Get all 29 James Jefferys releases available on Bandcamp.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Lifetime for the Shy, So Now He Hides, Songs For People Who Keep Their Heads Down, Or a Hollywood Movie, All Is Worry, Now I Can See Exactly Where the Sea Begins, Gone is Trouble, Stand Outside Your House, Face the Street and Shout, and 21 more.
1. |
Green Green
02:20
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James Jefferys - Green Green
The sun does arise and make merry the skies
All the small songs are now larger ones
As the village green changes disguise
Every house has its own epithet
The flagstone shivers under a newly delivered
Bottle of milk on every step
The fog hung down
Like the cassocks in the vestry
But it's moved to the town
And from here is lifted
The green Green yawns on this floral morning
Patchouli oil,
Elderflower cordial
And England is born again
The moss on the graves shakes at the bells
As do the birch outside of the church
The frame is better than the picture itself
Oils drips off the postman's chain
And messily muddles all of the puddles
Down Vicarage Lane, from last year's rain
The fog hung down
Like the cassocks in the vestry
But it's moved to the town
And from here is lifted
The green Green yawns on this floral morning
Patchouli oil,
Elderflower cordial
And England is born again
But a rock's throw away
And up in my room
The gramophone belches
Its last scratchy tone
The needle is blunt,
The power is dead.
And with an impolite jolt
I fall off the bed....
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2. |
Calm Down
05:13
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James Jefferys - Calm Down
Calm down,
Study the clouds
The postman has finished his peddling
He trots up your path
With a whistle and laugh
You weren't cut from the cloth of your brethren
I'm certain the bits
Of the picture will fit
But I don't let the curtain twitch
He's never flustered,
Just as keen as mustard
And he knows all the houses by heart
He raps on the oak
Like all kinds of folk
Bringing all kinds of light to the dark
I'm certain the bits
Of the picture will fit
But I don't let the curtain twitch
What matters to me is this world's eyes
And I'm compromised
Scrunched down to half the size
The greengrocer proud
Rolls the barriers down
Wheels out the barrows to the road
Mrs Jones stands
With her coins in her hands
For to buy a brand new Monday load
I'm certain the bits
Of the picture will fit
But I don't let the curtain twitch
What matters to me is this world's eyes
And I'm compromised
Scrunched down to half the size
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3. |
Gypsy & Fool
03:17
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James Jefferys - Gypsy & Fool
I think I'm both gypsy and fool
Air in the shed; rock hard tool
An entire garden and just a shard
I create a silence
Then I listen to it
Way too hard
There's those who tell me to retract
Find the irons, take it back
I'd be a gypsy to ignore those fools
They're welcome
To their ugly
And jealous manacles
You build your hut of bricks obscene
But it's funny how you think they're green -
You take to heart what they've not said
And make out as if
They all want you
To wet your bed
The oxblood shoes get slipped on
Feather in the hat
Italian shirt, purple cotton
Apple perfume from top to bottom
Yes, it's all on show
But there's nowhere to go
So on the bed, clothed I lie
The sheets are cold, but at least they're dry
Etchings of mermaids; morphine to me
Bite marks in the cutlery
Queue at the doctors, call me in
Prescribe me
Your attention
All your love
And mescaline
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4. |
Cyanide
03:06
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James Jefferys - Cyanide
This wallpaper frieze
Doesn't interest me
I've only just noticed
How grey it is
Has the hull been breached
In this forest of teak?
Has the hull been breached
In this forest of teak?
Words drip from the levee
Become hieroglyphic
My eyelids are heavy
And sing soporific
Songs that spiral up like spores
In scales I've never heard before
Songs that spiral up like spores
In scales I've never heard before
I push my head through a spider web
To the smell of freshly-baked bread,
Acres of books whiffing slightly of mould
And pilchards on the draining board
And by my side..
Cyanide!
That greengrocer and I are in cahoots
I paid for both of his Wellington boots
For a fiddle of his foreign fruits
And to run my fingers over his little green shoots
Has the hull been breached
In scales I've never heard before?
Has the hull been breached
In scales I've never heard before?
And by my side..
Cyanide!
And by my side..
Cyanide!
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5. |
Lady Grey
04:50
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James Jefferys - Lady Grey
A child was bullied on the way to school;
Impaled on the railings and liberally strewn
The middle pages of this weeks Beano
So what is this, and what does it mean, O?
From the smacking of lips in the tea-room seats
Lady Grey, poached eggs and clotted cream
To the clacking of bowls on the lawn
What in England was there born?
What in this green garden
Is there to do
But raise one arm to pardon
And catch twenty-two...?
For the lives of all these people
I can't work out the problem
I can't un-splash that ripple
I can't stop the sobbing...
Swifts and swallows from nearby France
Find their way to the green.... and then this branch
And don't disperse at the crack of willow
As the club rehearse their overs below
And all these things are going right
But I can't think of what to write
But the very same rhyme, oh, dignity
Is the very same length as a piece of string
Left lonely with my conscience
And other sorts of nonsense
Even the elderly admirals castle each other
Maybe the baby is cradled by her Mother
The ivy vines look pretty
When seen from the outside
But in the room I'm sitting
They've blocked out all the light....
For the lives of all these people
I can't work out the problem
I can't un-splash that ripple
I can't stop the sobbing...
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6. |
The Dandies
05:36
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James Jefferys - The Dandies
The troupe of Dandies
Enjoy the morning cigar
Only two hours after midday
Polka-dot, paisley
Cobbled-road, crazy pathing
All they can find is the way
To strawberry rounds
On Daddy's pound
Tiffin squares to start,
Then gypsy tart
On one thatched roof
A tabby cat snakes
Cranes its neck to get a good look
At the men who laugh
In superfluous scarves
Bored of life and of books
To strawberry rounds
On Daddy's pound
Tiffin squares to start,
Then gypsy tart
And every day is a clumsy habit
Just comes, comes again like a bunny rabbit
So here is mine, and for something's cruel sake
Nobody's rooster; nobody's drake
The Dandies are gone
In a plume of blue smoke
So at least their spirit remains
That and echoing catcalls,
Bubblegum wrappers
And cigarette butts down the lane
The horns rehearse Saturn
Holst still weaves a pattern
The bandstand on the Green
Always there, always clean....
I look up past
My higgeldy-piggeldy
Ski-whiff guttering -
To a Helvellyn of a
Cloud which has just
Started jutting
From the fields to the West
So here comes the saying -
“It looks like rain!”
“It looks like rain!”
And every day is a clumsy habit
Just comes, comes again like a bunny rabbit
So here is mine, and for something's cruel sake
Nobody's rooster; nobody's drake
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7. |
Rain Rain
03:34
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James Jefferys - Rain, Rain
This damp isn't good for Mr Brown's trumpet.
They huddle inside
In time
For tea and crumpets
RAIN
Drops pluck off fruit from the cherry trees
The apples are bruised
Pears are, too
But that doesn't bother me
RAIN
It's weird how nobody seems to be at work
If they're not in
Each of their cottages
Could they all be at church?
RAIN
Those clouds held more than the pasture could've
A Victoria Sponge
To soak up the fun
Of eggs, flour, caster sugar
RAIN
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8. |
Laugh At Their Play
03:41
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James Jefferys - Laugh At Their Play
Children in the boundless distance
Gamble over new-mown grass
Slipping free from old assistance
Of sisters, teachers and the rest of the class
They pluck peonies and pick pretty pansies
In the perfume of perfect noises,
A cross-pollination of mingling senses
The flowers of Spring and all the young voices
It wouldn't even cross your mind
To laugh at their play
A single plume of coal-black smoke
Juts up behind the hill
And finds the time to splash the highest spires
Of the oasthouse and the mill
Clouds from returning Dandies
Is not a lot to covet
In tangos into the school grounds, but
The kids think nothing of it...
It wouldn't even cross your mind
To laugh at their play
Can you think of anything else
That'd never cross your mind?
A kestrel on fire
Or a mountain crying
A house telling a lie...
A house telling a lie...
A garden saying something that isn't true
A family selling a falsehood
A family selling a falsehood
It wouldn't even cross your mind
To laugh at their play
A family selling a falsehood...
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9. |
Parrot of Night
03:37
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James Jefferys - Parrot of Night
The parrot of night repeats perpetrations
Confused but aloof – a tooth of his station
Refusing to lose the face that was raised to him
Its beckoning squawk is taught as an echo
The parrot of night knows not what he's saying
But this doesn't prevent him from slaying day, anyway
With words unabridged, sounds of ages
Bounding the distance, until the blue dawn
But when the Blue Dawn comes,
The threats continue to tumble
Why is it so hard to trust
A light which can only reduce this to a mumble?
The parrot of night turns away in its cage
A terrible stillness plagues the day
A feathery shrillness stays on the page
Even when the book is over
Parrot of night
Diminish and fatten
The band are finished
Practising Saturn
In the first of teak
They look to the moon
And straight from your beak
They begin on your tune
But when the Blue Dawn comes,
The threats continue to tumble
Why is it so hard to trust
A light which can only reduce this to a mumble?
Parrot of night
Parrot of night
Parrot of night
Parrot of night
Repeats out of sight
Parrot of night...
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