1. |
Rocky the Clown
04:07
|
|||
|
Rocky the Clown
Is taking down his sign
Painted by hand
30 years ago
It’s time for him to retire.
His fingers are stained
Stained with oil
From all those years
Of weekday work.
Available for weekends
Birthday parties
In all those years
He never received a call.
The world that might have been
Will not happen now
Now that a clown
Is president
And now that a clown
Is prime minister
Rocky the Clown
Is leaving town
Rocky the Clown
Is taking down his sign.
Sinister clowns
Have taken high office
Sinister clowns
Rule the world now
Sinister clowns
In business suits
Sinister clowns
In chequered shirts.
We’re told there is a lot
To smile about
But we will not be needed anymore.
Rocky the Clown
Is taking down his sign
Rocky the Clown
Is leaving town.
|
||||
2. |
Ghostland
02:51
|
|||
|
One afternoon she told me this:
I went to Elland to visit my friend.
I knocked on her door and waited.
It was evening; I could see stars.
Then night had fallen, everything was dark.
At midnight, she appeared.
She told me she’d been dancing in the church hall.
Dancing, in the light of the hall.
Now that I’m telling you this, she said
I’m not sure it really happened.
Don’t worry, said I, most of us live in a dream world;
most of us live between here and somewhere else.
One afternoon she said to me, laughing
I’ll be going to ghost land before too long.
|
||||
3. |
Apparitions of the Young
05:36
|
|||
|
Streetlights brighten as twilight falls
Waiting for your father’s call
Bare knees among twisted vines
Cooking smells in fading light.
Reflections on the bedroom wall
The genie pays a fleeting call
You know it’s an illusion
But you willingly go along.
Brother in his bedroom
Builds a crystal radio
The genius of your world
Conjures voices from a stone.
Voices away
You’re told a magpie perches
On the arm of a boy from the neighbourhood
This can’t be true, of all creatures
The magpie is noblest.
Flying away
A dead cat in a vacant block
Flies buzzing, dead eyes open
You don’t want to but you take this vision home
And keep it to yourself.
Quietly closing your bedroom door
You lie face down on the floor
To try to pedal your mind away
From the lonely cat in the lifeless weeds.
Pedal away
These apparitions of the young
These apparitions will never leave you
Through corridors and rooms a torchlight genie
Keeps you safe, enfolds you in her arms and loves you.
Apparitions away
Streetlights away
Torchlight away
Voices away
Flying away
Years away
Streetlights away
Voices away
Years away
Years away
Pedal away
|
||||
4. |
The Olde Underworld
06:16
|
|||
|
The bleating of souls, the echoing dark
I stand at the gate of the great black cave –
The bleating of souls, the echoing sound
A great black mouth that swallows you down.
But now the entrance to eternal night’s
A construction site, all scaffold and lights -
Hard hats, high viz,
High fencing, and signs.
The ferryman’s gone, now you pay the machine
Animals are killed with no reverence or thanks –
And sold from a van
With cold drinks and ice-cream.
The generator roars, the generator fumes
The sheep fall silent, the ravens all laugh –
The day trippers flock
To the Olde Underworld,
The day trippers flock
To the Olde Underworld...
|
||||
5. |
Her Love Is in the Trees
06:28
|
|||
|
I could not speak to her
In that cold splendour -
Standing in silence,
A candle lit as a prayer.
Lit behind by the lunch hour sun,
A statue of her holding a child.
Marble pillars, marble floor -
Even on my knees I cannot reach her.
Words become smoke –
Substance disappearing.
Outside, the trees stand in eloquent silence.
Do I ask, do I offer
Is not a question I ask
Under the foliage of an oak,
At the tangled foot of a beech.
Each worker has desk
Each desk has a screen –
A vast, brightly lit room,
Occupied by desks.
On each desk is a screen
At each screen is a person.
Her noble silence
I draw into my mind –
Do I ask, do I offer
Is not a question I ask
Under the foliage of an oak,
At the tangled foot of a beech.
Do I ask, do I offer
Her noble silence -
Her love is in the trees.
|
||||
6. |
Folly
03:51
|
|||
|
I am a dream that someone had
That was not remembered
But appeared next morning
On top of a hill.
I’m seen at first from a distance
As a ruin on the horizon.
I’m reached by steep streets
And a walking path approaches me.
In answer to the question
Of how old I am –
I appeared sometime overnight.
I see galleons in a distant harbour
And in the near distance,
A supermarket the size of a village.
I host musicians who play on instruments
Only ever seen in paintings
I hear their ancient music float like a ghost
In the modern day air.
I warm my hands at invisible fires.
I am a dream on a hill
With windows of sky and crumbled walls.
I am someone’s idea of me.
I am my idea of someone else.
|
||||
7. |
The Silence Returns
02:57
|
|||
|
A deer made entirely of light, bounding on the spot
Rising and dropping without a sound.
An emerging state of mind -
A realisation.
Paths are re-emerging
Appearing like veins of light
Beneath the skin of the earth,
Passing through fields,
Across sealed roads,
Under walls and buildings,
Down a high street
With every shop closed.
Untrodden for lifetimes -
Dreaming trails indented in the earth
By countless ancestors.
If they return, reimposing the violent machinery of their lives
These paths will be buried from awareness once more;
Their reappearance to the spirit will wait
For future generations to awaken to them
When the occupiers finally die out
And the great silence returns
Once and for all.
|
||||
8. |
Voices of Women
04:20
|
|||
|
A ship filled with the voices of women
The ship is rising at night from the ocean bed
Up toward the surface
I watch it as it floats up in the dark ocean
I hear massed voices as the ship rises
The ship is unoccupied
Filled only with the voices of women
All cabin windows are illuminated
All lights are on as the ship rises at night in the dark water
A ship filled with the voices of women
|
||||
David Creese England, UK
David Creese, founder of The Dumb Earth (Melbourne, Aust. 1993-2006)
and Mysteries (Mel, Aust. 2001-
2005),
drummer for Lizard Train (Adelaide, Aust. 1985-1996),
now occupied with self released albums of songs & narrations and composing music for the films of
Jason Tovey.
Latest album is Rocky the Clown & Other Follies. Spirit Monitors (2021) is a collaboration with Mike Cooper (YSF).
.
... more
If you like David Creese, you may also like:
one hand on the steering wheel the other sewing a garden
by Ada Lea
The alternative singer's sophomore album is about devotion to herself, to her friends, and to life in Montréal.
go to album
featured on Bandcamp Radio Jan 8, 2019
go to album
The singer-songwriter makes music that’s fearlessly, brutally honest.
go to album
Have Some Shame
by don't get lemon
Gutsy New Romantic synthpop from Austin, Texas with hooks and heartache galore.
go to album
featured on Bandcamp Radio Apr 23, 2024
go to album
AMARGO
by Nina Maia feat. Chica Barreto
featured on Bandcamp Radio Apr 23, 2024
go to album
Dreamy indie rock a la Duster/Sparklehorse with interesting with dynamic shifts and subtle hooks to keep things moving along.
go to album
