1. |
Spring Song
03:13
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Spring should be a hopeful time
But I'm blue as the sea
Spring brings an old sad feeling
Year after year to me
“Haven't I proved time and time again,”
Said the woodsman to the tree
“I take only what I need.
Why do you still fear me?”
Your love's as sweet as honeycomb
And you're faithful to your queen bee
But I've been stung by that mean old ghost,
Keeps sneaking up on me
This old sad feeling
It plagues me in the spring
Well I'm sure it'll all be fine
It's just fodder for blossoming...
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2. |
Dinosaurs
02:24
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If you listen really closely, you might hear
The imprint of the past in the density here:
Density of these concrete walls
Where Dreamer sleeps long after the fall
In the Dreamer's forest, he will step on stones,
In waking life they form the tomes
Foundations of industry, relics of bones
But the little one's eye is still drawn :
The sway of coral and the flick of a fin
In a lone aquarium
The sway of living coral and the flick of a tropical fin
Don't you know this metropolis was built
On the backs of dinosaurs and layers of silt?
We have turned this operation on itself
But the little one's eye is still drawn:
The sway of coral and the flick of a fin
In a lone aquarium
The sway of living coral and the flick of a tropical fin
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3. |
Find Your Wise
03:55
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Cinderella, Vasalisa, c’mon girl, find your wise
Listen to the little birds, the mice, the squirrels
or the doll your mother left behind
C’mon Snow White, don’t be fooled another time, find your wise
Learn to run, Learn to hunt, sharpen senses, cut your hair
Find your wise
Summon strength (learn to run, learn to hunt)
Summon your will (don’t be fooled another time)
Lay down the good sweet child
The frail one must die
Find your wise
C’mon Gretel, c’mon Rapunzel, find your wise
Little Red: go to the woods,
Wolf is doing you a favour
Strange little girl, you’re not a girl for much longer
Hurry up or your naivete will call in the witch doctor
To scare you alive
Come Persephone, Hades is waiting
To take you down to Elysian fields,
Uncover the secret that you’ve always been Queen
Young bride of Bluebeard: there’s blood on the key
Open your eyes, you’ll be the first to escape free
Find your wise
Summon strength (listen to the little birds)
Summon your will (sharpen senses, cut your hair)
Lay down the good sweet child
The frail one must die
Find your wise
Cinderella, Vasalisa, Gretel, Rapunzel, Little Red, Persephone
Find Your Wise
Cinderella, Vasalisa, Gretel, Rapunzel, Little Red, Persephone
Find Your Wise
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4. |
Hole in the Sole
03:34
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There's a hole in the sole of your shoe
Invisible drain that sucks all your secrets away
Hole in the sole of your shoe
Where the truth disappears when the words that you use
Bounce off the walls and the things that you wanted to say
Slip away
Through the hole in the sole of your shoe
And the bigger it gets the more you will sense
White rabbits whiskers
On your sore blisters
Have you ever listened to the sound of your own voice?
Has it felt in a way disembodied and strange-
Like a part of you is not really there
Well maybe it slipped through the hole
Unaware
Through the hole in the sole of your shoe
Invisible drain that sucks all your regrets away
Hole in the sole of your shoe
With just the right mirror in just the right light
At just the right angle on just the right night:
Look through the hole to the lives that you’ve lived,
The miles you’ve walked, the people you’ve been,
The vows that you’ve broken, the secrets you’ve kept
The ones that got loose and the things left unsaid
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5. |
Hush
02:57
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We sway to the rhythm of the heartbeat of the earth
With the trees blown by the winds with which we sing
We dance in the patterns of the stars of the night
and we shine like the moon full with light given from
The Sun
In the dark of the night we feel the magic rise
In the glow of silver cast down from the moon
In shadows we will play and shadows we will be
We will steal across the hills weaving webs of mystery in
The Night
Hush, the moon in rising
Hush, the moon in rising
Hush, the moon in rising
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6. |
Proserpine
02:03
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WHERE, countless as the stars of night,
The daisies made a milky way
Across fresh lawns, and flecked with light,
Old ilex groves walled round with bay,-
I saw thee stoop, oh lady sweet,
And with those pale, sweet hands of thine
Gather the spring-flowers at our feet,
Fair as some late-born Proserpine.
Yea, gathering flowers, thou might'st have been
That goddess of ethereal brow,
Revisiting this radiant scene
From realm of dolorous shades below.
Thou might'st have been that Queen of Sighs,
Love-bound by Hades' dreadful spell;
For veiled within thy heaven-blue eyes,
There lay the Memory of Hell.
Lyrics from the poem “The New Proserpine” by Mathilde Blind from “Birds of Passage: Songs of the Orient and Occident” (London: Chatto and Windus,1895)
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7. |
Insomnia
04:05
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Insomnia, don't come to me tonight
The dawn looms soon and I'll be back on a train with the sun
Back so soon
Midnight on the subway train.
Metal rocket shakes,
sliding through the underground in the belly of a snake
The wheels and the track screech with contact
Familiar spectre sits beside me
I've known this one since the age of 13: “Insomnia”
Tell me what you know of the plight of bees
One spoonful of food out of three is pollinated by bees
and we're killing our bees
Tell me what you know of the milky way
It was born ten billion years ago, so they say,
so they say
Have you ever looked at a Queen Anne's lace
and seen an ancient milky way,
or a drop of blood on the Queen's crochet?
Speaking of Anne, you remind me of the Queen,
waiting for the swordsman to come for her execution
(in the very same chamber as her bridal 'one')
Insomnia, whose arms would be more sincere:
the hothead king or the reaper of all things? (reaper of all things)
Insomnia sews lines between these things:
the subway, the bees, the lace, the Queen, the Milky Way, the King. She says “The evidence is everywhere in ordinary things, there's star dust in the dirt beneath these feet,
even on these filthy city streets.”
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8. |
Ribcage
03:19
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So the story goes, at the bottom of the sea
lies a skeleton woman amoung the weeds
One day a fisherman casts his rod,
He pulls up her bones instead of a cod
When he reaches the shore, he runs for his life,
but she's caught in the line: his new ghastly wife
I've read this story and it comes to me in dreams,
I wake in a sweat and I just can't breathe,
I just wanna:
Break free from the cage of these ribs. Break free...
So the story goes, in the firelight,
fisherman takes pity on skeleton's plight
Carefully untangles her from the line,
puts her back together, almost looks alive
She takes his heart and plays it like a drum,
sings back her flesh and they join as one
I'd kill to know what made them so unafraid,
'cause me I just wanna melt away.
I just wanna:
Break free from the cage of these ribs,
I just wanna... break free...
I just wanna break free from the cage of these ribs,
I just wanna... break free ...
So the story goes, the lovers ran away,
helped by the creatures she knew 'neath the waves
As for me, you can see I'm still here,
but I think I feel a tug on this line over here...
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9. |
Persephone Suite
16:24
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Mother, call me home I will always come
Down by the river, bird song is harbinger Mallards, robins, red winged blackbirds
Call up the Trout Lily, Melt all the snow
Time after time, I'll always come home
Home
I remember nothing of an abduction
Only a fascination with a strange flower in the grove
Then all went dark
He was no Bluebeard, He was no thief
I had free reign, they called me Queen
I had another name
Remember my true name
He was the touchstone to my descent and the sweet anesthetic to Home
I was intoxicated by a most fragrant flower,
A strange variety I did not recognize
Each night as the moon rose in the sky, the buds began to tremble... Like time lapse photography, opening to the night
And on the seventh night I was overcome by desire to taste the plant...
I gingerly picked a blossom, and from the stem dripped a liquid clear, Shinning on my palm, I tasted with my tongue:
Sweet...
And the next thing I knew I had a another name
Remember my true name
We danced in the shadows and pools of candlelight
Oh mother I have fallen for the Prince of the Night
Mother, your breath wakes the earth
There's nothing like the pallor of your spring Anemones
After the storm, everything is clear
Technicolored world, Tornado's done
What the waves wash in ain't pretty but its real:
Bones & secrets, all that's thrown from the deep
I come from the deep
Mother, you are Queen of this green
So must I reign in the dark
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Shannon Kingsbury Guelph, Ontario
Equal parts philosophical musing and modern mysticism, the stories and worlds conjured in Shannon's music are at once
familiar and somehow borne of another time.
While firmly rooted in the songwriter tradition, the ever ambitious artist explores a diverse
sonic palette that features harp, cornet, hurdy gurdy, double bass, accordion, layered vocals, tuba and more.
... more
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