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. |
Looking For Spiders
04:25
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Jack and Jill went looking for water.
It wasn’t worth mentioning until they fell.
Peter, Peter pumpkin eater
had a wife who let him beat her.
It’s a little tale we tell - how he locked her up in a prison cell.
You would trade your health and happiness for a story.
You would rather be remembered than loved.
Little Miss Muffett got bored one day,
went looking for spiders to scare her away.
The nemesis providing all the action to incite her
story is the poisonous creature that’ll bite her.
What makes you interesting?
How does your story build?
And what’s your best excuse for being unfulfilled?
And aren’t there enough conundrums in this silly world?
Living on the edge of reason
looking for the sweet spot between silly and sublime
following the rising action
falling hard every time
bending to the strangest arcs,
you write yourself into a nursery rhyme.
You would trade your home and family for another life.
You would rather be a legend than somebody’s wife.
Mary, Mary in the corner plot
she planted a garden just to let it all rot
‘cause thistles choke and rabbits run and sunlight blinds her
and everything’s another form of failure that defines her.
What makes you interesting?
How does your garden grow?
And what’s your best excuse for being all alone?
And aren’t there enough conundrums in this silly world?
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2. |
Want You More
03:45
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I’m a little fly on heaven’s wall.
I’ve seen how this ends, I’ve seen it all.
Don’t look up - the stars are trying not to fall.
Somewhere in the dark you held my hand.
I slipped into your heart like sinking sand.
All of this was written long before it began.
You could be my lover or my death at the turn of a hand.
I don’t have the common sense to give you up
even though
life was so much easier before you came along.
Something in the way you break my heart each day
takes my breath away
and I want you more.
I don’t want to keep you from your life.
I just want to wrap you in the night
pull you to the crooked edge and hold you tight.
All the little things we can’t control
I don’t need your body or your soul
I just want to dance with you in this borrowed light.
Oh my lover, oh my death, it’s always the same.
I don’t have the common sense...
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3. |
Sweet and Broken
05:10
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Summer is hot but the water is cold.
You swim up to me, hold out your shriveled-up hands and say,
“I think we’re getting old.”
I’m trying to laugh but you’re drifting away.
You’re saying, “Cheer up, Angel Face. Nobody’s dying today.”
There was a time when you were a snowman
melting in the yard before my eyes.
The grip of your hands to the wisp of a man
evaporated, drifting out of time.
I want to be like the edges of the sea
fold your sweet and broken body into me.
There’s a statue of a lady poised above her grave.
It says she fell down a crooked staircase on her wedding day.
I pass her in the crowded cemetery on my way
to the bar where I’m going to drink away another day.
I want to be like the edges of the sea
fold your sweet and broken body into me.
I walk around this little city - it’s a trap these days.
Everybody wants to leave but everybody stays.
I hold my hand out to touch the cool breeze,
crunch the leaves beneath my shoe
anything to feel alive now that I’ve lost you.
I want to be like the edges of the sea
fold your sweet and broken body into me.
Autumn was sweat and winter was blood.
We thought that we could make it to the spring.
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4. |
The Way Down
04:24
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If I had only one hour to spend with you
I’d swallow my tongue and take your hand.
I’d lead you to the edges of the lake at summer’s end
and break you with the flicker of the wind.
I want to give you something real and true
the beauty that grows inside the pain
all the stories that surround us as the sun slips down the sky
and the light begins to disappear again.
I want you to test my love against these fading lines.
I want you to leave me at the mercy of the night.
I want you to break my heart and show me what it’s like to feel
so alive
all of the time.
If I could show you everything at once
I wouldn’t have to find a place to start.
All the sticks and stones and thunderstorms
would crash against your loving arms
and you’d see me and you’d understand my heart.
Throwing this stone will cause a ripple but you know
that there’s a little bit of joy that can be found
on the way down.
I want you to test my love against these fading lines.
I want you to leave me at the mercy of the night.
I want you to break my heart and show me what it’s like to feel
so alive
all of the time.
If I had only one life to spend with you
I’d never run out of things to say
but the silence doesn’t scare me like it did before you met me
I can fill up all the hours singing love songs to myself
I think too much but I don’t talk
I keep things to myself a lot
It’s crazy but I’m waiting, I’m still waiting for you
to be free
to take that walk with me
Free...
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5. |
Party Like We're Free
04:20
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Believe it or not, I don’t have one complaint
Believe it or not, I wore my happy face and I didn’t even have to try
Ready or not, this ship has left the dock
We’re cranking the gears, we’ve got our pistols cocked
We’re gonna shoot out every cloud that tries to rain on our parade.
With a little bit of luck and a lot of soul
some sex, some drugs, some rock and roll
I’m gonna have some fun tonight
I’m gonna break my blues and blow your mind
Hey, what do you know if you can’t let loose and let it go?
Send our troubles out to sea
For one night, hey, let’s party like we’re free
Believe it or not I don’t have much to say
I’ll shut up and dance if you will help me scatter the ashes of doomsday
With a little bit of luck and a lot of soul
some sex, some drugs, some rock and roll
I’m gonna have some fun tonight
I’m gonna break my blues and blow your mind
Hey, hey, hey, hey
Send our troubles out to sea
For one night, hey, let’s party like we’re free
When the walls are falling in
and the lights go dim
a beautiful delusion is the only way to win.
La, la, la, la...
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6. |
No Reason
03:30
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There is no reason for me to love you like I do.
You’re a ghost in a novel, you’re the hero
in a story that could never be true.
You are a master in the art
of letting me down
but I get so lonely I keep hanging around.
There is no reason for you to treat me like you do.
You’re a stubborn old planet, I’m the moon
orbiting in circles around you.
I have been lighting up your nights - you haven’t noticed yet.
But I get so lonely I’ll take whatever I can get.
Ooh...
There is no reason, there is no reason.
If you’re gonna keep disappointing me, I know what I should do
but I get so lonely
I get so blue
I get so lonely I keep falling for you.
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7. |
Sin Eating Eyes
04:38
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I’m walking the world today with backwards-facing feet,
trying to dance without music or a beat that I can
follow through the wilderness of your love.
But are you okay? Will you survive? Am I doing this right?
I’m taking the liberty of cleaning up this awful mess.
If anyone’s wrong, I might as well be the one to confess.
I’ll take it away, I’ll make it disappear before you realize
what I’ve seen with my sin-eating eyes.
I get so nervous when he takes his second drink.
The beauty of whiskey is it always makes you think about
the things that seem important in the magic of the night.
Then you wake up in the aftermath of just another ordinary fight.
I’m taking the liberty of cleaning up this awful mess.
If anyone’s wrong, I might as well be the one to confess.
I’ll take it away, I’ll make it disappear before you realize
what I’ve seen with my sin-eating eyes.
Give me the stories that you never wanted to tell.
I’ll write my name in every scene.
Watching you move your mouth
I forget myself and I don’t know who I am
with your words in my head.
I’ve had to kill so many women just to be the one I am.
And for what? All the truth and the blood on my hands.
And now I’m walking toward the light without a bottle or a friend -
nothing to fill up the space between me and the bitter amen.
Amen.
I’m taking the liberty of cleaning up this mess I didn’t make.
No, I don’t need your help. It’s coming way too late.
I’ll take it away, I’ll make it disappear before you realize
what I’ve seen with my sin-eating eyes.
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8. |
A Lovely Mess
03:22
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In the middle of the grand illusion
underneath a bed of stars and halos
there’s a woman who is real and she will
lure you into a lovely mess
strip you down until there’s nothing left
She’ll ruin you but she might just set you free.
She is rain
her eyes of gray
She’ll soak into your skin and help you feel your pain
I’m so tired of the crooked highway
everybody driving nowhere fast
and I’m ready to confess my sins
so take me down to the raging sea
waves are crashing and I’m on my knees
Take me down before the secrets dry up in me
She is rain
her eyes of gray
She’ll soak into your skin and help you feel your pain
If I keep ringing this bell I’m gonna wake up the town
I’m gonna wake up
Whether or not you admit
you’ve been promising things
But everybody’s a liar, everybody’s a fool
Everybody is looking for a piece of the crystal cane
to make us all happy again
Can you handle all the disappointment?
Are you ready for the last parade?
Do you close your eyes before you pray?
Or do you moan like a fallen beast
washed up here on the frozen beach?
Watch it all disappear before your eyes.
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9. |
Crazy These Days
03:08
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Dear broken mama, I hope you know
I love you more than words but there are things I should’ve known.
You could’ve shown your pain. You could’ve told me why.
It’s not the worst thing for a girl to see her mother cry.
I was ill prepared for being alive.
I never learned the art of when to tell the truth
or how to lie.
So I do my work, I shut my door. I try not to love so hard,
‘cause everyone is a little bit crazy these days.
Did you think I’d falter if I knew the truth?
And then you would’ve failed and I’d be scientific proof.
I can’t do the math. It doesn’t add up right -
how shielding me from darkness would dress you up in light.
I was ill prepared for being alive.
I never learned the art of when to tell the truth
or how to lie.
So I do my work, I shut my door. I try not to love so hard,
‘cause everyone is a little bit crazy these days.
Mother is tired
and broken like the bulb
that's shattered in a thousand pieces on the floor.
Wake up, little girl.
Don’t be afraid of the dark.
You pick it up and then you wait for the scars.
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10. |
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When it’s time to move on there’s no moon in the sky.
The darkness is full of the how and the why.
We wrestle our angels, don’t want to be wise.
We try to ignore all the obvious signs
but here it comes again.
I’ve been embracing the kind of denial
that knows what it is but holds on for awhile.
The sooner I know this, the sooner I’ll leave you
but I don’t have the time or the courage to grieve you.
Here it comes again
oh, the bittersweet end.
I look up at the stars. Nothing catches my eye.
You’re in my heart but you’re not in my sky.
When the clouds move in, it’s our final refrain.
I know where you’re going after the rain.
When it’s time to move on, I keep holding my breath.
I plug up my ears like I’m practicing death.
I hold your hand tighter, I fight for you harder.
I’m thirsty and you were my last sip of water.
Here it comes again
oh, the bittersweet end.
Here it comes again.
I look up at the stars. Nothing catches my eye.
You’re in my heart but you’re not in my sky.
When the clouds move in, it’s our final refrain.
I’ll be alone here after the rain.
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11. |
My Newest Moon
02:51
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In the middle of night when my life is asleep
the easiest questions are the ones I can’t face.
Like who do you love? And what do you want?
And what happens if you never decide?
Oh, but look at the moon.
I want to chase it while it’s still full.
I’m gonna kick this habit of moving around.
Maybe I’ll even settle down.
I’m doing my broken best but there’s freedom in loneliness.
I never get close enough to care.
Oh, I’m just like the moon
running in circles, never quite full.
I want to dance with you
just for a moment or two.
Then you can go back to what you were doing before you knew
the arch of my shoulder blades, my quickening steps,
the color I turn when I’m unsure.
You were only the moon
I wanted to chase while it was full.
Now in the darkness of my newest moon I’m waiting
for a star to make my way a little clearer.
Who do you love? What do you want? It always comes back to that.
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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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