1. |
Belly Glove
03:19
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The temple is a crown,
I wear it my belly around,
It burns my naked skin under the naked sun.
If there only was water,
I would be the fountain drink
But I don't think about her
(Peter was the one who saved me. How much is love? How much you gonna save me?)
On the table there is wheat growing the mountain head.
The way the ladies lie, you wonder if they're dead.
But I have seen them sleep, and I have seen them come alive,
They don't always survive it...
(Peter was the one who saved me. How much is love? How much you gonna save me?)
Forgive murder
Murder is a forgivable sin
The survivor eats the bark: peel, and bitter,
terror and bitter, and then it's over
Murder is a forgivable sin
Forgive shame
Forgive anger
Forgive my labyrinthine love that fits you like a belly glove
I couldn't dream anything better
I couldn't dream belly glove
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2. |
Gabriel Says
03:53
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Flying out on a school day: My favorite son
The angel falls from the wheelie
Gabriel calls, he can't hear me
Gabriel says:
"There's a third plane up above the open what appears to be the sky
A roof covering the third floor's interlacing strings of pools
Luminous with an inside light and warmth and life and teeming
We could climb up there tonight, if we balance it right"
That which I find in fear I fear I find here
It's only love for everything
I ever loved is dreaming
Gabriel says:
"I am the one electric source of shock inside the bulb of spring
In my sighs the very breath of sky is breathing
It's the orange and cinnamon inhale of spice, why should you be afraid?
We could climb up there tonight
If we balance it right, and we can see"
Gabriel says:
"The essence of this place is situated in the depth of down-ness of
This vapor water bright with beings of a deep down mind
This is a dangerous place for me, in the end,
I conquer this, too, my territory
We could climb up there tonight if we balance it right"
He talks to me slow,
Climbs the wheel, says “Hello.
“I can see your memory.”
“I can go where you go”
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3. |
I Am
04:11
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Gone the light from the night
Gently, someone carries me
Gone the light from the door
I have not been here before
I am
I am nobody
I am
I am some
I am
Call me granddaughter
I am
I am the second one
I am
The second one
I am
I am the other I am one
I am
Mother
I am
I am the second one
In the night, when I wake
I feel like sails; billowing
Sure the breeze, I can't believe
my resistance is so weak
I am
The second one
I am
Time is forever
I am
Time is sand
I am
The grains will never cover
I am
the heavier stones
I am
My heart moves up from under my bone
I am
Call me home
I am
Call me granddaughter
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4. |
Road
02:33
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Can it speak to explain it:
My heart of gold, and darkness?
Among my clothes; magic places,
bones, and ashes, and cherry leaves
And if you go I will remain, your coat in the rain
And if you leave I carry you
I am the road I am the road
I am the road away
You change, the road changes,
never guilty or blameless
Road alive, it erases
old age and childhood
And when you go it’s over. You cannot know the way
When you rest your head on my shoulder
I am the road I am the road
I am the road away
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5. |
We'll Remember
04:38
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Oh, lover, what do you know
of all discovered in my head?
Of our flower withstanding pain?
Those blossoms won't return again.
Oh, traitor of everything,
Today's erasure does begin now, lover,
What will we wear
When time takes the picture we'll remember?
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6. |
Flying Home
02:25
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Up the aeroplane,
Sealed in cellophane,
I want to tear the corner bare to eat my heart;
When I land, I will taste it then.
My one saving grace:
Bitter, sweet, or bland;
I'll have it, when I reach the end
There's some blood I tasted once,
You pulled it out with your long-fingered hand
And when you gave it back, I collapsed.
Fundamental tone
Harmonic drone
Baby's cry cracks in and out of
my three dollar flight headphone
When I listen my best
I hear the voices dry
Strings of brittle bones
open and close across the sky
If I could utter one more sound to make the way I love you sing complete
It would have to be less sweet
(Flying home from Tokyo now I'll see you, flying home from Tokyo now I'll see you, flying home from Tokyo now I'll see you, flying home from Tokyo, and I'll see you in Osaka three years after)
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7. |
Everything Turns me On
03:41
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The sound of air
pressing into the white stain
on this plane to America
The man walks in, black skin,
muscle in his arm,
My red wear, warm;
Everything turns me on
Lightning strikes the bed
In my head, the tree
Has no body on.
We speak in mud, and tongues, and taste the honeyseed of love,
and want, and need;
Everything turns me on
Every word is true
Every word is love
Everything you say
Every way you move is what I die of
Everything you say
Every way you move
Everything turns me on
It's all you
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8. |
The Saffron Sky
05:03
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Bold, in the sky; Frightened horses
Drawing across the hint of dawn,
A saffron cloth, without detail:
The story of all that I love.
I was born in crumpled silk
Carelessly well, without pain,
Into the fool who squeezed me through
His clever hole, dripping dead salt
I was covered, and I fled
The flower of flesh, the grief of sin
I was buried, and I was dead
And I fled into the saffron sky
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9. |
Mask
02:09
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10. |
Passion for love
02:57
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Your will is steel, your well
is bitter anger, so real
I feel more desire for you
Than I can contain
Do you want to play this game?
You think there's something I don't know?
Your passion for the baby shows
I will be coming after you
Your terror, horror coming true
Passion for love, passion
Master, maker of rage
crying hard for three days
Feels like the pleasure waves
Your woodsmoke steals the air,
Tough I breathe, am I aware?
Place your hand upon my heart
That's how the whole thing always starts
If I break you, I will relent
If I cannot, it never ends
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11. |
Nobody Knows
03:40
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Nobody knows what I know
Nobody sees what I see
Nobody knows, nobody;
Everybody knows you don't love me
You are the apple of my eye, my baby, green,
but sweet as candy, love, and
Every day my life is a play
I give you fruit for today
I give you something for the pain
I have to give you up someday
Now you're mine, and I pay
The cinnamon is hotter than the fire
when you suck it down with your tongue
and swallow hard with your heart
I'm never going to see it the same way twice
But i remember you
When your fingers tell me true stories of love
that I once knew
My darling, you
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12. |
My Life Is Heaven
03:14
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I fell over an old man on the street, and he said to me
"Daughter,
There is no drink for the understanding of water"
Calling me in, with my hair in pigtails,
The sun in azure and midnight: Mother
I was sooner, not later,
Taken to dinner without supper
And the moment that you said
"You're the love I never had"
My life was heaven
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13. |
Last Time
03:46
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Make some salt whiskey gravy,
Drippings from the pan,
Suck it down like you'll maybe
never taste it again
I always make you, baby, my dinner
I always make you hungry like that
I was not the only survivor in the aftermath
Well it was the last time I fell in love like this
Last time I was a fool
Last time, now I'm not young
Now my last innocence is gone
Kissing down under the apple tree
In the glorious fall of man
Drinking malt, and apples, and grapes
from a can
I see you smile by the water
Take my second one to be drowned
How I curl up tight to be small
in your gentle around
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14. |
New Winds Came
02:01
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Tom, when the new winds came
the burning terrain began to blister
Ah, but it looks likes rain
It reads like prayer in the paper
St John was never one to hold under
fire, nor thunder
In love, he was a lover
And I will never believe anything other
Ah, life again:
Outside the mother, inside the mirror,
I didn't cry in vain
You cut me loose with the blade of your shoulder,
And only this kind of love and grief could ever change me
And all this rearrangement
Brings me to where I face it:
Out the door, out on the stairs to other places
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15. |
Wearing The Angel
02:58
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16. |
Bridge
02:58
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All truth, all lie
I have to leave it, you said goodbye
Sure as the rain, fresh as the water flows,
Remembering our sorrows
I would build a bridge over it of all my love
Love gone, run dry
I'll believe it when I die
The hearts of some are borne along by tears
Brittle and broken; all these years
I would build a bridge over it of all my love
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Robin O'Brien Santa Rosa, California
Eclectic mix of recordings; mostly lo-fi. I've been a closet home-taper, recording my music since before multitrack was
available to us common folk at home. It's my joy.
George Reisch re-imagined some of these tunes, and you can find them at Luxotone.com
recordings by Jean Farmer and I are at notan.org
... more
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