1. |
Bad Dreams
05:23
|
|||
|
Bad Dreams
Darkness takes the valley
The knight crawls into town.
He knows they’re all surrounded,
He tries to warn the crown.
Stars fall out of heaven,
Moon comes tumbling down,
Where nothing is as it seems,
Everyone has bad dreams.
A breeze moans through the trees,
The knight lay in fallen leaves.
Honesty is burned
By lies forever learned.
The children see the flames,
The old know they’re to blame.
Where nothing is redeemed
Everyone has bad dreams.
The wise king screams in bed
Tossed in rueful dream
A soundless battle scene
He sees his best knight sleep
Black clouds pile high
Their rain brings death to life
In a world only few see
Everyone has bad dreams.
The victor takes the town,
He rides in on his steed.
The old king in sleeping gown,
Dethroned, paraded around.
Marched into the square
While conquering armies glare,
Where nothing is revered,
Everyone dreams in fear.
|
||||
2. |
All Hallows' Eve
03:54
|
|||
|
All Hallows' Eve
A chopped off head in a necktie noose
Telling me all hell’s breaking loose
Not a hair out of place on his plastic-coated head
Reporting people I don’t even know want me dead
The president of the world has a billion arms
He clamors for more claims he can’t do enough harm
So this year for Halloween I’ll only lock my door.
Whole big cities now haunted houses
Their fates been seen fleeing down dead end street buses
Blackwater’s called in though flood waters recede
There’s hope that the saints’ll come marching in
Bring the cities back to life again
But they’re sequestered in a silver hall, and told play ball
Chorus:
Don't the man on the street these days seems strange
Though he says wants money all he needs is change
His numbers grow steady with every monied-heave
Every day, to him, must seem just like
All hallows' eve, All hallows' eve, all hallows' eve, all hollows' eve
Science takes the podium has to have its say
Says the planet will be dead now any day
All the preachers leer in an “I told you so way.”
The kingdom starts dying feeling it’s been had
Fashion is a poser as a biker clad
Apocalypse a tattooed fad
There’s hope in a dead man returning with a strut
Millions everyday eat his body drink his blood
While the high priests desire young boy stud
So this year’s costume for Halloween
We’re already wearing it just needs dry cleaned
So this year for Halloween I’ll only lock my door
|
||||
3. |
Tarlabashi Shuffle
04:02
|
|||
|
Tarlabashi Shuffle
Walkin’ alone, big cities and towns, I'm unknown.
Strange tongues, my shadow and I take ‘em in without a sound.
And we look at pretty things, but we never ever look down.
One day I asked my shadow, where do you go when the sun go down?
He lay there on the sidewalk and said, “I go to the seedy parts of town…
& when I come back I fill your head with crazy dreams,
and things you’ve never seen.”
Chorus:
He says he’s a part of me that sees things the other way around…
He says he’s a part of the night that lives the whole day long.
I said “wait a minute you’re my shadow,
I mean I know you, you’re my shadow.”
He laughed & said “look at me boy,
Don’t you see how I blacken things right out…
Most people are bad at bein’ good
You gotta be good getting’ away with bein’ bad…”
Chorus:
So me and my shadow, we go walkin’ around
Me and my shadow, we go walkin’ all around town
We look at pretty things, but we never ever look down.
My shadow’s a part of me that sees things the other way around
My shadow’s a part of the night that lives the whole day long.
|
||||
4. |
Hello From Johnny Cash
04:19
|
|||
|
Hello From Johnny Cash
His words came fighting, like thunder and lightning
Now his songs are acted out in mime
The singer, he ran out of time
And the clock keeps ticking like a bomb on the wall
I wish it would stop but it’ll outlive us all
All aboard, the Harvest Moon
Workers rattle off their rights while the seeker says he’s got sight
All make charades of being happy in their own world
While the world goes anywhere but right
An answer came dressed in the color of gloom
Giving voice to those who felt misused and marooned
All aboard, the Harvest Moon
Chorus:
All aboard the Harvest Moon
The train carrying loved ones always leaves too soon
All aboard, the Harvest Moon
No one returns from the tomb
Leaving room for doubt to consume
The visionary’s glance of another spring
Goes down like a flaming sun in ruin
And the conductor rushes up a creaking ladder
Preaching, “we’ll all be better off in the hereafter”
All aboard, the Harvest Moon
Chorus
My father met you under the same blue sky
I stand under and in the ground you lie
How he told you maybe I was your biggest fan
You took the time to shake his calloused hand
You said be sure to tell your boy from me,
Hello from Johnny Cash, now you're on that train they call
the Harvest Moon
|
||||
5. |
River Jordan
03:30
|
|||
|
River Jordan
Gonna take you down the Jordan where the current runs leans
The river runs dirty some things are never clean
There's a man in camelskin on the bank outside of town
He baptizes some while others sink drowned
God blesses some more than others I hear
But I ain't never seem him in his long gray beard.
Some call it murder others call it suicide
Some think it righteous when it flows a crimson tide
God blesses soldiers every day they stay alive
Some think it holy if in his name they die
And boys let me tell you that when cousins start to fight
An eye for an eye gets sanctified
Brother John's still out there on that bank outside of town
Can't you hear him screaming, “The warrior wears the crown”?
He cries out across the ages in the same hoarse voice
A lone standing sentinel with a solitary choice
His flock spills a source that we all hold dear
But I ain't never seen blood make a river run clear.
|
||||
6. |
Grand Marais
03:58
|
|||
|
Grand Marais
It's a rainy day in ol Gran Marais
Storm clouds pass by like floats on parade
I gotta good dog at my feet like a log
It's a rainy day in ol Gran Marais
Got some homegrown rockin further down the lake
There's a wolf on the road
The rain like diamonds on her coat
There's more to change than just what weathers here
There's more to change than just what weather's here
Whatever weathers here
Alouette, gentille alouette,
Alouette, je te plumerai.
It's a rainy day here in ol Gran Marais
St. Paul's always felt lifetimes away
He wouldn't like it up here
There's no savior to fear
It's a rainy day here in ol Gran Marais
water falls faster than sinners lose their way
Where even Temperance floods
folk gather with jugs and pluck her buds
|
||||
7. |
||||
|
Springtime in a Foreign City
And its springtime in a foreign city where the flowers and trees grow up to stand as passive armies of honest pity
Their faces blossoming to the sun pleading don’t ever stop please don’t ever stop your burning
And I head my face behind a curtain of long black hair that curls around the nighttime sky full of stars, too afraid to look am I
Oh Laurel let your hair fall down from the sky
I’ll climb on up to you and on a star together we’ll lie
Oh Laurel, you never wore shoes growing up in your little town
You had to come to the big city, meet me and the whole world to bring you down
And the diamonds in the rough scream is there room and time enough for us yet to shine,
from the edge of a landslide unpolished, feeling left behind,
but just like coal, anything black has already been or will be burned,
in the age of double-talkin treason peoples voice gets spurned
|
||||
8. |
Hemingway
03:17
|
|||
|
Hemingway
Hemingway’s not dead
for he lives in the sound hole
of my Spanish guitar
His beard is still gray,
his eyes still pierce wonder
For his lips ripped asunder
the bone-bleaching blast
that erases all scar.
Bull or bull fighter
a life and death all-nighter
only reveal in the end
All die in an order
comprehended by no one
claiming without gun
the know of a foe
from fight that foals friend.
The sun also rises
same sunset disguises
From direction does
time take its cue.
From east to the west
Beginning to end
Its weave worn
reversible and loose
From shotgun to birth pang
The load and the big bang
Verse can accommodate all
Adding subtracting
Meager meter directing
The mystery
For whom the bell tolls
|
||||
9. |
Hard Roll
06:21
|
|||
|
Hard Roll
Boys it’s been a hard roll, where do I begin?
Some say back in the garden with original sin
They say salvation can’t be found in the flesh
But making love is nothing if it’s not being blessed
Somewhere along the way boys we broke up into tribes
Tamed a few animals, planted crops then came the scribes
Armies, priests and kings they all started making waves
From then ‘til now we fight to see who’ll rule the day
Chorus:
But let’s leave the night for lovers
If we just leave the night for lovers
Living in the dark wouldn’t feel all that bad
Boys it's been a hard roll where do I begin?
With the help of the church one god killed the pantheon
In the age of enlightenment he himself became a sin
Now facts and opinions get importantly fed
But you can’t really eat them just stuff ‘em in your head
Boys it’s been a hard roll where do I begin
In the age of information don’t forget your pen
Machines and science hum for knowledge’s sake
They’re the new gods, we hope they’ll carry the day
Chorus
Boys it’s been a hard roll where do I begin
It might be easier if more often the good guys win
When the fabric of our lives is stretched until it rips
The language of drastic change always is apocalypse
Boys it’s been a hard roll where do I begin
We wait for the maid to clean up so we get dirty again
One man’s pleasure draws another man’s disdain
Everyday it seems leaves another stain.
|
||||
sonofmel Hayward, Wisconsin
Sometimes it takes traveling far from home to find out where one comes from... after combing the world for signs of the sacred among paths of the profane, Sonofmel returns with fistfuls of chords wrapped up in verse that declare though trouble never starves, somewhere high above the maladies of modern man, the sky is still as blue as when Adam first kissed Eve... ... more
If you like sonofmel, you may also like:
A vibrant vision of "Central Americana" from the Costa Rica-based artist, blending heartland devotionals with playful Tropicália grooves.
go to album
Meet Me at the River
by Dawn Landes
On “Meet Me By the River,” Dawn Landes’s self-described “Nashville record,” buoyant country melodies settle deep into lush instrumentation.
go to album
Dakota Blue Moon
by Jackson Harden
Gorgeous acoustic Americana from North Carolina, stripped-back and sublime.
go to album
Caught Up On A Feeling
by Veronica Stanton
Stunningly beautiful orchestral folk songs with just a hint of country, delivered with heart-on-sleeve immediacy.
go to album
Papa Bear Sings Baby Bear a Lullaby in a Bearhouse
by Hige Kuma
Raucous jams from this Austin artist with hooks so immediate, they bury themselves in your brain.
go to album
Forever Only Idaho
by Harrison Lemke
Big, strummy songs that recall the heart-on-sleeve earnestness and lo-fi glory of early Mountain Goats.
go to album
The Living Room Sessions
by John Prine
Funds from the sales of this single by John Prine, Margo Price, & Jason Isbell will benefit the ACLU.
go to album
