Get all 15 Helen McCookerybook releases available on Bandcamp and save 35%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Drawing on my Dreams, Feminist Jingles, Daisychain, The Cutty Wren, Equal Parts, Helen and the Horns etc., Pea Soup, Green, and 7 more.
1. |
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The properties of chalk and sun
You make a mark and then you run
While meeting faces catch the light
Their fleeting traces drift from sight and they're gone.
Take the sun, it fades away
Your soul into the shadows grey
This temporary mark's in vain
With one sweep of the brushing rain they're gone.
I have seen the mysteries of the city night
I have seen the puzzles and the tricks of noonday light
Moonlight pale and secretive can hide a hundred sins
But you can be a fugitive whose darkness is within
O cruel sun of Africa
You're tempered by the Northern air
Beneath the Arctic's melting snows
this hemisphere's assurance goes, and it's gone.
I have seen the mysteries of the city night
I have seen the puzzles and the tricks of noonday light
Moonlight pale and secretive can hide a hundred sins
But you can be a fugitive whose darkness is within
The properties of chalk and sun
You make a mark and then you run
While meeting faces catch the light
Their fleeting traces drift from sight and they're gone.
Copyright, PRS, Helen McCookerybook
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2. |
Butterfly
00:39
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A butterfly upon a pin
She's on her own
She settled here to dry her wings
A deadly throne
The collector's on his way
And he'll catch her if he can
And the pin will pin her down
And she'll never fly again
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3. |
A Bad Day
02:57
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It was a bad day for me and for you
It was a bad day, what a thing to go through
It was a bad day, But I knew what to do because I'd seen it all before.
It was a bad day for me and for you
It was a bad day, what a thing to go through
It was a bad day, But I knew what to do and I just couldn't take any more
Ooh baby
Do you love my empty head
When you leave your love unsaid
And you warm someone else's bed
Ooh baby
At the dawn of every day
There's nothing left for me to say
But don't you like it best that way?
I used to wake up with the sun in my eyes
I used to wake up without a disguise
i used to to wake up lying next to my prize
And the world looked good to me.
i need to wake up with the sun in my eyes
i need to wake up without a disguise
i need to wake up lying next to my prize
With our lives in harmony.
Ooh baby
Do you love my empty head
When you leave your love unsaid
And you warm someone else's bed
Ooh baby
At the dawn of every day
There's nothing left for me to say
But don't you like it best that way?
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4. |
I Feel It
03:46
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I feel it
But I can't say
Cos something has taken my breath away.
The window that I'm looking through
Is holding me back from reaching you
Oh is it gonna stay this way
Or could I be happy today?
I know what I oughta do
Forget all the feelings I have for you
But no matter how hard I try
I'm caught in your web and I don't know why.
Oh is it gonna stay this way
Or could I be happy today?
I wanna know
Just what you are going to do
Will you turn me away
Or hold me, at last, close to you?
I know what I oughta do
Forget all the feelings I have for you
But no matter how hard I try
I'm caught in your web and I don't know why.
Oh is it gonna stay this way
Or could I be happy today?
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5. |
A New Day
03:18
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Energy, girl you can light up a room with your smile
Travel the world in original hippy style
Oh life can be hard but it won't get you down
I've never seen you face the world with a frown
Cos everything changes when the world spins around a new day.
Life in the underworld treated us all quite mean
But you're a survivor girl, the best one I've ever seen
Oh life can be hard but it won't get you down
I've never seen you face the world with a frown
Cos everything changes when the world spins around a new day.
So dance the night away
Life's too short to cry
Now's the time to play
So lift your spirits high!
Possibly girl, you've been hiding your troubles away
And under your smile is a sadness, and you can't say
Oh life can be hard but it won't get you down
I've never seen you face the world with a frown
Cos everything changes when the world spins around a new day.
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6. |
January in Paris
02:35
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In a cafe on the corner on a winter's day
He warms her hands; my heart stands still
I realise what I'm trying to say; it's been so hard to understand.
They don't see any other people
They don't notice where they are
He warms her hands; my heart stands still
This moment shows me how I feel:
The pain, the pain the pain
January in Paris
Love's a silent tomb.
Oh look into my eyes the way he looks into her eyes
And hold my hand the way he holds hers
Clasped in your own.
I just can't stand this feeling
Alone, alone, alone.
January in Paris
Love's a silent tomb.
Across the street there is a graveyard
Misty, dark and cold
Just like our lives.
Will we grow old
In wintertime
With hearts of stone
At once together
Yet so alone?
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7. |
Poetry and Rhyme
04:48
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Oh love is pain and how it hurts when I am not with you
Oh I could live within your life, is that what I should do?
I'm falling a little at a time
Falling for Poetry and Rhyme
We'll get to know each other through the songs each other sings
But will butterflies that brush together break each other's wings?
I'm falling a little at a time
Falling for Poetry and Rhyme
I'm falling for Poetry and Rhyme.
You've said that you would wait for me for ten long years or more
Well I could love you for that long, of that you can be sure
I'm falling a little at a time
Falling for Poetry and Rhyme
Oh love is pain and how it hurts when I am not with you
Oh I could live within your life, is that what I should do?
I'm falling a little at a time
Falling for Poetry and Rhyme
I'm falling for Poetry and Rhyme.
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8. |
Rock'n'Romance
00:40
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Rock'n'romance
They don't go together
The green eyed monster and the brown eyed man
Rock'n'romance, you'll never get to Heaven
If I can't get there nobody can!
I'll make a bet you won't find a partner
While you're playing around in that band
Any romance is just a non-starter
Till you keep your equipment in the van!
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9. |
Screaming
04:11
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When you're bowed down by the weight of the world
When you're confused by the lies that you're told
You're looking for love and the trail has gone cold
Just open the floodgates and sing from your soul
That's why I'm singing, sighing, screaming
I tried to hold on to a fragment of calm
But life came along and it twisted my arm
I've fallen right out of the world of the sane
Here it comes again
I'm screaming!
I though that I could look life in the eye
see through the darkness and understand why
Suddenly everything was passing me by
And all this confusion made me wanna cry
That's why I'm singing, sighing, screaming
I tried to hold on to a fragment of calm
But life came along and it twisted my arm
I've fallen right out of the world of the sane
Here it comes again
I'm screaming!
Oh when you are down, oh can't lose a frown, oh you're feeling blue, oh Here's what to do:
Just lift up your spirits and sing from your soul
Try to forget all the lies you've been told
throw off the troubles and cares that you hold
And soon you'll be feeling on top of the world
That's why I'm singing, sighing, screaming
I tried to hold on to a fragment of calm
But life came along and it twisted my arm
I've fallen right out of the world of the sane
Here it comes again
I'm screaming!
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10. |
Dreaming of Narcissus
04:06
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Dreaming of Narcissus
Mirrors of the mind
Echoing his wishes
Reveries sublime
Empty dark skies never meet a sunrise
No escape from the gloom
All that space but no room
All we love draped in dross
Rolling stones with no moss
Nothing left but a phone on a stick made of stone
All alone.
I dreamed I saw Narcissus
In a desert harsh and cold
I caught a flash of fishes
Caught but couldn't hold
Empty dark skies never meet a sunrise
No escape from the gloom
All that space but no room
All we love draped in dross
Rolling stones with no moss
Nothing left but a phone on a stick made of stone
All alone.
Tick tock melting clock
Seconds tick by till the time that you die
Tick tock, body rot
From our fist waking call till death touches all
Tick tock, frozen time
Captured in silence, this life in its prime
Tick tock sand and stone
Painted in putty the colour of bone.
Dreaming of Narcissus
Mirrors of the mind
Echoing his wishes
Reveries sublime
Empty dark skies never meet a sunrise
No escape from the gloom
All that space but no room
All we love draped in dross
Rolling stones with no moss
Nothing left but a phone on a stick made of stone
All alone.
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11. |
Memento Mori
04:12
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Grandma,
I'm calling!
Please listen to me.
Grandma
I'm calling!
Please listen to me
I remember what you said,
Nestling in your woollen bed
Wrap this snake around your wrist,
Oh do remember me like this.
Grandpa,
I'm calling!
Please listen to me
Grandpa,
I'm calling!
Please listen to me
I remember what you said
Fiercely from your crackling bed
Wrap this chain around your arm
And it will be your good luck charm.
Wrought of metal harsh and cold
Everlasting like your soul
Burnished by their hardened lives
Age may dim, but memory survives.
And ove the horizon
the sun begins to climb
Patina gleaming
As sleep dulls their eyes
I remember what you said,
Nestling in your woollen bed
Wrap this snake around your wrist,
Oh do remember me like this.
Wrap this snake around your wrist,
Oh do remember me like this.
Wrap this snake around your wrist,
Oh do remember me... hisss.......
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12. |
Sulkworm
02:12
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You spin a mood
My sulkworm
From infanthood
Every colour has turned
To deepest blue
Yet I still love you.
You wear me down
My sulkworm
That constant frown
Those eyes may burn this woman's patience through
Yet I still love you
Yet I still love you
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Helen McCookerybook UK
Helen McCookerybook is an outstanding songwriter who's beginnings formed in the punk era, old associates The Monochrome
Set/The Pirhanas her first band was The Chefs (John Peel fave) She later signed to RCA with her band The Horns and had a couple of minor hits
Helen took 20 years out to become a Mum and PHD, taking up her songwriting again in 2003. Suburban Pastoral was her 1st solo record.
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