree they deserve absolutely nothin'
Nothin' more than me

Dreamin' dream, dream, dream, dream, dream

So alive

Lyrics provided by LRCLIB

View full lyrics page →

Track details

From Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain

4:551994Single
Listen
Album
Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
Pavement
14th February 1994
Track number
9
Release year
1994
  1. 1Silence Kid
    3:01
  2. 2Elevate Me Later
    2:51
  3. 3Stop Breathin'
    4:28
  4. 4Cut Your Hair
    3:07

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Albums & EPs

Hecklers Choice: Big Gums and Heavy Lifters - A Pavement Collection
Hecklers Choice: Big Gums and Heavy Lifters - A Pavement Collection
2025
Pavements (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Pavements (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
2025
Terror Twilight: Farewell Horizontal
Terror Twilight: Farewell Horizontal
2022
Live At Uptown Bar In Minneapolis - June 11, 1992
2015
Live Europaturnén MCMXCVII
Live Europaturnén MCMXCVII
2009
Brighten the Corners: Nicene Creedence Ed.
Brighten the Corners: Nicene Creedence Ed.
2008

Explore

More tracks by Pavement

  1. Angel Carver Blues/Mellow Jazz Docent
    2:31
  2. Debris Slide
    1:56
  3. Drive-By-Fader
    0:28
  4. From Now On
    2:04
  5. Heckler Spray
    1:06
  6. Home
    2:24
  7. Krell Vid-User
    1:27
  8. Angel Carver Blues/Mellow Jazz Docent (Live at Cirkus, Stockholm)Pavements (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
    2:25
  9. Baptist Blacktick (Live May 19, 1992)
  10. Cut Your Hair (2025 Remaster)Hecklers Choice: Big Gums and Heavy Lifters - A Pavement Collection
    3:07

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  • 5Newark Wilder
    3:54
  • 6Unfair
    2:33
  • 7Gold Soundz
    2:40
  • 85-4=Unity
    2:10
  • 9Range Life
    4:55
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    2:31
  • 11Hit the Plane Down
    3:37
  • 12Fillmore Jive
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  • —Stop Breathin
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    • Credits

    Production & Engineering

    Writer
    Stephen Malkmus
    Producer
    Pavement
    Piano
    Bryce Goggin
    READ MORE ABOUT PAVEMENTREAD MORE ABOUT PAVEMENTREAD MORE ABOUT PAVEMENTREAD MORE ABOUT PAVEMENT
    READ MORE ABOUT PAVEMENTREAD MORE ABOUT PAVEMENTREAD MORE ABOUT PAVEMENTREAD MORE ABOUT PAVEMENT
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