1. |
Disintegrating Heart
03:52
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Even your eyes
Even your dark eyes
Shed more light
Than a sunrise
Just your voice
Just your bright voice
Sheds enough light
Light to see by
I was broken
I was lonely
I was disintegrating heart
Before you
I gave everything too much thought
Before you
Everything was overwrought
Before you, before you
Even your cries
Even your blind rage
Are like the open air
After a tiny cage
I was dead-ended
A bruised and distended,
trapped and disintegrating heart
I was up-ended
Lost and expended,
trapped and disintegrating heart
Before you
I gave everything too much thought
Before you
Everything was overwrought
Before you, before you
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2. |
Tied to the Post
03:37
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You can hold my eyes
Hold my body with yours
But my mind’s flown out
The open doors
This is happening
Too much these days
Gave it too much freedom
Now it never obeys
I’ve always allowed it
To wander at will
When I’m tied to the post
It can make its own kill
What have I done,
Who is this beast
Who comes home bloody-mouthed
Though I’ve laid out a feast?
My mind’s this treacherous thing
With a pair of dark wings
When I want it to stay
That’s when it quickly flits away
Perhaps I should keep it
Hooded and caged
But when I tried that before
It became so enraged
I slowly lost
My will and nerve
Now there’s no question
Who rules and who serves
My mind’s this treacherous thing
With its dark powerful wings
When I ask it to stay
That’s when it always slips away
It’s such a terrible thing
I should have clipped its wings
But if I forced it to stay
It would just escape in some other way
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3. |
I Disagree
02:48
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I disagree
I disagree
With everything you’re telling me
I’ve been so good
I’ve held my tongue
I learned my role
When I was young
I’ve disagreed
Too secretly
With everything you’ve been telling me
I’ve held in
My quiet rage
It wants some freedom
In its old age
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4. |
Hollow Beating
04:19
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This hollow beating
Keeps repeating
And its ragged pleading
Is so misleading
It’s always there
It never rests
A low dull ache
In my chest
This dark slow bleeding
Drains all feeling
Except for needing
This endless needing
It never goes out
It never rests
A pilot light
In my chest
But I am learning
Not to take this yearning
As some kind of sign
Some kind of clue
To who I should be
and what I should do
I must stop reading
Any meaning
In this hollow beating
This endless repeating
It’s always there
It never rests
A part of me
As my own breath
And it won’t stop seething
Til I stop breathing
This hollow beating…
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5. |
Fame and Glory
03:27
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I guess the truth is
I need my time alone
I’m not shy or timid
Solitude runs deep in my bones
I want a quiet life
Lived quietly
With just my baby
And my baby and me
I read a lot of books
Never go out at night
You may not hear about me
And that’s really all right
I wouldn’t trade
All my privacy
For any amount of
Fame and glory
So I hope that you’re not waiting for me
To turn into something that I’ll never be
I’ll never be
I’ve never wanted to be
It’s not that I don’t trust
Your advice per se
But I’ve become too fond
Of doing things my own way
It’s taken me
A long, long time to see
That most of your rules
Need not apply to me
So I hope that you’re not waiting for me
To turn into something that I’ll never be
I’ll never be
I’ve never wanted to be
Something that I will never be
Will never be
I’ve never wanted to be
And I won’t make the mistake of thinking
that would make me happy
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6. |
Who I Am
04:04
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Who am I, who am I
Who am I to hide?
If I am cast in the die
Then who am I to hide?
Who am I, who am I
Who am I to disguise
This deep cry, this inner cry?
So who am I to let the rift grow wide?
Who am I to hide
Who I am, who I am
Who I am?
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7. |
Habits
03:24
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It’s a habit
You inhabit
Your life-full
Of habits
It’s a tyranny
The unconscious slave in me
Does what they command
Shackled feet and hand
There’s no way around it
You must inhibit your habit
And do something new
Even if it feels backwards to you
You must do something new
Even if it feels backwards to you
They are dear to me
Even when they savagely
Push and hold me down
To this cold familiar ground
And there’s no way around it
I must inhibit these habits
And try something new
With nothing to turn to
I must try something new
In my nakedness, with nothing to turn to
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8. |
Empty Shelf
04:07
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My life once felt
Like a dusty shelf
And I was repelled
By my rusty self
So I told my heart
To grow up and move out
For holding me back
And wearing me out
When you moved out
I lost all source of heat
And gained an awful silence
Without your steady beat
Now this block of ice
Is lodged in my throat
Where the blood once flowed
Is now a frozen moat
Come on home, old heart of mine
You can be my black and blue valentine
I’ll never make you try to be
The calculating part of me
Come on home, old heart of mine
Ten years is such a long time
I’ll finally let you be
The living, beating
The living beating part of me
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9. |
Battle Stare
04:04
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10. |
Meristem
05:19
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When you heard that awful sound
And found the helpless bleeding doe
You stayed with her until her life ran out
That was just like you
You still come often to this place
Where thick salal has overgrown
The quiet remains of clean white bones
And dwell in the memory of her eyes
That seemed to say she was more alive
Upon her death than she’d ever been in life
That’s just like you
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11. |
I Don't Believe It
04:02
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Maybe I suffer from grand delusions
Maybe you should sell your soul down the river
Maybe we have made nothing but poor choices
Maybe they were right about that after all
But I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it
I don’t believe it, and nor do you
Maybe I lack essential drive
Maybe you really are too sensitive
Maybe we are naïve and foolish
Maybe they were right about that after all
But I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it
I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it
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Alicia Hansen Vancouver, British Columbia
Haunting and sophisticated, Vancouver native Alicia Palmquist Hansen’s “ethereal voice and classically informed arrangements come together in experimental pop that’s both listenable and challenging” (Now Magazine).
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