1. |
How I Lost It All
02:55
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When we started out, love,
It was a very dark time,
And you went with me all the way,
In those mean streets,
Without a dime.
We were young—
We would have whatever we desired.
I remember—how tight you held my hand
As I stared up at those white towers
The morning set on fire.
Refrain
They never told me that climbing the heights
Was the way to the hardest fall.
I left you behind me,
I thought you would find me,
You would always be there at my call.
And that’s the story
Of all my glory—
The tale of HOW I LOST IT ALL
And now I have it—
The eighty-third floor.
I look down on the city like a toy.
The clouds rush by my window
And people
Blow like scraps in the storm.
And are you down there, too?
Which one is you—
Around which corner, into which door
Do you vanish with all my joy?
Refrain
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2. |
Putting Up for the Night
02:04
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I was travelling, I stopped for the night.
They put me under the eaves.
The rain kept waking me, the rain
and the doors in the hallway
one floor down opening and closing
and sometimes someone falling
against a wall, a man collapsing
a woman staggering from a blow.
The first time I woke up
the wind had died, the rain
brushed the roof more quietly
than silence. I saw no harm
anywhere anymore in the world.
No harm could come to me.
The body might be lost, the peace never.
The second time I woke up
the building shook, the wind
hammered and I realized
all was ruined and I must suffer
with the rest and soon be dead.
No matter how I cried out
nothing would stop me going.
I was travelling, I stopped for the night.
They put me under the eaves
the rain kept waking me, the rain.
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3. |
Postcard from Havana
03:54
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A postcard came today from blue Havana
Already it’s set the Mounties dreaming
Of silver planes that went there in the old days.
My friend is glad to think these days are better.
Committed to the left, his songs do service
Because I write, he thinks he understands me.
If I were there, he’d ask me for a ballad
To all the brave ones prepared to die.
At fires in the hill, they’ll clean their rifles.
They’ll praise the lost ones. I am a simple measure
If only you were here, he writes, you would help them
A poet can cheat death of its great prize.
But the boy I would have been in Nicaragua
Or Panama, Beirut or Salvador
Could not be found around the rebel campfires
Or hiding with the death squads in the barracks.
He died alone last night along a quiet road
Victim of one side or the other.
He stayed up late to praise the moon at rising
He hated all the killers equally.
At fires in the hill, they’ll clean their rifles.
They’ll praise the lost ones. I am a simple measure.
And I will not be with them in their singing.
My song is for the one lost by the way.
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4. |
The All-Night Café
04:02
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He was writing by the hour in all-night Bloor café.
He had all the things a poet needs at hand about him.
The neon turned cigars and cups and scattered papers blue.
He heard a sign, a sign that said, Café, Café, Café…
I love to see him writing in an all-night Bloor café.
He writes directions on how to leave your youth behind.
And he knows it’s just a cut-out of live of life
He’s living, and he says, no more illusions…
And only death can keep him from an all-night Bloor café.
And death is all that’s waiting if he knocks the cut-outs down.
And I almost tap the glass to catch his eye
Cause we’ll lose him if he just goes on an on this way…
Still I love to him writing in an all-night Bloor café.
He turns with each new dreaming gracefully, so gracefully.
If death is rigor and age is growing hard,
As long as he keeps striving, this one is saved…
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The New Birds of America Toronto, Ontario
The New Birds of America is Blaise Moritz and sometimes others.
The New Birds of America recommends:
Lives up to its billing as the greatest record! As always, The Sadies make songs and sounds that seem both comfortingly familiar and bracingly fresh. A true album with unity and variety end to end.
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Beautiful and charming songs, beautifully and charmingly done. There's a feeling that everything was made with a joyful collective spirit. "Neath the Streetlights" is an all-time great closing track.
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As someone with "endless spiral notebooks", the first track grabbed me immediately. These are demos in the best sense: sketches that retain their immediacy, wit and energy.
go to albumIf you like The New Birds of America, you may also like:
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Between The Blades
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Libby Rodenbough brings a warm, intimate touch to traditional country-folk songwriting on her latest LP.
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This debut from the Canadian indie artist features pop, folk, and country influences.
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