1. |
Fallen Angel
03:55
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C Am G
It was always easy loving you
C Am G
The only thing I still knew how to do
C G
You made me young and proud
C G
I sang your praises loud
Am G Am
Though I was just a fugitive from hell.
C F G C G (x2)
I remember you before you were a fallen angel
I learned to live with memories
I still feel your vibrance in the breeze
You brought me light and laughter
Never thought of what came after
Sleeping with a fugitive from hell.
I lived on fantasy and hope
I hanged myself with too much tangled rope
It’s strange how you esteemed me
Innocence and joy redeemed me
Although I was a fugitive from hell.
There never was a reason to my rhyme
I threw away my lovers and my time
Impulse took me into treason
Loyalty for just a season
When I was a fugitive from hell.
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2. |
Lady Constancy
05:15
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Dm7 – Em7 – Dm7- C. Dm7 – Em7 – Dm7 - Am
C Gm C
My Lady Constancy, where are you going?
G7 Am
The sun is sinking low and the moon is rising
Dm G7 C
Must you leave him now, My Lady Constancy.
Why must you try to keep from showing
The cancer in your soul that keeps on growing?
Must you spare his heart, my Lady Constancy?
Don’t you think he knows his star is fading?
The sand ran through his hands, now none remaining.
He’s a pebble in your shoe, My Lady Constancy.
Once upon a day so fine for sailing
So close he hove to you, your decks locked railings.
His boats are lost at sea, My Lady Constancy.
Of the crime of innocence he finds you guilty.
Himself he does convict of abandoned duty
He must be punished more, and so you set him free.
My Lady Constancy, the mist is rolling.
The valley soon will be enrobed in mourning.
The birds lay by their song,
My Lady Constancy.
Dm G7 Am
A nightingale sings on, My Lady.
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3. |
Double Toll
03:22
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C G F C
The maple leaves are fading on the walls where they are pinned
Dm G
She sent them back from Canada with love from her to him
C G F G
She’s been too long too far away and how could she presume
Am F E7
Such gifts would reach the heart of him when her shadow
Am
has left the room
Outside in the courtyard where the rooftops meet the dawn
He’s thinking of the ways in which a love might be foresworn
And in that sulphur atmosphere where smoke obscures the sun
You’ll pardon his confusion as to which way his wounded soul should run
She hitches up her rucksack takes a greyhound to the south
She tries to put to paper words that stumble in her mouth
But he’s way back in Babylon and how could she have known
Such words don’t reach the heart of one grown used to sleep alone.
She wakes him up one morning, yes she takes him by surprise
He sees her hair about her face and love still in her eyes
He takes her in his arms and hopes no look or word betrays
The sense of what they might have lost since golden glory days.
One day he comes to see her and he’s someone else’s clown
He takes a course in heartbreak in a sleepy midlands town
He takes the Devil’s good advice and gambles with his soul
And he’s on the kind of highway where you pay a double toll.
F G C G C
And he pays and he pays and he pays a double toll.
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4. |
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Em Am Em
She said one day we would waltz, waltz
Am Em
Waltz by the Lakes of the Moon
Em Am Em
She hired the man with a blonde violin
Am G
And taught him the notes of our tune
C G C G
Waltz waltz waltz waltz waltz waltz
C Am
Waltz for the man with a gun in his hand
G F E
Who is looking for God in the smoke
C Am
Waltz for the man for the first time in love
G F E
Who has missed the last line of the joke
C G C G
Waltz waltz waltz waltz waltz waltz
C Am C Am
And she said my darling for ever for ever
G Am
We’ll waltz as they do in Vienna.
We waltzed away waltz waltz
She danced with a rent in her dress
She twirled for the man with the blonde violin
And she smiled for the boys in distress
Waltz waltz waltz waltz waltz waltz
We danced from England to Ireland to France
To Tunis Morocco and Spain
We danced though the heat of the tropical nights
And we danced in the New England rain
Waltz waltz waltz waltz waltz waltz
And sometimes sometimes sometimes together
We waltzed as they do in Vienna.
She said one day waltz waltz
There was a new dance to begin
With the more handsome man who was younger and stronger
Who bowed on the blonde violin
Waltz waltz waltz waltz waltz waltz
She said my love I have given you years
And more years will soften your pain
So they danced away and the years passed away
Before I would see her again
Waltz waltz waltz waltz waltz waltz
And she said that never never never
Had they waltzed as they do in Vienna.
C Am
And she’d said goodbye
C Am
My lover don’t cry
G Am
To the man with the blonde violin (x 4)
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5. |
Strange Time
03:39
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B F#
The flowers are frozen into stone
E B
And the fog is swirling crazy
B F#
The thirteenth of the month falls on a friday
E B
And you said you would stand by me
A B
I travelled many miles to meet your train
A B
You’re heartsick and you’re coming home again.
C#m B C#m B
But it’s a strange, it’s a strange, it’s a strange, it’s a strange
C#m B
It’s a strange time to journey down.
The moon is hidden by the mist
I can’t tell which of the phases
A hangman is tattooed upon my wrist
And the crystal foretells new places
We travel through our lives without regret
Love flickers and she burns our fingers yet.
The huntsman in the forest winds his horn
And the deer run to avoid him
Many men are never truly born
Many living are truly dead or dying
We were running to escape the living dead
We ran the way the shining highway lead.
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6. |
Before My Time
04:24
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Am G F Am
Sold to the slaver for thirty sovereigns gold
Am G F Am
I waste my time and work for no reward
Dm C
Growing weary growing old
G
Before my time
Take away my youth to burn on useless tasks
Take away my face provide me grinning masks
Conceal my hatred conceal my boredom
In my best years.
Yes I can live just a little bit longer
Gather in my energy and come on just a little bit stronger
And it’s for you for you again
That I stay sane
G Am
Before my time
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7. |
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C, G, F, C, Dm, C
O the death of your love affair
He will catch you asleep
He sits on his haunches preparing to leap
So watch out for your love affair (3x)
You can lay a false trail,
Leave snares in your track
But he hides in the archway
With an axe for your back
So watch out for your love affair
He’s an emerald eyed devil
Who feeds on your fear
He proposes a walk by the precipice
And shouts ‘jump’ in your ear
So watch out for your love affair
He’s a golden armed gambler
Who deals in false hope
He’s the wandering hangman
Who will sell you the rope
So watch out for your love affair
The ghost of your love affair
Keeps you watchful by night
He’ll return to remind you
What you did wrong or right
So watch out for your love affair
domine recordare et resurgat quiem
de morte transire
Deus libera me vulneratumque tristem
Amore
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8. |
Sweet Service
04:12
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Em, D, G, C, D, G, Em, D, G, C, D, G, C, G, D, G
Hungry for your body as the desert craves the rain
I am on the drawbridge at your castle gate again
And if I were a public man with riches to my name
I’d abandon house and land and all my claims to fame
For one short life (3x) of your embraces
Joshua and trumpeters made city walls fall down
And Alexander wept for lack of even more renown
But if I were a conqueror with armies in my train
I would bid them plough the fields and let my empire wane
For I would live (3x) in peace with my lady
The Angel of Innocence took me by the hand
Led me where the ocean billows make love to the land
Now if you are a man of peace why do you wear a sword?
Why must you offer sacrifice to satisfy your lord
In the battle of (3x) man and woman?
Louise and her beauty call me by my name
But still it’s in your service that your servant must remain
And if you were to cut his chains and send him on his way
His freedom would escape from him and captive he would stay
To be once more (3x) in your sweet service.
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9. |
River Water
03:39
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10. |
The Many And The One
05:10
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C G F C
I came across a drunkard with trench mud on his shoes
C G F C
He was singing to an empty street where the killers leave no clues
Dm7 C G Am
And all around the rain wept down for lovers both here and gone
Dm7 C G Am
And the song was for the many who have never found the One
Am – C – Dm7- G. Am- Dm+4 &–7 - G - C
I said O holy drunkard I am perplexed and I’m confused
I have knelt before every altar and I have always been refused
He said my child I am a soldier I can heal you with my gun
It’s a mercy to the many who have never found the One
I said I will kneel before you can caress me with your sword
I will yield myself in sacrifice to whoever is the Lord
He said my child don’t hasten it will come to everyone
It comes both to the many and to the few who find the One
We left that soldier in the rain with his Holy Book and his gun
I heard him raise his hymn again to the prize so seldom won
Who knows if any god defends what you and I begun
Two more tarnished knights at arms who are questing for the One
Who knows if any god defends what you and I begun
Dm C G
Two more wounded refugees who wonder
F C
If the other might be the One.
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11. |
What The Midnight Is For
02:46
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CDG, CGD, CDG, CGD, CDEm, D, Em, C, D, G, C,
G, D, G, Em, D, G
You and your lover the famous Siamese twins
You can’t tell where one ends and the other begins
It’s a long way to go it’s a long dusty road I know (x2)
But you and your lover you just let the wheels run slow
Hey Lady welcome to my door
You brought your lover with you
And that’s never happened before.
But that’s alright, yes that’s alright
It’s a bizarre situation, but that’s what the midnight is for.
You and your lover bought a car and a flat
And you talk about furniture and your Siamese cat
It’s a long way to go it’s a long dusty road I know (x2)
But you and lover you’ve got one another in tow
Hey lady welcome to my door
You brought your lover with you
Is she really going to sleep on the floor?
But that’s alright, yes that’s alright,
It’s a bizarre situation but that’s what the midnight is for.
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12. |
Put Out The Light
02:38
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G G/F#
Close the shutters. Put out the light,
C G
Place one candle on the shelf.
B7 Em
See, we are young again.
Our malformations, all life’s etchings in our flesh are gone
Are evened out, engoldened
Softened by shadow.
Your hair smells sweet, your head in the crook of my arm,
Your hand upon my chest.
We’ll lie like this until the candle dies
And then, in the dark, lie face to face.
They’ll glitter like moonlight on water
Our old, experienced eyes.
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Louis de Bernieres England, UK
He used to perform in folk clubs back in the day when there were still ancient sailors with huge white beards who sang long ballads about maidens with ‘buttocks so fine’, but not until recently did he feel confident about performing his own songs in public. He was ‘discovered’ by the Bookshop Band, and their encouragement helped reduce both his terror and his imposter syndrome. ... more
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