1. |
Little John
03:35
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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
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2. |
Salt of Loss
04:17
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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?
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3. |
Rainbow at Midnight
03:28
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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
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4. |
All This Disbelief
06:01
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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
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5. |
Crescent County Faire
03:41
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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
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6. |
The Rock
02:49
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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
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7. |
Ray of Light
03:08
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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
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8. |
Birds
03:23
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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
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9. |
I Ride Away
05:00
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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
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10. |
Wood and Peg
04:35
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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
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11. |
Hollowed
03:09
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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
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12. |
Riverman
06:01
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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…
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13. |
Orange Blossom Blinds
04:49
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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
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14. |
Donata Polo
05:39
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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
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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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