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When You Were A Man

by David Creese

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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Gatefold all-cardboard CD cover. Photography by Leisa Clements, design by Leisa Clements and David Creese.

    Includes unlimited streaming of When You Were A Man via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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  • Streaming + Download

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1.
Everybody is well dressed for the occasion sunlight dapples the garden and brightens the paths I watch you laughing with a group of friends and we're all waiting for the lovers to come out from the house. As I watch you move and listen for your voice the young and the old pass between us the day is bright and the leaves are hushed and we're all waiting for the bride and groom to come out from the house. Everyone gathers for a photograph sometime in the day I'll get close to you sometime in the day I'll get close to you. We listen for a word we prepare for the flash now we're waiting, waiting for something else.
2.
Beneath the waters of the reservoir was a village - farmhouses, a hall and a church. They gathered all their possessions and carried their burdens across the road. To Lydia and Henry twins were born who hardly saw a day on this earth. Their bodies were exhumed from the graveyard and carried to their new home. Bright days and grim days they shared together now the walls are swaying with green submerged as if in a dream. Carry the babies home carry the babies home.
3.
a birth 03:35
This is the house where he was conceived the front room was painted black to hide the rising damp. His father, solitary, sat smoking in an armchair under the light from the lamp. It was warm inside the little house but rain poured down outside like nails of light under the streetlamp's glow. His mother stayed in bed, the movement of her hand smoothing the blanket was melancholy and slow. They moved to the house where he was later born the field across the road was home to an old brown horse. The new house was brighter and the parents to be seemed happy as the pregnancy took its course. The child was born on a watery, blood-coloured autumn morning it feebly screamed and pushed its little fists toward the sky. His father smoked in the hospital corridor his eyes were scratchy and his throat was dry. His mother lay like ripe fruit burst open on the ground the water, cord, blood and placenta had all been cleaned away. After 269 nights in the womb he squinted in the light of his first day. And the cigarettes burned down and the horse slowly moved through the field and the rain soaked into the ground and the scar on his belly healed and the sun rose ten thousand times and he went on his way.
4.
All the wounded animals have fled into the undergrowth into the night down the basement stairs. Running from the family to a hiding place running from those they'd run with if they had the strength. Down in the basement eyes like broken glass reflecting back the torchlight wild and bright with fear. Hands cupped around the fire burning in the flesh guarding like an heirloom the naked bloody mess. All the wounded animals one for every shadow.
5.
At the end of the night the hall light goes on and father calls his sons from their sleep. When greenish light first leaks into the river and the few fish know to keep away from shore silently they drive to the usual spot and set the gear down on the hard grey banks where the water looks old and dark and sickly like a million men have pissed and shat in it. The boys imitate the movements of their old man throw a hook and line into the sludge and set the fishing rods upon found sticks and pour the instant coffee into plastic cups. Now quietly they sit with their own thoughts like three strangers waiting for a bus. The eldest boy lifts a fish from the water flapping in the dirt its mouth gropes for life they'll take this wide-eyed creature home to mother as a token of the men's togetherness. And all this time the sun has been rising hazy and white, hidden behind the clouds and beyond the bridge and the mouth of the poisoned river the sea gently whispers to the younger boy. They put away the tackle, empty out the thermos and drive their tired eyes back home. Along the way the boy is lost in contemplation imagining the joy that mother's delight would bring. And beyond the bridge and the mouth of the poisoned river the sea gently whispers the sea gently whispers the sea gently whispers
6.
a rain of ash gently falls in the rooms of his dreams in the dark his arm is hanging from the bed while droning voices vibrate in his skull like whispered screams. standing before his mother's lipsticks eye shadows and creams he wonders if the mirror holds the dead and a rain of ash gently falls in the rooms of his dreams. his father teaches vaguely that God punishes and redeems he feels His eye upon him in his bed while droning voices vibrate in his skull like whispered screams. so he assumes that God is onto all his nasty little schemes as insects fall beneath his careless tread and a rain of ash gently falls in the rooms of his dreams. he looks toward the bright sky and his eyes squint as he beams his father rests a hand on his head and a rain of ash gently falls in the rooms of his dreams while droning voices vibrate in his skull like whispered screams.
7.
And then he landed on my shoulder having borrowed the form of a large black bird. I saw him on the road in the heat of the afternoon scrounging with his beak for a scrap to eat. I rolled a heel of bread toward him then turned and kept on walking. He lifted his beak from the road and let go with that laugh that knows the sorrow and the fate of all life. I continued along the footpath into the full sun. Then I felt his claws through my shirt the hard flesh of his black feet but my heart didn't miss a beat. That's when I knew it was him my brother on borrowed wings. He looked at me and I looked at him then he plunged his beak in and flew off with my left eye. When you were a man I failed to see you with both of my eyes. You'll be the best man for my wedding vows and whenever you call to me now I will lift my face to the sky for your greeting and your goodbye.
8.
All souls cower in the basement grappling for a candle in the dark news comes in, another family blown apart children lie broken in the rubble. Hope flickers and seems to disappear everyone is frightened to the core because someone who holds the power went and got nostalgic for a war. Part of me is dead, part of me is in exile part of me is hiding underground while you my love are out there somewhere in the night that once was ours. Not long ago I could not imagine the peace we had would be no more but you and your restless hands went and got nostalgic for a war. All it takes is a freedom-preaching liar to know where there is wood to start a fire no-one wants to claim this madness as their own but we all have some evil we'd like to disown. There's nothing left to destroy now both sides claim victory we've dressed the enemy in our darkness now we can pretend to be free. Tell me again what you've won this time tell the dead and broken what it was for tell them freedom, make it glorious...
9.
mouse 02:40
A memory came back to me on a morning bright and still the table held a square of light spilling from the windowsill. In a restaurant where I worked some years ago one morning I was sweeping out the store when I found a lifeless mouse in a patch of sunlight on the floor. Looking closer I could see something moving beneath the fur I leaned on my broom and watched as nature worked on her. Lying in the dust and sun casting a shadow on the floor I swept around that little corpse then left and closed the door. Why did that come back to me a dusty downstairs memory steam from my cup rising in the light that slowly edges toward me.
10.
was it cruel 03:40
Oh brother, was it cruel for you to be left alone with your thoughts no-one could divine your secret self laughing to hide your distress. He washed his hands of your innocence and left you to cradle the guilt the language of trouble that you got into only hardened the righteousness they'd built. Oh sister, did you turn away from the world of light a hollow cry in a moonlit field resounding for all time in the air. We will let each other down no more and now that it is too late I have forgiven you everything but there is no way of knowing if you had forgiven me you won't be coming this way again. And while you lived you each tried to no avail to quell the anguish in your soul the paths to glory are overgrown the ash in the fireplace is cold.

about

Recorded between Dec 2009 and April 2010 by Tim Cole at Enormodome Studio, Melbourne, Australia

credits

released October 25, 2010

David Creese: vocal, acoustic guitar, percussion
Timothy Deane: piano, hammond, rhodes, mandolin, accordion
Marita Dyson: violin, vocal, melodion
Stuart Flanagan: electric guitar

Video by Jason Tovey for "When You Were A Man" at:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV4Kj4prP8M&feature=plcp

Contact:
davidcreese@hotmail.com

Published by Sony ATV Music

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about

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).
.
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