1. |
Down Juan
04:59
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DOWN JUAN
Don’t let me down Juan
I need you tonight
I’ve come seeking pathos ‘neath the halogen lights
Estrella your mistress has cued the machine
Your niece is in from Austin she’s lost to the scene
I, and my party have just settled in
Pray happenstance deliver us inviolate
From this wasteland of dreams
Hammered tin Mexican Jesus
Skeletons playing guitar
Busts of writers and drunkards
Dust fallen mutes the bazaar
There are crosses and candles and swords without handles
Plastic camels bear wise men from afar
Antlers deer parted souls referenced and carded
What are we doing here?
(Chorus)
Saints caught in acts sacred and deifying
In Technicolor prints on the wall
Rebels with their moustaches and rifles
Pose solemn for martyrdom’s call
There are buckets with nothing but roses that are dying
Banners for causes long withered in the trying
While in the windows the stained glass is quietly crying out
What are we doing here?
(Chorus)
In a cardigan borrowed from Rimbaud
He clutches the microphone stand
Though his body and mind speak otherwise
His eyes gleam as an eager young man
There’s a song on his lips, a mid-century tango
The speakers turn out a recording he’ll sing to
And though nothing here crackles like a thundering review
There’s no disputing the fact that we’re here
(Chorus)
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2. |
Fly Away (Helicopters)
05:48
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FLY AWAY (Helicopters)
There’s a lotta water here
runnin’ down the drain
low in my back
where I keep all that worries me
I can feel the strain
Helicopters ferrying
bodies and logs away
and I was taught by a hidden camera
all I saw was okay
And in the meantime, I’m lingering
In the young sounds on a summer day
Meager remains of milk and honey now
If they could they’d all fly away
Digital tundra underfoot
they can’t close their eyes
lest they lose sight of pictures meant to blind
so they close their minds (and)
Ride the big top jungle beats
let them carry you away
on a swirl of neon strands of happiness
through the darkness of another day
And in the meantime, I’m lingering
In the young sounds on a summer day
Meager remains of milk and honey now
If they could they’d all fly away
Madeline and a motorbike,
it’d seem to be all I need
to leave the trucks and the circus behind
even then the choppers need to feed
And in the meantime, I’m lingering
Here on a bus hound grey
And when the nun leaves the Citroën
The blue girl’s hat blows away
Everything moves in circles
even as it runs down the drain
except maybe light and the distance between
the things that blow away
Helicopters they never see
what becomes of the sun
on the face of Madeline in the evening
loveliness Da Vinci
And in the meantime, I’m lingering
In the young sounds on a summer day
Meager remains of milk and honey now
If they could they’s all fly away
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3. |
Bentley To Clive
03:39
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BENTLEY TO CLIVE
Now we toured around here, from Bentley to Clive
I fell asleep during that slow autumn drive
I watch all the passing around this honeycomb
I’m getting to far from my tiny little home
Go to the East and go to the West
Get a hold of the love and the harvest
Be kind to the land, and take good care
That’s what a friend wrote to me over there
Now let me ride, but not too long
I wanna keep close to my hometown song
Go to the East and go to the West
Get a hold of the love and the harvest
Now we toured around here, from Bentley to Clive
I fell asleep during that slow autumn drive
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4. |
Stettler II
03:04
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STETTLER II
I believe I’ll ride to Stettler and rest beside your grave
Lay my head by your epitaph, the one your husband had made
Through that long drive from Saskatchewan as you lay in state
I lay on my bedroom floor making plans for being brave
Now I live in Vancouver in an upstairs built for two
On Sundays I play the Dynamo not far from my high school
And I watch the seven herons blue cross the causeway in a line
With 45 minutes ‘til the ferry leaves it seemed I had the time
To play Abide With Me, on the jagged rocks
that break the waters crawl
Maybe collect a pebble or two, or driftwood for the wall
There’s nothing about this song to make it work for you
Except for the fact we keep our memories intact
when we put ‘em to a tune
‘Cause all of us we stiffen up when the life in us is gone
But the music that escapes our lips, keeps a travelin’ on
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5. |
Canvassback
03:19
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CANVASSBACK
There’s a canvasback
Under the Austrian water
There’s a moon dog
In the October sky
And she paints with
Her eyelashes in oil
Into the bird's open wing
She is unfortunately beautiful
She is unfortunately beautiful
And colour now
In complimentary water
And I’m trying so hard
So hard not to dry
She paints with her body in trouble
Dancing the blood from her heart’s opening
She is unfortunately beautiful
She is unfortunately beautiful
And I’m not for the dreams
But I have visions
And I’m blind for the moon
Ripe and lonely intoning
And she is unfortunately beautiful
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6. |
Lone Mare
01:46
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LONE MARE
Lone mare, grey to white
Drive a wagon through the heart of the night
Cold glare, black and ice
Mistakes are taken in the space between lines
And the poles they pull me
Rolling hills they hold me
And the coal it warms me
As we catch the other, on the other side
Why the shoulders mold me
Take and console me
Break and unfold me
Leave me by the river to find my own way home (shine my own light)
Ripe space, grace that saves
Smoulderin’ embers in the proper place
Sweetest sin lost not found
Pulling down towers on unsteady ground
And the poles they pull me
Rolling hills they hold me
The coal it warms me
As we catch the other, on the other side
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7. |
Chinatown
02:55
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CHINATOWN
There are pockets of resistance
Elements declaiming in the woods to be flushed out
In the morning the Witnesses were hovering round my door
By afternoon the clouds had burned into the sky
We saw the mountains
We saw skyscrapers
We saw the day moon smiling down
On Chinatown
Bobby was a great disciple
Planted mustard well and grinned and rode the storm
The army set down in the ravine for the night
Bobby climbed up the embankment
And revelled in the sight
He saw the mountains
He saw skyscrapers
He saw the day moon smiling down
On Chinatown
I don’t want to be the one
Held responsible for this
Spoke the man from deep inside
Deep inside the whale
Hear the sirens wail
Oh oh
Surely there will be a reckoning
Sure see level is not a likely vantage point
And in the garden of the sun
The revolution sleeps in shade
Roll over and gaze into the sky
To see the mountains
Skyscrapers
And the day moon smiling down
On Chinatown
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8. |
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RED AMBER AMULET
The red amber amulet was made to grace her breastbone
The moment he spotted it he knew it
He said, I’ll pawn my many instruments, a guitar for every sentiment
and revel in the joy of the gift
La di da di da
The red amber amulet will never be yours
Take comfort in certainty the blanket of the poor
There’s a cracklin’ amplifier and a lopsided moon
You get your Mexican Christmas after all
Well Rachel the Younger made off with all the idols
Between camel and saddle the many gods travel
She said, it’s my woman time, I’m in no shape for movin’
The whole order was verging on shifting
And the Kandahar woman dangles life from her wrist
There’s power in celebrating your limits
But when she runs she feels ebullient in knowing her secret
Is a well guarded emotion
Chorus
So he buys her a sturdy ring two sizes too big
Worn often and dubious in origin
While the wafer of silver he saves and delivers
In the shape of a slender aeroplane
He sings, “Happiness my darlin’ is a lopsided thing
That bounces between heaven and trouble
And necessity moves us and scarcity pulls
It’s a wonder we catch hold of happiness at all
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Roger Dean Young & the Tin Sea Victoria, British Columbia
Roger Dean Young is a singer-songwriter sprung from the foothills of Alberta and deposited on the West Coast of British Columbia.
Roger Dean Young & the Tin Sea recommends:
Late Riser
by The Abramson Singers
The Abramson Singer makes me believe
go to album
Well Below The Stream
by Spotted Boy
where it all began
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