1. |
||||
She lay breathing a locked room
The earth beneath her spinning round and around
She was hyacinth in bright bloom
With roots that couldn’t reach the ground, cool soft ground
She kept every nightmare
Wide awake terror
Far from her own sight
Tangling pleas of protest
Screams of distress
Quiet as midnight
Closed eyed stare
Sap stuck hair
Hushed while the singers sing
I’ll prefer
To be her
Now I feel everything
Like the sun that shines in the clear blue
And this hope that you love me, too
When I hear your voice asking what’s ours still to do
I changed my mind, I want you
She has never had a lover
Know what she gave up to survive, just survive
Sex was nothing but a cover
For ways she wasn’t yet alive, quite alive
Now you step to meet me
Smile completely
See through to her eyes
Say her name like warning,
“Wake! It’s morning!”
Kissed in your sunrise
Closed eyed stare
Sap stuck hair
Hushed while the singers sing
I’ll prefer
To be her
Now I feel everything
Like the sun that shines in the clear blue
And this hope that you love me, too
When I hear your voice asking what’s ours still to do
I’m sick with what I conceal
Be witness that I am real
Human as I came
In your arms I claim my longing
Closed eyed stare
Sap stuck hair
Hushed while the singers sing
I’ll prefer
To be her
Now I feel everything
Like the sun that shines in the clear blue
And this hope that you love me, too
When I hear your voice asking what’s ours still to do
I changed my mind, I want you
I changed my mind, I want you
I changed my mind, I want you
I changed my mind
|
||||
2. |
||||
Of course
It will be yours
Love hardened into a crutch
What weight can I carry for you today
Your money costs too much
A mirror for your grandeur
A sieve for the stuff you’d regret
What pittance would you tender
For those precious pieces that you don’t own yet
Train me
On your cruelty
Hit with the absence of touch
More air for you when I enter the room
Your loving costs too much
Say, “Whoa you! Yeah we know you!
And how have you come to such harm!”
Well what else could I owe you
My sentience those pearls decorating your arm
Rock me
Like a baby
Tell me you love me and such
Read the last page of this story called home
Your money costs too much
Last gorgeous page of this story called home
Your money costs too much
|
||||
3. |
Still For You
04:31
|
|||
Naked at the bottom of the well
Only warmth the lie that I still tell
You’ll bring me home soon
There’s an April moon tonight
You took my life in our unconscious
And made this crude attendant goddess
I dreamed surviving wouldn’t end us
And now I rummage here in the remains
For who I am without you
Even as my straining eyes don’t see
Wrinkles as emerged humanity
You’re my one true love
I’m your mourning dove for good
You took my life in our unconscious
And made this crude attendant goddess
I dreamed surviving wouldn’t end us
And now I rummage here in the remains
For who I am without you
Any semblance of worth in me
Any good thing I’ll ever be
Is still for you
My captor, you
Tormentor, you
Pretender, you
You took my life in our unconscious
And made this crude attendant goddess
I dreamed surviving wouldn’t end us
And now I rummage here in the remains
In these hinterlands of our remains
I’m believing now that what remains
Is who I am without you
|
||||
4. |
Hold Me In The Dark
03:59
|
|||
I can’t begin
To tell you where I’ve been
My best sentence lacks the words
For what I learned to see
I meet my death
In each resuming breath
And move to its violent voice
Still calling inside me
Turn down the light
Let go the fight
Before you say goodnight to me
Would you hold me in the dark
We’ll go to sleep
Two divers diving deep
And find with the eels and whales
Sunk schooners in the sand
But would you dare
To scour the wreckage there
And surface with arms too full
For anything we’ve planned
Turn down the light
Let go the fight
Before you say goodnight to me
Try to know me in the dark
I’ve had forever, now, and never
I’m setting like the pale moon
Before you say goodnight to me
Would you hold me in the dark
Would you hold me in the dark
|
||||
5. |
Little Bit Of Bad
04:12
|
|||
Pull my boots and belt so tight there’s no room left for you
And underneath this flower dress my own dragon tattoo
Cause I’m done with the crying
And compassion undying
You want what you ripped asunder
Now’s your chance to practice hunger
Well I gave you good with all the strength I had
Since you think I owe you more
Here’s a little bit of bad
Every word I read a thirsty tick under my skin
But I can tear your letters up before they burrow in
As you saw by the stage light
I’ve been sleeping the whole night
You want what you ripped asunder
Now’s your chance to practice hunger
Well I gave you good with all the strength I had
Since you think I owe you more
Here’s a little bit of bad
There is a time when love itself’s a crime against the earth
And I’ll have to go to places I won’t know to claim my birth
You want what you ripped asunder
Now’s your chance to practice hunger
Well I gave you good with all the strength I had
Since you think I owe you more
Here’s a little bit of bad
Little bit of bad
Little bit of bad
Little bit of bad
|
||||
6. |
Woman Who Remembers You
04:55
|
|||
Was there a major chord
Before your car spun round
A Gibson twelve string playing
Your distance to the ground
Was Gordon singing strong
For early morning rain
And did you want to tell him
You’d jumped your own jet plane
I can’t know who you were through the mist of the long lost brother
Just cause two people lose doesn’t mean that they gain each other
And though you were finished before your wheels touched down
I’ve become a woman who remembers you
Like you my body’s weak
And yeah, I like to sing
My fingers play piano
Like missing nylon string
That’s Arlo on repeat
And I’d swear you’re in his band
I got your old guitar back
I keep it close at hand
I can’t know who you were through the mist of the long lost brother
Just cause two people lose doesn’t mean that they gain each other
And though you were finished when I was still a girl
I’ve become a woman who remembers you
Now if it’s alright
For every midnight
There’s some of your light
In how I see
My hands are less small
I took a hard fall
So your last phone call
Can be to me
Dear Paul I’ll keep living what life of ours remains
And I’ll be a woman who remembers who
I will be a woman who remembers you
|
||||
7. |
String
03:14
|
|||
It took a long time to let your lips know
More than the words on the page
It took some more time to sense the soft glow
From every year of your age
But you can’t seem to recall
The moment you watched as all
Of life’s sweet love got blown past the horizon
You lost everything
To the winds that you weathered
But you found a string
Good for keeping you tethered to the world
This precious world
Go on and try the world
It wasn’t you ever-orchestrating
Some friends just needed to leave
It’s not your self-doubt makes you amazing
It’s more your largesse to grieve
And like luxuriant spring
Permission isn’t the thing
You need to have to blossom in the sunrise
You lost everything
To the winds that you weathered
But you found a string
Good for keeping you tethered to the world
This precious world
Go on and try the world
And sweetheart that there’s the ground
And darling that there’s the sound of the birds by your side
Now swoop a little bit lower
A little bit lower
You could repeat their perfected story
On every step toward the light
And be the right girl in all her glory
For so long since you’ve been alright
They trained you always to give
But you think you’d like to live
The doctor sighed, “We’ve got ourselves a heartbeat”
You lost everything
To the winds that you weathered
But you found a string
Good for keeping you tethered to the world
This precious world
Go on and try the world
Wild winds that you weathered
Now you’re gonna keep tethered to the world
This precious world
Go on and try the world
Hold on and try the world
You’re here to try the world
|
||||
8. |
Demeter's Dream
04:04
|
|||
I began like a closing fan
Colors kept from her vision
Then the stream of my perfect scream
Drained her well of emotion
Left the fields for a gated garden
Wild flowers of her self forgotten
I was sure I would think of her
Tending her isolation
If that God gave His deadly nod
Bore her down to His chamber
Thin legs spread on His flame-forged bed
Tear-stained skin for His pleasure
I would rise in my grief and anger
Starve the earth with four months of winter
But it’s clear that she’s been right here
Only I could have raped her
At last this nightmare has woken me
Made me see her face
I’d hurt her more just to sleep again
Keep her in her place
I would rise in my grief and anger
Starve the earth with four months of winter
But it’s clear that she’s been right here
Only I could have raped her
Only I could have raped her
|
||||
9. |
||||
In the dream
I see your face inside my mirror
Feel your body warm inside my bed
I could scream
And match the volume of my terror
But the loudest sound won’t turn your head
And it’s true
I start before you end
But then you
Still see how much more I’ll bend
Just how much I will pretend for your love
So sweet
You call me sweetheart in the morning
I’m your Lord of Death by afternoon
And repeat
As if the kindness were the warning
Half the year our fields too cold to bloom
This my Hell
Men’s shadows all I see
As I tell
The good parts of your story
That’s how much you mean to me, dear Mamma
Kill me slowly
Break me until I see
All that I am as a dirty lie
Come to sift through
What could be left for you
Have me again
One last time for our last goodbye
|
||||
10. |
||||
Soft as the sand
In drifts where she lies
Serene beneath the star-streaked skies
Pure as a girl
Undesigned to men
Until she comes to try her heart again
He loved her like guns
Haphazardly shot
So sure he was he’d not get caught
She’ll redress the wound
If and only when
She’s called upon to try her heart again
She kissed goodbye
And with one sigh
This other ever after
She’ll say hello
It’s all hers to know
Her light, her love, her laughter
She’ll bear herself now
That God will grant her then
The sanctity to try her heart again
Until she tries her heart again
Until she tries her heart again
|
||||
11. |
Home To Me
03:57
|
|||
I remember the evening
With slight hesitation
Details one at a time like waves cresting at sea
I remember the feeling
A light-headed hoping
For the last day of a long stay
As you found your way home to me
I befriended the knowing
Of four in the morning
Like the darkness held everything that I could be
I arrived there believing
But stayed there like praying
For the last day of a long stay
You lost on your way home to me
I sat so still by the door to your room
Counting each thing that I knew
In that vast silence I learned to presume
I stood up, I entered, I loved you
I remember the feeling
A light-headed hoping
For the last day of a long stay
As you found your way
As you found your way
For the last day of a long stay
As you found your way home to me
|
Rachel Efron Oakland, California
Oakland-based singer/songwriter Rachel Efron writes edgy but deeply felt piano driven alt-pop, nuanced by a forever love for improvised jazz and impressionistic classical music. She takes her influence from The Beatles and Tom Waits, Ben Folds and Feist, alongside the melodic sensibilities of Grieg and Chopin, and the chord voicings of Bill Evans and Brad Mehldau. ... more
Streaming and Download help
If you like Rachel Efron, you may also like:
Bandcamp Daily your guide to the world of Bandcamp