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There'll Be Flowers Come The Spring

by Andrew Pearson & The Riflebirds

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    Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Environmentally-friendly card digifile with surreal, yet strangely beautiful artwork by Welsh artist Myles Cook and liner notes by Andrew Pearson poetically detailing the source of the songs.

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1.
When nothing grows outside of the Adriatic There'll be flowers come the spring When all your memory is as if tricked by magic That's when I'll be home again
2.
You picked up that piece of driftwood and wrote your name in the waves And watched s the sea forgot you, drowned the lines you engraved I was there and I'll remember your duffel coat and your wink I took your hand and led you back to land and we let the letters sink I'll leave it to the brine that ripples beneath the wind I may not choose the right three words but the ocean does We're sleeping nose to nose and I can only see your eyelids Those thin veiny membranes that keep your dreams shielded The morning sun crawls its way between our faces And lights our pours and lights our scars and ignites last night's kisses I'll leave it to the dust that dances in the light I may not choose the right three words but the sunshine does The bedside candle flickering or the flash from a camera Whatever light splashes on your face seems to shine a little brighter I greet the air with silence be it light or dark And harvest all the words I know for my ephemeral art I'll leave it to the wax that trickles down the wick I may not choose the right three words but the burning does After the sun had sunk I creeped back to the beach alone Rediscovered that piece of driftwood, your disregarded wand I carved the words 'I love you' deep in the sandy earth But my famous proclamation was reclaimed by the surf I can't leave it to the elements of this coastal shelf I'll have to choose the right three words and use them for myself
3.
Ribbons (free) 05:09
You cover your face when you laugh. Don't. It is the most air can be. Your breath-song is a golden craft do not bury it among the Wrinkles of your palm, they clench the music, let fall to the ground, for the feet of men and dogs to crunch and grind to ash that life-soaked sound which becomes earth where no bulb blooms. I needle you with tarnished wit to coerce your laugh into rooms gloomy but for your laughter light. I've watched your face glow yet half- shaded, it's like looking to sea for the light of the moon. Your laugh is living - the most you can be. This is your room and this is your bed This is the ceiling where our breath fled Our life-ribbons rise and twine Like larks unburdened by the wind Your breath breaks the silence and spreads Through the night like waves break the shore and blacken the sand but instead it's I, not children, who plays there, Bare-footed, dancing in your breath. I try and match the fall of your chest and breathing out till there's no air left we're caught in beauty the day molests. When we're apart doing different things our breath carries far above our heads on the ends of long, thin strings we're tied together like silver thread. I've watched your eyes cloud and rain it's like taking scissors to the sky or peeling back the scab, that pain is living - the most you can be. This is your room and this is your bed This is the ether where our dreams bled Our life-ribbons rise and coil Like larks unburdened by the soil
4.
My heart floats like silk on the breath of the people it seems Ripped from your cruel quilt unstitched from your smothering seams Tell me where do the winds come from and where do the sea-waves start Does the light that reflects from my head reach those distant stars I'll listen to the music of the lyre strung low As low as the workers I choose to follow And I'll survey life from the vastness of the onward rush And I'll sing to the cockroach that crawls through the dust Measure the well by dropping a stone and counting the fall to the water How far's the storm? See the lightning wait for the roll of thunder From the flash to the crash and the drop to the splash You go on counting silence. You listen the the knock of my knuckles on the rock of the scar of the wall that you've built Your hour hand draws its wicked circle again Because my heart floats like silk. My heart floats like silk above the teeth of your brutal bear-traps You live where life has stilled in the silence between the claps Do you think that this isn't painful, to be drawn on your charity racks? Can you hear the savage cry scream from my bowing back? I'll listen to the rhythm of the animal's hooves to whom can they pray when they march two-by-two I'll survey life from the horror of its poor and I'll try to hear their breathing above the waterfall's roar Measure the well by dropping a stone and counting the fall to the water How far's the storm? See the lightning wait for the roll of thunder From the flash to the crash and the drop to the splash You go on counting silence. You listen the the knock of my knuckles on the rock of the scar of the wall that you've built Your hour hand draws its wicked circle again Because my heart floats like silk.
5.
We soaked in weeks forgotten by the winter sun setting long Before, even before, the knelling of the school bell We played shapes against the wall of a boarded up Safeways we tried to guess the bounce of our half flat ball I was so much bolder then with the evening dark to hide in I was so much freer then with no thought for the horizon We wrote our names on the shutters in Thick and thin Darth Maul pens We scrawled our initials in figures Three inches tall Suspended in air and suspended in time Like a photograph of a falling man We gave our names to hang Eternally I was so much bolder then with the evening dark to hide in I was so much freer then with no thought for the horizon
6.
I once saw a hearse miss its exit on a roundabout It spun a second oh-so solemn circle trying to find the right way out It's times like these we give the world our hate Not for allowing death but refusing to commemorate It's never once made the effort, never bent nor bowed Never cared about the situations mood And it never will And that's a bitter pill There's a youtube video of a man proposing at the half-time of some baseball game, but she just walks away And he kneels there as the crowd giggle their forty thousand collective tits off - that can't be easy. It's times like these we give the world our hate Not for allowing love but refusing to celebrate It's never once made the effort, never bent nor bowed Never cared about the situations mood And it never will And that's a bitter pill On the night you were born was there fuck a new star overhead And would you like to hear the odds of their being three days of darkness when you're dead It's times like these we give the world our hate Not for allowing life but refusing to accomodate It's never once made the effort, never bent nor bowed Never cared about the situations mood And it never will We hunt for the echo in everything we come across We try to slay thast stubborn silence that threatens the worst That for all our how-ing and why-ing there's no 'because' Not with this government and there never was There will be no miracles here There will be no suggestion there's anyone up there You can hang on to your holy book if it helps you float a little longer But you and I both know a page can only soak up so much water
7.
There are fingerprints on your brain again and all the blood's retreating What is this thing that grasps your wrist and strangles your tongue 'You're a moany fucking twat sometimes' is not much of a greeting But let me off and let me in where the darkness, where the darkness runs Your feet seem tied to the bed and your words seem tied to your head But who needs words when you can point at what you want? Don't point at me, please son't point at me. There's this question that runs like so: 'Is this as dead as I wish it to be' But there's a firmness in the hand that holds like he knows what letting go means This is not the hand that I first held upon waking, upon breaking into light This is not the voice that I first heard This is not the hand that I first held upon waking, upon breaking into light This is not the voice that I first heard There are fingerprints on your brain again and all the blood's retreating What is this thing that grasps your wrist and strangles your tongue I'm a moany fucking twat sometimes but I'll try to stop my greeting But let me off and let me in where the darkness, where the darkness runs The darkness is the art I need to master I'll grip it by the corners and I'll wrestle it to the ground That is easier said than done Easier said than bloody done
8.
Your dreams make loud the sky I won't scream and tell you not to cry When the clouds gather and that sound they smother And serve the silence you must suffer When the rain cascades down your shoulder blades And the waves you make threaten to drown Just remember you're not alone When your bones seem to burst through your skin And the oceans of woe force your dams in Step out on the roof, babe, feel the slates beneath your feet Peer over the edge, picture yourself spread out on the concrete Through the distance you must dance Whatever your heart wants it can't own Just remember you're not alone How calmly you stand 'neath the over-hanging cliff You hold in your hands the trinkets you'll take with Slump down on the pebbles beside your frugal chariot Your soul will soar and the soil you'll forget Turn your face from the wind and shield your eyes from the rain Fly like a raven or a crow Just remember you're not alone Surge through life laughing wherever you may flow from And hold hands, hold hands, holds hands among the atoms
9.
Late 02:17
Is this it then? The moment we've all been waiting for? Mankind's common ground shows itself, a no-man's land Caught in the stillness between the last breath And the first tear. Do you forgive her now? The breath that's left, lost in the blood of the stopped heart. The word fossilised in the throat; the unmoored boat But do not cry, you're nobodies child now Yet the sun still shines on the nothing new It's the curtain call on our little scene but there'll be flowers the the spring

about

Finding inspiration in the DIY ethos of fellow-Fife luminaries the Fence Collective and the American Anti-Folk scene, There’ll Be Flowers Come The Spring is Andrew Pearson’s fifth release and second full-length album before the age of twenty and the first with a full backing band. The Riflebirds are a ragged band of musical cohorts assembled through Pearson’s strict ‘friend policy’ – it is this policy that has led to an accidental yet distinctive sound based around the clarinet, accordion and gentle electronic textures adding a richness and warmth yet leaving breathing room for Pearson’s lyrics. The album was recorded in three months, having to negotiate essay deadlines, collapsing ceilings and the chill of a St Andrews’ winter, in the living room of the band’s crumbling student flat. While many of the songs are about love, death, religion and politics, the album itself is about song-writing: literate, melodic and emotional. There’ll Be Flowers Come The Spring is released on 18th February on Common Records.

With thanks to the Riflebirds, me Mam, MiL, Jules, Ronan, the good people at Common and Oscar, who made it happen.

credits

released February 18, 2013

Andrew Pearson - Guitar, Piano, Bass, Ukulele, Harmonica and Vocals
Tilly Rossetti - Clarinet, Piano and Backing Vocals
Stefan Maurice - Accordion and Field Recordings
Oscar Swedrup - Production, Drums and Bass
Calum West - Mixing and Electronics
Jess Johnstone - Violin and Viola
David Graves - Trumpet

Recorded in 7 Cammo Lodge, St Andrews
Album artwork by Myles Cook

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