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1. |
The President Knows
02:06
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You know she doesn't bother putting ribbons in her hair
It's like she doesn't care
Just a long for the ride yeah
Dancing in the vestibule where everyone can see
Nothing left for me
Just a bouncing ballerina
Underneath her sweater a mysterious code
Given to her mother seven weeks ago
You know it doesn't matter if the President knows
Suddenly she's staking out the pigeons in the square
Normal people stare
Under orders from the Germans
Her father whispers in her ear before she falls asleep
A secret she can keep
Make use of in the morning
She won't discuss the issue in a letter or a phone
Sparing with her adjectives careful with her clothes
She's got to find a way to let the President know
She may be falling, literally crawling
Notorious scrawling but hey
Do you know what it is to be brave?
Do you know it's your ass she's gonna save?
The interview is over now they're taking her away
The unenlightened day
Festers in the foreground
They've cordoned off the corridor and hidden her from view
The actors take their cue
Standing at attention
She crouches in the corner with the couches and the crows
Deciphering a message in the riddle he chose
And now she's pretty certain, the President knows . . .
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2. |
The Forger
03:25
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The things you can do
With just a pen
And some paper
I put the art into artifice
I am the ultimate
Faker
My hands are steady
My eyesight sharp
As a razor
The great Mona Lisa
And still no one can
Duplicate her
Like I can
Oh, I am the man
The great interloper
Look a bit closer you'll see
It's me
Little me
My work in this cellar
Is not unlike
So many parlours
Where young ladies sit
And sip tea with their
Unruly fathers
Pretty and plucked
In petticoats
Men with collars
See how much grander
The world gets
When you make your dollars
Like I do
Oh, I'm no fool
It's never too late
But the profits too great to change
My ways
Crime pays
But babe I think it takes a toll
On this hungry little soul
Every time you turn to go
And babe if you get on that train
My heart will never beat again
There's so little truth here left to bend
The truth is not my friend
My friend
I am not crude
Raucous or rude
Like the others
A bit more refined
With a pragmatic mind
I've my druthers
To peel off this skin
Begin again
With another
Take the high road to fame
Where the love in my brain
Starts to stutter
Here I am
O the promised land
Plasticene Roses
Another heart closes
And then . . .
Report lyrics
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3. |
Dumbo's Feather
02:27
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Where are you going, it's only a feather
Blue as the blue in the bay
An ode to perfection a sunny reflection
Famous for floating away
Now you've got your eye on a permanent sky
You lay your head down on the lawn
To dream of your treasure, a tiresome tether
To worry the cloud that you're on
But while you were dreaming
The lilies were screaming
The ground was beginning to sway
What hole will you live in
Now that you've given
Your last sure thing away
Each feather to fall is cement in these walls
To hide when the sun is too bright
Hold it too long and the magic is gone
So hard to let go at that height
But while you were dreaming
The lilies were screaming
The ground was beginning to sway
What hole will you live in
Now that you've given
Your last sure thing away
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4. |
In Cabrini-Green
02:44
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Ice on the road, blood on the rail
A myth in the making newspapers sell
Another one falling
And no one is calling our names
Our names, our names
Treasonous treasures these towers of steel
Nothing so broken, nothing so real
The seasons keep turning
The sunshine is burning away
Away, away
I know it don't make it right
But once there was so much light
And here was the center of it all
Hard to believe a mother's dream
The most beautiful thing you've ever seen
That's why we stay
In Cabrini-green
Damned in the doorways seeking their fill
Another brother spreading his will
I sing for my supper and pray for my mother today
Today, today
Out on the tarmac the boys and their ball
Scribble their fates up on the wall
Of silence and sirens a semblance of liars is born
Is born, is born
I know it don't make it right
But once there was so much light
And here was the center of it all
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5. |
High
02:30
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I dreamed I had a horse
It flew from the sky
All the rosy colored curtains
Slid open wide
No need to decide
I don't have to try
I can just get by
High
It's a sin but I'll admit
It moved me to pieces
What I will to get my fill
I don't need a reason
Leave them where they lie
Swimming in the light
My piece of the pie
Is high
Cruising curling flags unfurling
Tied to a train
Only over when you've sold her
Skin is to blame
How long can you fly
Just a little sacrifice
The knot has come untied
It's high
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6. |
White as the Stars
02:33
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these people these portholes
they’re taking some kind of magic trip
they’re dancing they’re drinking
they’re laughing they’re sinking
on some kind of ship
and now you’re just waving goodbye
blowing big bright kisses into the night sky
white as the stars that shine in your eyes
baby i’m waving goodbye
goodbye
sometimes i wonder
what spell we were under
what holes did we fill
praying for mothers
for mary, for lovers
for wings to grow out of these weights we call clothes
now you’re just waving goodbye
blowing big bright kisses into the night sky
white as the stars that shine in your eyes
baby i’m waving goodbye
goodbye
manners and money
dripping like honey
dinner is served
you bet on the band
you lay down your last hand
count yourself lucky, how could you know
the way that your life would unfold
duller than diamonds, worthless as gold
but baby you’ll never grow old
baby you’ll never grow old
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7. |
The End
03:58
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She draws the pearls up to her lips
Like so many stars, so many ships
Shooting and sinking under her coat
It's too much to say and it's too much to hope
She feels the flower filling her throat
She feels the watcher beginning to gloat
Dangerous thoughts for a young little girl
Wrapped up in bed, safe from the world
Slipping as silent as snow on her bed
A beautiful murder unravels itself in her head
She feels every nail every stake he drove in
The arc of the eyebrows he etched into her skin
And now all the birds are flying away
I wish you would too but you only stay
To ask me and ask me and ask me again
Ask me and ask me and ask me again
But you know what you know and you know I'll give in
You want to go where nobody's been
You want to know what's at the end
Just as the tiger enters her slip
To give her the gift of the river caught in her teeth
To twist and to turn a long silent thread
All silver and knotted and begging itself to be said
Just like the violets filling her room
She feels empty space beginning to bloom
A terrible price to exact for that
Once you go there you can never get back
I never wanted to be tough as that
Oh, from the end
Oh, at the end
Oh, it's the end
Of me
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8. |
Is
04:04
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I don't really have to know
The kinds of kisses you would throw
A deadly form of undertow
To take me down
Ascending on that subtle sway
I'd rather die than live this way
So give my love to holidays
Salt and sweet, 'cause
Chorus
You can't describe
You don't have the words
And you don't have the mind
I can't pretend
A means that I intend
As hollow as this end
Is
Now look you've come to worry me
To sugar-sweet and bully me
Tragedy or comedy
You decide
Regretting how you spoke that truth
Of buckled backs and broken youth
Still reaching for the b___er blue
Pie-love sky that
Chorus
Would I be lucky just to wait
Out these days, the years that groom us to our fate?
And I know I should be glad
It's just the best I ever had
Then why does it always seem so sad?
To cup it like a grassy blade
Just bottle up and curse the day
Instead I give myself away
Every time
So sappharine the seams I sow
It's not a side I like to show
Still I don't really want to know
How you shine, 'cause
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9. |
Kristine's Lullaby
03:53
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The moon is low and the grass is high
And there's gold buried in your hair
There is no worry upon your brow
Off to sleep now, without a care
You hear them come calling
It's Christopher Robin
And Pooh Bear making their way
The horse and the carriage
A royalist marriage
And a pin prick to bring on the day
Take this light
And do not go gentle into that good night
Because soon there will be voices telling you
Be simple, be pretty, be small
Of all the choices given to you
It's just which dress to wear to the ball
I know things
Aren't the way they ought to be
I know things
Aren't the way they ought to be
I can hear those old storms
Brewing out at sea
Take this light
And do not go gentle into that good night
Little girl you can change the world all right
The brightest star can light the darkest night
But they do not see the light, oh
It burns their eyes
It's brighter than the lies
If they try to tell you
Tell them you already know
You hear them come calling
It's Christopher Robin
And Pooh Bear making their way
The horse and the carriage
A royalist marriage
And a pin prick to bring on the day
Take this light
Little girl, sleep tight.
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10. |
Only You
02:27
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Jodi Shaw
"In Waterland" is a highly evocative, intensely personal and unique work.
Jodi Shaw recommends:
Honest, real, and beautiful.
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Stranger in the Alps
by Phoebe Bridgers
Love her voice, her songs, her presence. Special.
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Dive in, retrieve, and bring forth. That's what is going on here.
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Drifting dreampop and snarling grunge, with potent vocals wrapped in gauzy textures one minute, surrounded by jagged riffs the next.
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1990s-era indie-folk sounds back songs about love and identity on this project from the Florida-based artist.
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The classically trained English musician inhabits the in-between on her meditative, alt-folk debut.
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