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Perfumed Letter (2004)

by Bill Mallonee

/
1.
made a visit to your garden to come there and ask for pardon my offense was very great my defense was second rate she's luminous ya dig? yeah and she's so liquid tears were words and then again falling down like English rain once a king and now a fool lead me to baptismal pools and you put every fear to flight and you bathed me in the pale moonlight there were angels in the trees looking on looking on looking on looking on cross my heart and hope to tell your kiss is like a wishing well two coins tossed and here we crash i don't think i heard them splash
2.
do you remember what you wrote in the perfumed letter i was counting upon you though i know you deserve better the moon is on the waters and the hands move on your face of a clock that has no memory of our sad farewell embrace your love is fire and all aglow it's shimmering and vertigo we're shining hard like video and i am all of nothing i will never be enough tryin' desperately to fill all this void that keeps on showing up uninvited to your parties unwanted in your bedroom while your innocence is checking out with the better part of you i forget what you wrote in that perfumed letter i remember taking note that you had made me better
3.
i've got you and some scars for all my labors you've got me everybody needs a Savior i feel bad all these days that we spent running you're all grown up and i hardly saw it coming i believe it turns to gold watch love begin to unfold it's like a story you were once told when you believed in God and New Romantics and life out there on other planets angel's wings and all these giants being slain the smallest stone well it can get lodged in your brain i see you and my heart fills with emotion i push your swing but it's silent and in slow motion i'm always falling in love it's the least you can do i'm always falling in love with something other than you pull me up God i don't know why i'm lame i'm drowning in a sadness i can't hardly name easily swayed by the power of suggestion it's always hard getting past those first impressions
4.
if the weather was inclimate i'd have told you in a minute you can rest your worries here anytime you want to dear and if it's moving way too fast well there is this looking glass the future and the past are breaking down in all this sunshine you ought to know i guess it's a different sort of day when you walked by in that dress and she's not an ordinary girl she's a million miles away in an extraordinary world and i guess i'd have to say come whatever come what may i just pray to reach you where it hurts the most hold you just a little closer with the blue sky over my head and it's so plain to everyone the street is beat and there's a lot of nothing to be done here's a loyal heart has yours once ever been broken? and all the loudest words it seems are the ones that don't get spoken color me impressed you could say i'm in deep yeah more or less
5.
it happens every time that you walk into this somewhere between happiness and mysteriousness i'm falling for your charms melting in your arms two become one and i hope you're having fun you'll believe in magic with these higher mathematics two become one sometimes the universe explodes you can hear and smell and touch and taste as she unfolds like a cannon at the circus but this will never hurt us under your spell and i can't tell if it's chemistry oh, to be all released in your chemistry Love is living inside you yes, and i will paint a picture if you want me too 'cause this is all i need and the colors they all bleed
6.
silver transparent stars pinned on a curtain above blue torch on the back porch near the big lake of her love (i once knew a hero with the strong throw to the plate but the cells reversed meaning started eating up her greatness) your words are just a web that you weave to cover yourself your words are just a wall that's between you and everybody else (i wonder how it really feels to have the whole slate clean to know exactly what you say that's exactly what you mean) once a moment now it's just a reminisce it was louder than a bomb in me it was softer than a kiss maybe i've said too much too soon sometimes God opens up the deepest of wounds silver transparent morphine drips beside your bed it's the only way to take off the edge something's wrong but you never let it show something's wrong i know i know i know
7.
where do i begin where do i venture in to knock upon the door of possibilities? i'm oh so cavalier open my mouth up to cover my fear but you smiled and played along with awkward first intentions i think i lost my breath whenever you said yes when looking downward i asked if i might kiss you and even that you walked me through all these new rooms to explore yeah and all my rusty locks fell to the floor and if you wished for the brightest star would you consider a crescent moon? and if i'm late ah baby wait i will bring it soon stumbling when i come tripping over my dumb tongue for God's sake don't these momma's boys ever grow up? much too easily hurt life is coming to grips with what you're worth when God says one thing but your heart says another where do i begin? where do i venture in? to come inside this love that's sacramental i remember when i first beheld your face yeah on the streets of this old town now i carry it every place
8.
that little something that helps you along that little something that keeps you going strong that little something yeah what went wrong that little something now she's long gone could've been the way the words fell off your tongue could've been the way her heart keeps moving on to a different beat yeah and a different drum that little something yeah she's long gone i wonder why it feels like a coin toss all the bridges that we build don't hold when we cross that little place where secrets make their show to a bigger place only lovers know that little space once it seemed so still that little space the one that's hard to kill
9.
Wintergreen 04:20
she pops a stick of wintergreen outside the cash machine it's lonely being lovely all the time yeah when the rules all changed the strange terrain of love's modern games the ones that you play in your mind yeah i was across the block baby when the bomb went off but i felt it just the same i knew it was meant for me but you're a little bad with your trajectory still my heart's a bit shellshocked how could you walk away from this so easily? dead of night and the city's bright caught blinking at the traffic light the tapes are so hard to erase baby i've been going wrong ever since you've been gone are you chasing or being chased? yeah i got a heart of stone everybody's got a stain glass soul i've been sleeping at Gethsemene got mother Mary and a rosary you had secrets and i had baggage together we decided to unpack it dreamed a dream now you're laughing at it you're just a girl in a leather jacket dead of night and the city's bright caught blinking at the traffic light it's a drink or an SM-58 baby, we've been going wrong ever since you've been gone are you chasing or being chased?
10.
i don't want to lose this one before it is too late things just have a way of slipping through my fingers when the strongest of convictions sort of gets bent out of shape when the gnawing claw of doubt still lingers you don't lose don't lose no pieces will you ever lose after all you've done for me it's the least i could do for you as lonely as the final leaf swept from a barren tree and the drugs they don't go deep enough to set you free and the fan blades reflect halo-effects when i look up and see you when the words won't frame the room you're in pictures will have to do to live inside these ruins where you move without a sound oh to live inside this skin again die outside your town oh to break forth into sonnets oh Lord keep me coming back oh the stories that you tell your head to keep your heart intact
11.
i thought you grew up too fast but that's the way the story goes i've a picture of your mom and you the background looks like snow i know the snow well it's not really there but that's what it does suggest and the smile upon your young face well it looks so tentative the winners and losers the same in the end i was hoping for a perfect world no shirts no skins sometimes i like to dream that you are smiling down on me and all those things are really true we say we believe so i looked out at my riches there was none for which to live looked inside at all my poverty s'all that i had to give all those tears we cry for everybody else really are the ones we saved up for ourselves and the hardest part is letting go of everything 'round here the treasures make you laugh and cry and all ya hold most dear
12.
there's this little piece of you i may never see again there's a bigger piece of me that's simply vanishing there's a little scrap of memory sleeping next to your truth it's all curled around your body and i cannot shake it loose you park your van you feel again you scratch your skin pick up your pen i am afraid what did i pay to stand up here and play the fool i'm losing myself and i know i'm losing you something you'll remember something you once knew why bring it all up to the light except when it's killing you a bridge to build an act of will some time to kill a soul to fill your bright future stares me down you'll bury all you lose your winter sun she breaks upon those skies of cobalt blue

about

The most ambitious album I ever made. Trippy, jangle-y, 60's style, neo-psychedelic pop with plenty of hooks. Think Beatles "Strawberry Fields Forever era. PL was recorded with Vigilantes of Love players Jake Bradley (bass), Kevin Heuer drums, Billy Holmes (guitar and keyboards and Cason Cooley (keyboards).Like i said: With producer Tom Lewis at the helm, it was the most ambitious album I ever recorded and one of the most satisfying!
A must!

credits

released January 1, 2004

Bill mallonee: guitars, vocals, harp
Jake Bradley: bass
Kevin Heuer: drums
Billy Holmes: Keys, guitar on "Wintergreen"
Cason Cooley: keys
produced by Bill Mallonee & Tom Lewis
Engineering, mixing, mastering: Tom Lewis

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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.
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