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no ghostless place

by Raised By Swans

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1.
from every room hearts spoke through walls too thin to hold the weight of what they heard so fires crept through spaces long left soft and blurred notes pushed under the doors frozen to the floor we believed everything leaves blown beneath the eaves whirring like a nest of wound-up starlings we were young we didn’t heed those things if birds were singing we were loved we were young like the universe like our mothers were like these words
2.
sleep and forget until the names we knew are bodies walled in a doorless room and we won’t turn back clouds of sparrows are startled into flight as a hail of arrows is unleashed at the sky and we won’t turn back so here we go this might curse our luck these mirror-haunted hallways we’re echo-testing for a hole we’ll never find so let’s just close our eyes this time i will love you always i wouldn’t lie i wouldn’t lie so pour me out on the eastern coast where the water’s cold as a mermaid’s ghost and the long days hide and one of these nights we will bloom in the trees push our old sick hearts from the roots to the leaves and then open wide so here we go this might curse our luck these mirror-haunted hallways we’re echo-testing for a hole we’ll never find so let’s just close our eyes this time i will love you always i wouldn’t lie i wouldn’t lie locked hearts keep lost time ’cause it’s hard to lay arms down in the arms of the one who lays you bare but if we don’t shield ourselves then we won’t have to fear the arrows
3.
my love buried its young with just one question it broke the spell i’ve bitten my tongue but it’s set in motion i pulled a rope and rang a bell when you carved your neural runes into my spine and then you lowered a light for me to decode them i dug through miles of tangled earth to say i’d try in your arms i’m silver air and sleeping pills but you draw your tripwires with poison quills the garden awakes you’re drawing away i’m drawing my first breath but roots hold tight like traplines they carry a lot of weight don’t save your strength for the end of the dream all you’ll have left is please don’t leave please don’t leave
4.
easier 02:50
we were never meant to be apart every step we take is getting harder for all your promises pinned like ribbons to your bed tell me why’s the ice so thin around you you say it gets easier to fall right through suddenly we felt the night go numb stalling as the lightning cut the horizon and all the miles went dark between the city and the stars tell me would you leave our love behind you say it gets easier to throw the fight my heart is taking off
5.
look down upon the coastline the airstrip strange and bare just let the instruments slide the radio dead air back when you were young you knew the words now they’re just a distant hum the sun was bright behind her the memory’s here somewhere and you and i will fall too from the beauty of it all you’re coming in so low now close your eyes relinquish the controls and you and i will fall too from the beauty that we once knew you’re coming in solo now close your eyes relinquish the control loop and climb lake of fire dive deep dive deep trees and sky her eyes sleep sleep sleep sleep
6.
by an ion 03:21
when you crawl to my side you’re like a wounded bird with your wings weighed down you’re somehow smaller than you were but all of it was real to me ’til you showed me we were make-believe why are we not accelerating pedals down our pulses racing particles kaleidoscopic fireworks dreamed by an ion now the charges are laid the poles have swung away and right at the split you might just feel some pain or maybe you will realize that i’m small enough to slip your mind
7.
when strangers meet they seem more real to me wide open spaces and consciences clean and to what end must i protect the boy i used to be who thought a home where only silence falls no clock inside its walls could dodge a wrecking ball locks blocking strangers both ways what kind of safety’s that anyway i could have risked you love how do we stand our ground how do we say we’re brave now i am waiting on your command a blindfold between my sight and your sleight of hand how do these hands hold how do these hearts unfold now never knowing the ways they can a blindfold between the night and Neverland you will come back to me
8.
no more oceans left reserves have all been tapped and spent so raise the floodlights shipwrecks on the snow they seem so small against the glow we struck the night blind now opened wide and robbed for pearls there were signs but we stormed the doors where once slept a sinking continent now there is nothing more i would wait for you but something tells me that won’t do the waiting’s over start it again start it again drown out all light the love this day would desecrate lost in time
9.
old fires 03:35
no shadow beneath my feet no trace left on the ground i used to think that our hearts could beat the speed of sound we’d soar past the crowd like angels hardly visible and back to the times we’d time to kill darling it’s criminal only if i’d only kept if only to myself starlight hide your warmth although the wolves cry at our door and days get older the night is young vanish like the moon without the sun we stretched like a sunbeam across the sky no end in sight who would have thought a heart could break the speed of light entwined in the night like animals hardly divisible my shadow has not rejoined me still darling it’s criminal morning without warning cut the moorings push me out starlight hide your warmth although the wolves cry at our door and days gets older the night is young vanish like the moon without the sun old fires burn young again tonight
10.
love you promised me then you led us deeper into the trees and looped the trail where it traced the thin air when you track the old days remember the game the past’s not always the prey and we numbed the earth’s skin when we tried to strike a spark never known where to begin staring backwards from the start and the needle skips and spins stumbling from blind to blind let them hunt us down again i will keep us safe tonight on and on you told me i was wrong then please tell me i’ll be wrong again a heart behind glass in a tower of stone i smuggled the spark that led the forest fire home and we numbed the earth’s skin when we tried to strike a spark never known where to begin in the landscape of a heart and the needle skips and spins stumbling from blind to blind let the tables turn again i will keep us safe tonight safe we’re safe tonight above the earth an arc of escaped light the first time we’ve been lost to second sight the sky’s the blind for a pair of newborn kites you told me i was wrong please tell me i’ll be wrong again
11.
eft behind when summer’s over in quiet lineups by the lake cheating hearts descend like clouds of falling leaves to lie and rot and wait for rain summer heat will you drain your blood from me into lawns and limpid pools where your kiss was young and cruel cut by cut and play by play it will always be this way summer love if i could only hold your heart and never beat again someone’s breath against your shoulder someone’s voice to say your name just as long as someone’s there to break your fall longer shadows shorter days if i could only hold your heart i’d never beat again
12.
the mornings you stole away i kept my eyes low let you break my heart you break my heart her ceilings and sandbars locations unknown we’ve gone way too far tiny creature brave the vents below hey there’s hope yet there is hope again it sails through vicious storms my love hey there’s hope yet and if you believe that then sail those wrecks to shore my love hey i’d almost forgotten this we’re anchored alone in a lake of stars a lake of stars
13.
from this moment there is nothing left of us maybe there never was much point in hanging our hopes high like daggers aimed to pierce the earth’s core who were we falling for before we broke we glittered in the sun one day you’ll slip past the sleeping guards through the gardens of drowned alarms swallow me in your swan dive fly from this house of cards north of light’s end where the curtain falls we’re nowhere at all one day you’ll slip past the sleeping guards through the gardens of drowned alarms signal me through the cell walls sing to me from afar a siren in an ice storm at the end of the world

credits

released January 11, 2010

raised by swans is eric howden

all music and lyrics written, arranged and produced by eric howden
recorded at the house of miracles may 2007 - october 2009

mixed by andy magoffin and eric howden
mastered by andy magoffin
artwork concept/design by eric howden
'the shape in the sky' drawing on CD and facing panel by antranik tchalekian
scorched forest photograph (pre-manipulation) by steve bisig     
schematic/root drawings public domain
all songs © eric howden (raised by swans), 2009

Performance credits:

eric howden – electric and acoustic guitars, all tracks; lead and harmony vocals, all tracks; bass guitar, tracks 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13; piano, all tracks; synthesizers and additional keyboards, all tracks; hammond organ, all tracks, stomps and claps, track 5

andy magoffin – bass guitar, tracks 2, 3, 4, 7, 11, 12; drums, tracks 6, 9, 10; stomps and claps, track 5

brady parr – drums, tracks 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 11, 12

alex wright – additional electric guitar, tracks 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 11, 12

for number six
for the night fighter(s) 
and for the buried coordinates

license

all rights reserved

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