1. |
My Little Town
01:40
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My Little Town
There's a road that runs straight through my little town
A movie-theatre about half way down in my little town
But now they've turned it into a bingo palace
They don't show films there no more, no more
There's a railway line runs through my little town
And all the kids can think about is getting out of this little town
See them on the platform on a Saturday night
About half past eleven there'll always be a fight
What can a poor boy do
But get drunk and play the fool
In my little town, in my little town.
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2. |
November Morning Sun
02:50
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November Morning Sun
The trees shine in the morning sun
There's a blue sky and the clear rivers run
No more frost on these sticks and stones
The wind don't cut through to the bone
La la la la la
November morning sun
Flowers are bright in the graveyards
Bells are ringing through the farms
The whole green country's turning red
The birds are all headed out west
I filled up my suitcase with clothes
Headed down a gravel road
The dog followed me to the gate
As I walked off into a brand new day
Don't even miss me now or try to say
What it was that made me leave today
Weren't no money problem or lover's tiff
Was just the sight of a morning like this
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3. |
Drowning Moon
03:08
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Drowning Moon
I made a cross out of sticks and bone
Then I walked to town
Kept it in a pocket hid
So the devil wouldn't see it
I was shivering like a drowning moon
Talked to a crow in a sycamore tree
He said now go carefully
'Cos I seen the devil walking in front of thee
I was shivering like a drowning moon
The devil better be aware
I'm not gonna let him stop me
Seeing my darling Marie
'Cos she means the whole damn world to me
And I'm shivering like a drowning moon
The crow said he'd seen better men than me
Thrown by the devil in that cold dark stream
But I feel no fear with my cross on my chest
I'll see her because I feel blessed
The devil took my baby away from me
Now I'm shivering all over
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4. |
Devil's Address
02:41
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The Devil's Address
I'm in heaven that's what the sign says
This bar's more like hell, everything painted red
Every once in a while a truck goes by headed north
Headlights flashing across these smoky walls
If you want to find me
Post a letter to 'Happiness'
Mark it care of the devil's address
I started driftin' when I couldn't pay the rent
That mobile home was more like a shed
I spent every winter watching the rain
Turn that gravel path into a lake
Now I'm fine and dandy but I'm all alone
Just me and the sparkle of the tarmac road
Thousand miles behind me, wife's in another man's bed
Thousand miles ahead before I'll ever rest
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5. |
Dusty Trees
03:27
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Dusty Trees
Hail in the ditches, ice on the tyres
We gotta find another road out of here
This way there's nothing but weeds and briars
We're tangled up in a past we cannot clear
Can't see nothing but dusty trees
All around me, nothing but dusty trees
There's no new crop in the far field
There's no more walking through the harvest sheaves
Our river's dead, nothing left to give
A sunken barge is breaking up in the reeds
When the sun goes down you can feel the dark
Pouring down through these dusty trees
Blood on your finger, a hook in your heart
And the maps you bought are falling apart
Because you've lost your compass, lost the path
When you leave here you'll never look back
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6. |
Desert Dust
02:52
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Desert Dust
Five years ago we slid across the bridge at dawn
I kept waking up to see the black
All I could taste, all I could taste was desert dust
I woke with the dust in my teeth
We carry our countries in our blood like a disease
All I can taste, all I can taste is desert dust, desert dust
Every winter words have crept into my mouth
Still I struggle on and on
I stare at the back of another in the rain
I stare at the roads as summer clogs my brain
But all I can taste, all I can taste is desert dust
desert dust, desert dust
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7. |
The Lynton Flood
04:21
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The Lynton Flood
Well no-one knew where all the water come from on that fateful day
But it came down like a wall and it washed all them houses away
And some of them poor folks were drowned and some of them poor folks survived
And to this day no-one knows the reason why
But that water ran so fast and high
On the night of the Lynton flood
My daddy was just a boy of twelve, but he did not look his age
In a picture taken there but a year before
The road beneath his wheel just slipped away
And the house behind disappeared in the mud and clay
But that water ran so fast and high
On the night of the Lynton flood
Well I was there in '76 with another bunch of kids
Just some poor art students drawing pictures with our charcoal sticks
When I see the monument upon the wall
Showing where them flood waters came pouring through and all
You know that water ran so fast and high
On the night of the Lynton flood
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8. |
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Ghost of What Might Have Been
She carries a sack full of money
In hands that are wrapped in beautiful silk gloves
She whispers in my ear" time to leave"
And I wake in another city without my love
I'm waking from a bad dream
Waking with the ghost of what might have been
She knows my heart is shot full of holes
Because she was the one she never was gun shy
She calls to me and she points out to sea
And I wake up with a echo of her sighs
She's haunted me on the midnight streets
I want to wake up on the other side
She's haunting me on the midnight streets
A love that lives on after it has died
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9. |
Clown's Car
02:25
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Clown's Car
Driving through the night
Rain on the windscreen
Black clouds hanging over the city
Ships in the harbour tugging at their chains
There's a forest out in California
I saw it on the news
They were still damping down the flames
When I crashed into you
And everything fell apart
Just like a clown's car
And we sat there hand in hand
Looking up at the stars
From our clown's car
No more engines, no more wheels
Hey hey into the world we tumble
No more falling apart
In our clown's car
When you're alone at night
And the full moon starts to shine
Look out across these hills
See the stars raining down on the fields
As your world and mine collide
In a thousand sparks tonight
My heart still starts to race
Don't fall apart any more
Come for a ride
In my clown's car
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10. |
Bled Dry
03:44
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Bled Dry
Our hearts were always leaking
From the day we staggered through these doors
Like the engine of our old car
We were pouring love all over the floor
We never even saw it slip away
Until that night
We were both bled dry, bled dry
Well the night it all ended
We were going in circles, the tank empty
We ran out of gas in the middle of town
I tried to get us some more but there was none around
I gave you everything and more
But your heart had been broken twice before
Now I hold it here in my hand
That love we had, it's bled dry, bled dry
Smaller than the tears we still cry
Bled dry, bled dry, bled dry
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11. |
The Devil's House
03:12
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The Devil's House
I live in a house on top of a hill
I've been here for years and I'm here still
And I watch you every day you go by
Every day of my life
And the rain pours down like tears
From the coal black clouds my dear
On to the devil's house
Well I've done things that I don't understand
I've been confused but I've worked and I've planned
Then along came a girl with a pretty smile
And before you know it you're already mine
And the rain pours down like tears
From the coal black clouds my dear
On to the devil's house
I live in a house on top of a hill
I've been here for years and I'm here still
And I watch you every day that goes by
Every day of my life
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12. |
These Wishing Fields
02:57
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These Wishing Fields
Can't shake the mud from my heels
Feel like a tractor sunk up to its wheels
Every time I try to quit and run away
I keep coming back to this old clay
Further out I go the deeper in I plunge
Feel this soil deep inside my lungs
Never gonna escape these wishing fields
I'm tied to these wishing fields
Now my father and his father before him
Believed in this land, believed in everything
But one man can't turn a failing farm around
I'll die a poor man, laid in this cold, cold ground
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13. |
One horse town
03:45
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One Horse Town
I come from the wrong kind of town
The kind I always hear you putting down
Wrong side of the tracks that's where I was born
Now I'm going back where the streets are worn
All my life I've heard people like you sneer
Bet you don't like my kind hanging out here
Someday I'm gonna make something of myself
I'll get there just fine without your help
Don't you write me off now mister
'Cos I'm from a one horse town
Don't you write me off now mister
'Cos I 'm from a one horse town
My daddy spent all day mending your roads
My mama spent all day cleaning your coats
My little sister clears away your kids plates
Me I don't do nothing but get up late
I can hear you laugh I can hear your jeers
But my time to shine is nearly here
Some day you'll probably brag that you knew me when
Even though you never had a kind word then
Well I been called rough for the way I talk
The rich folks way of talking always sounded false
So take your fancy cars and your country estates
'Cos I know one place where I ain't out of place
Where I come from no-one laughs at me
It ain't too hip but it lets you be
Your glamour and your wealth are nice to touch
But if you ask me it ain't worth that much
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14. |
Donati's Comet
06:01
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Donati's Comet
William Turner of Oxford is on his horse,
riding between fields and old barn doors.
Fields that should be blacker than a widow's dress,
but tonight there's a comet burning in the west.
The frost is building on the thatched walls as
William Turner picks up his pen and draws.
The light that falls from Donati's Comet.
Well it's the 5th of October 1858
and the cattle are restless behind the wicker gates.
There's an owl swooping through the beech trees
as the comet light sparkles between the reeds.
William Turner is up on the Downs tethering his horse
and trying to map that comet's course
but as he shields his eyes a tear falls
as he realises he'll never catch it all.
The light that falls from Donati's Comet.
Next morning he's mixing gum and powder on a plate
and tracing that comet's tail with a dark stain.
Thinking of all that light that flooded his eyes
and how he'll never see its like again in his time.
Leaves are falling one by one into the Thames
and a stonemason hammers at a monument to the dead.
On his palette the blues and greens turn to black
and the chisel chips time into a dark sack.
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15. |
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English Country Heart ( instr. inspired by this lyric)
Living in the middle of England
But I can't understand a thing
Sometimes I think I'm American
Then I look at these fields in the wind
And I know you could take these broken parts
And build an English country heart
When the barn roof collapsed no-one did a thing
When these fields were bare they just left it rotting
Now there are no more people living off the land round here
All we got is city businessmen busy developing
Look over there and you'll see the rusting rails
Of a line that used to carry coal from Wales
Look over here and you'll see the crumbling walls
Where a thousand men built cars for Mr. Ford
Pick up the pieces and build
An English country heart
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trailer star Nottingham, UK
It’s hard going at times but glory can come from misery. The fragility and the feeling of being on the edge of toppling over is balanced by the skeletal beauty of the songs.
Paul Kerr - Blabber n' Smoke
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