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. |
Talking To Yourself
01:29
|
|||
James Jefferys - Talking To Yourself
In case you can’t tell by the tone of my letter
I miss you
The feeling of small things that get under my skin
This is helping,
And it’s not total darkness – light peeks through the shade
It’s all close
It’s all close to my face; worries, people, hatred
You have that
You have that conversation and you tell them off
They can’t hear you
Talking to yourself – you’re such a silly thing
I miss you
I miss you, feeling of small things not being right
Spluttering heat pipes, noises in the night
And all those mystery lights
|
||||
2. |
Abenaki!
02:25
|
|||
James Jefferys - Abenaki!
Pack your tools away
You’re cute, but you can’t stay
You’ve torn your mother’s breast
Scoffed the lot, and sold the rest
The sun is going down
On all the sacred cows
It’s rising in the West
So that’s where we’ll build our nest
Abenaki!
They’re coming with their ills
Through the woods, over the hills
Our ears are in the sand
And we can defend our land…
Abenaki!
|
||||
3. |
Cabriole Fermée
02:40
|
|||
James Jefferys - Cabriole Fermée
I fell straight into a well-deserved slumber,
Slipped longitude from Forties to Humber
The last thing I knew was the spray of Viking
Then woke in the twilight of Wight, again
You’re a gift, terra firma, thank you, really
We pretended that we didn’t need you
We always wished it was something we’d told,
Ripped in the current from Portland to Sole
Further from home,
Washed in the foam…
After a day of this Kinsale sailing,
I’m carried through Shannon, up into Bailey
I would do anything on solid ground –
I’d kill, play golf, I’d flatten the mounds
Ballerinas are circling by me
Hopping through the surf, cabriole fermée
Pastel pink, furious blue,
Frustrated red and lilac, too
Then the morning wash begins its pulling
Of me to the shores of old Lagavulin
|
||||
4. |
Back in the Groove
02:49
|
|||
James Jefferys - Back in the Groove
What is right?
‘In this world, everything casts a shadow’
Says the old man to the little child
Says the child to the little old man
(This time with his foot held down on his throat)
Then all the squares fall down everywhere
And all but one thing slips from our grasp
We’re back in the groove,
All the squares have had their edges smoothed
Fingers wagging
Have been zapped into space with Yuri Gagarin
Every tiny moaner
Has had their disc wiped – been painted over
Every screaming doubt
Has been sent to the gulag, flushed right out
We’re back in the groove
We’re back in the groove
Tell the Muslims, tell the Jews
We’ve little to lose,
We’re back in the groove
We’re back in the groove
Back in the groove
Back on the booze,
Dance ‘round our shoes
Back what’s not right?
It’s midnight in the meadow
And everything’s squares, and threats, and shadows
(instrumental)
Consider this a gift from me to me
Same thing every year, it’s our swept-up leaves
Hot under collar, sick to follow,
Beg, steal or borrow, there’s always tomorrow
We’re back in the groove, back in the groove
We’re back in the groove, back in the groove
We’re back in the groove, back in the groove
|
||||
5. |
You'd Want the Best
02:34
|
|||
James Jefferys - You’d Want the Best
This is not a political song,
But some people will hear it as one
Love does not get watered down
The more than it gets passed around
You’d want the best, too
For all those who are close to you
You’ve been sold a silly lie
By people unlike you or I
That you can keep what’s in your hands
If they can keep all the land
You’d want what’s best, too
For all those who are close to you
|
||||
6. |
Swish of the Pendulum
01:51
|
|||
James Jefferys - Swish of the Pendulum
I didn’t pluck the flower, mama
And Christ knows, I tried
It was locked tight like Excalibur,
To the Earth too closely tied.
I sailed across a milky dust
Gripped my stallion’s throbbing neck
Does perverse disturb the universe
Is the stone rolled by the speck?
Photons fell rough and sandy on my face
Each one taken there
By a galloping mare
The last pea pushed around my plate
I’m the fly, the spider, moth
Look blindly for the light
But the Earth just sighs
And doesn’t even try to shrug me off
The outlines of the buildings
Smudged a neon blur across
My eyes as I hitchhiked through the city
I’d hate to be there on the day
They decide to tear it down
There’s a little mother in all of us,
One who makes A Game…
Out of dodging the swish of the pendulum,
And whistles like a doomed canary
To mask the noise that tries to scare me
|
||||
7. |
St Thomas
03:48
|
|||
James Jefferys - St. Thomas
Slips his hand inside his jacket pocket
Pulls the door and joins the world outside
Who could want you?
You’re such a silly thing.
The pain that you would bring…
Stay at home, instead.
You hold that little strap on the bus
Like it could love you back
Just stay away from us.
‘Fifteen men couldn’t hold me back from you’
It’s a line I hope someday I’ll use
I’ll use that line
And make it sound true.
Then you will be mine
We’ll do what lovers do
I’ll wait
I’ll wait like St. Thomas
To find out who you are
Then wait some more,
I promise
The TV smirks,
Holds something back
A dam make out of birthday cake and doubt
The reservoir of crap
Trickles through the cracks
Please, just enough to tell that I count
Slip my hand outside my jacket pocket
Push the door and be the world inside
Push the door and be the world inside.
|
||||
8. |
I Have Been Summoned!
02:13
|
|||
James Jefferys - I Have Been Summoned!
I’m agonised
But if you’re nice
I’ll describe my dream
It’s no surprise
I’ve had it once or twice
This week
Just out of the air,
You’re up three flights of stairs
In your four-poster bed,
Dropping your jewellery,
The highest tomfoolery
Whilst I’m I the scullery,
Still feeling grateful,
Plenty-the-plateful,
Peeling potatoes.
My heart always sings
When I think of your things
Then the bell rings!
On with the cummerbund
I have been summoned!
But it’s only my alarm clock
Another Monday
|
||||
9. |
The Boy in Front of Me
02:06
|
|||
James Jefferys - The Boy in Front of Me
It’s the confluence of a thousand tributaries,
Flowing into the basin of the boy in front of me.
It’s finding a line that describes the feeling perfectly,
And then forgetting it totally when he’s crying and he needs me.
And only the gist of the feeling remains –
I’ve even lost doggerel in the space between the page and seeing
his
face.
|
||||
10. |
Get Away
03:36
|
|||
James Jefferys - Get Away
The days ahead overlap
It’s like throwing a dart at a moving map
Pack a bag, catch a flight
Feel the flash running up the kite
Or dig a hole in the loam
Plant yourself like a pretty rose
Let the wind comb your locks
Then pull you up by your frilly socks
Nights passed hang around
Our necks like all the stones that we found
Pack a bag, catch a flight
A little more running might make this right
Reckons he’s found the answers
To all the questions he thought he’d asked us
The window melts down the wall
Until we’re stuck in the room with nothing at all…
Let’s get away
Put everything off for just a few days
If they’ve waited this long they’ll wait longer, you’ll see…
(instrumental)
We skipped just a bit
There’ll be more of that if you stick with me
All of the rules get confused
We’ll abandon more than the rhyme scheme…
Let’s get away
Put everything off for just a few days
If they’ve waited this long they’ll wait longer, you’ll see…
Soldiers break step
Out of their depth
They’re worthless, inept
But the shaking ain’t kept
No more
Without orders
And the clearest borders
They’re just morons,
Mindless marauders,
I’m sure
Let’s get away
Put everything off for just a few days
If they’ve waited this long they’ll wait longer, you’ll see…
Let’s get away
Put everything off for just a few days
If they’ve waited this long they’ll wait longer, you’ll see…
|
||||
11. |
Family Viewing
05:15
|
|||
James Jefferys - Family Viewing
The priest came by here in the night
You want to know how I know this?
He snagged his habit on a rowan tree
Though its branches were high
And its fruit glowed red
And it stands on the precipice of the valley
The badgers and moles, rabbits and foxes
Although dead looked so at peace
The trail of torn tunic led straight
To a boulevard of carrion
Pecked by more carrion
And the last rights had been given
The peasants disappeared overnight
Their photographs followed them
A cellarful of ripped parachutes,
Frustrated troops
And ill-fitting boots
Might have to wait another season
Family Viewing
I offer the priest an instant coffee
Whilst smiling, he politely refuses
He thinks about his afternoon
There’s too much to do
Exorcisms and pianos to tune
And selling the rest as firewood
Drunk on the fog that conquering brought
We sat at the roadside, swapping
Inaccurate stories of past successes
And future amends
And how we’ll lose it all in the end
Lunatics chuckling in the hurricane
|
||||
12. |
||||
James Jefferys - Orphan (For the Rest of His Life)
All five fingertips connect
With the plea ‘collapse the traps’
There’s a little mother in all of us
Who wants to do exactly that
So we can all just let them get away
And have our chase another day
No love
…Caused the orphan to ask questions
Of his patchy life thus far
“Where are all the photographs?
Was I born aged five?”
“You were born at nine am,
That’s when you came alive.”
No love
The quiet day, the noisy night, the way it’s working out
Is good for me
As it takes my head
To places where things better left unsaid
Stay unsaid
Forever corked under cellar doors,
Never washed on foreign shores
Never read by glaring eyes
Unsaid is the parasite…
|
||||
13. |
||||
James Jefferys - You Won’t be Lost Forever
You won’t always be excited
The flame will go out,
The water drains right out the spout
You won’t always be happy to see me
Some days I’ll be a drag,
Please let me have a freebie
You won’t always be pleased
You’ll be a house without a roof,
A car without the keys
A shark without a tooth,
A boat without the sea
A bird without the feathers,
Left to dangle for a while too long, until it seems like you’ll be lost forever
You won’t be lost forever
|
Streaming and Download help
If you like James Jefferys, you may also like:
Bandcamp Daily your guide to the world of Bandcamp