1. |
Time Travelling
06:40
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Crying won't get you a dime,
but you won't get a dime without crying
life's greatest balancing act
is to sell fewer tears than you're buying
At the fountains of sorrow,
you don't make a wish,
everyone learns how to swim like a fish
You save all your pennies for a luckier tide
If wishes were horses then beggars would ride
But we will stay afloat
drop our hearts like anchors and rock like the boat
My love was born with gills
A cavernous space that creates, restores, and refills
In the city the walls learn to talk,
screaming slogans in neon and chalk,
people cast their beliefs like a stone
that betrays but won't leave you alone
And the cars all fly past
in a hot, metal flash,
it's the speed at which moments
belong to the past
The flood that keeps coming
and alarms that won't ring
are the reasons that I started time travelling
I am with you in heart and in mind
I am with you in and out of time
We are rising and rolling like waves
through the dust and the grind and the grime
You told me that time functions just like a coil
and bodies are roots if they just pierce the soil
so let us lie down in the soft, fertile ground
and stare up the center of time going round
We will stay afloat
drop our hearts like anchors and rock,
rock like the boat
My love was born with gills,
a cavernous space that creates, restores, and refills
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2. |
True Love and Water
05:28
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Let's go up the hill and fetch a pail of water,
We'll hold it to the lips of all the sons and daughters
Your parents called you Jack, my parents called me Jill
They've given us the pail, they've shown to us the hill
The path is steep and winding,
the sun is hot and unabiding,
but there, there is the well!
There is the well and our bucket sinking,
It comes up brimming,
and we keep on drinking
Little Jack is acting wild,
He's made me a crown of flowers
(I've never seen him like this)
He's splashing me with water
We've been dancing here for hours
He takes me in his arms, and in this tender thrill,
I marvel at my chances, I'm so happy to be Jill
True love and water
For both of our lips
True love and water
For both of our lips
He has a lovely voice, I adore to hear him sing
He's forgotten he's a peasant boy,
he's acting like a king
He's promising me castles and pleasure manifold
He thinks the town will shower him with silver and with gold
When we bring
True love and water
To every son and daughter
True love and water
For all of their lips
He's running down the hill,
he seems to have forgotten our task
because the water keeps on spilling
and he's pulling me too fast
He says come on, lovely Jill, the sun is going down
We've got to show the world,
show them what we've found
It's written in the stars, it's written in the stars
This true love of ours
It's written in the stars
Little Jack's foot hit a root in the ground
He went tumbling, tumbling, tumbling down
as written,
Written in the stars
He had my arm, he holds it still
As I stare up at the dizzy sky and wonder why I'm Jill
True love and water
Were lost in the spill
So very close
To the bottom of the hill
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3. |
Under the Radar
04:20
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You're sorry about the weather,
and you don't know why
you always feel the need to apologize
For things that are way out of your control
Instead of just facing the conflicts you're erasing,
let time do the trick,
it's the best medicine
You see yourself talking
like you're outside watching
he asks if you have any secrets
and you say no,
I'm as clean as snow
But the pressure never ceases
it's survival of the species
and just to love somebody
can leave you all in pieces
Sometimes to stand up straight
you've got to first bend down
shake off your hero's stance
and remove your crown
I liked you better the way you almost were.
Every word you utter
is carried by the tide
and ripples into places you might
have tried to hide,
fear of reaction is good incentive
for distraction
When johnny walker said
you could start playing dead
he really meant to kill the voices in your head
And if you live a little lower
and fly under the radar,
you might forget the reasons
you didn't want to stay here
Sometimes to stand up straight
you've got to first bend down
shake off your hero's stance,
and remove your crown
I liked you better the way you almost were.
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4. |
When It Goes
05:25
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Learning is a small sting,
is a small burn on the tip of the finger,
it's a warning, a bitter taste
that lingers on the tip of the tongue
But the soul,
infinite vessel has no tiny edges
safe to expose, for what it wants,
it goes, and when it goes
it really goes
Headstrong, headlong plunge...
and godspeed to anyone who follows
The green space
that we started in, we ruined
in its entirety
but what's divine in you,
and what's divine in me,
is still up to you, is still up to me
We planted seeds of that fruit
you shouldn't eat, and it turns out
the tree's just like any other tree
nurture it and it flourishes
nurture it and it flourishes
nurture it and it flourishes
And the soul,
infinite vessel has no tiny edges
safe to expose, for what it wants,
it goes, and when it goes
it really goes
Headstrong, headlong plunge
(and godspeed to anyone who follows)
when it goes
follow
when it goes
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5. |
Arctic Dogs
02:56
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Outer limits
Pure desert
Should I have followed you?
For the Northern Lights
You see them in your dreams
This vision
Dangles at an arm’s length
Stay awake
We’re trying to survive
Though the ice is cracking we are still alive
Stay awake
Don’t let yourself go numb
Feel and feel
Until all feeling’s gone
In the very source of cold
We will make a space for warmth
Digging like the arctic dogs
We’ll burrow our long bodies down
We’re out here
For beauty
Alluring siren’s song
We’re out here
For symbols
Milk and honey
Just a little further
When we find it
We’ll sleep a thousand years
Let our hair grow around us
Spin a tight cocoon
Metamorphosis
To evolve beyond our fears
Wake up light and fly
With the shifty moon
In the very source of cold
We will make a space for warmth
Digging like the arctic dogs
We’ll burrow our long bodies down
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6. |
Our Most Fragile Things
03:40
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We turned all our sharp parts inwards
kept our shell from breaking open
Our love was an idea
safe and sound and softly spoken
Ever since I've had a beak
I've wondered what a beak is for
What I meant to be a gentle peck
Struck fast and hard right to our core
First there was a bright,
tiny point of light
Then there was a fissure
that grew into a crack
and under all the pressure
a part of us was shattered
The feeling told us wholeness
was never coming back
We must learn to fall
before we learn to fly
It's a test of faith
for my love and I
Some try to stop us
they pluck out our feathers
while they're combing our wings
and some try to warn us
not to trust doting hands
with our most fragile things
All the red leaves shiver
overlooking the Hudson River
in their fragile spines
I see the lines
of my tired hands
I've been fortune telling them
they'll have long lives and children
deep inside I know we're all bracing
for the fall
We must learn to fall
before we learn to fly
It's a test of faith
for my love and I
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7. |
No Land's Man
05:22
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The cars are rattling serpentine
shaky vertebrae in the highway's spine
They're winding toward the electric fence
that sprawls across the borderline
When you meet the guards
wear your thickest skin
but when we embrace,
please make it thin
It's too easy to lose feeling
in the kind of world
we're living in
Maybe I
come from you
Maybe you
come from me too
It's 5AM on the borderline
and this no land's man
is the man of mine
We do have faith
for each wall they build
we can build a taller ladder
We do have faith
that there is a point
where a wall too tall
will shatter
We're only heading where
we were heading
all along
We are trangressing
every line that our hands
have drawn
It's 5AM on the borderline
and this no land's man
is the man of mine
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8. |
Body Electric
05:28
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All these hollowed, out empty towns
in the empire dying fast
The last flicker of neon light
leaving empty bulbs of glass too fragile
for this world
All these hollowed, out empty folks
like outlines in pavement chalk
Eyes all narrowed down to slits
from light too hot to be let in
Hot as the push of needles
Hot as the fast food grease
Hot as the nothing left
Hot as the big release
Hot as fluorescent ceilings
Hot as the neighbor's gun
Hot as the children launching their
Waxy-winged flight towards the sun
My land I try my best for you
I follow my own pen, I choose my own route
I follow the brightest star
I follow the brightest star
The body electric
The body electric
electric electric
Through cracks in the blacktop the grass is still growing
I spin like a searchlight I spin like a searchlight
I want to be part of that energy flowing I know that it's urgent
It's urgent it's urgent
Through cracks in the blacktop the grass is still growing
I spin like a searchlight I spin like a searchlight
I want to be part of that energy flowing I know that it's urgent
It's urgent
It's urgent
Through cracks in the blacktop the grass is still growing
I spin like a searchlight I spin like a searchlight
I want to be part of that energy flowing I know that it's urgent
It's urgent
It's urgent
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9. |
Outro
00:48
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Erica Buettner New York, New York
Erica Buettner is a singer-songwriter who moved to Europe at the age of 20 and spent the following twelve years winding her way through Paris all the way to the shores of Portugal before returning to New York in 2016. After illness and putting her music career on hold, Erica's long-awaited second album, The Book Of Waves, was released in October 2018. ... more
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