Get all 5 Autumn Burnett releases available on Bandcamp and save 20%.
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1. |
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Tell me there’s a splitting sound
That shook the grassy ground
And the postman stopped coming around
When he heard the war coming down
He wished me safe and sound
Well I ran into the orchard grove
To tell me love, “let’s flee, let’s go”
And with a quaking heart, he spoke,
“We won’t survive unless we gloat”
He held me close
Said, “Hey now, darling let’s dance,
come give me your hand,
we’ll waltz in the haze
And while the buildings are crumbling,
we’ll be out stumbling
in time with remain”
I never loved you more
than when you rocked me in time with the war
Even under the weight of souls in our state,
our feet never sored
And the doveling and the cardinal
on the belfry
Made nests from burning weed
All strung up on wires
and dotting the skies
like little war planes
Squawking from tenterhooks
jerking their heads to look
so scared to stay the same
So I asked a chattering crow,
“Why do you go so nervous and strung?”
He cawed, “Everything moves!
Even the shade, even the sun”
Said, “Honey, look at you, static,
I pity your still, it’s a shame you’re so young
And love, don’t you know better
to never stop moving
or you’ll hurt someone?”
So I picked up my bloody heels,
said, “I’m sorry, bird, I will yield
I’ll dance ‘till my feet are raw,
until I’m older and know it all.”
And the doveling and the cardinal, they stayed
and wept in nests they made
And the doveling and the cardinal believe
That love is sewn with grief
So honey, quit with your crying,
I carry good tidings
They’ve sounded the bells!
We’ll run to those pastoral hills
And we’ll drink and we’ll bathe
In the wishing wells
I never loved you more
Than when you rocked me in time with the war
Even under the weight of souls in our state,
our feet never sored
And the doveling and the cardinal
On the belfry
They loved like you and me
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2. |
The Reeds
04:13
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Meet me in the hail
Where the water makes
Little patterns on your face
And watch your thoughts parade
Through the queen anne’s lace
Dropping minutes in the bay
Well I dove into the harbour in my clothes
‘Cause I swore I saw you sinking through the foam
But all I found were waves
Burning from the salty muddy brine
I swore I heard you call me, rasped and dry
Upon a cliffside
Does it feel like apiaries brewing in your sides?
And bees with timepieces fly by
Spinning round your head and ticking trails of fishing line
I won’t let hope sour me blind
Did you see that night
How my shadow turned
into incandescent light?
All the while, I thought,
“How impossible,
yours must have done forgotten to…
...leave this sallow, clodden ground behind
and make like bees from geysers gone divine
So tired of this stone-locked lot
Unabashed breach, absconding
Sometimes I still love you more than naught
I think I made you up
inside my head
Leather boots and ribbon red
I’ve been shaking rattles, herbs and smoke
Over sticks our feet once broke
Digging up the agency, the gall
left in brambles there to rot
If you care to uphold reverie,
I’ll be pawing through the reeds
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3. |
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Sable held me in the warm magnetic candlelight
She drew my wrists on a napkin with a fountain pen
She said, “Your hands are becoming like your mother’s
Sapphire veins and lacework bones”
So while I’m peeling the walls away with silver spoons
Pretty Sable, it’s all for you
Some nights Sable swings her feet from my windowsill
A cotton gown beats in luster ‘round the heating vent
And in a gorgeous array of pattern play, the seconds shatter
Like sunlight through a chainlink fence
But when morning comes, she’ll vaporize like water
And leave a ring of salt around my bed
Like daylily dew drops and cigarette ash
And holy script in sidewalk cracks
Peelings of god in a torn up paper bag
Spin with me, Sable, fold me flat
When she begs to sleep at the foot of my bed
She’ll peel the paint off of the walls
And burrow her hands into my sleepy head
And tell me I’m a work of art
Hold me under rolling water
And braid my limbs like willow wicker
Darling, I am only yours
Sable brought me love in a cornucopia
She said, “Pick out any name you like
Everyone is waiting just inside!
Who you gonna lose tonight?”
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4. |
The Belfry
02:34
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5. |
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When you arrive
there’ll be cockatiels
and pear trees and wine
by a silver bay
where we grew to know
just what holy means,
where god is the stone
that you toss into the bay
And out from the water,
there will rise a figure
One you know well,
it is me I’ll take you
down to the spires,
and we’ll drink up
all the dreams we require
and rinse them through our teeth
My darling, I’m fine,
can you see me ripping
diamonds into carbon?
Like everything was mine from the start,
Just like you, i’m pulling roses from gardens
That someone else grew
Do you recall how the solipsisms
pooled at my doorstep
and stuck between my toes
when you told me,
“Honey, I think you’ve got more hope
than this world does allow”
Sturgeons sing me silver blues
My darling, I’ve been well
My darling, I’ve been well
When you arrive
there’ll be cockatiels
and pear trees and wine
by a silver bay
where we grew to know
just what holy means
where god is the stone
that you toss into the bay
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6. |
Davenport
04:54
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The gull and the granite sieve
The foam and the filigree
Corseted in mud, I bound my legs to cliffsides,
hollering at seabirds and headlights
and things that bind me landside
One by one bats trail dark
over cliffs of Davenport
Tangled in the weeds
swayed some shipwrecked thing
a mast of junk boat groaning to the rocks
where we sat thinking ‘bout
the way we’d like to fall
“Will you scrape the mollusks from my portside fin?”
The sailing ship sang some swollen, salty hymn
I wore velvet with wire ‘round my waist
to conduct the flow of light
and to funnel you through grace
But the pressure barely bent
in remembering the things I’d like to miss
Much ado ‘top a scaly precipice
I wore velvet with wire ‘round my waist
hauling fables and balloons
with carouselic sway
In Pacific Standard Time,
spaciousness is all to those who ride
with dandelions white and sprouting from their sides
And were you only in passing?
Or did you let yourself take shape?
And maybe words were for sifting,
And maybe mine caught up the drain
And maybe all of this wading
will make the whales too sick to sing
And if you saw the way that poppies
bloom in a wrecked ship, you would weep
Did you pour your love through ashes,
or were you singing through your teeth?
Were you tall as Parnassus,
or were you standing on my knee?
I wore velvet with wire ‘round my waist
for the godless break of bay
and the guilt of rolling slate
For the dust coiling gold
around the irises of someone proud as me
Davenport is a vision in smoke rings
I took handfuls of road that day
And I pocketed the image
of standing in your way
Albeit in good will,
tell me is it ease or lust or pride
to get your fill
then surrender every time?
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Autumn Burnett
Autumn Burnett is a songwriter, guitarist and violist from Lake Tahoe and Reno, Nevada. She studied songwriting at Oberlin College and Conservatory and currently lives in Asheville, North Carolina.
Autumn Burnett recommends:
Flying Lessons
by James Vitz-Wong
Evidence that love can come in avian forms.
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