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Vivian Comma Close

by LJA Brown

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1.
Trouble my trouble, can’t get anymore Trouble my trouble, won’t get anymore They’ve been acting like they’ve never been poor There’s a tone they don’t use where they once did before Brothers and cousins that have walked out the door Father and mother don’t see me as there own And the house that was built where once was the war And the trouble they see I don’t see anymore The devil in me has forced me to rise To take as my own a sister for a wife Who has no guilt in her to show She was elated just to know That of the secrets in her bones Were not of her own Nobody knows just what she’s laughing about She’ll see to it that If there’s a crown that can be placed upon our heads When all this living leaves us dead We will go out into the snow Forever unknown (If you will go I will go your way Oh, my soul! What a price to pay).
2.
Solemn goes the time in their regency He has come to find displeasure That is keen to be released So he turns to her and asks what can he do? She screams a laugh, ‘A privateer is all you’ll ever be if you carry on with me’. Their blue eyes are on their way And their blue eyes will break the day Forlorn like a hero he waits for you Sunday Psalms in his hand and a love That cannot stand in your way So you pass right through him Leave a ghost behind That will haunt him for awhile, If only for awhile, it for a while Your blue eyes will go their way While his blue eyes have had their day Go into the night and not look around For people who might declare themselves proud To any event that leads to the sound Of their hearts That leads to the sound Of a bird in song An opaque kind of light Fills the room A curtain drawn There is nothing much else to do.
3.
She don’t need me coming around anymore My backstairs strumming is starting to bore Neighbours are shouting out the Golden Bough But I’m still reading from the Helm of Awe The Swan road from the window is calling her name I didn’t see it coming her flame fare welled A Garden of Coral and Loki by the pool Sun of the houses a mind’s worth getting cool Freya’s tears can come and go as they please I never needed much from the things she brings When it’s only dead things dead things she brings A billow of maidens will wash this all away Bait gallows in their mouths the valley trout A wound hoe to keep out the Gunn’s horse outside He’s knocking on the door and won’t let up I think a bane of wood will do him some good Don’t you think it would? Well maybe it would. I don’t need me coming around here again She says she doesn’t think we could ever be friends I sit by the window drinking her tea She hates your jazz and you hate her poetry Alas the moon is about and beyond our ken.
4.
In these dreadful days of recalling the ghosts of the past Picture book and never raining with smoke in the eyes Somewhere it must be gathered all of the things Before they let you down A girlfriend that waited for no one was all that she asked Sullen mouthed, her hands held aloft as if holding the sky From a hell of a season, is it wrong that you should want her now I will wait and know what it’s like To hold the marble youth we despised For all that I now desperately lack Can be carved into the quiet sound Of laughter in the dark If the past is pasture will you ever learn That the prologue you're after is already burned So tear up the letter and let the leaves Fall into the grass Seeming out of place the mole on the back Dangerous if cancerous so cut with the knife At once disfigured, is all maligned just to feel the black A reflection of you disappears Replaced by something more clear A light that freezes in time The awful meaning of what it is Laughter in the dark I was never much the type to sing from the heart Or to ever call it out, the youth we once had When there is silence There can only exist What we almost knew.
5.
Dancehall 05:47
It’s been our understanding or it’s been a kind of lie That when your callers hit you it doesn’t hurt inside We know a lot about you, we know the time aside But nothing of the matter that hides the saddest star And if you had to go, well where would you go The roundabout proposals, the shifting points of view Of all the grave misgivings that have given up on you A pose to fix in silence and sit there for a while The notebook idly looks on the suitor’s passing smile And if you had to dance, well who could you ask The taking of the task, the master in the mast In the dancehall In the rolling of an eye In the needle In the moment that you died When you wake up will you ever need The pieces they send Pieces in the sand All of this heavy weather, all of this so and so A copper-bottomed fella would have to let you go Behind the awful curtain, upon the martyred cause Into the end we dream of when dreaming never ends And so it came to pass, so it came to pass The master in the mast, the bastard in the tank In the dancehall In the rolling of an eye In the needle In the moment that you died When you wake up will you ever need The pieces of him The pieces that he left And if you had to dance, well who could you ask And if you had to go, well where would you last Doleful in extreme, the room was never clean Axioms are untrue, the bough has split the broom right through And in this gloom certain latitudes are given to Oh, breaking though and calling out Calling out for you.
6.
Gin & Altars 03:21
Bits of glass on the ground A table lamp that you found Skipping off the merry-go-round Sideways up but always down I’ve got a rock in my shoe A mouth of gold is nothing new Gin and altars all day long Gin and altars in our song Silence speaks the words you keep In a bottle you mistreat Galleons reach the idle dead But the berth was in their heads It’s getting awful grave Nurse to beer the wound she gave And with this morning folding down Like the flags we put out Streets take on a glow When you’re walking alone There’s a fear in his eyes Which I’ve learned to despise Even though the cards that were laid on the bed Could’ve been something he once said There’s blood in my eyes No sympathies in sight Your downy skin alive St Stephen with a smile His arms open wide It’s like when the chosen have already chose It’s like when the broken have broke all their bones A festival of light blindsides the right A juggernaut jack-knifes into my side.
7.
When a lady’s position is impositioned by a calling of the wild Can we not say of her that she to be not wild If not ‘fore me before me and in there to something we all knew The more unseemly side of my business is still cordial for you Boo, boo, boo it frightens you Coo, coo, coo I’m scared to Translations burr the words misheard And leave us confused, we deduce A separate plane of thought rendered Apart and brought in to view Screw a queue in lieu of nothing to do Accrue, assume, abuse anything new I am no innocent I will carry myself on your back In the rain A bored gift or some such we are waiting for, waiting for A shard of glass to shake your hand and nothing more (Well maybe a little more) Soon, soon, soon we will bloom Into, into, into the devil’s dew Pack your bags full of laughter Make the wedding plans So much safer Don’t make this any easier than the sinking of your heart A wanton wish gets closer to me wanting to leave you alone I will claim your land as my own and leave a seed to be sown Restless hands cop an eye full And will think nothing of tearing you apart We are forming now as a species too wondrous to be ignored Take this hand and the floor will open up the shiniest dawn That you could hope to enter so let’s gather round and sway No trapdoor to side step over Only my love that will wither you away.
8.
Pick up your windows and climb into the day Tap on the counter and make sure you pay your own way Underline your name and sign it off to the past Where you are going they will not even ask Of days that passed quickly and never were dull The leaving that this is taking is enough to make you feel odd Nobody is looking they’re watching their own day Slip past the camera under the bridge and away Look up your words and throw them into the air Watch as they fall down all around their heads Take out your notebook and read yesterday Keeping on caring is what makes you them If you are going it’s as well as you’ve been Before the shutters all come down and the sun can’t come in Go on running ‘till you can’t feel your feet And your hands have raised up your face from the heat Go on; go on take a run at the sun At any point you know you can get out if you choose Patchwork your stories and tie them up in a bow Make up the endings any place they could go Nobody will remember it’s all become such a task There is no difference from here and into the last Those days that passed quickly and never were enough The leaving that is an ending is beginning to fall apart.
9.
Spring Days 04:06
Abandoned unborn by my begetters I was still dead a few spring days, days ago No beat in the breast, no breath in me A kinswoman she covered me in the clothes The clothes that she wore No kind but kind indeed Coddled and swaddled As close as I had been A baby of her own Until as had been shaped, so shielded Though no kin the unguessed guest grew Great with life, greater with life She fended for me, fostered me She fed me up til I was of a size To set my own bounds Oh so much further afield She had fewer sons And daughters Because she did so The bird that she knew and the bird now grown Is a cuckoo you see now taking his turn For the cuckoo in me will push us apart If we meet again then we should meet again The girl we both knew laughing so As if to say in a funny way How you get there is not what makes you stay.
10.
On your way out you know it’ll never be the same Picking your fights with Old Father Time But if he’s not around then who’ll pay the tithe Did you think he had a heart of stone No one ever asked for the parts that we play Mary was right to know it that way With a King and a Crown It is as you say But only in a heart of stone Now they’re gone so throw it away To the arms openly splayed And oh! What a heart of stone Sleep away, sleep away the day Nothing will come of it anyway So take up the cross and go it alone And go there with a heart of stone What a load does Simon not know When we go into the darkness of the day And stay there with a heart of stone She will go into the night To be alone by your side And cry for the last time But never with a heart of stone Never with a heart of stone.

about

Vivian Comma Close is the debut album by LJA Brown. It is a haunting but distinctly melodic tapestry through the personal, the abstract, the bizarre and often downright comic. Though beating the bounds of the English folk tradition in as circuitous fashion as possible the songs of Vivian Comma Close are, nonetheless, tradition-less, the Golden Bough as seen through the pop prism of Tin Pan Alley et al.

credits

released April 17, 2016

LJA Brown - vocals, guitars
Anna Ryan - vocals, piano, harmonium, metallophone, percussion
Alasdair Steer - bass
Dave Vigay - drums

All songs written by LJA Brown

Mixed by Reinis Axelsson
Mastered by Peter Axelsson Sorvag

Design by Samuel Mathews

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LJA Brown London, UK

LJA Brown is a singer/songwriter based in East London.

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