The Living Record - Christa Couture

The Living Record ( September 4th, 2012)
OFT1006
Labelcode: 30350
1. You Were Here in Michigan
2. Good Bayou
3. Lucky or Lost
4. Pirate Jenny and the Storm
5. Parasite
6. Hopeless Situation
7. Sing for Me
8. An Invitation in Three Parts
9. Pussycat Pussycat
10. Paper Anniversary
11. Wooden Shoes and Windmills
12. The Way of the Dodo (The Living Record)

You Were Here in Michigan

Well you remember the 70s much better than I
You were alive then, for one thing
It was the end of that decade when I arrived
And you were here in Michigan
I crossed the border this morning with no trouble at all
Picked up a car at the airport
She said “well isn’t Canada part of America now?”
And was surprised when I told her no

I am lost in the city but don’t take pity on me
I am lost in the city but don’t take pity

For every colour of Autumn and every leaf that’s got ‘em
There’s a weight that falls away
Yes there’s an inkling of freedom and an offering of reprieve
In the woods here of Michigan
Every mile of the highway puts a mile behind me
A mile between me and the pain
Were that true I would drive until the land turned to the water of Lake Superior

I am lost in the city but don’t take pity on me. I am lost in the city but don’t take pity

When I drove through Saginaw I sang “well we’ve all come to look for America”
Though I’ll be in that house on the hill, trying to distill cadence and colloquy
Where the rain and I will get acquainted both laughing and naked

Well you remember the 70s much better than I
You were alive then, for one thing
It was the end of that decade when I arrived
And you were here in Michigan

I am lost in the city but don’t take pity on me

Good Bayou

I was headed for a night on my own – just me and the town alone
When I literally ran into him outside Tom Waits at the Orpheum
and that southern drawl it drew me in
That boy from down the Bayou

We struck up a conversation at that – just like you would strike a match
Just like you would to start a fire between two souls sitting at the bar
Where with every word the flames crept higher
That boy from down the Bayou

We were dancing at The Yale when we kissed – 12 bar blues can lead to this
But southern birds have to fly home, I said we better leave well enough alone
But he called my name and I called his own
My boy from down the Bayou

That’s how he became my favourite phone call – he was my favourite phone call
He was exactly what I needed then, what all the horses and all the King’s men couldn’t do he did single handed
That boy from down the Bayou

Anywhere in Canada is so far from Louisiana, so far from where we started
I gotta let you go now that I caught you
But I’m grateful that I got to get you know you and hold on to you
My boy from down the Bayou

Goodbye you, goodbye you, goodbye and thank you boy from down the Bayou

Lucky or Lost

It’s hard to say if I’ll ever gain capacity for joy again because where I’m broken is so very broken
And it’s hard to say if I’ll ever play in front of gathered hearts again
Unless they’re open – are you open?
It’s important to me that we hold to this memory

Have you seen how love can bring a joy beyond imagining?
It will lift you – it uplifts you
Have you seen how love can be the source of your vitality?
Until it leaves you – and it might leave you
That’s what I need you to see the heart of this memory

Count your blessings and count your woes, time isn’t ours you know
The wheel is spinning and it’s going to stop – you’ll either be lucky or lost

Look at me can you see I’m a witness of catastrophe, a kind of nightmare
Look at me and you will see the lines drawn through the heart of me
That were not there when we last shared
No I don’t care to see that part of the memory

Count your blessings and count your woes, time isn’t ours you know
The wheel is spinning and it’s going to stop – you’ll either be lucky or lost

Over and over and over again, we go through the motions
Getting closer and closer and closer I think to the life that we want to live
So I will give you a seed to plant the memory

Deep down in the soil, deep down in the hole – see how the garden grows
Count your blessings and count your woes, time isn’t ours you know
The wheel is spinning and it’s going to stop – you’ll either be lucky or lost

Pirate Jenny and the Storm

Me and Pirate Jenny when we talk, we go for a little walk
Having more in common than you’d have thought
We wander down to the dock, she has a way that I have not
She sings “the ship the black freighter turns around in the harbor shooting guns from the bough”
And there are those who’d hate her, but I love her, I love her

Though I hate how your body is never touched
How your singing is never heard
I’ve never cried so much little bird, I’ve never cried

Me and Pirate Jenny on the stage, a different town, a different play
We do our monologues and then our song in sixteen bars
We are laughing in the wings, and we have wings instead of arms
Then the voice from the back says “girls, it’s time to dance”
Oh but I can’t – dance baby dance baby dance

How your body is never touched
How your singing is never heard
I’ve never cried so much little bird, I’ve never cried
The aching in my chest does not compare to that in yours
We never saw the likes of a storm like this before

Sail, set sail

Parasite

All the trouble you’ve seen, all the pain that you have – “could have it been prevented?” you ask
It’s a question that keeps you from sleeping, it’s a story that you always replay
You watch for that pivotal moment when everything changed

It leaves a bad taste in your mouth – you try and try but it won’t come out
It casts a shadow of a doubt – parasite, parasite
It weighs heavy on your chest – well for the weary there is no rest
You only did your best – parasite

You feel you know what everyone’s thinking – well maybe you don’t have that right
Everyone here knows you fought with all your might
How you ache for things to be different – baby I’m so sorry they’re not
If I knew how to accept it, I’d talk

It leaves a bad taste in your mouth – you try and try but it won’t come out
It casts a shadow of a doubt – parasite, parasite
It weighs heavy on your heart – what would you do if you could restart?
You only played your part – parasite

Baby only you know what you saw
Baby only you will recall the thoughts so awful
Baby only you know the throes of your sorrow

You only did your best – parasite, parasite
You only did your best, parasite

Hopeless Situation

I am well acquainted with The Hopeless Situation – I’d go as far to say that we’re good friends
We hang out on the corner with our other good friend Sorrow
Wading through the day until it ends
Until the streetlights are ignited and the parking lots are emptied of their travelers from the day
Among the city planted tulips and forget-me-nots

What are we? Are we artists here?

In the soil that I was planted, in the sun I took for granted
My roots and stem were severed from each other
My waking is to weep, my comfort is to sleep, but I’m not lonely here for loss became my lover
She is charming and disarming and she likes to dance
Around the garden of our floundering family tree
My love for her is something no one seems to understand

What are we? Are we artists here?

When the sunset heads for cover and the lovers turn their hearts to meet each other in a kiss
When the autumn leave are gathered and are set to burn

What are we? Are we artists here?

Sing for Me

I don’t need an answer I just need to talk
But my mouth is a cocktail of lemon and chalk and it burns
I don’t need a destination I just need to walk
I need to gather my thoughts and take stock of my words

Give me music – I could use it
Sing for me – like all you speak is poetry, like nobody here knows us
Sing for me – like your life depends on melody and I’ll join in on the chorus

I don’t need need, and I don’t need want
But I’m so easily distracted by what others got – when will I learn?
I don’t need this, that’s for sure, how much can one person endure? God it hurts

Give me music – I could use it

Sing for me – like all you speak is poetry, like nobody here knows us
Sing for me – like your life depends on melody and I’ll join in on the chorus

An Invitation in Three Parts

There’s a seed, a little sesame, buried deep within me
Bathed in sound, on a breaking bough, saying “come for me now”

You are a homonym – your meaning differing despite the sound
You are a word for “no more solid ground”

I’m making waves, I’m keeping safe

Will you stay this time? Your sway with the Gods will be stronger than mine
Tell them hey your momma needs a break – make them let you stay
Come for me now

Pussycat Pussycat

Westminster Abbey everyone is photographing themselves with Big Ben
and I am waiting for the bus, I want to get out of this mess, I want to home again
But home’s that ever changing thing – home is like seasons and this one is spring
It’s fresh and new, it’s budding green
Pussycat pussycat where have I been?

What a year, what a year

I went to take the tube and got stuck, I went to take the train and got mugged
I went from pub to pub to pub to pub
Oh yeah and then I fell in love

What a year, what a year

The sunlight was climbing through the window of our east London flat
And in the face of its brilliant light we just lay there shining back
All that poetry was hanging in the air – I laughed and pulled a metaphor from the tangle of your hair
Everything is changing, my heart is breaking, my photographic memory is taking
I’m aware that this is coming to an end – don’t say that I have to go back again

What a year, what a year

Pussycat pussycat where have I been?

Paper Anniversary

The high back piano it leans where it stands
You grace the keys with your hands
I’ve a bag full of stars that are ours to hang from this crumbling and stained old ceiling
We’ll buy paper and glue with the pennies we save
And patch up our roof to keep out the rain
Will you play it again that hopeful refrain
Sing “love don’t mind rain anyway”

Oh many things start to slip away I know with time, but some things don’t go

In the summer our little garden will grow minutes and hours
We’ll tend to the time that is ours
When autumn turns the days into amber remains
We’ll hide in our home and wait for the snow

Oh many things start to slip away I know with time, but some things don’t go, don’t go

I’ll stay, I’ll wander, as you’re want to do
But I’ll always return to you
For the flame in my heart knows the source of its spark
No matter how far from pianos and stars

Oh many things start to slip away I know with time, but some things don’t go, don’t go

I’ve got some paper – I’m gonna make you a plane that will take you all the way home
Light on the doorstep, you know where the key is, wake me and take me all the way home
We’ll toast to our first year, the things that we hold dear, the one thing, this something won’t go

Wooden Shoes and Windmills

We write songs inside of songs and we open them up just to try them on
I was delayed in my reply – but as you have heard I’ve been occupied
And it’s just what I was so scared by
I was gone before you were gone, I didn’t know the best way to pack up our days
Recall that night on your lawn – a drunken display of my rot and decay
You were kind at the perfect time

When you joked about wooden shoes and windmills, when you listened to my sad story of…
It meant everything, that summer of our friendship
But I think we might have wrecked it when we fell in love

We write songs inside of songs, for safe keeping we store ourselves in these chords
We stayed up until dawn trading our tunes, we were content and consumed
Equally enamored by the other’s

Then I end with a joke, you know how I depend on a punch line to end
And you know that I know that you know that I know
My sarcasm dry is how I survive – I jest at what I love best

Like when you joke about wooden shoes and windmills, when you listen to my sad story of…
It meant everything, that summer of our friendship
But I think we might have wrecked it when we fell in love

I’m not saying any of this to try and sway you
Into believing that you’ll miss me now that I’m leaving

We write songs inside of songs – some are naked as born others puzzles to solve
I should have known why you called, but it’s hard to resist a kiss
You are kind – it gets me every time

So joke about wooden shoes and windmills, listen to my sad story of…
It meant everything, that summer of our friendship
But I think we might have wrecked it when we fell in love

The Way of the Dodo (The Living Record)

This is the farthest you’ve ever been from yourself
And the truth is that what was is lost to you now
You’re gonna go, I watch you go the way of the dodo

I’m the living record, I’m the work of art

Careful you’re treading on very thin ice – you say the cold below would feel nice
If you wanna go, I watch you go the way of the dodo

I’m the living record, I’m the work of art

That was made by your presence – the shape you made of my heart
Well they’re watching through the glass
They’re wondering but can’t ask – what language are we speaking?
They’re watching through the glass, they’re wondering but can’t ask
What language is reaching beyond death?

This is the closest we’ll ever be again
And when you take your last breath I’m gonna take it in and never let it go

I’m the living record, I’m the work of art
That was made by your presence – the shape you made of my heart
If I fall to pieces when I recall your name – I’m not the same since you left me
But what you left me remains the living record
It stays the living record
I’m the living record, I’m the work of art