Get all 7 Daniel J Townsend releases available on Bandcamp and save 50%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Soon I Will Sing You a Song, Broken Voices and The Eyes Of Men, Midland Highway: The Musical, The Podcast: A Tale of Two Cities, A Tale of Two Cities, World Until Yesterday, and Iscariot.
1. |
Waiting For The Storm
04:18
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He sat there at the edge of the pier,
Waiting for the storm to appear
His sister at the edge of the land,
Calling for a change of plan
He could feel the black in the air,
Pushing trees and pulling his hair
As she turns to go anywhere but here
Sleepless when the night is alive,
Weary when the day is afire
Suspended just like Tantalus;
Between the need and desire
She is not a memory now,
She is made of delicate dreams
And he is enamoured with how the clouds are moving here
They lost everything in the wind,
He watched as the rain poured in
He became a part of the sound,
Eleven breezes blowing around
She became an altar of stone,
Her mind was a pillar of smoke
Clouds moved in a waltz over land that had never known a shadow
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2. |
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Nobody knows me in this place,
Feels so strange
Even the air here has a name,
So says the shade
I fear I’ve made a big mistake
How green your glow from so far away
The rain here falls like a country song
(Everything is wrong)
I miss your sky, the cold that grows in bones,
The fire in the blue
I chose to leave, I should have stayed
How green your glow from so far away
Yes, I know what I’ve become:
I’m OK
So here’s another tune for you to hum,
The one that got away
We’ll meet again some summer day
How green your glow from so far away
So far away
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3. |
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She’s older than this town
She saw the walls fall down
The walls are all standing now
When she moves, she moves so slow
Weather is in her bones
She’s older than she knows
Circle people sitting down
When she smiles, she smiles like this:
Two fingers to her lips
Like she’s blowing me a kiss
It’s a question, a kind request:
The ceremony of the cigarette
I show my empty hands, she smiles again
Circle people sitting down
She’s older than this town
She saw the walls fall down
The walls are all standing now
She’s older than this town
When she smiles, she smiles like this:
Two fingers to her lips
Like she’s blowing me a kiss
She is
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4. |
Periwinkle Blue
03:50
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Oh, you see trees where I don’t see anything
And you see the space where something new could be
Hands clutching seeds,
Black dirt on your jeans
You will dig for victory
Perwinkle blue
Under chairlift skies, the Trapdoor Spider hides
Foreign flora glows quiet as a fire
How I love the spaces only you can find
See the lowly local snail
Wind an ancient trail
Up the trunk and round the bend of an old friend
Perwinkle blue
Oh, you see trees where I don’t see anything
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5. |
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My lineage landed unloved on the sand
Where the ocean of peace meets the prisoners’ land
Fifteen and female, a heart full of fear,
Locked in the dark with her womb
Her pa had his roots down
In the same Scottish farming town all his ancestors had done
Where sometimes the weather
Is more than the gathering rain and the heat of the sun
He’d tried to dig down through the icy ground
But sometimes the snow takes it all
The edge of the Empire, the end of an age
Those cities were hungry and tall
The lords and the ladies,
Their lazy laws blaming the poor for their hunger and thirst
Each day a reminder:
Tomorrow is blind. Each night is the end of a world
Her father was desperate,
They’d all heard the whispering promise of work in the towns
So they left the fields empty
At night she dreamt she was dressed in a flowing white gown
Green was the meadow
Blue were her eyes
Dream of tomorrow
Golden with the light
Choking on smoke, clouds in her throat
Sky in the eyes of a girl
Frail as a flower, cold shadows of towers
Grey as the end of the world
Brothers and broth without bread
And young moths to the glow of the smelter alight
Sisters assisting their ashen-faced siblings
Alone with no shelter at night
Children in chimneys, chasing the sun
With their Icarus broom handle wings
Breathing black air, with no shoes to wear
And their legs all broom handle thin
Fifteen and female and hungry as fear
She could hear the men thinking as she walked too near
In her rags like a dress – they’d imagine the rest –
And her sweet legs so broom handle thin
My ancestor ran by the hands of the factory
Nervous, in search of a coat or a cloak
Just to cover herself, with no clothes on the shelf
She entered the house that she broke
A tiny young thing, underage, underdressed
Clenching her fists to her chest
She was seen in the street and placed under arrest
Clutching that pretty white dress
Green was the meadow
Blue were her eyes
Dream of tomorrow
Golden with the light
She stood in the courthouse, a lamb to the slaughter
A man with four daughters before her in robes
Took one look through her, spoke, then they threw her
To the opposite side of the globe
One hundred and fifty souls wondering the old
Ocean would swallow them whole
Girls and young women, some with babies within them
Pretty maids all in a row
My lineage lay there, unloved on the floor
Chained to a stranger, a prisoner of war
And wondered just what it all could be for
Locked in the dark with her womb
At night she dreamed of meadows of green
And a gentleman in suit and vest
Holding her hand, foreign land,
She was standing proud in a pretty white dress
Proud in a pretty white dress
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6. |
Naked as a Bird
04:00
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She wears a dress of scarlet,
She keeps a nest of hornets in her hair
She stomps and screams down alleyways,
But she can’t find her echo anywhere
He jangles like a jailer with his pockets full,
But he speaks just like a saint
And all the sinful saviours say their evening prayers
Without complaint
He’ll wake to find he’s flying
Naked as a bird above the crowd
And all the keys he used to need
Will seem as simple superstition now
She’ll shed her dress of scarlet,
Shave her head and climb into the air
She’ll become one with everyone and everything everywhere
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7. |
Song For Kate
03:13
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The desk was full of deadlines
The office full of noise
All the streets were streams with pebble people still as stone
My eyes were open wide, hoping
I could make the change
And in my heart I knew we had to go
So we drove desert roads we didn’t know,
Radio turned down low
Sometimes it’s just time to go
Palm trees and pandanus leaves
Kick off shoes at Mindil Beach
Tourists swarm in circles seeking salty souvenirs
But you and I aren’t moving
Got no place we need to be
As the sunset turns to starry, starry night I know why we moved up here
How we drove desert roads we didn’t know,
Radio turned down low
Sometimes it’s just time to go
Now it’s raining in the dry
And I don’t recognised these skies
But there’s a caller on the line
From Alice Springs to tell me why
He says he knows
I’m sure he knows
Radio turned down low
Sometimes it’s just time to go
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8. |
SS St Louis, 1939
05:08
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I came out of hiding and onto the boat
The flags all around gave me dark second thoughts
And that man in the uniform just made me sure
We were all sailing to hell
But the captain he spoke like my grandfather did
He promised a new life to us and our kids
So we emptied our pockets, our wallets, and bid
A heart-heavy, homeless farewell
A heart-heavy, homeless farewell
He told us we’d dock or he’d run us aground
Before he would turn that old vessel around
The whole world was against us, but he wouldn’t back down
And we launched as the mates rang the bell
Oh, that setting sun sank, but it shone like a beacon
We stared at the stars and the waters beneath them
We prayed that those breezes would blow us to freedom,
To a place where we’d peacefully dwell
A place where we’d peacefully dwell
After fortnights of ocean and decades of sky,
We spoke not the language and we didn’t know why
All our miles of meaning could not change a mind
Or the mob, with those voices that yell:
“Our men wait for soup and for food stamps in queues!
“We’ve already taken five thousand like you!
“Our stores are all empty! Our jobs are all gone!
“Please know that we care, we just can’t care for our own!
“Now go back to where you came from!”
The young men they mutinied, captured the bridge,
An old men he threw himself over the edge
And that man in the uniform hung in the door,
His neck in a knot, two feet off the floor
The children and women, they wept at the sight
Of the windows in houses and those hushed coastal lights
The captain changed course but would not change his mind
And they pushed us back in to the swell
Pushed us back into the swell
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Daniel J Townsend TAS, Australia
"A head full of stories, a soul old enough to have lived them, and a heart young enough to believe in their power to move us."
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