1. |
If I Had Known
03:56
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I lost you as you lost your home
Silver as the river’s bend along
Alone under August blush
A wind swept elm was quite enough
To keep it all strung on shattered glass
If I had known the night had fallen
Like silver stars to an artist's daughter
Waiting for the wane to carry on
I wouldn’t have held fast to any
It all worn gold in anxious worry
To fade with a wick lit in song
Take this cosmic tourniquet
And wrap it all in forgotten bliss
Remember all that brought you along
Sing to me as soft as Autumn
A shield again for all that’s calling
Me, from the love I nearly lost
The darkness slept through the Summer
To the week before September’s ember
Set it all behind, as did I
But I couldn’t help a heart collapsing
Caught between a sunflower spinning
Oak in queen annes to goldenrod
Take this time in lonesome dives
To the churning river for lighting eyes
To balance all I hoped to find
Swing it low and remember the evenings
The beautiful times I feel I’m losing
Never once I felt alone
Oh no
We may refrain from staying the same
A change as thankless as falling rain
But I won’t mind the flood to come
As we’re all forever surrounded
The river bank bursting in love and laughter
Stronger with all that’s passed on
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2. |
Even in Absence
03:15
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The clouds may rest
As your mind won’t let you
With mine the same
Awake as I craned
As the robin did
Through your window pane
From blind to flying
In warmth to keep sane
I watched the dogwood blossom overnight
A stubborn snowbank melt
A shadow fed sunlight
To whisper the forest awake in the morning
A soul reclaimed, revived today
Please listen close
Your conscious glow, it saves
Even in absence
A neglected rose
Shielded from the cadence
A stemmed thorn grown
In the beating of their wings
The churn of the river
A rain song remembered
A sacrilege lifted
From bane to beauty
In this sleepwalking writer
The wisest listener, tied forever
We grew under stars in a Wardcliff refuge
Both on the border, down 43 and over
With it all forgiving
Even in the darkest
When night had fallen softly
Gone wrong in silence
With all we’ve learned, speaking now
To bring a better end
A love so loud
Even in the ebb, the flow of going
I pine, I strive to mend the losing
To know we won’t
Be parting then
Even in the changing
The fraying thread
In the almost lost
A sentiment sought
A golden friend
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3. |
Weathervane's Whisper
03:54
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Never run fast as those still ahead
You’ll only feel calloused again and again
In thoughts that escape me
I wonder where they go
Just walking the conifers, the evergreens, and reaching firs
Maybe on a lake all alone
Never keep time with those still counting
The wins and the losses
Doubled in sewing
My second is writing, unrelating, and stopping
I can’t seem to catch it
In resolve so winded
In glory, in absence of you
You can only smile back so many times
With how are you answered often with a lie
I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m always fine
In all toxic strength, in frailty’s guise
We’ll hide all we’ve cried
I may be running home
But there’s so much I forgot
The weathervane's whisper through thistle to a stop
In pines, in dogwoods, an aviary’s thought
The tree frogs murmur, the light reassuring
Sifting out the worry and gone
Never run fast as those still ahead
Maybe I’ll make it back home to my bed
If I don’t, I don’t, maybe I won’t
But I’ll carve out the highway
In traveling retrograde
Back to your arms to show
I no longer care about those still ahead
Because they are, I am
I finally rest
If I make it home, I’ll make it there alone
With so much love, so much love, so much love to grow
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4. |
Tired Old River
04:39
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Tired old river
It’s dragging me down
I couldn’t get my feet back on solid ground
I thought I was young, and able, and sound
But I’m falling to the bottom of the Grand to drown
I made it to the capital and the smokestacks three
Choking down mud from headwaters to me
Made it to the ladder, hellbent on the silence
Heard the robin’s song and sunk down into panic
As I was inching away, and my home was stripped
The moon drew the river down to count me blessed
I made it to the Rapids, kept my head above the surface
I prayed to the city to release my burden
To kiss my flushing cheek, those puckered lips
Gasping for air and treading below the bliss
Of citizens and businessmen laughing at my fortune
It’s better than yours, hold on for the morning
I made it to a Haven with my hands a-shaking
Washed up on the beach next to your white shroud
Looked out on the hope the lake creates
I guess it ain’t my time to drown
I was running from nothing, I was killing time
I thought I’d soak my fear and let compulsion dry
The water it soothed me, I can no longer cry
I’ll stay by the lake till the day I die
That day came sooner, it slipped my mind
I was caught up in the current, the magpie’s sigh
They circled me and picked me, up from my place
Dropped me in the sand and remembered my face
As I recalled all I forgot to show
As my pulse it slowed, consciousness bowed
Down to the shore with your stolen grace
And all they meant to misplace without a trace
These days we rest in peace so sweet
My ghost lays silent huddled on the beach
Sure it’s lonely, but it ain’t that bad
The waves wash memory right over my head
As I tread so slow in bittersweet debt
With it all unwritten locked up in my head
With it all unwritten locked up in my head
Tired old river
It dragged me down
I couldn’t get my feet back on solid ground
I thought I was young, and able, and sound
But I’ve fallen to the bottom of the Grand to drown
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5. |
Michigan's Song
03:56
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I smell citronella, and sunscreen, and chlorine
An endorphin waning, a waving daydream
With Superior sights, and sleepless nights, and mornings
Spent counting thoughts, and northern lights, and islands
I need smoke still rising, the charring oak and ember
Sand so tender
With cool surface dew, a fogged out glass surrender
Sing with me now if you call this place your home
Apple blossomed fields, they’re all I know
Just weaving and winding
Driving north on two lane roads
Michigan, can I call this place my home?
I hope this makes its way to you before the winter
Bundled and warm, just making sure to remember
When what we had was counted in stones and lilacs
I heard a robins call, yesterday in the morning
I felt the Spring turning, a budding dogwood calling
Me out to the dunes, the views, and you
Sing with me now if you call this place your home
Apple blossomed fields, they’re all I know
Just weaving and winding
Driving north on two lane roads
Michigan, can I call this place my home?
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6. |
A Heart Carved
05:13
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You saw me out the window, wading through deep snow
In the frozen yard, of your warm home
I let go of summer, succumbed to winter in Christmas lights
And the icicle, salt truck, slushy streets, and new luck that I hoped to find
It blossomed in arriving, finding where you left me
Nestled in the snowbank waiting
Where grass still greened in sunlight shining
Dug from a tomb of deteriorated ruin, of July
Where you healed me to keep me, even when my touch was drifting
You helped me stand
Well before we knew
A heart carved in the Pictured Rock
When the lighting of the year turned your hair an auburn spark
It’s reveling, it’s turning, in belief I feel it's mending
All I was enchanting, and dreaming, thoughts shifting
It all led to this, today’s endless bliss
In a midwestern summer, a meant to happen lover
A fate strewn, soon to be kiss
You were caught in my vision, and I can’t forget the listening
To tree frogs and cicadas waiting, the river slowed and pines were circling
Round in our scheme, and all we’d yet to see, in the western range
With a big sky and sunsets pinned by glaciers where trails won’t end They’re gold to you
Well before we knew
A sun cast dune laid like a Sleeping Bear
A blue brighter than eyes on the shore where they stare
Right out to a day all afloat in laughter shared
A pyramid point, a friendship coined, a day broken open with love to bear
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7. |
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Josie's on the Buffalo Plains
Fell in love with taking his day in his hands
He couldn't stay, he's a roamin' man
In this town no more
With a world class tangle of under beard
Coffee brown eyes and a practiced sneer
He’ll hug you tight if you get too near
He's a good ol' friend of mine
He's a good ol' friend of mine
He left his life a little at a time
He's a good ol' friend of mine
Donald had some wild years
Whiskey in his eyes, tears in his beers
Woke up one day, looked in the mirror
To the stare of a stranger man
With a steady hand and a shaky voice
He gave up drinking, said he didn’t have a choice
Got married in a barn, had a couple of boys
He's a good ol' friend of mine
He's a good ol' friend of mine
He built his life one board at a time
He's a good ol' friend of mine
Annie probably knew I'd break her heart
I was sincere and crazy, from the start
We were thick and thin, drifted apart
Hanging up the telephone line
She’s got a laugh that hits you right in the chest
She's a spring born baby, Queen of the West
We’ve been through hell, you know the rest
She's a good ol' friend of mine
She's a good ol' friend of mine
We spent a couple years lost in the pines
She's a good ol' friend of mine
Oh, when it changes
In the middle of the night
Your friends have not left you
They’ve just taken flight
Taken flight
Taken flight
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8. |
Echo
04:43
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My voice was caught in the stairway's echo
My thoughts were caught back home
Stratified
Canonized
Alone, with a ghost
Of a lover, an ancient sufferer
I’ve fallen from place too soon
But traffic won’t stop
And mortar won’t halt
And the brick that we built would fall
With the snowflakes
That drift through your head
That soaked your midwestern skin again
As I ran a circle, and prayed for April
I’m frozen, and I’m giving in
To when I did no wrong
And ivy stopped scribing up your crooked walls
When propane stung
And my heart was rung
In knowing this is what I’d become
I’m longing to leave you alone
I’m longing to leave you alone
But I can’t bear to leave you
And I can only see you
Under a salamander’s moon
Tell me what brought the bottles to breaking
There are shards in my soles, and sorrow ain’t shaking
But breath condensed
And thoughts sublimed
With my windows fogged from the time
The creek ran dry
We carved our initials with a knife
In the quartz on your dresser
Shining in amber
The sunlight expelled my mind
To the dread of the huddling winter
Your pipes frozen solid and your lakes grown splintered
In the ice, and the pressure of the ruptured water
In a 70 degree November
I waited, I can’t say for what
I was caught in retrograde’s clutch
We were piled in leaves
I could barely breathe
With you there next to me
I’m longing to leave you alone
I’m longing to leave you alone
But I can’t bear to leave you
And I can only see you
Under a salamander's moon
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9. |
Sparrow
03:12
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Sparrow, Sparrow
Oh, where have you gone?
Were you caught, snared away at dusk till dawn?
Did you wake to find the thistle strand lost
To hide away in moonlight, in unfamiliar song?
Did you try to follow up the cold muddy river?
Were you thrown by the flood, a wake unforgiving?
Knowing you didn’t have to stray so far
Searching for the life you knew well before dark?
Did you do your best to tend to your nest
Only to meet the claw, the north winds relent?
If only I could shield you as I wish
As the branches, the twigs, that held you in their grip
Did you see me floating along below
From Lansing to the Lake, between unknowns?
The depths and the heavens, wherever I end
Where I roam, alone, to compose a letter sent
If only I could have borrowed your wings
For a day, for a night, to see another spring
I know you can’t rest, you must push on
That Tired Old River will drown me before long
Maybe you heard of a finer place
One without the worry to shed the winter’s weight
I can’t say I blame you
But I’ll stay just the same
To wait on your return when Summer comes again
Sparrow, Sparrow
Oh, where have you gone?
Your reflection, your feather, your song, your letter
Your light kept on
Will never be lost
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10. |
By The Memory
04:21
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From a seed to a sprout
A stem without a sound
Like a blossom nurtured in time
We’ll survive
Even In Absence
The dimming light flying
We’ll hold on hope
In love worth everything
We’ll press on together
Remember our neighbor
Empathy unassuming
In selfless giving
From a seed to a sprout
A stem without a sound
Like a blossom nurtured in time
We’ll survive
Though we may be parting
It all ever changing
I’ll look to you
When birds stop their singing
I’ll carry it with me
Stay well considering
‘Cause I’ve you
And you’ve me
To get through
And help each other be
From a seed to a sprout
A stem without a sound
Like a blossom nurtured in time
We’ll survive
By the memory
A bliss built in family
In blood, in bond
Humanity’s song
In all that let this love live on
From a seed to a sprout
A stem without a sound
Like a blossom nurtured in time
We’ll survive
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Monte Pride Meridian Charter Township, Michigan
Monte Pride is a Michigan-born and based singer-songwriter and fingerstyle guitarist whose music recalls the delicate vocals of Simon & Garfunkel, with guitar-work reminiscent of The Tallest Man On Earth and early Joni Mitchell. Paired with electric, ambient soundscapes, he blends haunting melodies with vivid lyricism to create lush, experimental folk songs. ... more
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