1. |
The Gold Shoes
02:54
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THE GOLD SHOES
The gold shoes stood by the wardrobe
reflecting the light of sun and moon
‘We are yours, girl, to dance in til dawn comes,
if only you’d try us on for an hour or two’
‘But I know of the curse that lives in the soles of you
jealous and greedy, you want me to walk in you,
I won’t give in to the glint in your grin,
no matter how tempting or threatening.’
By midnight I learned how to moonbathe
and counteract the rays of the sun,
when you’re hydrogen lonely and helium light
you float like solar dust into the sky.
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2. |
Hail Mary
04:11
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And I’m aware that it could dark again but I
could be happy for a time, could enjoy the night
for a while. I’ve got your hands around my neck
and your knife in my side, so dig a little deeper
because babe, I’m still fine.
Hail Mary, full of grace, get into the backseat
and wipe the tears from your face
and learn to kiss with your mouth wide open
learn to kiss like there’s still hope
and hold, and hold, and hold me close.
And I’m aware that I’m just a piece of flesh
just a pair of dull eyes, no thoughts, not worthwhile
but if I catch on fire, could you let me know?
If you set me alight, can I burn out slow?
Hail Mary, full of grace, get into the backseat
and wipe the dirt from your face
and learn to kiss with your mouth wide open
learn to kiss like there’s still hope
and hold, and hold, and hold me close.
Baby if you’ll have me, you can have me
you can have me but I’ve been used up
and baby if you’ll have me, you can have me,
you can have me if I’m good enough,
and baby, if you’ll have me, you can have me
you can have me and when you get bored,
you can drop me, you can drop me,
put me back on the floor.
Hail Mary, full of grace, get into the backseat
and wipe the dirt from your face
and learn to fuck with your legs wide open,
learn to love like there’s still hope
that you won’t ever let me go.
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3. |
Edie Sedgwick
04:28
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I wait and the sky is stained a dull industrial hue
caught somewhere between a blush and a bruise
and even the heavens appear to bear a wound
still, I wait at the gates and you're already late
but I'm still in love with you, I’m so in love.
So let the days run away
we don't need them to stay
paint star maps on my arms babe
and I'll let them lead the way
we won't come to any harm
our boat waits in the bay
so let’s jump from the decks my dear
we're sinking anyway.
But on your knees I was some new-age Beatrice
some Edie Sedgwick bulimic priestess
and I made my dress from seaweed and cigarettes
and baby I'll internalise the bad things I can't forget
and I call upon the medicine man
he reads the lines in my hands
I come down with the falling dew
I didn't think I'd get close to you
til I saw your face in the dregs of my cup
and caught your heart at the end of my hook
who'd have thought it would have to come back
to this old act of letting blood
well I warned you I would be no good
after all, I am no good.
But at your feet I was a fallen queen
some Ozymandian tragedy
and I made my dress from
handfuls of old cobwebs
and baby I'll eroticise the bad things I can't forget.
Consult the charts, the ephemeris
and list the names of boys I've kissed
count the knots and measure the wind
will I always be your favourite thing?
I reeled you in and you drew closer
I never meant to fuck you over
your limbs draped across my shoulder,
once a feather now a boulder.
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4. |
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I wrapped his wounds in nettle leaves
around his neck an amulet of rabbit feet
a love as deep as winter sea,
when the waves rolled out I was left on the beach.
And underneath my petticoats of cotton and calico,
a gypsy heart and a madwoman's soul,
so stir your tea leaves and butter your bread,
but the wife of Michael Cleary won't be home again.
That night the rage of thunder burned across his chest
as he gathered up his hunters and rounded up his men
and they searched along the rivers and the mountains and the glen
but the wife of Michael Cleary won't be home again.
The stars glint like cleavers,
my love it was only a fever
I swear I tried to get clean,
but it keeps the bats away and it keeps the devil near.
And he would look into my eyes,
my two round lapis lazuli
back in our bed he'd set me alight
and we'd cast the demons out all night,
til they dowsed the flames by the holy well
and the smoke filled up the guilty air
and the village smelt like burning flesh
as the changeling was put to rest
and all the ladies shook their heads
and bit their lips as they softly said
'Oh the scandal! oh the mess! The wife of Cleary must be dead!'
And the moon gaped like an open mouth
as they stood in shock to watch the flames die down
my baby's safe now, Liverpool bound,
and I'm safe from hell in the hallowed ground.
And the stars glint like cleavers,
my love, it was only a fever
I swear I tried to get clean,
but it keeps the bats away and it keeps the devil near.
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5. |
The Glitter
03:46
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When Jean changed her world, she became a chorus girl
in feathers and sequins and long strings of pearls
but nobody liked the sound of her voice,
to thick like molasses, to foreign and coy.
In Bloomsbury square, we counted the birds,
I said to the magpie, ‘I’m the shiniest girl.’
We lived out of cafes and bars through the winter,
how did we pare the love down to a splinter?
Well Jean, she grew thin, I regret she’s a drinker,
in our basement room, the storm’s just a shiver.
But out on the street, the lights hum and flicker,
Jean do you remember how we danced through the glitter?
And my god’s a good god, you say with a whisper
but no god is true and I swear I’m not bitter
but I used to dream of towers and pillars,
and I still believe in red neon flickers.
Do you think one day baby I’ll be rich or pretty?
Do you think one day baby I’ll move back to the city?
Do you think all the birds still flock to the square?
And do you think if I looked, I might find you there?
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6. |
Cobweb
03:20
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She carries around the light of the moon
in the curve of her spine and a runcible spoon
at the hinge of morning she sits at her loom
and weaves yellow light out of the blue.
But I’m only as wise as you
I’m only quietly tending an old wound
I’m only carried as the wind’s old news
but it carried me quickly and whispered me to you.
The walls are damp from your breathing
so I guess your still alive, none of this easy
it does not mean I do try to take a cobweb
for a lover, to be a spider for a night
for when I’m barely treading water
I neither sink nor swim nor take flight.
I don’t know what doesn’t grow
under my own skin, among my own bones
I don’t know what I’ve never had to
pull down from the sky, from my tightrope
I don’t know, I didn’t know!
I was dragged out by the old tom cat down the road!
I don’t know, I didn’t know, I was on my own, I was on my own.
And I’m only as wise as you
I’m only quietly tending an old wound
I’m only carried as the wind’s old news
but it carried me quickly and whispered me to you.
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7. |
Morning
05:24
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I miss you when I find the grains of sand in my pocket lining
love notes from the ocean, and the strange way that time
corrodes things. My shoes filled up with water,
you put fishbones in my hands
as the black and briny sea tried to swallow up the land
and I’ll never heed another man nor his salty commands
I do exactly as I please with my own salty hands.
But you were good for me and it shows, I was hideous,
heaven knows - how ugly to think I could fix you.
And all the ugly things that I would do, and I’m starting to…
I miss you in the morning, yellow light, when haven’t yet
remembered that the presence is just some shapeless outline
but the sea wind blows me awake, the surf and spray
shock me to shape, and I am not yet unafraid
of our potential for mistake.
I miss you when the dusk falls, spent the whole day getting bored
I heard they started building ugly flats along the shoreline
and it was bleak enough already but sure what’s a few blocks more
when someone’s making money from those pebbledash eyesores.
So tell me did you settle down? Did you find another girl?
I don’t think of you so much these days, but I hope I’m prettier than her
and nothing can corrode me now, of that I am sure,
when I lick the salt from my fingertips, I never thirst for something more.
And anyway, these days I live just up from the square
where on sunny days the smell of the brewery hangs in the air,
sometimes I think about the strange flat we shared
with all the antique furniture waiting to be repaired.
And sometime we’d hear the floors creak upstairs
and on bad nights you’d whisper my name like a prayer
and the louder you’d chant your psychotic dithyramb
we were summoning some devil from the space between our hands
and I hope you can forgive me, there’s only so much I can stand
and now you are gone, all I’ve got are these pockets full of sand.
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8. |
Elizabeth
04:34
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Elizabeth, she’s not quite with it,
maybe she’s more than she seems
maybe there’s more underneath.
Elizabeth, why did you always look so sad?
You wanted more from your dreams
you wanted more than you’d seen.
I wonder how it must feel, to someone
so clever and beautiful all at once?
You wrote your love’s never true
changes his fashion from brightest red to blue.
And I know I should have stayed with you that night
but it got too late and it was too cold outside
I don’t know what to do with the rest of my life
I still hear your voice everytime I close my eyes.
Elizabeth, you always scared me a bit
so I went out and found someone,
you stayed at home drinking laudanum.
I wonder how it must feel, to someone
so clever and beautiful all at once?
One thing I learned from that time,
it was always you, my Ophelia
now you’ve died.
And I know I should have stayed with you that night…
So I went back to the cemetery for the last time
I put my spade in the ground (I didn’t make a sound)
but when I opened your coffin I found that
I really wasn’t prepared -
all my lost words had been tangled up in your hair.
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9. |
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The trees they do grow high and the leaves they do grow green
it’s many a cold winter’s night my love and I have seen
on a cold winter’s night, my love, you and I alone have been.
Oh my bonny boy is young, but he’s growing.
Oh father, dear father, you’ve done to me much harm,
to go and get me married to one who is so young
for he is only fifteen years and I am twenty-one
Oh my bonny boy is young, but he’s growing.
Growing, growing, my bonny boy is young but he’s growing.
Oh daughter, dear daughter, I'll tell you what I'll do,
I'll send your love to college for another year or two.
And all around his college cap I'll tie a ribbon blue,
to let the ladies know that he's married.
Married, married, to let the ladies know that he's married.
Now at the age of sixteen he was a married man,
And at the age of seventeen a father to a son,
And at the age of eighteen the grass grew over him.
Cruel death soon put an end to his growing,
Growing, growing, cruel death soon put an end to his growing.
And now my love is dead and in his grave doth lie,
The green grass grows over him so very very high.
I will sit and mourn his death until the day I die
And I'll watch all over his child while he's growing,
Growing, growing, I'll watch all over his child while he's growing.
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Maija Sofia
supernatural yearning, medieval wounds, romance, succulent plants, vines, blood oath, earth under fingernails, grief work, neon acrylics, ectoplasm, the planets beyond saturn, whale song, the ocean, myth
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