Get all 4 Steven Kattenbraker releases available on Bandcamp and save 25%.
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1. |
Apollo
05:08
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Hold Apollo, don’t pull back the bow
Shake the laurel, dull your last arrow
Last arrival, honey in the wine
Bacchus wild, panther prowls the vine
Beg and borrow, ghost write all you
Moon is hollow, muse the only glow
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2. |
Hush of Rust
03:32
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You pulled me in close
Said it only gets better
Your back was bent low
And your face was leather
The leaves so long closed
They’ve forged to the prose
We’re left with dust to fill in the holes
You said the heart doesn’t know
If it feeds the king or the beggar
And to bleed is to show
Our mortal tether
The blooms that froze
Too early to know
The hush of rust
The silence exposed
Before the common voice and screeching noise
Concussed me
I was bold and seeking joy and ever poised
To trust see
The heart doesn’t know
When it’s numbed by the weather
Savor the blow
As it’s thawed from its fetter
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3. |
Long Black Veil
04:01
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4. |
Skip the News
03:35
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Wading through the badges and the news
And the notes of the passing mute parade
We picked one we could use if we choose
To risk it all in one place
I only want to measure up to you
Cut me down to bring me in your view
You keep your sense in your hollowed-out shoes
And you keep a steady pace
Losing breath and saving face
If you don’t like what you see don’t blame your eyes
I’ll yield the floor, for now and evermore
To the drums and disregarded cue
If we can’t tell what we’re marching to
There’s no need to attend the rebuke
Skim the headlines and skip the news
If you don’t like what you see don’t blame your eyes
Or peel back the skin to scrutinize
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5. |
How Much
02:26
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I’ll wake when you get up to go
I’ll prop my head up on the window
Feel the nagging in my heart
As you’re dressing in the dark
That I’m on my own
You shuffle your cold feet into shoes
I can see that you’re gonna choose
Just to kiss me on the cheek
When really you should sneak
Back in bed with me
You never really know how much you care
Until you care to know
If the tempest takes your voice as its own
I’ll still call your name till it rings alone
Through the contrast and the stark
The blazing and the dark
Till the last coal glows
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6. |
Something's Gonna Give
04:18
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The flame on the hill
It can’t get much closer
Something’s gonna give
I’ll carve us a bluff
Over sand soft enough
We’ll jump and land safe from the glow
The dam is filled to the brim
One drop it flows over
Something’s gonna give
I’ll build us a skiff
And you and I we’ll drift
Ahead of the flood and the flow
Who wants to know
The foretelling or the toll
That their square wheels won’t roll
That the martyr is crowned the hero
Something’s gonna give, and we gotta go
The dome it shakes to the core
What more for a salvo
Something’s gonna give
I’ll steal us a horse
And you and I we’ll course
Far from the parched charcoal snow
The ground is dust, defies
The myth of the cloudburst
Something’s gonna give
I’ll fork us a branch
Divine and entrance
A river we’ll drink as we row
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7. |
Substance and Solitude
02:56
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I’m learning to
Separate the calm from the truth
So much slower this time through
And so much more work to do
Words on the page
Lined up in their foreign cue
They march across to stir my rage
Not the substance but the solitude
The diary
Keeper of these sordid scenes
Its cover pierced with molten lead
Leaving windows to the newly dead
Now you read to me
From my own frightened history
Each page a shadow to pursue
No different than the first time through
So I’ll pardon you
To spare me the memory
That I wrote and now you read to me
I think I’d rather start anew
And the solitude
Permeates this amnesiac mind
A blanket that provides refuge
From a bloody and barbaric time
I’m learning to
Separate the calm from the truth
So much slower this time through
And so much more work to do
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8. |
Gunpowder and Ladybirds
03:11
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Perhaps the home fire is long last over stoked
From miles away there’s no mistaking the sting of the smoke
“Fly away home,” the children sing
But the melody betrays the burn it brings
The gunpowder rings the stiff-necked kings to their knees
The house of lords reduced to stones in the charcoal of trees
I’m not breathing hard
Just clearing space
For the smoke and luck to take their place
Born of the blaze, she works alone
Her loom is warped and shedding
The glowing weft she’s treading
Thread from the flames, her burning home
She’s spinning golden laces
To affix the eyes to faces
Fly away home
The recusants amass as one in the fields
The sun is gone and the harvest long
Has born its yield
The torch is on its way
To clear the land, prepare for a new day.
To linger is to combust in colloquy
To run is to resign your own sovereignty
Fly away home the children sing
But the melody betrays the burn it brings
Born of the blaze, she works alone
Her home a glow of embers
The sacrosanct the splendor
Affixed to the shell
The coals are sewn
Black globes of joy and sorrow
On the blood oath of tomorrow
Fly away home.
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9. |
Snapshot
04:31
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Caught you staring at
An old picture of yourself
The girl smiling back
She questions you
She asks if my attempts
To keep the promises
That I made to her
Have been true
The bright blue dress
You wore a thousand times
It was handed down
Till threadbare and torn
There’ll always be regret and doubt
And dreams that we forget about
If we could do it all again
I hope you’d find me sitting here
Staring at pictures with you
The newborn pup
Resting in your arms
It died long ago
On the road
How many things
That you held so close
Thought you’d never lose
That are gone
Your tiny feet were bare
Just like your heart
With no callouses
To deflect the thorns
If innocence
If it’s ignorance
I’ll trade my counsel in
And start again
With the sun in your eyes
The shadows in your face
Makes it hard to see
The frame you’ll fall in
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10. |
Dust Comes Too Soon
03:17
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The forest fans its wings
The dawning comes no more
To the grounded and the legless
Coiled on its floor
The hive has resurrected
In the silence of the night
The swarm, a lone beast
Smothering the light
Mining for light
Core of the moon
Never so bright
A stone has been hewn
Dust comes to soon
Diffuse the sight
The ghost rays are strewn
Minutes respite
From frost on the bloom
When the last has fallen
No one risks a word
Perchance the vow be broken
If simply overheard
The final migration
It’s long since overflown
The exodus entangled
The short-cut overgrown
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11. |
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12. |
In Conclusion
04:37
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Steven Kattenbraker Washington
Part Eliott Smith, part L. Cohen, as run through the production wringer of Daniel Ash…Kattenbraker’s baritone voice is pleasant and soothing. The guitar work sweet and mellow and, might I add, deftly played… Portland’s Music Liberation Project
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