Get all 14 Pale Bird releases available on Bandcamp and save 35%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of The World Outside My Window, Unwavering Sentinels of Dreaming, I Told You How Important You Would Be, Apple Tree, Year of The Bird (Volume 4), Year Of The Bird (Volume 3), Year of The Bird (Volume 2), Year of the Bird (Volume 1), and 6 more.
1. |
Passion
04:18
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“Passion” - that’s a word you use to beat shame into people
You’re "passionate about your brand", you say
“Why don’t you love the things you do with
An all-consuming passion?”
We hear that one-man show each day
I don’t want to single out every rudderless person
Who has to do a dance inside
Just to get out of bed in the morning
But we get so far from our actual feelings
One day I watched the film American Hustle
By David O Russell
(David O. Hustle)
In its entirety
On the screen of the man in front of me
On a flight traveling over the Atlantic
There were no subtitles, I could not hear the sound
Piecing it all together, this is what I found
1. Men really love the 70s, everyone was drunk and they could do what they wanted
2. Amy Adams is a real contender for silent film, forget about the boys - they’re not very memorable
3. The world is so, so, beige
4. I don’t want to live my life at a remove, insulated by money, drugs or booze
Or retreat into nostalgic memories
And I have passions, but there isn’t just one thing that
I’d throw myself down on some altar to possess
Is being a human person enough?
“Being’s enough, being is tough”
As Jean-Paul Satre said
(I think he’s paraphrasing, he didn’t even get his name right)
In a dream I was walking with a friend, heading to his house, so we could take some tea
(I don’t understand what’s happening now)
And we were passing through a forest struck with lightning
Beside us as we walked, it didn’t strike us though
Yes, we were frightened
And before we reached his home, I woke
What do you think it means?
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2. |
The Empire Strikes Back
02:31
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Why are you whispering? What’s there to whisper about?
The forecast says the rivers are rushing, they want to turn the Windrush around
Well fuck those people, fight those people, forget those people, frighten those people
But don’t apologise never apologise for those people
I passed by an antique shop in Kyoto in Japan
When I came across an old bus sign from the town where my youth unfurled
Like a familiar flag caught up in a light breeze
Clinging to the pole, showing limited flashes of colour
Dreaming about leaving and turning into a man
And now this bus had followed me half way around the world
Hadley and Leegomery, Dawley and Sutton Hill
Must have seemed exotic to these antique-brokers
From Kyoto and Kanazawa, Tokyo and Osaka
Hukei and Hiroshima, Takamatsu and Fukuoka
These are places, truth be told, where I may never return
The old familiar feelings of fear and death are overpowering
Twenty years of absence haven’t made the heart grow fonder
The twisted root remains even as the tree is flowering
Reminding me of who I am
(I don’t want to be told about who I am)
I can make up my mind about who I am
And if not, I’d rather not know
If I look too hard I see a future free of fantasy
A different instability
And that’s when it’s time to go
Why are you whispering?
I think I told you before
The light at the end of the tunnel looks like a gaping maw
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3. |
Sensible List
04:59
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Let’s not get from A to B
Let’s tiptoe around the blame
We never go out with your friends
I’ve never heard you say my name
()
I’ve been with you for so long
I’ve walked with you through hell
You barely talk about me
It sets off warning bells
It’s true, we do spend time with your closest friends
But they already knew me
Even though they might pretend
That you introduced me
And why does this sensible list
Make me the needy one?
It’s just what anybody sane would want
Honestly you’d think that you were leading a separate life
Stop trying to excise me, you would need a sharper knife
Depression, you’re a hungry dog
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4. |
The Day After Yesterday
03:36
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It seemed unlikely he’d met me before
We were close to The Pole of Nothing Is Here
His words were burdened with mint leaves and bourbon
And Sam Beckett references I couldn’t hear
This drunk H G Wells had figured out how
To travel one day into his past
“Like terrible jet lag with more deja vu”
He told me a moment before I had asked
He said, “Which day would you change if you could?
I tried to change things in a few tiny ways
To make my life better, but even that was too hard
I pulled on a thread and it unravelled for days”
He revealed that we met
On the day after yesterday
I’d wanted to know his secrets back then
And we’d fought and he’d nearly killed me, and so
He’d come back to stop it from happening again
I told him “Old man,
I’ve listened closely
That secret is ours now
It’s not yours to own"
Eyes wide and angry
He swung at my wildly
The room disappeared and I woke up alone
I went back to find him
The day after yesterday
Unfinished business thick in the air
He left little trace, just an untouched mint julep
A friendly reminder so I’d know he’d been there
We’ve never crossed paths again
Though, if we did
I’d have no idea
What to say
I’m so much older now, and I’ve changed my past
So many times, a little each day
I’m so much older now, and I’ve lived my life
So many times, a piece every day
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5. |
Fragile
02:10
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You live in a place that spans a huge temperature range
0 to 300,000,000 degrees
And you won’t survive a change
Of five degrees from your comfort zone
Your proteins unravel, your metabolism slows
This isn’t a science bit, don’t you see?
Let me make this more concrete:
It’s dark, and you’re on a suburban street
Standing outside your handsome home
There are similar houses next to it
Lined up on just one side of the road
And every single person in the USA
Has a house upon this street
You like your neighbours well enough
But five doors down here on the right
The house is full of death
Five doors down there on the left
The house is full of death
Five doors down there on the right
Across the road, there are no houses
There is just a darkened cliff
This represents lack of oxygen
But remember this isn’t a science bit
I mean, there are.. ten?
People in this country
Who don’t want to kill you dead
And there’s a chasm waiting for you if you try to run instead
And you can dress up pretty tough
But you are fragile just like us
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6. |
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Yes I’m always complaining
Aren’t you pleased I’ve found something I enjoy?
Something I’m good at
Always a reason for someone to shut there negative feelings
I see your silver person person of pistons
I see your silver person person of steel
And hey, every robot needs its prime directives
The first three make a certain amount of sense, like
Don’t punch any children
Don’t poison housecoats
Be excellent to each other
And then there’s the 4th
The 4th, you can’t say
You know what it is but
If you try to speak it
It goes for your neck
It goes for your nervous system
Your motion’s a low vibration
Between doing something and doing nothing
It’s going to shake you into pieces
And at this point in the story
You’re on the 25th storey
Someone needs to fire that one bad apple
Near the top of the hierarchy
You’re a useless piece of crap
If you’re just rocking forwards and back
And if you want your happy ending
You’d better get out of this trap
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7. |
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Yes I believe in atoms
I believe I’ve seen them with my own eyes
Through a silver window when I was just 25
In a darkened basement
My friends showed me a device
That drills down into the universe
And comes back with a prize
And everywhere I go
The mountains look like Scotland
The valleys look like Wales
The mountains look like Scotland
That was 15 years ago
And what I worry about now
Is whether people would treat me differently
Like I said I’d seen a ghost
Like I said I’d seen
The shadow of Jesus, the face of Elvis
On that silver screen
Everywhere I go
The mountains look like Scotland
The valleys look like Wales
The mountains look like Scotland
Everywhere I go
The mountains look like Scotland
The valleys look like Wales
The flat bits look England
I know the world changes, I’ll never see
The same mountain twice
Superimposed with the grey ghosts
Of the rest of my life
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8. |
Harp Lie
03:01
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I was lying when I said I played the harp
I was lying when I said I owned one
And that sound in the background
That’s not me playing the harp
I was lying when I said I wasn’t scared
And when you asked if you would speak again
If it looked like I was crying
And I told you that I wasn’t
I was lying
Those were literally the darkest days
Third week in June 2018
Life can afford to be fucking cliched
It’s a dark mofo when it wants to be
What a lovely time we’re going through
Trying to find a believable lie to tell you
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9. |
Hezarico! [Radio Edit]
02:11
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Hezarico!
It might not make much sense to you today
But save it up and maybe one day you will open up your mouth and hear yourself say
Hezarico!
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10. |
Filters
09:38
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This is a formal piece, with the following rules.
1. The speaker will describe their voice and the construction of the music or track. The text should address all of the topics, it should be created by the performer, and it should be truthful. Music can be included
2. Antecedents: Tom Johnson’s “Failing” and Alvin Lucier’s “I Am Sitting in a Room”; and the Neofuturist theatre movement.
3. Topics to be addressed
1. The speaker should talk about their own voice, and factors which influence its sound
2. How the room is affecting the sound
3. How the antecedents in (2) affect the piece
4. The piece should end with the statement: “These are some of the filters affecting how the sound reaching your ears has formed. There are others at your end of the process, but I’m not sure what those are”
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11. |
Afterthought
03:46
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I never want you think that you’re an afterthought
There’s hardly a moment you’re not in my mind
It can be distracting when I’m completing complex tasks
I shouldn’t use heavy machinery at the same time
I never want you feel like you’re an afterthought
I just always feel that love songs have something to sell
Eric and George trading solos over Pattie Boyd
Forever in hell
Generation X can’t look into the sunset
Without seeing the familiar outline of the coca-cola logo
They didn’t get conscripted, and that’s a pretty tame brand
But it would be nice to just see the sunset, you know
Hey, you should be racing for a job that’s gone before you arrive
Honking human headline shouting at your back as you go
“How’re you going to build a house on eggs and avocado?
Eggs and avocado, and artisanal sourdough”
I never want you to feel that you’re an afterthought
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