1. |
Yourself and Nobody Else
05:02
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Yourself and Nobody Else
Not looking yourself today, Hatty, he said,
Heard you’re toying with life like a mouse on a string?
You’ve fashioned a way to take back your day when it’s gone so wrong.
Then he said he’d an ear he could lend me,
That he’d do right by me if I sat down by him,
The way that he spoke, my stubborn will broke,
As he whispered to me, he said:
But could you show me how to sleep, love?
And I’ll show you how to feel loved:
You just love yourself,
Loving yourself comes first,
And nobody else can hurt you then.
Then I cried: But my heart it needs mending!
You see it got smashed up to bits on the journey back home,
I feel so at sea, I’ve never been me without a thee.
He laughed: Darling don’t frown! There are people in this town
Who would treasure you how you deserved all along,
But don’t expect one to right every wrong that you feel.
He said: Can you show me how to sleep nights?
And I’ll show you how to feel right:
You just know yourself,
Knowing yourself comes first,
Nobody else can hurt you then.
If you make your own way
And fill up your days with the things you love,
Then, my girl, you may find that glitch in your mind
Might just burn out or switch off…
Now, no seeking a fairy-tale ending!
I don’t want to see that you’re waiting for a knight on his horse,
You’re wasting your time, when you should be out finding your own blue skies.
He said: Oh, and if you show me how to sleep, hon,
I’ll tell you how you’ve gone wrong:
You don’t know yourself,
But I know you so damn well,
Like nobody else.
And just for now, you must love only yourself and nobody else.
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2. |
Colour and Light
03:05
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Colour and Light
These are the moors of boorish careless breezes,
Of petticoats laced with heather seed edges,
Of grouse red and hedgerow green,
Of adders that skulk after lizards unseen.
And the colours they change with the light,
They flash and then drain,
In that way Miyazaki’s grasses wave at you.
A galloping world between our two piers,
I see you’ve sent over your fleet of white horses,
A shattered sheet of crystal glass to cross,
A billowing quilt of lapis tears.
And the colours they change in the light,
You shutter the lens, and infinite frames scatter on the waves.
You have a need to make noises at night,
But I’ve quite the fetish for colour and light,
We wait on the threshold for one little touch,
One dark, one bright, electric, then hushed.
And the colours they change in the light,
They waver and fade, like filaments flickering out.
I would I could paint, but a painter I ain’t
So I’ll spin you a line instead…
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3. |
Clothes I Wear
04:09
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Clothes I Wear
I’m feeling rough, I’m feeling sore,
Can hardly pick up my pants off the floor,
And it’s too hard to see my young self on your wall.
I’m woolly greys and earthy browns,
I feel I’ve buried my brain in the ground,
And though you’re trying to dig me out,
I’m just nowhere to be found.
Then I get frightened by numbers,
And want to dive into the pile of jumpers in my bedroom,
But all those jumpers I wear are too big
And everything that I love makes me sick…
When I feel dark and not too strong,
Like every piece of me is wrong,
That’s when I long to feel your hand around my own.
Your voice is green, your eyes are blue,
And when you laugh I don’t know what to do,
And I can’t keep my eyes from you
When you walk by my room.
But oh, why can’t you see me?
Sometimes I feel I’d have to disappear before you’d notice
That all the clothes that I wear are too big;
Still I know every word from my mouth makes you sick…
And as I’m lying on the ground,
I see my sky is falling down,
Yet still I’m thinking how I’d like to travel far –
To smell the sand and see the trees,
And feel some freedom and some peace,
If I could only get my thoughts together,
I’d gather them and leave.
But I’m frightened of changing;
Each time I rearrange my life it just falls to pieces,
‘til all the clothes that I wear are too big
And everything that I love makes me sick.
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4. |
What That Makes Me
03:42
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What That Makes Me
I’m not one for conversation,
If the words don’t come in a natural way,
I don’t know what to say, when the silence pools between us,
Grey, green but (sometimes) gold.
Often like to dream a while,
But people stare when I’m going off in your arms,
They can’t see the peonies spring from your hands,
They can’t see the Viennese orchestra stand,
Taking their bows for playing Strauss,
I know I should want real life but I don’t...
And even though I know what that makes me, how could I change?
You say I need more self-worth,
But I don’t feel that way,
When you’re off in your work,
You can’t see me kneel down, hair in my hands,
You can’t feel the twisting of the hunger pangs.
I don’t want to go out looking!
I hoped love would fall in my lap,
Like a star, warm and bright,
To hold to with all of my might,
To change my course and lead me dancing into the night.
And I’m still hanging on, though it’s ten years gone,
You’re wearing that ring and I’m writing you love songs,
And even though I know what that makes me, darling, I’m yours.
I’m yours,
And even though I know what that makes me,
Darling, I’m yours.
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5. |
Looking Up
03:14
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Looking Up
Late in the night, I’ve got nowhere to hide when the morning comes,
Sights seem to circle my mind just when I should be bed-blind,
Thoughts of those Autumn clothes you’ll be donning on a Monday soon.
The day you were born I was out on the run in a patch of sun,
Young men were fighting with swords, dressed like knights on the lawn.
Yes! I’m starting to see all the things that I missed,
When I was listless and loveless and lost,
And now if I look up...
I see: Alexandrina magnolias lean o’er a low stone wall,
Arthurian lads are familiar but no less bizarre at all,
Seeping out, creeping into the sunlight like players in the wrong scene.
I’ve had Vaseline smeared in my eyes and my ears for the last three years,
And now that I’m clear of that hazy blur it hurts,
To see all the secrets and smiles I dismissed,
When I was listless and loveless and lost,
Now I’m looking up...
Though it’s a struggle
To keep out the devil
I’m leaving his heckles
Behind heavy doors,
Though it’s a struggle
To keep out the devil
I’m leaving his heckles
Behind me.
A hole where the whole of me should have been found
That I once fell down,
A tightly bound skin of thunder and lightning to keep it all drowned.
‘til I started to see all the things that I missed,
When I was listless and loveless and lost,
Now I’m looking up.
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6. |
Timothy Fisher
03:30
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Timothy Fisher
Timothy Fisher, he paws at the pitcher of water before him
and hesitates a beat--
His hand is a tremble,
His mind is a shiver,
And everywhere people are better and newer
and healthier than ever they were.
He’s trying to part with the part of himself that’s a child, avoiding demands,
but his hands… his hands…
They give him away,
That he can’t be left in a room with a glass half full,
Or it will laugh.
So he’s holding on tight to the water,
But water it has its slippery ways,
(Pearls that snap and scatter in curls)
And he’s longing for the last trace of a burn in his chest…
He’s longing to lounge half drunk in the half light to Blue Eyes,
Like those nights I languished in his arms,
And died a little, diagonally drawn,
Strewn to the wind as petals or seed.
Resents me for growing the thought that he sewed in me,
Feels the world owes him a dream.
“Don’t I dream enough?” he says,
"Spend half my days in a faraway haze!
God knows, I’ve had enough visions of smoke-filled rooms;
Of conspirators, blue in their luscious cocoons…
I shouldn’t be stuck in this Thursday afternoon!”
But he won’t be told that the dream he was sold
Is any less beautiful than the whole wide world.
Always trying to get in, when he should be breaking out of the bottle.
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7. |
Stone Cold
02:15
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Stone Cold
I marvel at “stone cold”
At “dead in the water”
Unfeeling, the reeling of river beds rumbling,
Yet life everywhere!
Among the ruinous fragments of
Moving and moving and going and streaming,
There are bodies, rising up and green
And growing!
A weathered fisherman’s face,
with bright, undulating light on every pore.
Forms in rich fauns and greys gaze over it,
And drop their clothes --flat--
To be baptised in the flow of it,
Exalted and salted,
And those cold stone bones
Are awake and very much alive.
So yes, I am staggered by “stone cold”
Nothing more than a lie once told,
So clear to me they are mis-sold.
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8. |
Where My Love Lives
03:15
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Where My Love Lives
My love lives in the valley,
He’s taller than the trees that line his lane,
He’s all the warmth of bumblebees on sugar-scented cherry trees,
With daggers in his eyes as he cuts me down to size.
And I don’t know if I’ll ever tell him so,
But he lingers near my lashes as I sleep,
And my love burns even as the season turns...
My love lives in the city,
But he’s running off about the country now,
Ten thousand golden threads turn in curls about his head
And whirling arabesques kiss the covers of his bed.
And I don’t know that I’ll ever tell him so,
But my heart hurts to know that he’s alright,
And my love yearns even though I’ll never learn.
Can you not see my loves? I carry them.
They sit upon my shoulder and they speak,
In witty asides, in vices, and valour when I’m so weak.
My love lives in a castle,
She’s shut up tight and I can’t get to her,
And starry, navy, silken swathes are draped around her waist;
She’s dressed up to the nines,
In that prison I can’t find.
And I don’t know that I ever told her so,
But when she held my hand I held my breath,
And my love knows even what I cannot show her.
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9. |
Devils
04:13
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Devils
I used to know the devil, he wore blue velvet.
When I was lonely I’d let him in,
Crying “I can’t help it!”
He’s a drummer in the walls
And he’d brush my brains about,
Say my time for life and love is running out.
But I’m inclined to focus on the dark,
When I should step out in the light,
But my eyes took their time
To readjust to kindness.
I know this girl, she writes down all her
Happy thoughts in notes,
She gives them out to everyone,
Not knowing what she doesn’t know.
My friend says she’s a devil
In angel’s colours,
There’s nothing worse-
At least He owns his grim grey pallor…
But he’s inclined to babble
When he’s had a little whiskey,
And his tumbler wobbles in his hand,
It’s risky leaning in...
It seems I attract him,
I guess once I wanted him,
The diamond with the flaws,
But now he knows I’m yours
And you’re not like him.
But devils take their time
To wear your skin away,
They steal a little every day
Until your brittle bones give way.
Angelic Aryan faces
And their clever airs and graces
Conceal the words so they’re not heard,
Just taken in and lived and burned.
They promise you the sky
And as you kiss each day goodbye,
You don’t know how you missed the lie,
Or missed his two fine fingers crossing…
It seems I attract them,
I guess once I summoned them,
The wolves in kidskin gloves,
But now that we’re in love,
I couldn’t want them.
I do so seem to find them,
Oh, how once I longed for them!
The devils with their flaws…
But now they know I’m yours
and you’re not like them.
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10. |
Blue Kisses
04:37
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Blue Kisses
I pictured us, we're walking in the hills
And snow white wolves are dancing at your heels.
Am I in your head?
I handed you my soul upon a note that you read:
Softest blue kisses
Your sockets, electric, blow
Tiny static shocks
We lay in the grass, suspended o'er the deepest sky
And time is not a line, it is a cape that covers us,
My heart wants to shout,
But my lips are sealed by doubt.
Softest blue kisses
Your sockets, electric, blow
Tiny static shocks
Whisper of love on my skin,
Through the wisps of my hair,
A tender and warm little blessing,
Not shouted, but murmured.
A small glum sound escapes your chest,
And I hold it like a cupped sparrow, and swallow it whole.
Your breath touches mine in the middle distance,
dances with it as we part.
And I wear my love like a blood-bled wound in the world,
A cape of callipers,
A hedgehog of throbs and gashes
That sing to be healed.
But my love won’t let me rest,
And my wounds won’t close, I guess…
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Harriet Bradshaw Middlesbrough, UK
After touring the country as cellist to some of the UK’s best loved songwriters, Harriet Bradshaw releases her debut solo album on 4th November. Teesside’s answer to the likes of Kate Bush and Joni Mitchell, Harriet is a multi-instrumentalist bringing a mix of piano, cello, guitar and crystalline folk vocals to her unique songwriting. ... more
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