Get all 9 Chris Cleverley releases available on Bandcamp and save 15%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of The Centre Cannot Hold (Live), Broadcast The Secret Verse, Nausea (Radio Edit), Still Life, Chlorophyll, Live From The Glass Isle, We Sat Back and Watched it Unfold, Ring O' Bells feat. Kelly Oliver, and 1 more.
1. |
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Dear Gods, I’m sending a note to request
That the methods you use could be altered next time.
‘Cause the arrow you sent, it went in through my stomach,
And it’s pierced the lining. Now I’m sick all the time,
From the peeling and the burning, and the pace of the churning;
The nervous feeling of butterflies flying.
They must have flown in through the hole that was made
And stayed for the duration of this curious time.
‘Cause you and I are lovers for the length of the time
It takes for the fates to decide in their minds,
Over maybe some days or even weeks at a time,
Until it transpires that everything is fine.
Later this week I’ll trek into the mountains
To beg the high priestess for an hour of her time.
And I will stare in through her frosted glass mirror,
To try and descry some discernible signs
That you and I will still be lovers for the length of the time
It takes for the fates to decide in their minds,
Over maybe some days or even weeks at a time,
Until it transpires that everything is fine.
Make no illusion no delusions of grandeur
Reverberate proudly round the corners of my mind.
You see me tonight in my purest of forms
With my weapons dispersed and my armour declined.
As we lie here naked our fears for now abated,
With innards exposed and our limbs intertwined,
I can’t help but feeling there’s something more sacred here
Than ever we’ll realise, but never you mind.
‘Cause you and I are lovers for the length of the time
It takes for the fates to decide in their minds,
Over maybe some days or even weeks at a time,
Until it transpires that everything is fine.
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2. |
Scarlet Letter
04:04
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The Autumn leaves lay on the ground;
A brazen scarlet, bronze and brown.
There was a stranger, came to town.
He told us stories of the sea,
He sold us gifts of finery,
He came and sat a while beside me.
Come all you tender maids and you fine unfettered, wedded ladies.
Beware the lure of strangers, the punishments that I’ve paraded.
Loveless may our unions be, these paths were not for us to lead.
So sisters will you not take heed and cleanse your souls and pray for me.
With my husband gone two years at sea,
He gave not a thought – I’m sure – for me,
So my mind’s inclined to wander restlessly.
The stranger took his leave from town
Some months before, and so they found me
Heavy with this misbegotten child beneath my gown.
Come all you tender maids and you fine unfettered, wedded ladies.
Beware the lure of strangers, the punishments that I’ve paraded.
Loveless may our unions be, these paths were not for us to lead.
So sisters will you not take heed and cleanse your souls and pray for me.
I’ll wear this letter on my chest,
Stitched through the clothes in which I’m dressed.
Ripped, carved and scared into my breast.
Oh my God I learned that day. Oh my God; the costs we pay.
Oh my God I learned that day. Before our Lord I’ll burn, they say.
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3. |
I Can't Take It
04:38
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Would you take it if there was a pill,
That wiped out all our feelings and our memories until
We don’t remember one another anymore?
Well whaddya say? I might if you would
But I really don’t think I could take it.
Well it comes as a drink too, in a sachet of a powder
Tthat you pour in a glass of water and then you shake it, and then you wait
For 30 seconds to a minute. It’s Great.
It gives you time to ask yourself whether really you should drink it,
While you make it.
Oh When I think on our lot, i
I’s the same kind of sickness we’ve got
And the only cure for any sickness that I ever had was some pills in a little cup,
So it could be it’s worth a shot.
But what if it came as a cake mix? We could stir in all the melodies
Of all the songs that cloud our memories, while we bake it.
And then on to our Facebooks deleting all of the secret messages
Of the blatant exclamations and the nervous implications,
With our minds left as empty as our inbox.
Well hell it’s gone and set in this rot.
Girl it’s a bad kind of sickness we’ve got.
And so that little pill with the picture of the sunflower or the whale
Might just be all that we’ve got.
But what if I take it, only to find
That there’s knock on implications on other aspects of my mind.
And the very act of not wanting you it impacted upon my routines,
My very thoughts and my behaviours and it haunted me in my dreams.
I think I’d fake it.
I’d tell you I felt nothing but really inside I’d be shivering and shaking.
Really I would break it, I’d crush it up into bits and wash it down the sink,
Cause really I don’t think I could take it.
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4. |
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His body finally gave up on him today
And ten thousand pounds was the price that he paid.
He couldn’t help thinking back to the day
That we’d started the process of losing our way.
I remember the campaign of the prime candidate
Who spoke of doubling resources while halving the waits,
Well you put that on paper, of course it sounds great,
Until the gears are motion but then it’s too late.
It’s too late.
WOAH low and behold,
I just sat back as I watched it unfold.
Though I’d said that there’s no price that I wouldn’t pay
To make sure that our lives didn’t turn out that way.
We sat back and watched it unfold.
So the corporations fought for the outsourcing bids,
With delivery models that soon would be rid
Of the values that for decades our country had lived.
But seriously, what had they left us with?
As the cost of the cover continued to rise
To keep the margins of profit continually high.
While the uninsured millions were hung out to dry
And left questioning how they could hope to get by.
How they’d get by.
WOAH low and behold,
I just sat back as I watched it unfold.
Though I’d said that there’s no price that I wouldn’t pay
To make sure that our lives didn’t turn out that way.
We sat back and watched it unfold.
But with a focus on ‘average handling time’
The new targets had shifted the paradigm
To an expectation that patients are processed
Like manikins on a production line.
But when the finance directors are squeezing the costs
And resource planning analysts are calling the shots,
There’s no way the old way could hope to last,
So we watched as it became a thing of the past.
Of the past.
WOAH low and behold,
We all sat back as we watched it unfold.
Though we’d said that there’s no price that we wouldn’t pay
To make sure that our lives didn’t turn out that way.
We sat back and watched it unfold.
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5. |
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The bed sheets don’t look as though they’re sitting at all right.
I must have be thrashing around in the night.
To tell you the truth, friends, I’ve been losing the fight.
Maybe it’s time I told you so.
I didn’t mean to be closed off, I didn’t mean to seem cold.
I didn’t mean to so randomly ask you to hold me.
I didn’t mean to. I DIDN’T MEAN TO. You’re like a track on repeat,
Until you ‘have the good grace lad to just get back on your feet’.
C’mon kid, C’mon kid it’s staring at you.
Take the meds kid. Send those things coursing right through you.
What more were you expecting your own defences to do?
You need strength man and right now you have none.
So let this be a voice then for those who don’t have one.
I said “I’ve got this song I’d like your opinion on mother.
I’ll warn you though it’s different, in a way, from the other ones.”
So she took a detailed listen and she called it in six simple words
When she said “my boy. What happened? My boy”.
C’mon kid, C’mon kid it’s staring at you.
Take the meds kid. Send those things coursing right through you.
What more were you expecting your own defences to do?
You need strength man and right now you have none.
So let this be a voice then for those who don’t have one.
Do you believe in a Lord in the sky,
Who carries us over and watches us by?
Why then do I wake up with this fear on my chest,
Sick on my breath and these tears in my eyes?
C’mon kid, C’mon kid it’s staring at you.
Take the meds kid. Swallow them deep down into you.
What more were you expecting your own defences to do?
You need strength man and right now you have none.
So let this be a voice then - PLEASE -for those who don’t have one.
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6. |
Happy and Proud
06:37
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Come all you young felahs stuck wondering when
You ever could hope to find comfort again.
‘Cause they’ll never give you classes, you can’t even speak it out loud.
So you’re stuck if you ain’t sittin’ happy and proud.
I didn’t form like the other ones, well that’s plain to see.
I loved too hard and broke too quick, but where does that leave me?
When you’re not like the man that they’re led to believe you should be. You should be.
But in years to come
Will we be judged by no more than the deeds we have done?
And pave a clear way for our daughters and sons.
Who else would you have them to be my love?
And what of the woman who, for years, has been faced
With growing up knowing there’s a rigged system in place.
It’s engrained in their patterns of thought. It says
“Settle down, quiet now; happy and proud as you ought to be”.
But in years to come
Will we be judged by no more than the deeds we have done?
And pave a clear way for our daughters and sons.
Who else would you have them to be my love?
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7. |
The Ones Like Ourselves
03:45
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Come be reclusive with me,
If you’ve no better places to be. Let’s face it;
The world wasn’t made for the ones like ourselves.
So come be reclusive with me.
Come let me into your little world.
I’m liking the sound of the bits about which I’ve been told,
And we could make it exclusive and fortified too,
If I could come be reclusive with you.
It’s took me the best part of a week just to shake off your spell,
‘Cause you cast it so wonderfully, you cast it so well.
Well I’ve been this mess of a man
But I’m not ashamed to admit what I am.
And so when you told me that sometimes your hands’d shake too,
I just wished I could come be reclusive with you.
And when you said how when you’re troubled your cheeks’d turn red
I was dying to hold you, to take you to bed with me.
Since that weekend I’m riven by these shivers, you see,
That’ll roll up and down just like rivers through me.
It’s like water that flows through these very veins, I suppose.
Come be reclusive with me.
Oh Christ is it obvious to see?
You’ve taken up most of my memories and all of my energies.
But there’s no other way that I’d have it to be.
And we could build us a tent in which to hide our troubled souls.
But I could use your help with the ropes and the poles.
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8. |
Madame Moonshine
07:09
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Let me tell you the tale of Madame Moonshine;
A lady I dallied and danced with one time.
She’ll tear you to pieces, convince you you’re fine.
So I pray you heed this cautionary tale of mine.
They say she came from the Indies with secrets untold,
Of the merchant’s cabal into which she’d been sold.
She left each man bleeding out, alone in the cold
And on a clipper bound for London Town she stowed in the hold.
You swear you’ve known sorrows boy, you’ve been down that road?
Believe me you’ll soon reject all that you know.
She’ll poison your mind every time that you run to her call.
Shine, shine Lady Moonshine.
I pray don’t betray me sweet lady of mine.
You torment and torture me time after time.
Now I curse the day I learned the name Madame Moonshine.
When working as a clerk for a broker I’d heard
Of a private house where esoteric dark arts occurred;
Where the wealthiest gentry of the city were lured
And the boundaries of horror and pleasure were blurred.
Where the scent of the incense and opium burned,
With iniquitous deeds round each corner you turned.
And the Sanskrit and Aramaic carvings I’d learned
Spoke of ritual sacrifice where souls were returned.
But in this harem of contortionists, nymphs and freaks, the worst
Was the Priestess who held this un-heavenly curse.
To gaze through those emblazoning eyes, well your soul became hers.
Shine, shine Lady Moonshine.
I pray don’t betray me sweet lady of mine.
You torment and torture me time after time.
Now I curse the day I learned the name Madame Moonshine.
Like so many before me I fell under her spell,
Renouncing my colleagues and my family as well.
Entombed and imprisoned in her vision of hell,
And of the scenes I bore witness I do not care to tell.
But after decades of ritual sin, the remains
Of our souls and our sanity are forever stained.
But you’ll crawl back into her embrace again and again.
Shine, shine Lady Moonshine.
I pray don’t betray me sweet lady of mine.
You torment and torture me time after time.
Now I curse the day I learned the name Madame Moonshine.
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9. |
In a Dreamlike State
04:35
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It was written all across her face.
She said “you’ve got to please get me out this place”.
She said “I’m dying in here of something even worse –
Worse even than the thing I’d be dying of first”.
She said she dreamed a meadow scene.
She said she dreamed a hearse.
She said she got real tired in here.
She said “Go get the nurse”.
‘Cause she said “You have a way with words I could never quite match”.
Her soft spoken compliments; I could never quite catch.
She would say a lot of things in a dream-like state,
That didn’t mean all that much but they sounded great.
She said she was tired now. I could see it in her face.
I slipped the things we’d brought back inside the case
And kissed her on the cheek and headed on my way.
I told the man we’d stop by again today.
She said “You have a way with words I could never quite match”.
Her soft spoken compliments; I could never quite catch.
She would say a lot of things in a dream-like state,
That didn’t mean all that much but they sounded great.
Man she made an amazing wife and mother too.
We tried to show her all the time. I’d like to think she knew.
But some words take different meanings, while some will mean the same.
It just depends on the time and place, and no-one’s to blame.
She said “You have a way with words I could never quite match”.
Her soft spoken compliments; I could never quite catch.
She said “You have a way with words I could never quite match”
And I’m trying as I might to keep hold of that.
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10. |
The Low Light Low
04:19
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Well they speak of the weight of standing alone
With the creatures, with the teeth that’ll eat you down to the bone.
But you could come back brother, you could come back home.
We could hold you in the low light low.
But true when thinking on light you must think too on shade,
Where a man would be wise to be twice as afraid.
Even thinking on memories we have made,
As we hold them in the low light low.
Hold them in the low light low.
You were a man who helped me rest in myself.
That’s not something I would always say for everyone else.
But you’d think on my sorrows as you’d drink to my health,
When you held me in the low light low.
And those arms – man your arms – I remember them well,
‘Cause I remember the times I’d be going through hell,
But you! Oh you’d smile just to see I was well.
And I’ll hold that tonight in the low light low.
Hold it in the low light low.
And it pains me to think on a year and a day;
To Christmas morning when we would have stayed up all night,
Like those who hold vigil to pray
For when they told us in the low light low.
But we hope to be ones who take care of our own.
So we hope that there’s some way that you could have known
In those final moments you were never alone.
‘Cause we held you in our thoughts in the low light low.
We held you in our minds in the low light low.
We held you in our hearts in the low light low.
We held you in the low light low.
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11. |
Remembrance
01:11
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Instrumental
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12. |
Rachael
05:25
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Rachael they’ve been saying this is wrong.
I could have told them that much all along.
And the Lord knows I’ve tried to be more than I am;
Somebody decent and strong.
But you know they say there’s no time like the present,
Under the moon while it’s waning in crescents.
I pictured a time that seemed much more pleasant
And imagined a song that was loud and resonant.
Rachael you’ve helped me to see
The man I’m entitled to be.
And he may not be clean in the eyes of the Lord
But since when has that mattered to me?
And besides there’s no time like the present,
Under the moon while it’s waning in crescents.
I pictured a time that seemed much more pleasant
And imagined a song that was loud and resonant.
But the devil don’t care about you and me.
He’s gone and he’s got his own demons you see.
The devil don’t care about you and me
And whether we’re lovers or indeed any of the others we might be.
Rachael you’ve helped me to see
The man I’m entitled to be.
If I could keep it together enough of the time
Then the rest shouldn’t matter to me.
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Chris Cleverley Birmingham, UK
Chris Cleverley was born under a solstice moon, in an aura of honeysuckle mysticism. He is among a new wave of pioneering artists carving an uncharted path through the UK acoustic landscape. Inspired by the Lo-FI Indie greats Elliott Smith & Sufjan Stevens, his ambient Dream-Folk songwriting pushes the boundaries and shatters the expectations of 21st Century acoustic music. ... more
Chris Cleverley recommends:
Shakespeare Songs
by Company of Players
A collection of songwriters from the UK Folk Scene joining forces, including Sam Kelly, Lukas Drinkwater and Kelly Oliver.
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Live from my bedroom
by Minnie Birch
Lyrics to rend your ventricles apart and a voice that shimmers like wind chimes.
go to album
Live at Hope Hall - Reissue
by Jacob & Drinkwater
Thought provoking studies of the self with unrivalled vocal delivery.
go to albumIf you like Chris Cleverley, you may also like:
A Dark Murmuration of Words
by Emily Barker
supported by 10 fans who also own “We Sat Back and Watched it Unfold”
Just excellent in everyway X
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supported by 7 fans who also own “We Sat Back and Watched it Unfold”
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The latest from the UK’s Chris Brain is a gorgeously wrought album of tender acoustic folk music.
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