1. |
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The birds are coming back
Like the circus does each year
These swallows -The birds are coming back
Like the circus does each year
These swallows -
Etching their lines in this picture
Waves above corn rows
Tides above furrows still frozen
Compass-drawn arrows
Circles drawn gold in the water
Halos
I came up early like twilight
Porous with sorrow
And the sun pulled its roots from the winter
Leaving us all alone -
Suddenly wide-eyed and fearless
I held your hand by the road
Watching the mist in the trees, like halos
And like these birds, my thoughts returning
Tombs in the last glow
Years passed, since you were turned in the grass
Beneath the weightless snow...
I’ll pluck the down from your pillow
Light you a cigarette
Watching the smoke making rings
Like halos
Etching their lines in this picture
Waves above corn rows
Tides above furrows still frozen
Compass-drawn arrows
Circles drawn gold in the water
Halos
I came up early like twilight
Porous with sorrow
And the sun pulled its roots from the winter
Leaving us all alone -
Suddenly wide-eyed and fearless
I held your hand by the road
Watching the mist in the trees, like halos
And like these birds, my thoughts returning
Tombs in the last glow
Years passed since you were turned in the grass
Beneath the weightless snow...
I’ll pluck the down from your pillow,
Light you a cigarette
Watching the smoke making rings
Like halos
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2. |
Sink or Swim
03:39
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After the dawning
I rose up that morning
To find myself orphaned again
A 5am ring and a voice whispering
That it happened so fast in the end
After the tears, when I washed myself clean
And looked at the girl in the mirror
She was staring at me like she always had been
But this time she said: “Sink here or swim now -
Swim for your life
‘Cos a storm’s coming in
And you’ve got to be brave for your brother”
I held him close
But the current was stronger
Than all of our love put together
The sky had opened, the vessel it cracked
As we walked in weary procession
And the ties that had tethered me, weathered me snapped
I went spinning in every direction
If grief was a season, then the season was spring
With its fits and its absolutions
And when we first met in that Manhattan whirl
I was high-wire dancing with demons
If you were the sun
Then I was the moon
And when our paths crossed it was darkness
If you were the dancer
Than I was the tune
And I danced us to keep me from sadness
If you were the compass
Then I was the pin
I was spinning in circles, spinning in circles
Spinning in circles, spinning in circles…
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3. |
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You said an early frost
Or sudden sun
Can wilt the leaves or
Turn the bud
Like a hidden fault
On an iced-up lake
It’s the smallest things
That can make it break…
We built this house
In love and haste
Stoked the fire
And filled the grate
We painted this house
In blue and gold
Closed the blinds
And shut out the world
It was cool and quiet
It was blessed hush
I lent into the calm
And the calm was your touch
We sowed the garden
With laurel and rose
And one small tree
By the quarry road
And said one day
On this porch we’d sit
In the shadow of an oak
Grown tall as a ship
We kept this house
In toil and trust
Burnished the beams
And blew out the dust
With our china plates
And our crystal bowls
Our light-up globe
To show us the world
But the world kept knocking
Kept calling for me
I hid in the shadow
Of that small oak tree
From the search and the wonder
And the wild in me
From the longing and laughter
And the call to be free
You kissed me softly
On the head
And brought me tea
And toast in bed
Spring was creeping
In through the cracks
Promising green
And turning new tracks
I smiled and said
It’ll be alright
But the words rang hollow
And I smiled too bright
It was blowing a gale,
To kingdom come
Oak’s branches were sailing
In the morning sun
And the world kept knocking
And calling my name
And I knew that I couldn’t
Keep turning away
You said an early frost
Or sudden sun
Can wilt the leaves or
Turn the bud
Like a hidden fault
On an iced up lake
It’s the smallest things
That can make it break
It’s the smallest things
That can make you…
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4. |
Ghosts
04:26
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Summer looked the same
As it ever did before
The grass cut close
As a barber’s throat
Wet diamonds in her jaw
Summer looked the same
As it ever did before
An August haze
A petrol glaze
A sleep walk to our door
Summer fell like lead
And pinioned to the bed
We lay like butterflies
Until our wings turned dry
Summer looked the same
As it always had till then
A bridal veil
A ship set sail
The dazzle of a green, green gem
And the night that wrote your name
Made a cast upon the dawn
Oh we didn’t see its hand
Move over the pages like a storm
Turn me like a light
Blind me to this sight
Circling my mind
Like scavengers at night
Summer turned its face
And it never looked the same
A broken bowl
A patchwork doll
A wind-up in its place
And you didn’t speak a word
As they led you through the door
You were dumbstruck by the ghosts
Who waltzed your body down the hall
And I watched the faces of so many strangers
Come ricochet through him like ghosts at a ball
A soft-footed priest with his eye to the steeple
My father, Our Saviour, a conquistador
And the summer stumbled by
But my love was still the same
Though this hope, pinned like a stolen brooch
Grew rusty in the rain
And I loved you to the bone
Far more than I could say
Though my arms held fast
I could not ask those weary bones to stay
Turn me like a light
Gather me from sight
Visions in my mind
An ever falling sky
Go down to the end
Where calla lilies bend
Roots that in the dark
Still hear his beating heart
And tendrils with blind sight
Still lean towards the light
In golden sorrow
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5. |
Red Balloon
04:34
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You are from mountains
You’re gentle and you’re wild
I imagine myself on the road
That edges your house
Should I watch the chimney smoke
Rise up like a wraith, like a ghost?
Should I watch the lights
Illumine, darken like my hope?
Tell me your song
And I will sing it too
Sweet song of mystery -
The scorpion and the moon
But for the part that has no reason
That cannot hold the tiger’s jaw
The piece of me, the piece of me that would risk it all
For that moment when we touch
Fingers delirious
Fingers with eyes, inching across my skin
Trying, trying to see everything
And the ground drops away,
And my mind drops away…
Tell me your secrets
Let me trace them in your palm
When you first came to this city
Did you pine, oh did you yearn
For your green-gable land
With volcano sands?
Did the pound shops
And the tower blocks
Bring you down in the end?
Tell me your song
And I will sing it too
But the hourglass is running for
The scorpion and the moon
At this altitude
There’s no consequence
See the figurines, see your garden fence?
Don’t you want to know, to experience
All your lives un-led and your dreams undreamt?
Now I feel like
I feel like
A red balloon
Tugging at the string
Longing
To be weightless
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6. |
Queen of Swords
03:49
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Stay awhile till you surrender
All the ghosts that gather at your door
Call them in, call rain and thunder
Call desire the strangest agony of all
Wrapped up in your great coat,
Will the sun bless this winter’s afternoon?
When I think of you, I see a crocus bud
Braving frost enough to bloom
But you know that he’ll never let you in
So don’t stoke the fire if you can’t bear
The heat against your skin
In sorrow, in sorrow –
Silence spoke
Her tongue was made of crystal
And violet was her throat
Travelling blind to soothe your mind will cost you
Golden hours and worn out feet
All those planes and trains you take to shake his shadow
In the arms of strangers, comfort seek
But you’ll find that he’ll never let you go
Seems he’s the one who’s always leaving
But in the end, he’ll be the one left alone
In sorrow, in sorrow
Resolution spoke,
In one hand held a dagger
And from the other, cut the rope
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7. |
Pont Mirabeau
03:51
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She wore hand-me-down leather
And the trees seem to dance with an unseen lover
When she walks on the banks, wind-lashed,
Rain in the boat lamps, looking for dawn
And the cranes making their neat arabesques
And the ashes of park fires that fell on the ledge
Of the Pont Mirabeau where she toasts you alone
And sings with the wind that she'll never find home
“Oh come near me,
‘Cos its been too long a time
Oh come near me – “
Sous le Pont Mirabeau coule la Seine
La joie venait toujours après la peine
Sous le Pont Mirabeau coule la Seine
La joie venait toujours après la peine
After the night falls this love will remain
Season of tumbleweed weather
How that evening she woke to the touch of a lover
Still felt like the ebb of those tides on the river
Pulling her back to that shore
And she will not forget, will never redress
How she didn’t turn, when the moment was set
And how history is filled with such tomes of regret
She was a coward, he went unmet
She sang: “Oh come near me,
‘Cos its been too long a time
Oh come near me – “
Sous le Pont Mirabeau coule la Seine
La joie venait toujours après la peine
Sous le Pont Mirabeau coule la Seine
La joie venait toujours après la peine
After the night falls, this love will remain
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8. |
Magellan
05:12
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She was born for laughter
It was the first thing I noticed about her
It’s the last thing I hear
Like sweet bells in my ear
When I lay my weary bones without her
And upon a summer evening
When the fireflies shimmered the lake
We went down to the old fairground
For some air and for nostalgia’s sake
I bought three turns on the wheel of fortune
We were going for, throwing for gold
I came up empty, but she won the jackpot
We laughed as she pinned on the brooch
And we toasted her luck
With some beer in a cup
And a kiss on the carousel
Her belly in bloom
Like a waxing moon
Was a secret time only could tell
I work for the master
And the harvest is still months away
Even if I work faster
It wouldn’t change nothing
So until then, I just have to stay
Oh my dearest, oh my darling
I’m no stranger to hard work and toil
I’ll be with you, before you miss me
But you must take the next ship to sail
And she boarded that vessel
With our cargo most precious
She waved from the top of the deck
I’ve frozen that moment
Like a photograph, treasured
And locked it inside of my chest
Now winter is here, there's a frost that is creeping
The fire is out, there’s a ghost in the crib
When I wake there’s a moment
I think I’ve been dreaming
And they’ll be beside me as real as I live
Oh the boat they say it foundered
On the rocks of the Magellan straits
And it shattered into pieces
Just the way my heart now breaks
And you can drown your sorrows
But sorrows, they can swim
Rising up from your midnight cup
When the light pours in
She was born for laughter
It was the first thing I noticed about her
It’s the last thing I hear
Like sweet bells in my ear
When I lay my weary bones without her
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9. |
Hyperballad
03:50
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We live on a mountain
Right at the top
This beautiful view
From the top of the mountain
Every morning I walk towards the edge
And throw little things off
Like car parts, bottles and cutlery
Or whatever I find lying around
It's become a habit, a way to start the day
I go through all this
Before you wake up
So I can feel happier
To be safe up here with you
I go through all this
Before you wake up
So I can feel happier
To be safe up here with you
It's early morning
No one is awake
I'm back at my cliff
Still throwing things off
I listen to sounds they make
On their way down
I follow with my eyes till they crash
I Imagine what my body would sound like
Slamming against those rocks
And when it lands
Will my eyes be closed or open?
I go through all this
Before you wake up
So I can feel happier
To be safe up here with you
Safe up here with you
Safe up here with you
Safe up here with you
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Ana Silvera London, UK
'Stunning...magical storytelling' -The Guardian
Ana Silvera is a London-born singer-
songwriter and composer whose folk and bluegrass-tinged tunes are lyrical, intimate and emotive, works of ‘lavish, vivid imagination’ (Metro).
... more
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