Get all 92 Bill Mallonee releases available on Bandcamp and save 20%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of WELCOME TO STRUGGLEVILLE (Remaster by Pete Lyman) 2024, Comes To Life (New single & free download), NORTH, SOUTH, EAST, & WEST, ABOVE, BELOW & WITHIN (single from Orphan Songs), HERE IT OPENS WITH A PRAYER, BUT IT CLOSES WITH A SONG (2022), A CLAMORING OF GHOSTS (2021), THE LOT OF EVERYMAN (a free download today), STUNNED (an anniversary song), "LEAD ON, KINDLY LIGHT" & "THIS WORLD & ONE MORE" (2020), and 84 more.
Excludes supporter-only releases.
1. |
Tim (For Josh)
04:33
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TIM B. (for Joshua) w&m by bill mallonee
Now that lake was all sun cast until the storm came up
Maybe Athens Georgia never promised you enough
And I remember your smile; the one that held so much
Ain't it just the curse of youth to be so well in touch
chorus:
and your eyes were a lake
where the wind was never still
and your heart was a sky
waiting to be filled
Half-truth explanations from today's vending machines
And the boxes you put all your loose things in?
They've been lost at sea
Where sorrow is a diver who keeps coming up alone
and sorrow is a father at the end of a cell phone
Grief she holds you captive in a well as dark as night
and that ladder of composure you built all day
rumbles in a certain slant of light
It's leaving you reduced while you try to catch your breath;
And every tear we cry for our lost loves is really for ourselves
There's no poison there to infect you now
No secrets to erase
No need to do anything at all
except to be embraced
And you're all warm and dry there
Inside a blanket called the truth
And there'll be no more rain
Falling through your roof
from Hit and Run (9 new songs/An afternoon of solo acoustic, harp & vocals), released January 1, 2005
Bill Mallonee: Guitars, vocals, harp
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2. |
Losing Battle
03:32
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ponder straight edged for a while
ruminations and consequences
outtakes and mending fences the errors of your ways
a little courageous moment
it's a plot of land and you could have owned it
where everything awaits the light of day
you can't outrun the black clouds
when you've allowed more than is allowed
the spirit leaves before the death rattle
losing battle
who knows where it all went
before you earned it it was all spent
and spending and getting and losing is all there is
left to your own devices
a few white lies and some compromises
you tell yourself but it's not sinking in
who knows where this all will go
with those thousand fools you call your heroes
expectations crossbars too high to reach
one two three here we go
is it a high-wire act or boondoggle side show
and there was no safety net underneath
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3. |
Cinnamon
05:25
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your skin was cinnamon
the trail of your dress at the summer's end
I never believed in much of anything
till then till then
bring the moon with you I heard you summon it
treasures opened and we both plundered it
the heave and throw of your raven hair
and your breath it was everywhere
stay a while stay a while
this thing is so fragile
waiting for a train that I've long since missed
waiting for a rain to come and drench
dry and brittle fields where I work and pray
white knuckle clenched jaw dry mouth for the sting to go away
could be what you read the chapter and the verse
a sad old passing or a bright new birth
you know how various combinations work
that old wound that you thought no longer hurt
stay a while stay a while
this thing feels so fragile
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4. |
Jump Start
04:42
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the sound of loneliness is breaking of glass
it's a woman that's crying as the tires squeal past
outside my old building with the outrageous rent
by an open window of an upstairs apartment
my battery died the very next morn
you were looking kind of beat up you were looking pretty worn
in that old college sweatshirt worn over your broken heart
but you said kid you look like you could use a jump start
with such a wound is there some antiseptic
for the tears and confusion of being rejected
buried under sand is there a playground girl
and how does woman carry all the weight of the world
he's been gone three weeks and he hasn't even phoned
you were thinking about moving striking out on your own
but where do you run when there's no place to hide
when every distance is forever when you're paralyzed
from the inside out of an outside turned in
and if it came down to him coming home again
would you jump off his car would you make his chrome shine
would you hand him the keys and say let's go for a ride
would you take your place on the passenger's side
would you take it to heart his lame ass alibis
and begin the cycle anew and afresh
would you paint a pretty smile over your perfect wreck
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5. |
Lucifer
04:36
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from a simple plant that was long growing there
from the king of the world to your worst nightmare
got you an old recipe and some chemicals to stir
it might have felt just like God once but now it's lucifer
oh to be clean
and you know the thing is sleeping a scratch below your skin
and God knows if you wake it up you gotta calm it down again
and I wonder what it felt like when the waters flooded in
and it got too hard to swim
it feels just like a hunger but you cannot feed the thing
it always wants a new song that you can't really sing
it never shows you the whole truth till the poison's leaking through
what you thought you were doing well now it's doing you
and it could take a few years to dig out of this mine
what with a shaft so deep and dark it might take a lifetime
the choices they're like diamonds you found down there one night
you gotta grab the one that's your true self and bring it to the light
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6. |
November Wind
03:35
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good fortune cut cleared out long ago
left us only here with the curse
hard luck it moved in a stone's throw away
and then things went from bad to worse
the November wind is at it again
sharp relief is less than a few crumbs
and the November wind is at it again
it's blowing through the scarecrow you've become
my dear father and those other fathers before
who bought this land from the Indians
the family well it spread out like an oak tree's branches
till the banker man took advantage of those years when the fields went bare
well if it all ends in judgment and it all ends in fire
why does the rich man get richer and the poor they learn to lie
first to themselves then to everybody else
you're way less than you were but you're still more than they are
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7. |
Flowers
04:22
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round here there's just trouble
chasing after the wind
buy that line with all the money in the bank
and never ever look in
to be so damn enlightened
oh to be so free
to be so down in the bottom of the ninth
at the top of the century
I came with dirty hands
I came with blinded eyes
tongue tied I could barely speak the truth
about my tall lies
they sold me on some pleasure
till the pleasure it sold me
into something that looked and smelled
a whole lot like slavery
we all need new beginnings
the first steps make you better
maybe you're just a prayer away
from getting your shit together
flowers growing out of the desert
flowers out of parched ground
flowers coming right up through the cracks
of the pavement in your old town
flowering's not a science
it's more like a fine art
flowers coming right up through the cracks
of our broke up little hearts
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8. |
Rescue
04:56
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it's the blues again and there's just no getting around it
whatever colors you were hoping to find well the darker shades have drowned it
get out of here and the check out time is always rushed
the paint and the chrome are starting to rust out here on your highway
and the face of fate never gave you the brush off glance
whatever makes you radiant shines deeper than you know
but that ledge you walked in the dark was so uncertain
and you can never gauge when the wind will rage and if that fall's gonna leave you hurting
life's always a lesson it's a new one at every turning
life's always a lesson I'm not so good at learning them
especially the big one about letting go
but I'll learn that one too if I don't have to let go of you
too much about me I fall into this trap
only God's thunderclap could ever save me now
honey you're about the best thing I've ever laid my eyes on it's true
you're the silver around my blue too much about me now what about you
when the dark veil that separates this world from the next
falls over my grey eyes and I sleep the sleep of death
sometimes they got to pry loose the last thing that your hands hold
honey that'll be your heart and the kindness you bestowed
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9. |
Willie Nelson's Guitar
03:44
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it was all about some distant goal
if you could just make it out of here
but what that was and how to go about doing it
was never made abundantly clear
what with a family all shot to hell
survival comes instinctively
I got an orphan dad in love with the bottle
and a mom with some sad brain chemistry
now hard work never hurt anybody
but still there wasn't much on the shelf
and really there are no bigger lies
than the ones you'll tell to yourself
somewhere my compass fell apart
I drifted way off course
when I put the damned thing back together
it never would point True North
the wind has ways of telling you
when you've gone too far
tonight I'm somewhere between Ansel Adam's half moon dome
and Willie Nelson's beat up guitar
you can sell your soul to Love's higher power
there's nothing that'll ever stop you
or you can sell your soul to the devil
he'll take you right up on the offer
today's djs on the radio say
you gotta buy this one it's a must
but the tunes that were old and beat up and wise
well they're the ones that I learned to trust
the ones all full of liars and lovers
robbers and murders and thieves
the ones all full of saints and sinners
a lot like you and me
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Bill Mallonee
Bill Mallonee is an Americana artist w/ 80 plus albums over a 30 year career. Voted by Paste Music Magazine #65 in their
"Top 100 Living Songwriters" poll. He was the
founding member of Vigilantes of Love. He has worked with Mark Heard, Buddy Miller, Emmylou Harris, & Peter Buck from REM.
His most recent work, "Lead On, Kindly Light" is a 23song double Cd released Feb 2020.
... more
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