1. |
Babylon
06:10
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Babylon
How many miles to Babylon?
Oh they say 3 score and 10.
Can I get there by candlelight?
Yes they say and back again.
I saw a man wrapped in the dark,
hoping nobody'd see his skin;
he asked if I had any change:
41 miles to Babylon.
I saw a woman standing with
a bag of water in the new moon
and her hands tied with an old rope:
21 miles to Babylon.
I saw a kid, oh black and blue,
and writing down a mixed up song
about an airplane that was lost:
1 more mile to Babylon.
By the waters
by the waters of Babylon
there we sat down and wept
when we remembered Zion.
Poetry By Larry Beckett
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2. |
Parados
02:12
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Parados
Nothing, only white froth, on the surface,
in the current; it fizzles and gives back
sky, wharf, our images, but in an unsure
mirror, the shallows; it shifts, look: all
our yesterdays, under, in the sea tangle,
in the green obscure, where the hours warp
and the years writhe. I cup the salt water
and it slides off; oh can we dive? How do
I take you back, to the mermaid songs, days
of hallucination, and circuit riding into
the south, if it’s only conjured? that time,
in the mountains like smoke, a woman, from
the last century, a photograph, her eyes,
and what her life was, I could only wonder.
Poetry By Larry Beckett
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3. |
On The Hook
04:12
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On the Hook
I saw the gypsy woman
and drank her rum and coke;
You'll never be a dream, she said,
till you go up in smoke.
I saw the country doctor
and I showed him my star;
You're sick of rock-and-roll, he said,
haul out your old guitar.
I'm walking on the clouds,
I'm on the hook all right;
I'll kick you in the morning,
oh love me up tonight.
Poetry By Larry Beckett
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4. |
Starlight
01:46
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Starlight
I owe my voice to a fiction,
and my nickname to a fan;
I owe my voice to a fiction,
and my face to the make-up man.
I am the whip of the season,
till I return my routine;
I am the whip of the season,
I am a limelight machine.
Mama, raise the rag,
I'm going on;
daddy, hit the lights,
I'm going on.
Diddledeedum, diddledeedum,
huftymagufty, my queen;
diddledeedum, diddledeedum,
I am a limelight machine.
Poetry By Larry Beckett
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5. |
Bad Faith
02:30
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Bad Faith
I was burning up in the white chevy,
no gift, and going away:
It's not that I don't care, was all
the moon moved you to say.
Nine kisses, and like smoke backsliding
to the hard astronomer,
you wrote, Aren't women horrible?
oh angel, in bad faith.
I was fire-walking, and for what?
no sex, no souvenirs
but the dead iris out in the trash,
now that the moon is down.
Go jellyfish from man to man,
oh ex, fuck who you like:
don't say I was your up-and-coming,
I was only insurance.
Poetry By Larry Beckett
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6. |
Dreamboat
03:32
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Dreamboat
I recollect a poker hand
like bourbon over ice;
you rode me home in your mama's car
that night of mysteries.
White stars were falling in the air,
the harbor under snow;
and there she lay, her anchor down,
the dreamboat.
I sang ballads in books of matches
all eighty-one alone
till like the new year you hauled in
salvation from the east.
Oh and too soon the sky was red,
I heard a whistle blow:
she was steaming out into the dark,
the dreamboat.
The days stack up like sailor's mail,
the weather's fair for now;
I walk down to the waterfront,
a barge is sliding by.
I hang on to an image in
the absurd foam below:
roll back before it all dissolves,
oh dreamboat.
Poetry By Larry Beckett
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7. |
John Lennon
05:32
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John Lennon
We listen to old rock-and-roll
under the comeback sun,
my girl and I, and talk of kids,
but oh, where's John?
I watched the game that winter night
the newsman said he's gone:
imagine there's no heaven, oh
then oh, where's John?
I sent my love to Yoko, and
dear Julian and Sean,
but all that they could answer me
was oh, where's John?
I don't know why that man cracked up
or who sold him the gun:
it's you and I who make the laws,
and oh, where's John?
That little war, the English let
the Argentine boys down
into the waves, and who spoke out,
and oh, where's John?
I love the earth, like always, but
it's hard to write a song:
it's not as good as it once was,
and oh, where’s John?
Poetry By Larry Beckett
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8. |
Lost!
00:56
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9. |
Winter Blues
04:46
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Winter Blues
Oh the blues are blowing
from the east on me,
like a Colorado blizzard
easy to foresee.
Blackbird on the wire,
blackbird in the yard,
whistle once and tell me
why I fall so hard.
The weeds are frozen,
everything's unknown:
I know you're off limits
and walk on alone.
Oh it's in the gospel,
seek and you shall find:
snow is on the river,
you are on my mind.
Come on, baby, out
in the zero-degree:
when I see you, there's
fire inside of me.
I can take the winter,
I can take the wind:
say you will meet me
at the other end.
Poetry By Larry Beckett
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10. |
Ode To A Wild Rose
00:42
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11. |
Wild Roses
04:13
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Wild Roses
It was in another winter
not long after it snowed,
a bus was shifting down
on a blue southern road.
Wild roses, long
in stem and leaf,
and daisies, oh
but they are brief.
Old man at the window
with a heavenly bouquet,
a girl across the aisle
who could not look away.
Wild roses, long
in stem and leaf,
and daisies, oh
but they are brief.
You love the flowers, he said,
and the flow of the sap;
my wife would like for you...
and laid them in her lap.
Wild roses, long
in stem and leaf,
and daisies, oh
but they are brief.
She smiled inside & dreamed
of blossoms when you marry,
watched him get off and walk
into the cemetery.
Wild roses, long
in stem and leaf,
and daisies, oh
but they are brief.
Poetry By Larry Beckett
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12. |
Synchronicity
03:43
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Synchronicity
In winter, electricity,
lyrics from cyberspace,
Wild Roses, sent to me
for music, out of grace.
Synchronicity:
what light, like divinity,
is carried by invisible
rivers uniting you and me.
In her diary, my first
solo with that brass band;
and oh, I read the name:
Wild Rose, in her lost hand.
Synchronicity:
what light, like divinity,
is carried by invisible
rivers uniting you and me.
Poetry By Larry Beckett
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13. |
Exodos
02:21
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Exodos
Boats sag in toward the anchorage at dusk;
on this absurd wharf, what can I—The blue
mountains: I carry the wilderness inside,
in city, and sprawl, on the bleak streets,
and it’s high country. The fair and tender,
who’s over that hill, yesterday, yonder:
her southern way showed me how to loosen
into the joy, and if my only forget-me-not
is a crack in my heart, that’s where love
leaks out, and in. Like the tide, sheering:
winds are blowing out there, the ocean is
invisibly urged, and the salt seance ended;
over the green revelation, white foam, lace
curtain, closes, a wave of water, nothing.
Poetry By Larry Beckett
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14. |
On The Hook (Reprise)
04:07
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On the Hook
I saw the gypsy woman
and drank her rum and coke;
You'll never be a dream, she said,
till you go up in smoke.
I saw the country doctor
and I showed him my star;
You're sick of rock-and-roll, he said,
haul out your old guitar.
I'm walking on the clouds,
I'm on the hook all right;
I'll kick you in the morning,
oh love me up tonight.
Poetry By Larry Beckett
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15. |
One More Mile
02:00
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The Long Lost Band England, UK
Formed in Lancaster, UK in January 2010 they recorded their first album ‘The Big Light Secret’. They supported Icicle Works
star Ian McNabb & Mercury Prize nominees ‘I Am Kloot’ The band were championed by Tom Robinson at BBC6 Music
Larry Beckett, lyricist to Tim Buckley, started writing with the band in 2014. They made an album together called ‘One More Mile’ (2015)
... more
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