Get all 11 Jessica Smucker releases available on Bandcamp and save 35%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of War of Attrition, Phoenix, Stones to Throw, Rose of Jericho, Dinosaurs, Let's Get a Tree (single), Lucid Stories, Tentative Lies, Tumbling After, and 3 more.
1. |
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Tell me I don't have to apologize
for the way the light filters through my eyes.
If you want to dance, let's take it slow
'cause sad songs are the only ones I know.
All my secrets, all my wishes,
all my passions, all my sins
move across your bluest skies
like thunderclouds and violins.
I've been writing songs for the mixed-up few
but I understand if it's not for you.
I keep holding on to a love-lorn lie
but I see it now: you'd rather dance than cry.
All my secrets, all my wishes,
all my passions, all my sins
move across your bluest skies
like thunderclouds and violins.
I just want to give you something beautiful to listen to
if you need to fall apart
if you need to slow down.
One of my teachers said it best:
if you're living well, you're gonna make a mess.
All my secrets, all my wishes,
all my passions, all my sins
move across your bluest skies
like thunderclouds and violins.
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2. |
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I have listened for God in the ear of a shell
I have wrestled the tides and argued against the groundswell
bargained with the deep blue, I don't want to lose you
This is me facing my fear
Even if we drown, I'm happy that I found you here
I'm yours today
Hold me while the sky is full
Tomorrow you will drift away
sure as the moon
shimmers and fades
There is only one way to survive a riptide:
close your eyes and lean back and take the sea for a ride
When I think of dying, there's an ocean lying
under us, pickled and blue
spread out like a highway, baby you go my way
or I'm coming with you
I'm yours today
Hold me while the sky is full
Tomorrow you will drift away
sure as the moon
shimmers and fades
[instrumental bridge]
I'm yours today
Hold me while the sky is full
Tomorrow you will drift away
sure as the moon
shimmers and fades
As I listen for God in the ear of this shell
I don't know much but I know
that I've loved you well
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3. |
When I Was the Weather
04:52
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If I could make the sun shine
we could go outside.
You could run and I could hide.
I don't want to hold you.
I'm too tired to chase you.
I just need a place to cry.
Once I was the weather.
You couldn't see my eyes.
My voice was like a thunder
rumbling through your skies.
When I was the weather
I knew just what to say.
Now I fumble through my lines
every single day.
You're my perfect vision,
the sun setting on my clouds.
When I look at you, I know I can be proud.
But there's no way around this.
There's no settling of the score.
I am less when you are more.
Once I was the weather
and you could feel my sighs
blowing like a warm wind,
blowing through your skies.
When I was the weather
I didn't have to pray.
Now I get down on my knees
every single day.
When i was the weather,
you could hear my heart
beating like a downpour,
your music in the dark.
When I was the weather
I always knew my way.
Now I get so lost and found
every single day.
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4. |
Tumbleweeds
04:23
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On the way to Arizona
with a suitcase full of nothing
lucid stories, tentative lies
I hope you don't mind that's all I've got to offer
From the cockpit, the pilot's smooth voice
A shot of vodka from the waitress's tray
Hope is beyond me, the world's below me
From my seat I'm mapping out the landscape
The world is checkered fields and solid, curving lines
The snowy mountains are sublime
I'm glad to live and bleed and sing most of the time
but if this plane would crash
I probably wouldn't mind
You love me best when I'm on a mission
Can you believe in my bad decisions?
Everyone's grown up and moved away but
I'm still sitting in my little room
begging you to play with me
We climb the rocks until we're ten thousand feet tall
move with the panoramic scene
In Arizona there's no safety net at all
and only canyon's mouths
will catch you when you fall
This story's fading
We're going extinct
We've got a few good years
I could survive if I'd stop caring what you think but you are
everpresent as the tumbleweeds
blowing all around me
On the way home from Arizona
I close my eyes and try to sleep
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5. |
Overthrown
03:51
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Once upon a time when everything was going fine
I threw myself into a mess
I saw you move, I took a risk
You threw your head back in the light
of the moon that fragile night
shook the demons from your hair, inhaled the music with the air
Baby, I'm afraid of you
You dance like the spirits do
The way you arc, the way you bend
You could make me feel again
I want music in my mouth
I want you to show me how
There's a fire in your step
The smell of peaches on your breath
I'm the moonlight overthrown
You're the hot front from the west
Every time you ask to dance
I say no but I mean yes
They clear the tables off the floor
I want to dance but I'm not sure
how to move and how to be
when the music seizes me
I take a step but I'm too shy
I'm thinking how I want to fly
across the room, out of my head
out of here, into your bed
I want music in my mouth
I want you to show me how
There's a fire in your step
The smell of peaches on your breath
I'm the moonlight overthrown
You're the hot front from the west
Every time you ask to dance
I say no but I mean yes
Yes
Maybe there's an explanation
for this paranoid vibration
The undertow beneath the sea
that's pulling you away from me.
My instincts have been dispossessed
my cadences on house arrest
Baby, I'm afraid of you
You dance like the spirits do
The way you arc, the way you move
like wind around the darkened moon
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6. |
Beautiful Sin
03:20
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It's 2am and the music stops
There's no one left but you and me
You throw one back and you move toward the door
but then you turn to look at me
Listen here, I don't want any protest
I'll tell you how it's gonna be
You'll arrive like a thief in the night
and make sweet love to me
Angel of death, you take me back to where we started from
I hold my breath until you're naked as the winter sun
Loneliness is a pissed-off kid with two little dolls in his fists
knocking us together 'til we come apart and he's alone again
You've got a way of getting everything you want from me
But lucky for you 'cause that's exactly how I want it to be.
Oh...
Throw me down on the bed like a sinister map of every place you've been
Draw the lines on my skin, irrefutable proof of this our beautiful sin
You'll be the king and I will bathe upon my roof
But forget the king - I don't care who you are, if you want the truth
Oh...
Come away to the place where society bends us and the lions feed
Pull me out of the muck and mess of all that I'm supposed to be
You are my Jesus for tonight, I don't mind telling you so
but when we're through you better pick up you humanity
off the floor and go
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7. |
Shut Up
04:41
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I want to lose you today
pump you with air and watch you blow away
I'm tired of love, I love you too much
but here in this moment, loving you sucks
a drip of the faucet, a steep waterfall
there's too much too fast or nothing at all
I can't get through to you
you're preaching like a prophet
dooming all the fun
screaming like a mad man, pushing 'til you win
the more you're pushing out, the less you're letting in
well I have had enough of this
white noise static coming from your lips
why don't you shut up
and let me love you?
try not to feel what you said
give it a moment, give it a rest
hearing your voice in my head
you keep pulling me in to your beautiful mess
I've never been good at walking away
but I deserve more than to love you today
I can't get through to you
you're preaching like a prophet
picking at my sins
pointing like a moonbeam raging at the sea
caught up in a wave that's crashing over me
well, here i am still playing my role
a lonely body and a cluttered soul
it's time to shut up
and let me love you
here we go again
here we go again...
I have had enough of this
white noise static coming from your lips
why don't you shut up
and let me love you?
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8. |
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Listen Jesus
I don't mean to throw your love away
You're a good guy
You've got pretty eyes
and some witty things to say
But I've been walking through these streets alone
through quiet nights and silver rains
I put my trust in things like gravity
It has your force without the name
You've been true but I need more
than promises of doom
It's the 21st century, if you keep telling me
how you've bled for me, well then you're just another
bearer of bad news
Your broken body on the shelf for me -
it's the last thing that I need
when all my friends have left the bar at night
and you are all that still remains
I tried to tell you to go back to heaven where you belong
I tried to stop writing you into every song
They say you're merciful
Then why don't you go? Leave me alone
I'm not a bad girl. I've just got too much going on
I tried but you just stand there
holding out your hand
The saddest part is I really do think you'd understand
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9. |
Evidence of Pain
05:58
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Sit down for awhile now. It's been a long year.
You've met with the fate that you'd been too happy to fear.
Here in the aftermath of bliss, there's nothing to do
but run 'til you can't stand up
and live like nothing happened to you.
Open the window
and let in the rain
Rip out the pages
that whisper her name
Run from the echoes
and take all the blame
Try to conceal all the evidence of pain
You keep busy from morning until night to help you forget
and you're making a list of all the great new people you've met.
Each time you walk in the door, she leaves you again -
the drip of the empty sink, the way the house lights bend.
Open the window...
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10. |
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ready or not
now is the time
this is our long-awaited day of jubilee
all is forgiven
all is at rest
the beaches are waiting for the next wave to hit
if I have to drown in this dark sea
I can be brave
I'm not gonna let this broken moment slip away
whatever happens
keep me close
let me love you
as the white crests love the breeze
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Jessica Smucker Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Jessica has performed all over the Eastern U.S. and has won several national songwriting contests including the Connecticut Folk Festival and SolarFest. She has opened for notable acts like Cheryl Wheeler and Bill Staines, and shared festival stages with Patty Larkin, Dar Williams and Antje Duvekot. Her third full-length album, Lucid Stories, Tentative Lies, is due out in September 2020. ... more
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