1. |
Greenham Woman
03:06
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Back in nighteen eighty-one
Nuclear fear and cold war
Made some women to ward off the threat and march
Ten days long from Wales to South England
Towards Greenham Common land
‘We share the same old nightmares
We hooked them on Greenham barbwires
Weaving the web of our dreams
Cause after all we dance for this flesh, these bellies
And joy and freedom to win, holding hands tight’
On New Year’s Eve Eighty-two
Greenham Women climbed the fence
On top of silos, they did dance in round all night long
Growing freely like a weed
Thirty thousand women circled the base
Maggie didn’t like they could take her place
‘We will dance until the crimes end
We’ll embrace the base with our powerful hands’
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2. |
Willie
03:41
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Desert Hot Springs, ‘round early fall
Willie’s painting on an empty pool’s walls
Surreal murals of antique beasts
‘While my husband’s playin’ at shooting range
I must tend the bar today again, for a change
Serving beer to his two young maidens’
(Chorus)
‘I don’t care where he goes out at night
As long as I paint, moon’s my sunlight
I don’t care what he drinks or whom he fights
As long as I paint, there’s no fright’
Sadly, Willie’s waiting for his child
In their house nearby the closed fairground, in the wild
At noon she naps in murals pool
(Chorus)
Nine months that Willie has been waiting, now
Nine months she has trained at shooting range, anyhow
She’s got sharper black eyes than he does, now
Two-headed beasts, fish scale legs, she-wolf teats
Warrior look, open jaws, bright shiny hooks
Under waves pool water, their bodies shook
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3. |
The White Sea
04:24
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Clothed in her strong wool pants
It’s a fate foretold
She could not even have sensed, sensed
Cold and hungry she picked up
The robbery rules
With her family she broke up, broke up
(Chorus)
Trapped amid the White Sea
Got wrapped into lunacy
Alone amid the White Sea
I groan among the white hills
Caught and sent far away
Although watched and scowled
She masquerades as a foretune teller
Two hundred miles she walked
Alone in the woods
To reach the White Sea, longing to see him
(Chorus)
Yet identified and jailed
Among her comrades
She threw a brick in prison governer’s face
I swear I’ll revenge by blood and by words poets shot
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4. |
Houses on Sand
05:25
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Deep under the still water
Devious drums have a tantrum
Behind the yellow paperwall
A wobbly train races at nightfall
(Chorus)
Her lips are sealed
Her whomb’s empty
She’ll never heal
She’s a hollow tree
Into her inner temple she takes
A bath of milk filled with rattlesnakes
On barrren moving sand
Children sing at arising sun
(Chorus)
An army of restless children
Each night invades her dreams
Heads down they play on swings
In her whomb, they, dancing ghosts
To ward of the threat
She built houses on sand
Lies down and wait
For the hate to walk away
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5. |
Pinkie & Millie
02:49
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In Desert Springs Nursing Home, downtown,
Millie’s worked for a long time
Round’ the fall, some new girl came,
No dime but, a funny name, she’s Pinky Rose
After work, Millie drove up-to the bar with Pinky,
Both in a yellow car, yellow dress.
‘I look for a new roommate’
She said, so, Pinky moved into her doll’s house
‘I wonder what’s to be twins. Do you
Think they know which one they are ?
They might switch back and forth
Maybe they’re all the same in one’
Pinky’s dreaming Millie’s crying with blood on her hands
Gun shots, two-headed beasts, blind spots
Blue pool steams, cold and hot
She’s floating back and forth
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6. |
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(Chorus)
What can we wise women do ?
When vile, scornful men sue
Purely dressed in white little girls,
Oh they do that well !
Nourish, nurse, wash and clean
Male disorders and complaints
Always consenting, silent girls,
Oh they do that well !
Handle, fold, fake and fill
Male desires, whimsy lust
(Chorus)
You know what to say, what to feel,
Oh soothing mothers !
They so well raised us up
Feeling brittle, dazed and ill
In their drooling gaze I reflect
As a glowy flesh
Deep, my bones hold my rage
I would gladly yell at them
‘Don’t, it’s paranoia’, says the octopus
Behind the glass wall, do they dare respond to you
‘Chill, it’s paranoia, lady, do not fuss’
Behind the glass wall, do they dare respond to you
Now on, I fully get what was on mother’s minds
Just look around, through distorting mirrors
Throw you back their horrors, exploding in full force
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7. |
Steel Wings
04:14
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It’s a town drowned in a sea of clouds
Time and space suspended like frozen puppets
Endless layers of spinelessness
In this town there’s a place very green
Flowery, yet oddly wet, scarcely swampy
Wild grass weaving a wide cobweb
(Chorus)
Drag my steel wings
Drag them down on the ground
Drag my steel wings
Bells are still ringing
In this place there’s a girl and her mother
They wander in an infinite whisper
Is this garden truly fruitful ?
Through the infinite whisper, the mother
Confused, suddenly gripped her sweet daughter
Lianas closed up around their feet
(Chorus)
‘It is a wetness that won’t make me grow, oh oh, let me go’
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8. |
Red Seaweeds
03:35
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In my courtyard a fountain leaps
Sinks back into itself
On a laundry line my body waves
Pinned by bare shoulders skin
Both kneeling in the attic, bent over
A shoebox full of pictures
(Chorus)
Everyday I come by lush tidepools
Maybe to fathom red seaweeds scoops - tell me, tell me
Empty house, the doorbell rings lazily
Dinner has burned for hours
In a gloomy motel room, she’s closely
Watching encrypted TV screen
(Chorus)
Dancing water lilys like floating stamps - free of fate
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9. |
Left the Dream Behind
04:17
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One dark night, after a brutal fight,
Millie chased away Pinky from her doll’s house
‘I will drown, into a grieving clown
Life is cruel, I’m falling down in the pool’
Yellow dress, floating in blue water
Two-headed beast, open jaws, right under
She woke up, lone in a hospital
Nurse and clown both ‘round her bed, ‘where’s my doll ?’
In the house, nearby the closed fairground
Willie’s yelling, giving birth to his child
While Millie’s trying to help Willie
Pinky stands back, mesmerized, frozen eyes
Three women, lone in a dark wild night,
Had the most wonderful dream : he will die
Thus, at dawn, her body shook and cooled
Summer bloomed, her man was shot, in the pool
Walking barefoot through Desert Hot Springs sand
Three women left the dream behind
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10. |
Oddly Old
03:41
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Playin’ hide and seek , playin’ leapfrog, doing slide, it’s playtime !
I dress up like it was carnival everyday of my life
They don’t play the game and it’s a shame
Grown ups are grave and lost our messy joy
La la la la…
They don’t play the game and it’s a shame
Grown ups are grave and deadly dull
(Chorus)
Feel oddly old
All pathways fold
Shaky tightrope walker
Feel oddly old
All pathways fold
Shaky entertainer
Playin’ hide and seek , playin’ leapfrog, doing slide, it’s playtime !
I laugh, I cry, I stumble, waddle, dance and shout
They don’t play the game and it’s a shame
Grown ups are grave and deadly dull
(Chorus)
Playin’ hide and seek , playin’ leapfrog, doing slide, it’s playtime !
I dress up like it was carnival everyday of my life
They don’t play the game and it’s a shame
We, children, can see what’s unfair
Feel oddly bold
All pathways unfold
Like an old woman’s long grey braids
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11. |
Jellyfish in the Sky
03:55
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In the sun of mounts
We bask like lazy cats
Laid in fresh cool grass
We bask like lazy cats
Molten in the sun
We bask like lazy cats
Knowing that across
Moutains crumble into the abyss
Like a bad feeling
An odd cloud is passing over us
Through the mountains sky
A piece of grassland is floating
With blossom roots hanged below
It flies like a jellyfish in the sky
Through the mountains wind
The jellyfish glides and goes away
Through the mountains sky
Vanishing like a little hot-air balloon on a postcard
Like a bad feeling
Leaving a threatening trace
Sudden, huge and heavy,
An ocean wave moves towards us
In a common prayer
We rolled up on ourselves
We passed through the wave
Or did the wave pass through us ?
In a common prayer
The wave did not swallow us
Everything in quiet mounts realigned
As if nothing happened
A constant landscape
True to itself
From start to end
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Bess of Bedlam Lyon, France
Bess of Bedlam is a duo with Fanny L’Héritier & Guillaume Médioni, also members of Odessey and
Oracle.
A capricious, fanciful and sophisticated pop, sometimes coloured with psychedelic folk.
A songwriting influenced by Anglo-Saxon music (Kate Bush, Robert Wyatt, Virginia Astley, Joni Mitchell), including lyrics which express a taste for English poetry.
... more
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