1. |
Sun Song
02:07
|
|||
|
Sun song
The morning brings me roses and fears
I have more dreams than a thousand years
I have more dreams than a thousand years
The morning brings me roses, roses and fears
CH: And the moon’s a lidded Cyclops eye
And the sun’s harsh glare commands the sky,
“The sky like an altar, sad and magnificent”
And all things burn. And all things burn.
Secret vices find a shelter in your heart
You hold me together and you tear me apart.
You hold me together and you tear me apart.
Secret vices find a shelter, a shelter in your heart.
(The sacred naked burden, and all things burn)
You, my star, shine in my direction.
Exalt alike my faults and perfections.
Exalt alike my faults and perfections.
You, my star, shine in my, in my direction.
|
||||
2. |
Hepworth
03:59
|
|||
|
Hepworth
It’s morning in St. Ives and the socks are still damp on the line.
The air drifting in from the bay is equal parts heather and brine.
You were never a beauty even when you were young.
You were stubby and gnarled as a fisherman’s tongue,
And the grit in your voice polished rocks from the Providence Mine.
It’s morning in St. Ives. Mrs. Post switches on the radio,
There’s talk of The Troubles and an endless stream of Barry Manilow.
Here where ships have set sail, here where ships run aground,
The gate, as it closes, still makes the same sound
And the smells of the smoke and the roses will never let go.
CH: Take me back, take me back, oh, let me go with you
To the place where I was born when I was 22.
There are beautiful holes in us, every last one,
Look through my heart and you’ll see the rising sun.
It’s morning in St. Ives and they’re seining the nets in the bay,
And the view from the Talland House parlor is indigo, silver and grey.
Oh, ruthless gardener, oh, wounded gull
You carve up the mast and you carve out the hull
And what’s left is a vessel to carry your children away.
In the harbor at St. Ives, the catch is poured out on the dock
And the fishermen, mending their nets pass the time in what passes for talk.
And the sweep of the lighthouse beam, calling us home
Whispers that we are never and always alone
To the mothers who pace to and fro on the high widow’s walk.
|
||||
3. |
Your Name
01:41
|
|||
|
Your Name
Your name, your name is the longest vowel
It starts in a whimper and it ends in a growl
And it’s trailing smoke and coal and moan
Your name, your name is a train.
And oh, darling, see that track contracting
Swallowed by the glowing tight-lipped groan of the far horizon!
Your name is a snowball rolling down a road
It’s picking up cold and snow as it grows
Picking up leaves and sticks and bones,
Your name is fifty-three words for home
And oh, darling, don’t you know the world is melting
Rivers of stone will overflow the flanks of the wide-roaming rivers.
(Your name, calling your name, calling your name, calling your name)
Your name, your name, your name’s to blame
For drought of sound, for howl of doubt,
But when the earth is cracked and veined,
Your name, your name is the rain.
Yes, when the earth is parched and veined,
Your name, your name is the rain.
|
||||
4. |
Fine Line
01:45
|
|||
|
Fine Line
I’m driving on a highway in Southern Indiana
My head feels like it might explode
As I pass each mile, hoping for a smile,
Salvation from the open road.
CH: It’s a fine line, a very fine line
In the light of day it only comes clearer
There’s something that I have to do
And that something has to do with you
And I can only see it through my rearview mirror.
I’m crossing that line almost every time
For something that I won’t let go
I don’t understand it, it’s almost like I planned it
And there’s something that you need to know.
There’s a bridge up ahead in the distance,
There are lines at the corners of your eyes
And there’s one in my head that I never once said
A line I traded in for a lie
|
||||
5. |
Paint the Town Blue
02:50
|
|||
|
Paint the Town Blue
Some roses are hanging their heads in a vase
A voice on the radio taking up space.
Hope rattles around like a coin in a cup
And a dream’s just a dream after you’ve woken up.
You’ve forgotten the milk and the dinner’s gone cold.
There’s no need to watch this cliché growing old.
A stain on your collar, a scuff on your shoe,
Think I’ll go out and paint the town blue.
You can polish those lies ‘til they sparkle and shine,
Hang all those words out to dry on the line,
Take out with the trash all that you loved the most.
Now look in the mirror, you’ll see you’re a ghost.
You can shave off the memories, and scrape off the years,
While the lamplight grows dim and the candles shed tears,
But the lights of the city shine brighter than you,
Think I’ll go out and paint the town blue.
A tear in the curtain, and a hole in the bed,
I’ve been telling myself that it’s all in my head.
The clock on the mantle says quarter to two –
Think I’ll go out and paint the town blue.
Think I’ll go out and paint the town blue.
|
||||
6. |
Shadow Song
02:51
|
|||
|
Shadow Song
The shadows are sentences that run on and on
From the fenceposts by the sidewalk to the center of the lawn,
Speaking the unspeakable: Summer is gone.
The shadows are sentinels standing by the gate,
Their faces are shrouded and their uniforms are grey,
And their silence is singing that it’s always been this way.
CH: And oh, a sunset is a terrible thing,
And the birth of summer is the death of spring,
You can take as your lover any season you choose,
But whatever love you thought you had, you will lose.
The shadows are sentiments, they call us, they tease,
They stretch themselves like fairy tales, they beg us to believe,
They whisper that the smallest stems have grown as tall as trees.
|
||||
7. |
Moscow
02:57
|
|||
|
Moscow
I’ve seen the spires of St. Basil’s rising through the fog,
The plaza vast and cobblestoned, the air so heavy on my skin
Take off your hat and coat you said
But oh, the chill clings and clings, and always will
My hands ... curled tight inside my gloves like little animals,
Hibernating deep as death. We cannot count on spring this year
The butcher said. His joke has fallen
Flat, and oh, the meat is poorly wrapped.
CH: This city, this city is a slumbering beast
And when it gets hungry, this city, this city will eat.
I’ve seen the flow of shapes and shadows streaming from the train,
A spigot pouring steam and men and all of them have packages.
I smell spirits in the air, you said
As we walked the dark arcade
I’ve heard the scratching of grey trees against a granite sky,
A path of ash and gravel leads down to the mottled, frozen beds
Where monuments sleep fitfully
In rows, their coats dusted with snow.
|
||||
8. |
Melymbrosia
01:52
|
|||
|
Melymbrosia
Beyond the soft grass path,
June has dissolved in the refracted light of dawn.
The air is thick with echoes
And the river is giving off the strangest sort of calm.
CH: Water over rock, and joy over sadness,
I was raised by wolves and saved by madness.
In among the feral shallows
A thousand pairs of eyes betray their quiet wanderlust
As a beam sweeps the shore,
Haloing our shipwrecked souls and glittering the dust.
I’m simple as water
But my quicksilver course is irresponsible, undisciplined.
And oh, delirious heart, you never
Learned to tell the difference between voices and the wind.
|
||||
9. |
Mice in the Walls
03:04
|
|||
|
Mice in the Walls
Yesterday at breakfast, you pushed aside your spoon
And told me nothing could save you now.
You got up from the table and paced the living room
Looking for something that got lost somehow
CH: There are mice in the walls; there are squirrels in the yard
Children’s voices echo down the hall
There’s a space to begin and there are pages to be filled in
We are saved by nothing at all.
In the midst of the clutter, chaos, dirt and noise
And too much fighting for our own good,
Even then, the emptiness opens like a door
And nothing comes rushing in.
After the leaves are gone, like spent words on the sidewalk,
The overcoat of the world has deep pockets of silence.
|
||||
10. |
Bowie Song
04:00
|
|||
|
Bowie Song
You never dreamed that you’d be on your own so soon,
Floating through the city in your glass cocoon,
Trying to fly above it all,
Over the smokestacks and your fortress of transparent walls.
They said you’ve sacrificed enough, you’ll get your wish:
A shiny whiff of oxygen served on a silver satellite dish,
Artfully arranged with a side of vertigo,
A signal from an alien who died a million years ago
Here, where I stop and you begin
That silver line, just like the air, that silver line is infinitesimally thin.
You cried, Save me! It’s a God-awful thing to do!
Why, oh Christ, oh why didn’t you save me from you?
It takes forever for a letter to get to Alcazar,
But you can see it at the movies, a signal from a hollow jar,
There’s a show in heaven called Hollywood.
Catch it live if you can, because the reruns aren’t as good.
In this prairie of Amerika, someday a meteor shower
Is going to smash into your arms at a million miles an hour.
Your intravenous voice on the radio
I thought I lost that bandwidth about a million years ago.
From where you stop to where I start,
That silver line, that filigree, that thread of breath
I used to know that map by heart.
You cried, Save me! But I’ve cried out my eyes and can’t see
How, oh Lord, oh how I could have saved you from me?
Don’t worry ‘bout the sirens, everything will turn out fine,
Just a hiccup in the system, only random static on the line,
It’s what the rest of us do for fun,
Learn the planets if you can ‘cause every star’s a setting sun.
Where’s your breath and where’s your skin?
That silver line of plexiglass, that silver line is infinitesimally thin.
Save me! It’s a God-awful thing to do!
Why, oh Christ, oh why didn’t you save me from you?
|
||||
11. |
Heart Like a Brick
02:20
|
|||
|
Heart Like a Brick
They say you always drove a hard bargain
Drove me half way to the brink and a quarter way back again
You know I’m gonna stay if it’s the last thing I do,
But it’s hard as a floor to keep on loving you,
It’s hard to imagine that the thunder will pass,
Hard as a mirror and heavy as a shot glass.
It’s harsh enough to cast a glare on all that I knew,
And hard enough to bite a diamond clear in two,
CH: Heart like a brick, like a brick through my window,
Heart like a brick, like a brick.
It’s hard to believe in that pinprick of light
At the end of the tunnel we’ve been locked in all night,
It’s heavy as a coat of arms, high as a cross,
Yeah, it’s a hard, hard rain and then a cold, hard frost. (2x)
(But the ice on the lake has an unearthly glow, Surrounded by waves of glowing snow.)
|
||||
12. |
Ganesh
03:30
|
|||
|
Ganesh
Ganesh, I am tired of pacing these vast aqua acres,
Their surfaces freighted, bearing the weight of so many reflections!
See how these shards bob like canoes in the unquiet harbors of dusk?
But you could just push them aside with a sweep of your tusk!
CH: Oh, oh, oh! You have cleared the path, but which way does it go?
Ganesh, I am thirsty for home and the sandalwood acres
Whose roots lap at pools of rain-soaked clay and release them as deep sighs of nectar.
See those tall pines, their ecstatic embrace of the silent regard of the stars?
We danced beneath their canopy once, Ganesh, you have brought me far too far!
Ganesh, I am hungry for the cool barefoot days of my wandering,
Before I was weary beyond my years and Parvati was just a low hum in my ears.
See how a silver drop of your wisdom has rippled my nights to the core?
But you sandpaper skin is wearing me thin, and my heart, my heart is sorrow-worn.
|
||||
13. |
Never Mine
03:08
|
|||
|
Never Mine
CH: Baby, you were never mine, never mine, no, never mine
Baby, you were never mine; my heart shoulda told me so.
Well, you came late to the party, but you were the last to leave,
And when you left, you had me on your arm
But you had someone else’s number up your sleeve.
And I woulda coulda shoulda known, but I just kept on loving you.
I told myself that you were all mine,
You mighta said “I don’t” but I heard “I do,”
I thought you were a magician, the way you could disappear,
And you always turned up back again
Just when I had to have you near
I only wanted to believe those sweet, sweet words were true.
You kept your secrets sealed up real tight
But my heart was keeping secrets too
|
||||
14. |
I Wait for You
01:31
|
|||
|
I Wait for You
The rain cries tears and the trees cry leaves
And the river cries for the vast and deep
And the sky cries silence, the sky cries blue,
And oh, I wait for you.
The bird sings light and the heart sings blind
And it cries as it sings and it don’t know why
And the world sings wind, and the earth sings new,
And oh, I wait for you.
Sometimes the stars are cold and bright,
And sometimes they are shy,
The darkness knows what stars are like ‘
Cause darkness looked into your eyes.
The stream runs stones, and the house runs free
And sea runs into soaring sea,
And the snow runs deep, and deep runs true,
And oh, I wait for you.
|
||||
If you like Nancy Burke, you may also like:
I Used To Be Sad & Then I Forgot
by Mr. Alec Bowman_Clarke
Alec Bowman perfectly captures the dark soil under the pastoral world of British folk with this collection of melancholy originals.
go to album
For My Love
by Kesang Marstrand
featured on Bandcamp Radio Jan 5, 2016
go to album
The Edge of the Land
by Katie Spencer
Spencer's indie folk sophomore album was recorded live in the studio over the course of two days.
go to album
3ingle
by Jason Lytle, Little Wings, Kramies
A trio of songs from indie rock veterans, “3ingle” showcases their songwriting skill with pared-back, acoustic arrangements.
go to album
Delicate, plangent singer-songwriter material that feels like its petals could fall at any moment.
go to album
Seawheel
by David Lonton-Baxter
”Seawheel Acoustic” delivers captivating melodies and heartfelt lyrics in songs that are equal parts soothing and enchanting.
go to album
Little By Little - LP
by Sodastream
Deeply-felt, folk-derived indiepop from Melbourne that balances lovely, quavering vocal melodies with twinkling acoustics.
go to album
