1. |
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Have this song with my regards
May it act as a guard
May it protect you
May it be your friend
This song's the love of parents
Their endless reassurance
From your beginning to your end
In life imperfect
Which of us truly gets what we need
So keep this song inside you
A light that's there to guide you
On your journey wherever it leads
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2. |
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Pressed closer together
Than the pages of a book
We lay lovers undercover
Away from judging looks
We were as gay as Genet on Uranus
I played a refrain to sustain us
To sustain us
To sustain us
To sustain us
The world unravelled below your window
We saw the wars given birth
Then I had a vision of divisions
Portending the end of the Earth
As loons mined the moon to wound us
I crooned a tune to cocoon us
To cocoon us
To cocoon us
To cocoon
To cocoon us
Ooh us
I saw our books start to combust
The room turn to dust
Our bed to rust
Left naked in the paper white I started to write
The story of
The story of us
No more songs played after that day
Our tale too is sad to see
One of rebel lovers discovered
The only way it could be
But when they came
To defame and maim us
We remained in the flames
And were shameless
We were shameless
We were shameless
In the flames we remained
Shameless
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3. |
The One for Me You Are
02:58
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Outside billions of hearts are beating
Under sheets, ours meet like the last two alive
Biology beseeches us to be breeding
He he
Can we survive
When we've missed the whole point of the creating collision
Of seeds species and stars
I don't know why or what made the decision
But the one for me you are
It's a joy dear to join you in your silence
In the black in this lack of light we're unknown
To know is a verb of unspeakable violence
But I can't leave you alone
I'm breaking through into that hole where you've been hiding
Your sin your skin your scars
I don't know why or what did the deciding
But the one for me you are
Two outlaws here tarry and talk
The town around lit with pitchforks
Fire for the firebrands
The rabble roared our rebels ran
I read this somewhere in a book
A tale in which refuge I took
As long ago I came to know
How different I was to those
Whose hearts beat loud and proud in mocking and derision
Who would put us apart
They'll never see nor hear of our division
Those billions of beating hearts
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4. |
The Dissonance
04:01
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I watch him pray to God at night
In search of
The praise or punishment
The permission or admonishment
For love
He sees our love as sin inside
His clean heart
Still I cannot decide
To put aside his love despite
The dissonance
The dissonance
The dissonance
He's tried everything
Everywhere he's looked for the answer
I tell him faith means belief
In the absence of answers
To the dissonance
The dissonance
The dissonance
One day we will be released from our bodies
And harmony will come
No more judgement
No more shame
No struggle
No pain
We deserve that
Please say we do
Promise we do
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5. |
Pothos
07:04
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In black turmoil
As crude as oil
We pull and push
That rock-like bones
Might melt like stone
Liquid you
Liquid me
A solution
And in that dark, dark place
I could not see your face
Could just construct
By what I touched and heard and smelled and tasted
And in this slick of sleep
Our slackened bodies steep
Mute they mimic the daylit dance
The cracked tectonics of our romance
Vast intimacy
infinitesimal distance
Tricked by this slick
Foiled by this oil
It's sad to say
We cannot merge
Despite our urge
But one day
After days have past
A black hole may
Our way pass
And fuse our scattered atoms
Together at last
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6. |
A Lightless Love
04:18
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Hand me the kindling
The fire is dwindling
You laughed the candle out
Drunk in the dark
Is all well there's our spark
And a while 'til the Rhine wine runs out
But do you know what I'm thinking of?
A drinkless den and a lightless love
Who long ago enquired
Whether or not the fire
He felt was returned
And I'm ashamed to say
I left the next day
That boy with his fingers burned
Now at this table
I seek to make stable
So glass and candle stay
I find myself asking
As those in my past did
Whether or not you will stray
This fear I have
You can't comprehend
'Til you've spurned your own share of men
Who've declared their desire
Their hearts all on fire
All to no avail
'Til you've flitted and fled
From barroom to bed and to yourself said
"Onwards to the spark that cannot fail"
I fear the table's turn
I know I will be burned
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7. |
One Word
03:01
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Should I be shocked to wake at night
To stare out of the window and see my face in the sky
And should I be shocked to realise that you
Are just as illusory as that aforementioned image of me
And that that's why I need
I need to hear that one word
To make it all feel real
I need to hear that one word
That one word
That one word
That one word
Men and women go two by two
Highly in agreement - does that exclude me and you
If they are light then are we the dark
Kicked off of the ark to swim forever in search of lighthouse beams
Because that's how it seems
I need to hear that one word
To make it all feel real
I need to hear that one word
That one word
That one word
That one word
Did I ever really know you
Right at the start when everything was new
Now you're just a mirror in the dark
An unspoken remark
A space on the ark
I need to hear that one word
That one word
That one word
That one word
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8. |
Our bed is a Graveyard
03:09
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Our bed is a graveyard
Our love is a corpse
Dumbstruck
Stuck in the muck
Spinning and
Spinning and
Spinning and
Spinning and
Spinning and
Spinning in the soil of our sex
In our mutual disrespect
Little death
Little death
The mattress springs are singing
The cemetery gates are swinging
In the wind
I'm reaching oblivion
The obliterate
Every stroke
Spasm and choke
Moving and
Living and
Breathing and
Pro and
Receding 'til it all ends in tears
Until everything that brought us here
Disappears
Until the names our parents gave us
Are nothing more than an engraver's
Weekday work
It means nothing
Nothing
Nothing
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9. |
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This part always makes me cry
You sighed
I raised my eyes
Thinking
See
Empedocles wasn't right
I do not have you in my sights
Unenlightened
You are dark
And under the arc
Of a hundred-watt halo
A question mark
Invoking an answer I don't want to know
Lighthearted
Lightheaded
I will stay until you go
Until you go
Hello
I said
You reached the bed
The music then lifted
Our hands to our heads
Closed our eyes
This part
This part
This part always makes me
Light of heart
Until we part
Light of head
Until it's said
This part always makes us cry
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10. |
Spaces
05:25
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I do not
Want to see
The spaces where
You used to be
So I'll drop my sights
To block the light
That shows the spots
Where you are not
Are you happy with your new love
Is it easier for you
I'd only have given you more of
The trouble
You'd struggled to lose
That you'd leave
Was my fear
So I made you
Disappear
I was scared your love would lose
Its gleam and glow
So with one breath
I made it so
Are you happy with your new love
Is it easier for you
I'd only have given you more of
The trouble
You'd struggled to lose
It's not for this lost love I grieve
But for the loss of love completely
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11. |
Souvenirs
02:54
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Am I the fading flower
Forgotten on your chair
Am I the photograph removed from your white walls
And shoved somewhere
Between your books
Or in a box under your bed
Am I
Am I
Am I
Am I nowhere
Well let me tell you dear
You are my own sad set of souvenirs
You're a ticket
An empty lighter
A half-done sketch that I have cleared
Into a drawer
And yes of course
You are photos that I look at from time to time
And know that I
Could no more climb into them
And be with you there
Than I could play Picasso’s violins
Or hug the Scream
Or touch the Mona Lisa’s hair
Or smell Vincent's fading flowers
Or fall down in his chair
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12. |
Two Houses
03:20
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I saw your forlorn face today
In the form of a forsaken derelict house
The place bore many decades' decay
'Though it's four years and three days
Since you went south
Cracked wooden lips
Framed the abyss
In its doorway of a mouth
Torn curtain tears
Streamed from its broken window eyes
I still live in the old house you knew
I still sleep in the same room
You shared with me
A maintain all that I'm able to
'Though the roof lets the rain through
And it rains constantly
And some days
I retrace
The route I used to take
Between your house and mine
Just to be by your side
So long ago
So long ago
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13. |
A Rebours
03:46
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I'll tread the trail over the hill then
Though thinking of my children
My stride aligned with now
Nothing more
I stand against nature
I stand a rebours
Apex bound I predate and prey
Beyond the end
Where I am is where I'll stay
Oh mother
Father
'Though wind blows closed your doors
Rest easy
Time can't touch the son who stands
A rebours
For the wound I am cautery
I'm the cure for the disease
After forty days and forty nights
I am the ark that sails the seas
The story's in the telling
The truth is the belief
Up and on I'll push all preciousness aside
But at the peak I will tarry and not stride
Precipitous
Precarious
The path I stand before
I am
I want
I question it no more
I can do no other
I stand
A rebours
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14. |
In Loving Memory
03:47
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The richest life for you
With all the happiness and joy the world has in it
And a full heart I couldn't win it
But I wish you all the best I truly do
Years ago in your room
We planned a life full of adventure and collusion
And 'though now I'm sad and disillusioned
I don't regret and won't forget our love in bloom
If you'd have told me then that the songs I wrote
Would be all that would make it out alive I'd have cried I'm sure
And even more
To think that anything I write will likely not survive that far beyond me
But I'm older now
And the crying's done
And I know enough to care only that I loved you at all
That we shared what we shared
So meagre
So overwhelming
Wherever you may be
I hope you've what you need and some of your desires
That you're cared for loved and admired
And that your life is rich
Is my only wish
To you
From me
In loving memory
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Owen Duff London, UK
A true adherent to the DIY ethos, Owen Duff creates everything related to his music, from artwork to videos, as well as playing/programming nearly all of the instruments on his songs. His songs that blend influences from folk, 60s chamber pop, electronica, film and TV scores and jazz. Owen's lyrics are inspired by books, films, TV, high and low culture, politics and personal experience. ... more
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