1. |
Levee / 1927
22:07
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(Monologue at top written by Holly Anderson)
She told me her sister and the new baby floated away fast and hard. They never kenw the river picked them up and took them so far. So far away far. The sweetest Queen of Sheba asleep on her Mississippi barge. She told me greasy mud bundled them up real prim - in a raggedy blanket so dirty and grim. Filled their sweet mouths full up and their brown blinking eyes shut. Stiffened all that pretty hair on their heads with dead grey clay that dried real tight in the no-mercy sun. No-mercy moon. For days and day.s Waiting. She told me they looked like a wooden madonna clutching her own christ church child. She told me they were effigies dug out of the smashed riverbank once the flood water wound down down down. And it got real quiet all over again. Just some birds calling in the Indigo Bush. She told me the Tulip trees and Sweetgums were tipped up all around like a tornado tearing through fast on a terrible bender. She told me the trees got tangled with handbags and wash tubs with dead cows and skinny dogs - with ribbons of bedsheets and Sunday dresses and chiffarobes cracked into bits - with broken mirrors and cook pots that flashed so bright in the light. No-mercy sun. No-mercy moon. Again. Again. Just about then - the turkey vultures flew down slow and started to feed. So they chased them off with sticks and stones they chased them off they hollered and screamed. Then boats pulled up to row the privileged away like a golden dream. While they stood by waiting for nothing to come - got burnt by the sun - got burnt by the sun. The dray carts squeaked. The dray carts came. The dray carts took their dead away. She told me her sister's kids both little and big threw themselves right on top of her bent-down broken-up body. And they cried and they cried til they were all wrung dry. Saying 'Mama's gone.' 'Mama's gone.' Just like birds calling in the Indigo Bush. She told me the dead were stacked up so high - stacked up like loads of yellow pine cut down quick - cut down quick and ready to ship - far away north.
She told me now they have to play all their pain away.
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2. |
Boilermakers
05:06
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Up 'the Range' there was the rescue mission that reeked of too many brandies with beer backs in a car traveling too fast. And she was there - bent rigid int he back corner of her brother's Chrysler with a sprung seat pressed up hard against a Great Blue Heron with a broken wing flapflapflapping in her screwed tight 13 year-old face. Guys with names like Buckshot or Rosebud or Ironhead were always riding along bellowing 'More-beer-goddamnit' and where were they taking this should-be-dead-by-now-animal? Another winter night the first-born, older than her by 20 years ran full speed up Sheridan Street with a dead timber wolf high in his bent arms hollering the whole time about the wonder he'd found frozen mid-lope at the side of the road. Her drunken herd of brothers demanded all attention all the time. They packed the little white house on White Street with whirling curses and chaos. She wasn't the baby they were.
Was it ever any different after she went away on that eastbound bus the day she graduated high school? Was it? She packed up and left behind all the diamond embroidered skies tea colored lakes pitch pines scale skittered fish tables slammed together with a mouthful of nails lye soap fire towers tobacco cans daddy ghosts in the fresh snow and stalactites of blood glistening in the gutted caves of deer hanging in the trees.
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3. |
Mirst & Avel
04:19
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He was dressed all in black, his long hair looked wetThat fell about his face, his flat forehead
His clothes were tight, his chest was thin
A guitar hung from his neck on a string
A girl stood on the porch at the top of the steps
She was large, pale, had a nice shaped mouth
I got a guitar, sister shakes her thing
A man can make a lot of money with one of these things
Mirst slammed into a stance and punched his guitar
Avel's eyes rolled back, her hips went wild
Mama yelled out, leave your brother alone
Take that damn guitar, there'll be peace in this home
Hey brother how'd you like us sing something for you
A little thing we worked up, a killer tune
Mirst slammed his foot to the floor three times
They wailed like they had the devil inside
Them childrens got talent is what Pa said
Yea, they do have promise Didymus bled
Mirst clawed the guitar, Hell ripped at the seams
A man can get on t.v. playing one of these things
Hey, get it down deep Avel, shake that thing
She moved those hips with power and speed
You got a manager the man asked and laughed real hard
Sing the gospel kid, you're gonna go far
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4. |
Henry
03:09
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Henry I'll write you a letter
Henry I'll sing you a song
Henry I'll put my words in the letter
When you get it you can sing along
Henry I'll tell you a secret
Tell you in a whisper way deep and low
Prick our fingers with the pin from my hat
Swear on our blood that we'll never look back
Henry it's starting to rain now
Wind is kicking up mean and low
Night is falling like a blow to the head
Take my hand and together we'll go
Henry can you hear the howling
Wind is screaming, teasing you so
Fear not my sweet little dumpling
My house is stronger than you know
Henry did you get my letter
Henry did you sing my song
Henry did you take my secret
Pull it out when the day is long
Henry can you hear them calling
Quiet now whisper low
Prick our fingers with the pin from my hat
Swear on our blood that we'll never look back
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5. |
Oh Holy Night
05:47
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Here's what he looked like to her: a boiled ham with a big-mouth in an Army-issue jacket. Here's what he did first thing int he morning: clumped and bumped down the stairs still wearing his huge, white bunny boots 'to do battle', as he put it. Now he was still boozed-up down there in the spooky basement with a shotgun and the live turkey he'd won in a poker game out on Burnside Lake Christmas Eve. She silently, secretly prayed that he'd go straight to hell for gambling 'oh holy night' away instead of taking her to midnight mass like he'd promised. And she was not going down there to ask him to take her this morning either. No. Not down there with all the dead flies tangled up in the just-like-old-ladies-grey-hanging-hair of spider webs and quart jars of knobby, knuckle-looking pickles and yellow peppers turning black in a stinky bath of vinegar. Floating and swaying fingers behind the dusty glass that made her gag just to look. A cast-iron cauldron deep enough to drown in was down there and broken chairs spilling stuffing that looked like chicken and dumplings she got sick on once. And that nasty wringer thing that sucked her arm right up to the shoulder was waiting for her to come near again. How ma had screamed as she unwound the wet bedsheets to free her flattened arm. It tingled so hard she thought her arm had turned to mercury and if it was broken maybe she could roll it into silvery little tears and dirty pearls. She wasn't going down there. Now she heard the spray and rattle of buckshot hitting the foundation walls, the pipes growling like guts, the belching fiery furnace. No, maybe that was him belching instead of shooting that gulping, skittery bird dead. Then he was supposed to pluck and gut the poor dumb clucker and bring it straight upstairs to ma to roast in the rowboat-size pan for Christmas Day dinner. Just another promise he was turning into another big, fat brandy-stinking lie.
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Peg Simone New York, New York
Peg Simone's music can best be described as a mash of dark blues & storytelling.
Recent focus has
been on performing and building music from various works of literature, specifically those of the southern-Gothic genre, as well as her own short stories.
Aural to visual - she creates stop-motion animation videos complimentary of the songs that can be viewed on her Vimeo channel.
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