1. |
Slowly, I Return
04:25
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Lyrics:
Here,
Where there's a side of me,
That haunts me,
It pushes me here.
It's time for you to come home,
You've been out there too long.
"Showtime, leaving!"
Slowly, I return.
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2. |
Thousand Yard Stare
03:39
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Lyrics:
I was singing here when the hangman came,
He coloured his eyes sloe-black,
Arranged a lasso from a web of tangled chains,
Poured a drink in the recess of the bar,
And took aim.
And in the midst of all this chaos she idles in,
Like some divine show,
And everything explodes in me,
I'm a loony bin,
I'm a bumbling drunk on a carousel.
But then something stirs, something jars the scene,
I wasn't looking for Death but Death found me,
He was hanging out from a cypress tree,
Heaving scorn down upon me like some hazing ceremony.
Testimony of a thin man:
"I'm a helmsman plotting out a course through a raging cyclone in a dreamland,
I'm a nomad rambling in a wasteland,
A conman singing from a bandstand,
A programme of temperamental plans neatly wrapped in my pocket,
And the Tin Man's living in a world of pain."
So, my lover took a blade to the doctrinaire,
The phony saint with his heart ensnared in the haze inside a thousand yard stare,
It was the final act of a love affair.
She wasn't looking for Death but Death still came,
It was a sorry show,
It's a crying shame that she lost her mind,
But she found her faith in some safe sanctuary,
Wild and free.
Testimony of a thin man:
"I'm a helmsman plotting out a course through a raging cyclone in a dreamland,
I'm a nomad rambling in a wasteland,
A conman singing from a bandstand,
A programme of temperamental plans neatly wrapped in my pocket,
And the Tin Man's living in a world of pain."
Well, they told me to sell my rack and woe,
(Sell it down the river)
Sold to the meddling crowd in the bordello,
(Sold down the river)
And they told me to sell my dearest friends to a coterie.
(Sell them down the river)
(Sell it down the river)
See, now and then I will sell my heart and I'll sell my soul,
(Sell them down the river)
I'll sell my will, I'll sell my home,
(Sold down the river)
But I'm not selling the part where I keep her whole,
(Sold down the river)
That's my own sanctuary,
It harbours me.
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3. |
Lost Honeybee
05:08
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Lyrics:
In my mind the devil rings a warning bell,
It echoes all around.
Beyond the point where lovers go,
Out to some failing theatre show,
It sounds.
Though her voice may call on me,
And feed my yearning,
Empathy catches like a melody in the ether,
Suddenly, I am back to where I stood,
Dangling on the edges of denial.
And it was me who saw the sweethearts in full flow,
Then watched affection come and go with the ease of a folding domino.
It would seem that she plays a mean, hard-hearted game for cruel sport,
But everything's confused.
Devoted words hang in the air,
Just residue, reshaped and reproduced.
And though she's just an anecdote of playful times and inner jokes,
Her memory lingers like a ghost next to me.
A baritone bellow from my bursting chest,
I'm babbling in a vacuum to no-one.
Saying, "it was me who saw the sweethearts come undone on a street in Babylon",
Where each girl has a place and a song in their name.
But, it seems that in the age of wannabies,
She's a ringer for the queen,
Or just a lost honeybee.
In my mind the devil sings a harmony,
It makes the bloody sound of a thousand tales of tragedy,
A million words all strewn across the ground.
And though my walls came crashing in a fit of love,
A mothering archangel came to take me in,
She soaked my feet and bathed my skin,
And I was calling out her name,
Singing to the heavens for a clue.
Singing, "it was me who saw the sweethearts in full flow,
Then watched my lover come and go like a thief",
At the end of it all,
She is free.
But, it seems that in the age of wannabies,
She's a ringer for the queen,
Or just a lost honeybee.
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4. |
Dogs of War
06:21
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Lyrics:
Looking back now,
Within every thought I have delved, grubbed and mined.
I threw sense to the wind,
With a tender embrace.
Oh how your walls gave way,
Least for a while.
And love?
It poured like a rain hurling hail with a flash-flooded ire,
And I'd swear, for the sake of a dew-honeyed kiss,
I'd have drowned in its pools.
But desire left me with a cross to bear,
A rumbling with a coronary twine,
And it leaves me in a humble state in a spiral,
As the world rotates,
I know my heart will sing and grow,
And I know yours aches and spills and overflows.
Your love was dead,
Or just a lie?
A hollowed ode at a delicate time.
Now, when I dream,
Just the sight of you, graceful and near,
Has me steered to the will of the night.
And memories gather in a knot in a silent room that time forgot.
Although it leaves me in a foreign place arranging photos,
For today, I know that I loved you in an ancient way,
I loved you like choirs would sing your name,
But I lost you to your dogs of war,
I lost you to the fog that wraps around and carries you away.
And memories gather in a knot in a silent room that time forgot.
Although it leaves me in a foreign place arranging photos,
For today, I know that I loved you in an ancient way,
I loved you like choirs would sing your name,
But I lost you to your dogs of war,
I lost you to the fog that wraps around.
In the corner of some platitude,
In the refuge of some callow view,
You'd hide,
And you'd leave me in a turbid state in a quiet place to navigate alone.
Still, I loved you in an ancient way,
I loved you like choirs would sing.
The soul of an angel in an endless storm had me haggling for a love to call my own.
When I lost you to your dogs of war,
I lost you to the dogs, the wolves,
The hollow demons cluttered and disguised in the hidden alcoves of your mind.
And now, I lie here as the walls rotate,
In a silent room.
The dissipated glow from the moon, in all its golden grace,
Leaps around this empty place.
Although the wind is willing me to stay,
My spirit longs to run away.
So, I'll go to my buddies,
All the journeymen,
Where legends were forged by folly,
And I know my name is known.
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5. |
Getaway
04:17
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Lyrics:
Hey summer glow,
I knew you dazzled brightly,
But I didn't know your beams refracted sharply,
Leaving shaded forms upon the wall to eclipse the dangling dolls.
And my love is thus,
A blazing supernova,
Just a lot of fuss for madly threading water.
At the juncture of dissevered light is where I come tonight,
Here I'm free and I'm alive.
It's a getaway,
It's a getaway in here,
It's a getaway,
It's a getaway here.
And it's a getaway,
It's a getaway in here,
It's a getaway,
It's a getaway here.
And the wind may howl and heave the stubborn fixtures,
With the brawling growl of a tempest in the winter.
But in this place,
The air is sealed,
The walls are sleepy still.
So, I slip away on vibrations from the timbre of a soft refrain,
Heavy as a whisper,
And all across its melody the scales entangle me,
And it's here I'm free.
For it's here,
You see
It's a getaway,
It's a getaway in here,
It's a getaway,
It's a getaway here.
And it's a getaway,
It's a getaway in here,
It's a getaway,
It's a getaway here.
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6. |
From the Ashes
03:18
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Lyrics:
I sew this chorus from the ashes of my love.
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7. |
Tinder Sticks
04:19
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Lyrics:
Oh, I'm waiting as she endlessly gets dressed,
She'll carefully collect the tinder in neat stacks.
And Oh, this time is different to the last,
Some cruel deity miscast this strange fool as her beloved moons ago,
I think I'm out of time,
As the strained tune of flamed kindling serenades this grateful home.
But this time the fire will burn,
And keep her warm 'til I return again.
Oh darling,
I was a shivering bag of bones,
'Til she fixed the twigs and coals,
And rid me of the cold.
Oh lover,
I watch the embers glow,
Then take her to the show to see the nervous clown frozen as a lake,
I think it's parody,
And the old reel keeps turning in a coiled, repeated state.
But this time the fire will burn,
And keep her warm 'til I return again.
Oh darling,
I kissed her generous lips,
We sliced the tinder sticks and fed the hearth with flint.
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8. |
In the Undertow
04:07
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Lyrics:
In a place where lovers lie and swindlers spin,
She's a haven for the strange and libertine,
Where even cynics learn to sing.
In the space 'tween the hue of her skin and the wailing walls within,
There's a storm moving in.
So, I stitch the kind of line that stows away in the sinews of some sentimental phrase,
Where even seraphs lose their way.
For the sake of a crazed escapade,
I have floundered, I have flailed.
I'm a pageant,
A ballet of inept coryphees.
But, it's love that I feel when her eyes are a blazing symphony,
It releases me.
I'm a stray clown with a droll cameo in a rerun of an old weepy show.
In the meantime,
There's a hidden code in the semi-rhyme of a sweetheart's ode,
Where lovers get caught in the wild, entwisted flow of the undertow of a love that's caught in a wild, entwisted moment in embryo.
And I'm there,
Breathlessly treading water as the endless swell of the sea crashes all over me,
And, as my senses drown and unhitch, I'm down where the lovers go,
As my senses drown and unhitch, I'm down in the undertow.
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9. |
Father's Day
03:39
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Lyrics:
I'm the second of my father's brood,
Same graceless gait.
It's just the molecules' genetic code,
Although some construe there's a higher truth.
Either way,
I'll wait my turn,
A devoted panhandler of my kin,
Day returned and back again.
I rule this kingdom,
It reaches all the way from my bedside locker to the frame of my cabinet.
It's a numbers game on a Father's Day,
Snotty bibs and kids to see,
Schedule's tight with slot machine carry on,
Blow a kiss, then hurry home.
Stated my claim,
All signed and filed away.
Into the fabric of a dossier I've sewn my dreams.
My love's a bill of sale.
On a Father's Day,
His love it burns eternally.
They've made a borrower of me.
So, now I stand in this place,
This forgotten fatherland,
And I'm just a castaway,
A dealer without a hand.
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10. |
Dreamer, You
04:00
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Lyrics:
Steady on,
Catch your breath,
Take some time, son.
Cast your mind to your past,
To some forgotten day,
When love sung like a lark,
With the sheer euphony of a skilled balladeer,
You got lost.
You were always the delicate sort.
A head crammed like a vagabond's cart,
Where each thought is a squall in a gale,
And the glazed focal point of your eyes slips away in a daze,
Oh dreamer, you.
From each chamber,
The thud from your heaving heart could shake architecture.
The evening departs with a sigh,
Take no heed of the night,
And stitch your dreams by its hushed moonlight.
Hey nature boy,
Get a written receipt for the cost of your love and the sum of your grief.
But you know you feel things,
It's just the way you were shaped,
And recognise it's this love that will save you someday,
Oh dreamer, you.
From each chamber,
The thud from your heaving heart could shake architecture.
The evening departs with a sigh,
Take no heed of the night,
And stitch your dreams by its hushed moonlight.
And take a walk,
Plot your course through these sleeping avenues.
Midnight booze,
And the call of the wild,
The merry souls in all choral delight,
Echoes out in the big city night.
Go weave your dreams into the hushed moonlight.
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11. |
Paean
05:28
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Lyrics:
Go pin this note to the rail,
"Let us flood in a hail of pure love."
It's a paean to the story of our love.
Pin to it, pray to it, call to it, play to it,
Cling to it, clung to it,
The clang of the clock.
Pin to it, pray to it, call to it, play to it,
The tick to the tock of the clock.
Stop!
Go deliver,
Take the letter for the better of the poor boy.
Pin to it, pray to it, call to it, play to it,
Cling to it, clung to it,
The clang of the clock.
Pin to it, pray to it, call to it, play to it,
The tick to the tock of the clock.
Stop!
Go pin this note to the rail,
"Let us flood in a hail of pure love."
It's a paean to the story of our love.
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Conor Miley Dublin, Ireland
Songwriter, singer, multi-instrumentalist and composer hailing from Dublin. His music draws from the well of folk, indie and electronica in expansive and intricate arrangements that deliver an emotive punch, while his lyrics explore the range of human emotions and experience in an original and dynamic way ... more
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