1. |
Easy Light
03:51
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"Easy Light"
The day finally warming up the room, winter sun in my eyes
Everything has risen that can stand to rise and if ever I have gone awry,
Would you pay it no mind and
be easy in the light?
Come back close from far away, let me come round your way.
Keeping it together, ya i’m doing alright, an ocean between us, my day as your night
Not floating easy in the light.
I keep an eye on the shadow side
Always an eye on the shadow side
Try to pay it no mind
and be easy in the light
There was a fear when you were gone and a tension that came when you stayed too long,
Quite a thing to see that go, like smoke out of a cracked window.
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2. |
Tobacco Valley
04:37
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“Tobacco Valley”
It’s been said of this cold and dead tobacco valley
there ain’t no hope in December light.
The cold brittles your bones, and your home’s no more a home;
your oak tree heart should roam along.
Then it all turned to stone,
Thought it’d explain itself but it don’t
In Connecticut
You remember last year when the boat rocked and the car it veered,
the dog wandered around the house showing her teeth?
You wanted so bad to be held by something
and some dogs just wanna please ya.
Now she’s finally released
ain’t it a relief to let it bleed?
In Connecticut
There’s a hole where a lake used to be, the bones of a once loved thing. When the dam opened wide, with the water you could leave
When the dam opened wide, you didn’t do anything.
But ain’t it a late night train as long as day, picking up like an April rain? And it won’t stop for ya, it’ll kill ya where you lay,
leave ya on the tracks...
Oh in a lost kind of way
With everything broken somehow it’s okay
In Connecticut
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3. |
Rose Window
04:32
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“Rose Window”
I wish that I could see you
like I see you sometimes
with a valley between us,
your fullness in my eyes.
But wholeness is hard to know,
the world is so up close-
Swear I still know the view,
the story from the truth.
When I can’t see the sun for the blinding
Or through the rose window for my reflection--
Lover, I know you’re kind.
How’d I come to hang,
this mirror unknowingly upon you--
Catching what I long to lose,
looking back so foolishly?
But the small, naked hours
lift if from you while you sleep,
And I know you like I want to,
without wolves in the sheets.
When I can’t see the sun for the blinding,
Or through the rose window for my reflection--
Lover, I know you’re kind.
Always trying to shake it loose,
It’s such a heavy hand to hold,
But it ain’t free not to be alone.
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4. |
Through Frames
02:25
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“Through Frames”
I’ve was watching figures move through frames,
Were they asking for my eyes
to bring em’ down from many stories high?
But I hide mine--
From across an empty street,
Oh the gulf can be so dark and deep
Towers of aching yellow light Strung up above the city floor,
how the world slips away
As you let it fade from your shore
I’ve been watching figures move through frames
Was I asking for their eyes
To see on through the haze
of the smoke screen, I slide into
the pockets of my jeans?
Oh the gulf can be, so dark and deep
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5. |
Open Line
03:45
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“Open Line”
It’s cold, hard country between courage and cowardice,
a forgotten kind of place where you barely exist
by the square, blue television frame
you’ll come out on a side someday,
but you get lost while you wait.
I’ve been doing what I can. I’ve been staying true and kind
but nothing that I say is gonna shine above the light
of the wild, blue howling ocean fire
my words are just bruised sky,
of a day that’s getting tired.
I’ve been keeping an open line for you, but there are others who are trying
to get through to me.
Such a frayed little thing, this string on which we hang,
It can’t be pulled too hard when picked up for following
though it might lead to that smokeless little flame
held up somewhere inside,
trying never to be made,
throwing shadows on every face,
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6. |
All that Much
04:34
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“All that Much”
Hey, that kind of thing can really throw you off,
simple enough but hard to get across.
Gotta get up, get myself off the shelf.
Sometimes you gotta walk out on yourself.
Trace a couple blocks, lose a couple bucks
Try to chase away a nagging coward’s luck
Oh, but I didn’t try all that much.
Thinking of leaving, would be good to get away;
the weatherman’s run out of ways to paint the rain
It collects in corners, it’s rotting up the wood--
but I’ll probably hang around because at leaving I’m no good.
She was a good girl, but she’s gone either way,
and it was love like life’s just the poor blood in your veins.
So with red eyes, she pulled the gun out on her own and left the house so I could pack without her home. Could have gone on staring, dog-eyed at my arm focused on the pulse, dizzying but warm.
Trace a couple blocks, lose a couple bucks Try to chase away a nagging coward’s luck Oh but I didn’t try all that much.
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7. |
Midwest Red
04:34
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“Midwest Red”
Trouble’s never hard to find when you are the highway kind.
Can’t make a quarter from a dime, I understand you’re tired of trying. Why didn’t you stay and rest in old Virginia West?
But you snuck out in the night I guess, dead on your back in Indianapolis.
Somewhere north near Lorain, in the sky over Ohio, you hang.
Empty kettle on the stove over coils full of fire.
Isn’t that what did you in, dry of hope, full of desire?
I’m not trying to suppose we make a songbird from this crow--
Trim a grizzled beak, bend an honest note. I know you think yourself a crow.
Somewhere north near Lorain, in the sky over Ohio, you hang.
Under the Erie moon--the midwest red
as it’s rusting through 80 like a run on sentence-- I can hear you sing.
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8. |
The Way Down
04:36
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“The Way Down”
Joe’s quiet to the side, he’ll probably stay that way till we get into the night But I think he’ll be alright, now it’s just the darkness around cigarette light.
Drive down to the bay, he’s silent the whole way
I can’t explain, but I understand okay.
Anxious as a mouse trying to get out without knowing what’s outside the house Wants to make a little cash, love until his last, spilled whiskey in the passenger seat.
Drive down to the bay, he’s laughing the whole way
It’s a medicine, I think I’ve learned to take.
My bruised up friends, we are minor men, but we’re alright
You ain’t dying man, any more than I am, but really what’s that say? Slouched on a piano bench saying what’s the sense but you play it anyway.
Drive down to the bay, couldn’t come you had to stay
But you send jokes, to us along the way.
My bruised up friends, we are minor men-- we’re alright.
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Lorain Portland, Oregon
Lorain plays woozy American music. Singer Erik Emanuelson's expressive tenor, which recalls ghosts of Nashville Skyline era Dylan and the late Jason Molina, floats over lush textures and the band's understated groove.
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