Get all 18 Jim Bryce releases available on Bandcamp and save 35%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Nearly Now, Pictures, Moon and Water Song, Rosie's Song, Creepy-crawlies, Liaison, The single (Pay Day), A Kind of Circle, and 10 more.
1. |
The Rap
02:43
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Yesterday I was happy, now I'm sad: So sad I feel quite bad about it:
Don't wanna cause no consternation - All I wan't commiseration.
A drop of TLC and I'll be straight, I'll feel positively elated, mated, feted, sated, overdone.
I'm a schizoid, cuboid, parthenogenic, manic kind of chap,
Ovoid, absoid, urban kind of songboid till I get the rap.
Now I'm glum and then I'm glee 'Cause I live existentially:
A he-he-hedonist Sufi Until I get the rap
Sometimes I feel like the world is mess, I get pressed to assess how to address you.
I try to impress but can't guess from your tresses if you're a man or a woman or just sensitive.
To me it's immense, it doesn't make sense ’cause if you take offence, I get defensive.
Is this a fence that I'm building? Or you who's intense? Please don't get incensed. Am I being dense?
I confess it's distressing, this psychic cross-dressing. They call it progress but I feel so oppressed.
I feel I've transgressed, But I thought it largesse.So I just acquiesce. Call it work in progress. Bless!
Oh, yes,
I'm a schizoid, cuboid, parthenogenic, manic kind of chap,
Ovoid, absoid, urban kind of songboid till I get the rap.
Now I'm glum and then I'm glee 'Cause I live existentially: A take-it-as-it-comes kind of chap.
Until I get …... The Rap.
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2. |
Liaison
04:26
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She stands by the light of the moon with a smile in her eyes. So gentle, so warm.
His heart bursts into tune. Loving and hope and desire, His soul in a storm.
She turns and laughs and says ’I like you. I love being with you. You’re so easy to be with.’
He takes her hand to kiss it gently. His eyes, intent, say what he feels in his heart.
She stops with fear in her eye. “Oh no, no, no! Not like that!
It's just nice being with you. Sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.
It’s just nice being with you. Isn’t that enough?”
Years by, another life, seeing a look in another’s eyes, So gentle, so warm.
Once again, his heart bursts in tune, brimming with love and desire. His soul in a storm.
She turns and laughs and says ’I like you. I love being with you. You’re so easy to be with.’
She takes his hand and whispers gently. Her lips, intense, say what she feels in her heart.
His heart stops. He turns to go, brimming with past and with pain.
He says, “It’s nice being with you. Maybe……. Need to be…..
Maybe…… well, just sometime I’ll see you again.”
And as apart, they walk the heartaches, the clouds break. You can’t tell the tears from rain.
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3. |
Pilgrims
05:14
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In this bleak midwinter, the earth lies bandaged in winter snow.
The radio whispered the death of the age everywhere you go
We thought we knew it all but our knowledge lies bleeding on Western Boulevard
Its killer stands smiling. We give him our anger. It’s too too hard.
But Oh! We’ve got to keep moving, pressing forward. Don’t look back upon our rooty-toot ways.
Keep our hands pristine, heads above water. Act as if we never saw. Zip on our Summer smiles.
Each evening, we close our doors. They say a chill Eastern wind creeps across our plains
So we reload our hearts with our burgeoning fears to relieve our pain
And pay our allegiance to a grey-owled man garbed in Hollywood dreams.
The lives of our children reflect in his eyes. We ignore their screams.
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4. |
Rosie's Song
05:38
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There goes that phone again. Wish that it would die or just dissolve to air. It seems I'm never usually in.
Talk to a man with a voice like mine. He don't say much but, yes, it's fine I never thought I be alone again.
When you're lying at the bottom, and the top seems very far away, there's nothing left to say.
And when you've kicked all the traces but the years keep creeping nearer... near, it's hard to stay away.
Make a coffee, make the bed, maybe turn the T V on instead, instead of "Hello, Rosie. How you bin?
Talk in pauses, say it's fine as if there'd never been a line between you
and someone that you'd known you'd never really seen
Drop of Whisky, plenty of ice, Tell me did you know the Hotel Paradise?
No. I’ve never been before.
I'm just a gypsy going nowhere particularly. Time was I would take the road and never turn.
It's just the memories that burn.
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5. |
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Freezing. The early morning scratches my face. Shuffling foot’s pace. No more brain space.
Dazzling light reflected on your doorway. Pretend it’s not day. Blue sky. Face grey.
Trip over moving-boxes. Your dark hall. Mustn’t fall! Don’t make a sound.
A duvet sausage curled upon your bed. Asleep you said you’d be.
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6. |
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I am the man who died, Who gave up living, saw no point in trying
We met one day down the Jericho road and you bought me a drink on a Sunday.
I was born in rats alley to an unfrocked priest on/from the Rue d’Orgueil
He suckledme on wine and wafers baked in the heat of our desert.
That night of the Italian storm when the ravens appeared over Covenant spire
you came like a dove into our murky waters, said that you would relieve our slaughter
You came into my pavement life. Called me your little fisher king.
Hell! It seemed to me you spoke real well Though some said that you were faking.
Hey man, you said me you would help me, Said you’d make me live again
Took my hand when I was sick, Lying half-dead in the gutter.
You told me who I was, told me things I didn’t even know of myself
Touched my eyes with my own blindness And an end I somehow knew was coming
Someone told me they took you away to some safehouse down in Hebron town
I scoured the streets for one last look at your face. But they cursed me, flung me out of the place
So what’s this you’re trying to pull on me now strung up like carrion on Capitol Hill?
They told me you were the miracle man. Hey, come on! Help me understand.
For, Christ, Christ, look at you now with your pissed pants and crows at your eyes.
There was something you said.. What was it you said? If only I could remember.
Oh what the hell? I got one last drop in my bottle. Let’s drink it for the sake of something.
The night's coming in and I'm too tired to think You’re the only one now I can drink with.
I am the man who died Who gave up living, saw no point in trying
We met once day down Jericho way and you bought me a drink on a Sunday.
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7. |
In the Morning
03:47
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Dawn breaks, the Earth wakes in whispered communion.We're breathing again.
Each form warms to the kiss of each dewdrop's breath We're living again.
And all of creation is rising again with a song of 'hello'
Oh, how it flows through that Promise that never is broken at all In the arms of the morning.
Sometimes, my brain fires, my eyes tire with thoughts when I separate you.
The scrabbles and fightings, the wrongings and rightings. They Take me from you.
But now, in this stillness, it's clear that these fears are all just a game,
and the pains that I've claimed are just fairy-phantasms, dissolving again and again. In the arms of the morning.
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8. |
Released (Tentatively)
03:21
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I don’t know how it was I couldn’t open up to you, but please let me be straight this once - It’s all I can hope to do.
I know the times have shifted and our moment may be through, but this love that’s burning in my heart........
Oh, God.don’t let our being be apart.
‘Cause even after all these years, your presence glows and burns.
Perhaps it’s just the memories or this stupid heart that’s turned.
I wish you well......I wish you.....I wish you all you reallly need,
for this love that’s burning in my heart.....Oh, God. Next I’ll be saying time can bleed.
They say that love’s a constant, true love never causes pain.
I just....I just want to be with you again and again and again and again,
for you are love’s reflection - I can see it in your eyes.
I thought I never wanted anything, thought I went with the flow.
I thought I knew......I thought I knew....but there’s nothing left to know,
and everything is separate as you turn and make to go.
Oh, this love that’s burning in my heart.… God, don’t let our being be apart.
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9. |
Train Talk
02:09
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Train talk: cheating the time with an easy word, passing the days and a sleeping world with glances and fears.
Train talk: meeting coincidence with a throw-away smile, a whispered ’hello’ for a little while.
A touch of the head and a journey too-soon dead.
But Oh! I wish I were there right beside you, instead of…
Oh! I don’t mean to deny you, my travelling friend, I just wish we could end all this
Train talk: exchanging moments we don’t understand, give me you dreams and I’ll give you my hand.
Round Albatross Island we will walk forever.
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10. |
Get Rid of the Hope
03:27
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I’ve been lost for days in dreaming Trying to find a better way to be
Hoping someone somewhere will take me Set me free-
I’m one of 9 billion souls who’re praying running some script inside our heads
Hoping that a change will come save us that our dreams will not be dead.
Let’s get rid of the hope! And talk with each other to find out what is really here
Instead of endless righting and fighting our lonely fears.
Let’s get rid of the hope and rejoice in each other, as other to each each other we seem
We’re an endless mirac, an actuality. no dream.
5 million years we have been fighting A fraction of each day in peace
Clinging to the hope that all this fighting Will bring release
5 million years we have been praying Fingering beads of gold and power and personality
Thinking there’s something outside us Will balm our poor humanity.
I’ve been lost for days in dreaming Hoping for a better way to be.
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11. |
Who am I to Disagree?
04:17
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What a mystery! How strange can you get? What disharmony! We'll work it out yet!
Someone's left their key in the door, left their suitcase down on the floor, a note to say "What was it all for? Let's forget! Well, who am I to disagree?
What a strange old world! a half-cut cabaret! My mind's in a swirl: must be my lucky day!
Someone's standing there by the fire, flame-light burning soft in her eye,
Saying hello this time I'm here to stay." Well, who am I to disagree?
What a crazy idea What a todo! What is this that I hear? I'm all in a stew!
There was I right down on my heels, played my cards out my fate was sealed, now those lips which say "It's for real.I love you." who am I to disagree?
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12. |
Spent Days
03:42
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They ask ”Have you had a good life?” as if life was a road and not the ’I’
"Did you get where you wanted?" What I wanted then has died.
Oh of course I’ve got the memories that circumstance bestowed.
The days of endless travelling a figment-gravelled road.
The days when this being stood and didn’t know what to do.
But the only time I was living, I was truly here with you.
They say “You’ve done a lot man. idealised, expressed yourself”
Well, all that ’lot done’ are now remainders on an attic shelf
Oh, I know that I’ve created ..... whatever that word means.
The days spent jiggling tunes and words, the places I have seen
All islands in a twisting sea of doubt that I swum through
But the only time I was living, I was truly here with you.
Oh! The markers and signposts! Oh! The pointers and the goals!
Oh! The forwards and backwards! Words to try to ease this troubled soul.
They say, "Think of the memories, your realised schemes."
Well, I can’t live on memories or walk on feet of dreams.
Oh, of course there were the days gliding through misty might-have-beens.
The days when smiles were masking a silent empty scream
the days I threw away the gifts which came out of the blue.
But the only time I was living, I was truly here with you.
There's been days when I’ve been lonely in a crowded hall of friends.
Days of love and ecstasy, and days when I hoped would end.
Days when I thought I had something to give, but each gift felt like a lie.
But I see now I was only living in the light from each others eyes.
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13. |
The Rap (slight return)
01:11
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Jim Bryce Edinburgh, UK
Jim Bryce's music ranges from rockish to folkish to jazzish to music-hallish, to material which doesn't tick any boxes. He has also written for theatre, concert hall (squeaky and non- squeaky), film and radio programmes for the under nines.
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