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Frost

by Kirsty McGee

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1.
do you remember one morning last winter when frost sealed all the windows you could see your breath in candyfloss clouds in the sky that were cut through by plane vapours and the blue of the morning was colder than your hand when you took my small hand into your large hand and you pressed the two together and they fitted like a glove the coat that you were wearing was of many different colours but i pulled a thread out of the hem and it was brown just like your eyes you said that i was something that was steady and reliable i held your world together - i was cotton in your coat and you took my heart but i don't think i noticed till i woke up here without it on the morning that you left... morning here is cloudy there's a fire out on the leaf pile and the leaves are getting wetter all the trees are getting blacker in a week or maybe two weeks frost will seal up all the windows and i will lie and think of you standing in your coloured coat and the way you loved the winter more than any man i've ever known and the way your skin looks amber in the turning of the light i saw you in the street and you said nothing much had happened you said nothing much had changed but your eyes had changed their colour maybe they were a little redder or maybe just the light could be i was tired (when i'm tired i don't see right) and you took my small hand into your large hand and you pressed the two together and they fitted like a glove and you said i'll see you (maybe next week next month next year) i'll see you (and then you turned away) and the clouds in the sky were cut through by plane vapours and the blue of the morning was colder than your hand
2.
Spit & Shine 03:51
i'll work my way i always have i'll do whatever you choose i'll mend your clothes i'll make your bed i'll spit and shine your shoes i've wintered in italian sun i've summered in a caravan but i know you're a busy man and i must work my way i've followed workers on the land pulled daffodils with callused hands seen comets rise in cut-glass skies that curve around the moon been driven fast on icy roads by drivers i don't even know but so long as i get where i must go i'll work my way i work my way i travel light and i sleep easy every night and dream of things i'll never own and places i have never been see there's a river in my veins that whispers ever in my ear the names of places far from here that still i long to see but every freedom has its price these aching hands these tired eyes and on my face the laughter lines are interspersed with tears and though my feet are brown with clay this restlessness won't let me stay and wretched though my moving is i cannot linger here so i will rise before the dawn when sleep's dead weight lies on your arm before the sun burns off the mist you'll wake to find me gone sure i might return someday like the bad penny in your change but restlessness rides in my veins... and i must work my way
3.
The Prisoner 04:00
some days i'm free some days i'm not some days i lie all the day in my cot some days are long some days are hot some days i wish you were here i've seen the icicles between the bars seen the snow lying unspoilt in the yard it's only natural when i close my eyes i see you as you once were some days i'm sorry some days i'm not sometimes i remember the things i forgot the things that i'd say if i saw you today some days i wish you were here some days there's anger some days regret some days pass quickly some days cigarettes some days a spider will wind me a web in the air what time takes from us the mind will replace the bright eye will shine in the darkest place we are all prisoners of time and of will some days i wish you were here with me still... for august is golden september is fine october swifts cut an arc through the sky november glistens december she shines some days i wish you were here i wish you were mine
4.
i was waiting by the back door and all the lights were on summer was in the air, there was a party going on somewhere in the barn of a neighbouring farm there were lights tied to the trees on coffee coloured strings i did not expect to see him like some thomas hardy spectre but he took me in his one-room house and sent me with a greeting to the party in the barn of a neighbouring farm there were lights tied to the trees on coffee coloured strings we saw the insects flicker on the window's golden beam and at 5am the ground was wet we were tripping over coffee coloured strings seven generations ran their fingers through this soil a late night last survivor and a party going on oh we talked about so many things the things you read in magazines and as the talk ran out we watched the stars we saw the insects flicker on the window's golden beam and at 5am the ground was wet we were tripping over coffee coloured strings
5.
‘won't you come a little closer?' said the spider to the fly 'where i weave my webs of wonder in the eaves under the sky. 'and i'll wrap you in soft cotton and caress you as you lie and as the night draws in i'll sing a spider lullaby... 'in my web, like a cathedral shall i honour you, my love where the raindrops hang like diamonds i will hold you soon enough 'in the gold and silver threadwork you can look into my eyes and as the night turns blue i'll sing you spider lullabies 'and i wonder as i hold you how we are come to this that i should wound you as i love you i should kill you with a kiss 'and i'll wrap you in soft cotton - see how soft and still you lie and i'll sing to you my darling this spider lullaby...’
6.
were she here now i think i would make coffee just to hear the hum of good machines the sound of her voice seems to echo in the walls in the plaster and the paint like a bee inside a jar summer slips by in tattered old clothes six seasons passed in cloudwatching miracle plants that bloom in the winter and die in the spring i watch for her return were she here now i think i'd make her coffee or some other faux pas like before the sound of her breathing seems to echo in the walls in the plaster and the brick like a bee inside a jar summer slips by in tattered old clothes six seasons passed in cloudwatching miracle plants that bloom in the winter and die in the spring... and if i listen hard enough i hear her footsteps in the hall...
7.
you showed me the plough as it furrowed its way through the night you said it was mine and i waited for hours, just watching it slide till the dawn filled the sky and the fire of the morning peeled the stars away leaving the moon in a blanket of grey you gave me the moon in the palm of my hand glinting like copper and beaten like gold september moon with the rain in its hair tangling the stars... and i'd give you the air if the air was mine to give you i'd give you the clouds if the clouds weren't filled with rain i'd give you my heart if you promise to be gentle won't you put back the stars so we can see again i watched you sleeping, ever so gently sleeping so gently and breathing so still till the dawn in the sky threw its light down over your shoulders and the moon and the sun chased the darkness away and now i know the ocean wave i know the turning of the sea i know that love is sweeter still than summer breezes turning leaves i know your face i know your hair the colour of your stare the silence in your eyes
8.
as i walked out one morning with the cold wind on my face i could have sworn i saw you but you're in another place and i recall you saying before you went away there's not much trouble leaving but it troubled you to stay i was always your safe harbour you would always roam for six long years, you anchored here like a port within a storm and i wish that i'd been stronger i wish i'd been more true when you became a part of me and i a part of you it's cold now in the mornings a bitter wind winds round i see you when i close my eyes something lost and never found i've seen waves as tall as houses crashing over cars i've known a love that was so blind it blacked out all the stars i've seen lovers i've seen angels driving strangers' cars but in all the world i never saw a love so sweet as ours
9.
Sophie 03:06
sophie a face in the rain see how she smiles all the rivers running down the tresses of her hair how it clings against her skin and her eyes are filled with dreams... must i still think of her her golden skin and when she laughs it almost sounds like she sings she looks out at the world through cloudy emerald eyes that dart across the moon (but when those eyes are gone, it's like a shadow fills the room...) sophie who laughs when she sings see how she smiles standing outside in the rain with the heartbeat of a bird going crazy in its cage beating rhythms that vibrate, tremble and are gone... yes i still wake to the words of a song going round in my head as if nothing was wrong in the fragments of verses, interrupted melodies i am lost in the words of a song and the song is... sophie a face in the rain see how she smiles all the rivers running down her eyes are full of dreams as she walks into the air must i always dream of her? sophie
10.
Summer Frost 03:19
look at you with that dark little smile holding all the world in guile i never thought i would live to see midsummer frost on a lilac tree you build things up just to watch them fall and when you think you've got it all like a child, do you still want more? when you're sweet as jasmine till you cast them aside summer frost, i swear that you're colder than ice and it's summer but we're falling like flies summer frost, the ice that's in your eyes summer frost with your eyes like molasses long lashes lips like honeydew who in the world wouldn't sell their soul for you? but look at you so bored of it all watching all the grown men fall like a child, do you still want more? well you're sweet as jasmine till you cast them aside summer frost, i swear that you're colder than ice and it's summer but we're falling like flies summer frost, the ice that's in your eyes and like those fools i'm caught under the ice... i never thought i would live to see midsummer frost on a lilac tree
11.
Kisses 05:22
a wise white moon sinks down into the sea you wake up freezing cold, you lying under me in a beach hut in a southern town, pebbledash grey on a morning white as feathers the sun as red as clay sometimes your eyes were chestnut brown sometimes your eyes were green sometimes your eyes were grey they were the strangest i have seen and you'd fix your eyes upon white lines i'd fix mine next to yours and we would ride these english roads from shore to shining shore as if we could live on kisses and stolen habitation riding up and down connecting lines in wagons built of steel to sit on hard, stone beaches the morning after rain and watch the water rising and then falling back again the sun sinks down beneath the waves you wonder will you see her face your wondering won't leave you alone as summer clouds turn brutish grey your smile still flickers bright as day why do we stand here like two fools in summer's fading light? come now, come, we'll beat the dawn and leave this place behind leave this stolen room and shingle shore, ride off into the night i'll fix my eyes upon the road if you fix yours next to mine and we'll warm our hands on heated air in the first car that we find and sometimes when i wake beneath a sky as grey as steel i still expect to find your body's imprint next to me i'm reminded of you when i see those wagons roll like broken glass i watch them pass, grey spectres in my soul come now, come, the day moves on and leaves us both behind beat back the moon that rises like a shadow in your mind how can i even talk to you with your eyes so far away as if someday soon that road you love might steal you back again... as if you could live on kisses and stolen habitation riding up and down connecting lines in wagons built of steel to sit on hard, stone beaches the morning after rain and watch the water rising and then falling back again
12.
Bitter Aloe 03:02
bitter aloe tender his touch how he can hold me like a bowl that holds too much and overflows nobody knows my bitter aloe i taste his kisses' bitter wine how he can touch me like a wingtip brushed too much closer to the edge and overflows nobody knows the dance of skin on skin caramel in a bowl that overflows in a room so soft with light feel the ocean crashing in bitter aloe riper than a fig wasp-blown in the heat tender fingers soft and so sublime where fingers meet and overflow nobody knows the dance of skin on skin caramel in a bowl that overflows and the movement of the air like a heartbeat like a hymn
13.
i watch the rivers in st mark's place and how they wash away the dust and how the incense from st mark's church colours in the air like rust and we sit like old men on benches in the rain i watch an ocean in the subway carry leaves across the tiles an iridescent thing that floats the memory of a four-year smile and we sit like old men on benches in the rain on some wet, enchanted evening beneath the candy-coloured light i will softly sit beside you and we will listen to the night and we'll sit like old men on benches in the rain to listen to the bells chime out again

credits

released March 8, 2004

Kirsty McGee: Vocal, Guitar, Flute
Mat Martin: Guitar, Mandolin
Jonny Bridgwood: Double Bass
Roy Dodds: Drums
Neill MacColl: Guitars, High-strung Guitar, Marxophone
John Spiers: Melodeon, Bandoneon
Boo Hewerdine: Guitar

Produced by Boo Hewerdine
Recorded by John Etchells
Artwork & Graphic Design: Chris Sands
Photography: Chris Sands

Record Company: Park Records

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Kirsty McGee Manchester

A wandering maverick and spellbinding live performer with a voice that has been described as having the texture of smoke & velvet, McGee defies categorisation, to make 'hobopop' –“music of no fixed genre”. Her continuously evolving musical personality is proof that a freedom from artistic restraints can sometimes produce a unique, enthralling and original voice with a rare honesty. ... more

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