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1.
Little John 03:35
Little John cried out in the morning / Snow wet from the spring time sun / Mothers gone, her train came early / Never held her new born son / Some child is born of silver / Some child is born of mud / No hand from death delivered / No tale not told in blood / Go west when the field runs fallow / Far from the church and law / No hat and a coat that’s borrowed / King of spades and the luck of draw
2.
Salt of Loss 04:17
This old boat seeks wind and savors dreams / Chimes near the stove harbor songs of Asian seas / I’m going sailing / This old car smells of cedar, rose, and dust / Cooper’s feather facing west for gold or bust / Radio playing / What is the treasure? What is the cost? / How does the fruit mix with the salt of loss? / This old bike knows the quiet winds of night / Harvesting promise through zigzags in fractured light / Lovers are breathing / These weathered feet want a maple tree in fall / Tonic for the weight of the pull when visions call / I’m going dreaming / We’re going dreaming / What is the treasure? What is the cost? / How does the fruit mix with the salt of loss?
3.
I’ve climbed the mountains, I’ve crossed the valleys, I’ve sailed the oceans, and slept in galleys / I’ve faced the black bear, I’ve chased the mustang, I’ve dreamed the coho, and danced the coyote / I fly no flag high, I sing no anthem, I cracked my heart wide and bow to children / The fire’s blazing, the water’s rising / Can’t tell the flood lines from the horizon / So won’t you tie tight my shoes, cause we’re marching two by two / There’s a mountain pass north ways, but the storm has held strong for days / And the only chance of light is that rainbow at midnight / From Appalachia to Redwood Coastlines, from Georgia farmlands, to Napa grapevines / There is a promise, this land keeps calling / It’s born of shadow but speaks of morning / So know the rising from the falling / Know the sound bites from the calling / The fires blazing, the waters rising / Can’t tell the flood lines from the horizon / So wont you tie tight my shoes, cause we’re marching two by two / There’s a mountain pass north ways, but the storm has held strong for days / And the only chance of light is that rainbow at midnight
4.
I’ve tried, I’ve cried over you / All the beautiful things you do / And its my fault, don’t take it with you / What we know, isn’t always what we do / I’ve seen a part of me that’s so obtuse / That’s a fancy way to say confused / And its such a relief from the grimace of certainty / All this disbelief, cool water over me / You’d think that the past was free / But those ghosts are so tricky / How they beg, and they beg, and they beg to be free / Like a red rain coat in a black white dream / They just beg and they beg to be seen / All my friends live hard and play fast, walk away from every crash / Stronger and wiser but you still gotta pay the piper / High and higher, every forest needs its fire / All my dreams, wear capes and masks / Show up first and leave last / Surprise surprise, keep your eyes on the prize / Surprise surprise, life wins best disguise / You’d think that the past was free / But those ghosts are so tricky / How they beg, and they beg, and they beg to be free / Like a red rain coat in a black white dream / They just beg and they beg to be seen / So Ghosts be free Ghosts be free
5.
Grandma told me stories about the Crescent County Faire / Billy brought his pony / All the girls wore braided hair / Grandpa drove the Buick with the trailer hitched to rear / So Billy watched his pony with the highway in its hair / Wind in Hair / Wind in Hair / Tossing colored bean bags through a hole cut in a chair / Win a dozen tickets, get the gold fish or the bear / Last year the fish died before Christmas time was here / Stella thought the reason was her brother always stared / Brothers always stare / Brothers always stare / Super secret circle, two o’clock under bleacher stairs / All the older people occupied with their auction wares / Spin the bottle just right, toward the girl with the curly hair / I go with her forever, cross my hear, I swear / Truth or dare / Truth or dare / Wind in hair / Brothers always stare
6.
The Rock 02:49
Where do you go, when you know that you do not know / I said where do you go, when you know that you do not know / You go to the rock go to the wall / To the barren at the barren well / To the shadow cast by the flames of the this heavens hell / Go to the ash under the bridge / To the eyes where the hallows thick / To the banks of the river where the fish swim belly up / You go to the back go underneath / To the sink and garbage heap / To the streets where the bus and train don’t stop at all / If you want to learn listen close to the people you fear most / If we want to grow let go of the tip-toe minds we host / Visions of a better day, visions of different way / They’re born from a weary soul, a rebel soul, embattled soul
7.
Ray of Light 03:08
What kind of guy am I? What kind of girl are you? / What is that we do? To get under our skin / To forget where we’ve been / I want to be with you / I want to tie your shoes / I want to touch your hair / I wonder what you’ll wear / When we go away / From all the things we fear / From all the pain we hide / From all the questions we shove back in the back of the drawer so we never see, oh we never see, the day of light… / You’re a ray of light, you’re a ray of light on a long dark night
8.
Birds 03:23
I talk to birds, they claim I’m the lucky one / They say you fixate on flying, but we just yearn and envy for the way you run / Well if birds, they dream to run, I’m bird in a tree dreaming under the sun / Cause when I think of you, all the crazy beautiful things you do / I get high, I get so high and so I run run / I walk at night, it’s the only time I can hear myself / Digging out ideas from an orchestra of visions that are someone’s else / All our thoughts aren’t are own, we’re just living in an edit room of teleprompts and phones / And the space behind our eyes is a trophy case for Madison Ave designs / So if you don’t check your head, you better run, run / I’ll dream your mind, you can just float off and go blank for some time / I’ll blur the line, between the sapphire goblet and the cellar wine / Stories old, they dry like dirt, you better irrigate if you want earth / When the past has got your hands, you’re a push-over mannequin in a window’s quick sand / So if you dream before you sleep, you better run run, you better run run, run run
9.
I Ride Away 05:00
Once I rode my bike / I road it way too far into the night / Past all the streets with curbs and signs and lights / Past all the hands of law and greed and vice / Stars became my eyes, their patterns in the sky became my guide / To all that walks the earth and wind and fire / To all that gives its love for night’s desire / I ride away I ride away I ride away / I lose my way I lose my way I lose my way / I feel ok I feel ok I feel ok / I find my way I find my way I find my way / Drums are sounds I like / I hear them as I bike on through the night / And between all the trees a fire gives light, and round the fire light, a crowd is bright / Kids with flutes and kites, they’re dancing round a clown with zebra tights / Their singing songs to sounds of bags with pipes, and dreaming dreams that can’t be bought or sliced / Sleep beneath the elm / You take me like the sea into her realm / I’m treated to your whales and reefs and shells / I’m floating on my back atop your swells / There I see your face / A picture of god’s love, and pain, and grace / A hieroglyph of time when freed from space / A water jug to quench the crazed and craved
10.
Wood and Peg 04:35
In the store near the park there’s a rocker / Wood and peg, wood and peg / It belongs to the blacksmiths only daughter, fair as day, fair as day / She walks alone in the rain, her hair tied way from her face / On the ridge past the lake there’s a wizard / He junks cars, he junks cars / Swims twice a day totally naked / Sometimes near, sometimes far / I’ve peaked in side his shed / There’s maps piled high round his bed / And my best friends mom plays the sitar / Strings and bars, strings and bars / She sits on a pillow with her eyes closed / Slippers on, slippers on / His dad shipped out last fall / My friend carves holes in his walls / When the school burnt down in the springtime / We just played, we just played / Tessa K wrote me notes signed with glitter / Hearts and stars, hearts and stars / The sky would peel away / My mind would drift for days
11.
Hollowed 03:09
Show me the gates, I’m going in / Hollowed are the holes I used to swim / Dance with the ghosts, veiled and thin / Followed, wolves, in sheep skin Let me see them / Let me see the night / Let me see them / Darkness holds the light / Walk in the sea, fierce and free / Swallowed, I’m down on my knees / Let me feel it, let me feel it now / Let me feel it – healing in the sound / Sing me the sky, I’m falling in / Shadow – crow calls as kin / Let me hear it, let me hear it now / Let me sing it, Let me sing it loud
12.
Riverman 06:01
I didn’t need to look away / I didn’t want to be elsewhere / His face was brown cracked desert clay / His eyes were blue gray crystal care / His simple boat was made for two / The oars I gripped were worn with ware / The river man sipped a tulsi brew / His river mind could be both her and there / He said, we don’t die when we grow old / We die our death when our stories aren’t told / And we don’t live on blood alone / Our soul breathes life when our stories are sung / Sing love sing life / Love your stories / Hold your stories / Sing love sing live share your stories / The riverman guides my weary hand, as a child holds a flower / The thickening mist hides the last of land as the face of death conceals its hour / Our walk on earth is not our own, To the riverman our song belongs / The trip he leads is not our last, for time and life are tied through song / Are tied through song / And he sings: we don’t die when we grow old / We die our death when our stories aren’t told / And we don’t live on breath alone / Our soul breathes life when our stories are sung / Sing love sing life…
13.
Don’t you try boy, you’ll get twisted / Don’t you ask when you already know / Cause the light comes slowly in New Orleans through orange blossom blinds / And the way they grow them trees in the Bayou can tangle up the mind / So Don’t you hide boy, your eyes betray you / And don’t you shy, when you know your part / Cause when strangers hold your hand down on Frenchman in the love of nights return / You can bet there’s a line of heron flying west with a sprig of juniper / And when green circled leaves on white sheets are the table for your feast / You can taste gifted wine from the bottle to my lips past your knees / Oh were drunk, in a lilac field / Can’t make out whats dream and whats real / And in that crack, yeah that shift / Oh the twilight, the slip / That’s exactly where I want to be / Me holding you and you holding me
14.
Donata Polo 05:39
Staring out my window past the waves / Haven’t seen a ship pass for days Tears stain the wood on my veranda / Tracing time since Marco sailed for China / I’m alone in this tower / I call his desperate name upon the hour / I sing Marco, Polo / Your circumnavigation leaves me solo / I sing Marco, Polo / Your circumnavigation leaves me so low, leaves me solo / Staring out my window past the waves / Haven’t seen a ship cross for days / Soothsayers and matrons at my door / My appetite for pretense no more

about

Ghosts Be Free is the debut full length album of Professor Burns and the Lilac Field. All songs were written by Sean Burns, Berkeley based singer-songwriter, historian, and teacher. The basic tracks were recorded live in the legendary Hyde Street Studio C.

credits

released September 19, 2012

Sean Burns (vocals, acoustic guitar)
Zach Gill (keys, accordion)
Todd Sickafoose (upright bass)
Aaron Kierbel (drums)
Courtney Browne (vocals, cello)
Lebo (pedal steel, electric guitar, tres, Weissenborn)
Ara Anderson (trumpet)
Dave Mihaly (eclectic percussion)
Andrew Macguire (congas)
Joe Cohen (saxaphone)

Produced by Sean Burns and Scott McDowell
Recorded and Mixed by Scott McDowell at Hyde Street Studio C
Mastered by John Greenham at Infrasonic Mastering, Los Angeles
Album Photography: Michael Rauner
Design, illustration, and Layout: Hugh D'Andrade
Inside Artwork: Hairscape by Paz De La Calzada

C and P 2012 Sean Burns. All Rights Reserved. All songs published by Split Vision Records.

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Professor Burns and the Lilac Field Berkeley, California

"Definitely headed to great places" says the San Francisco Chronicle of this Berkeley based, indie folk roots singer- songwriter. Prof. Burns is a rare musical bird with a rich history as a poet, historian, and college professor. Backed by some of California's best, the songs conjure a lyrical and musical vibe the likes of Iron and Wine, Bright Eyes, Ben Harper, Van Morrison, and M Ward. ... more

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