Tessera

Folk Lyrics in a Dangerous Time

@folklyrics.bsky.social

Themes & through lines of folk/folk-adjacent music. For education only, buy the artists' work! Opinions mine . No AI use. 🇨🇦 (stolen land). Community care 😷💉🌎🕊💚 Bruce Cockburn nerd. She/her. 2024 posts at @folklyrics2024.bsky.social Also on Instagram.

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Folk Lyrics in a Dangerous Time @folklyrics.bsky.social · 5d ago

Foxglove 20/20 "Red Brush in Danger" jilllorean.bandcamp.com/track/red-br... Written by Jill O'Sullivan (Jill Lorean) with Andy Monaghan and Peter Kelly #MusicSky #folkmusic 🎶

There is a place where your voice cries
That's where the wildflowers grow
Foxgloves and iceland poppies
Speedwell and African daisies

Up where the catkins grow heavy
Dancing, in love with the spring wind
You are a hazel flower
I am a red brush in danger

Jill Lorean

[very pale sky blue]

Folk Lyrics in a Dangerous Time @folklyrics.bsky.social · 5d ago

Foxglove 19/20 "Two Paintings by Nikolai Astrup" pwelverumandsun.bandcamp.com/track/two-pa... Written by Phil Elverum (as Mount Eerie) #MusicSky #folkmusic 🎶

There's another Nikolai Astrup painting
From 1920 called Foxgloves
That hangs on the fridge
And I look at it every morning
And every night before bed
Some trees have been cut down next to a stream
Flowing through a birch grove in late spring
And two girls that look like you
Gather berries in baskets
Hunched over like young animals grazing
With their red dresses
Against the white birch tree trunks
Interweaving, beneath the clattering leaves
The two stumps in the foreground
Remind me that everything is fleeting
(As if reminding is what I need)
But then the foxgloves grow

Mount Eerie

[slight blue through very cloudy sky]

Folk Lyrics in a Dangerous Time @folklyrics.bsky.social · 5d ago

Foxglove 18/20 "Foxglove Through the Clearcut (Acoustic)" deathcabforcutie.bandcamp.com/track/foxglo... Written by Ben Gibbard of @deathcabforcutie.bsky.social #MusicSky #folkmusic 🎶

And while the frontiers are ever-expanding
Our living rooms fall into disarray
And no one seems interested in fixing
What they've broken
They just sweep the pieces into the bushes
And slip away...

And now he and I watch the foxglove grow
Through the clearcut
Where a forest once grew high and wild
For what is a funeral without flowers
And ten thousand tombstones
Reaching for the sky

Death Cab for Cutie

[dark blue font on background of sky blue that fades gradually to white-yellow]

Folk Lyrics in a Dangerous Time @folklyrics.bsky.social · 5d ago

Foxglove 17/20 "Love Like Water" marieesioux.bandcamp.com/track/love-l... Written by Mariee Siou (formerly Sioux) #MusicSky #folkmusic 🎶

And bison like mountains
Blooming with Foxglove
Circle around the calves of love
Hallowed dove
I found you
Not a moment too soon

This love
Like water of life
Fell for the summer
Home in each other
We'll finally be safe for winter

Mariee Siou

[white font on teal background that fades near the bottom to light purple]

Folk Lyrics in a Dangerous Time @folklyrics.bsky.social · 5d ago

Foxglove 16/20 "Foxglove or Fireweed" nickdroz.bandcamp.com/track/foxglo... Written by Nick Droz #MusicSky #folkmusic 🎶

Use a map
Stay the course
Keep the gold inside
With steady breath
And steady hands
But a shaky grasp on why

It's hard to tell the foxglove
From the fireweed
When you're moving at that speed
The more you put the pedal down
To cover ground
The less detail you see

Nick Droz

[italic white font on blur of outdoorsy green]

Folk Lyrics in a Dangerous Time @folklyrics.bsky.social · 5d ago

Foxglove 15/20 "Fugitive" www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8Gu... Written by Kathryn Gallagher with Lauren Salamone (aka Ella Vos) #MusicSky #folkmusic 🎶

Slither like a snake through my front door
Whispering a story I ain't heard before
Foxglove seeds in my garden
I wonder how they got there, darling
It's a mad, mad world for the honest ones
Nobody wants the truth when the lie's more fun
Put your pretty smile on and take a bow
I'm doing my best to be a baddie now

Kathryn Gallagher

[shades of pale grey]

Folk Lyrics in a Dangerous Time @folklyrics.bsky.social · 5d ago

Foxglove 14/20 "St. Beater Camry" wildpink.bandcamp.com/track/st-bea... Written by John Ross of Wild Pink Backing vocal by Samantha Crain #MusicSky #folkmusic 🎶

90 down 95
With the heat on
The windows down
And her hair blown around
Foxglove stems on the dash
Sold everything
For a little cash

So just run away
You can make it if you leave now
Drive all the way
Through the night
It was a bullshit hand
Just let it all burn down

Wild Pink

[white font on royal purple that fades gradually to pink-purple]

Folk Lyrics in a Dangerous Time @folklyrics.bsky.social · 5d ago

Foxglove 13/20 "Se Fue en la Noche" (He Left in the Night) michaelhurley.bandcamp.com/track/se-fue... Written by Michael Hurley Backing vocal by Kati Claborn From his album The Time of the Foxgloves, I thought this song was fitting both with its spooky vibe and the (cont'd in next post)

The moon's out there too bright
Don't you wear no white
The sun's somewhere
And it will be rising soon
We got to go with the moon

Better put your shoesies on
'Fore you die of the cold
You'll catch about the window
When I came in the door

Michael Hurley

[white font on midnight blue]

Folk Lyrics in a Dangerous Time @folklyrics.bsky.social · 5d ago

Foxglove 12/20 "Dead Man's Bells" tamalynmiller.bandcamp.com/track/dead-m... Written by Tamalyn Miller #MusicSky #folkmusic 🎶

Behold her grace
Don't cut a stem
Guard against the folk within
Bread in your pocket
Clothing inside out
Heed the warning
Or your dance is slowing down

Pastel poison
Dead Man's Bells
Blur and halo 'round all things
Yellow at the edge
Yellow vision spreads
Tiny laughter
Is ringing in your head

Tamalyn Miller

[brown font on beige background]

Folk Lyrics in a Dangerous Time @folklyrics.bsky.social · 5d ago

Foxglove 11/20 "I Am Chemistry" yeasayer.bandcamp.com/track/i-am-c... Written by Chris Keating, Anand Wilder and Ira Wolf Tuton of Yeasayer Featuring Suzzy Roche #MusicSky #folkmusic 🎶

I'm digoxin
From the foxglove plant
The last remaining VX
From Anniston
I'm NaCN
And I'm DDT
Tap into your spine
I am chemistry

Yeasayer feat. Suzzy Roche

[light grey with gritty texture]

Folk Lyrics in a Dangerous Time @folklyrics.bsky.social · 5d ago

Foxglove 10/20 "Poison Garden" theorbweavers.bandcamp.com/track/poison... Written by Marita Dyson and Stuart Flanagan of The Orbweavers #MusicSky #folkmusic 🎶

They said, "Do not play
In the poison garden"
Foxgloves sway
In the poison garden
Melia berries
Fall like marbles
Now crushed and broken
As the ground there hardens
When I was younger
I used to marvel
When they would warn me
About the poison garden

The Orbweavers

[left-aligned moss green script font]

Folk Lyrics in a Dangerous Time @folklyrics.bsky.social · 5d ago

Foxglove 9/20 "Foxgloves" mattbauer.bandcamp.com/track/foxglo... Written by @mattbauermusic.bsky.social #MusicSky #folkmusic 🎶

Bloody fingers
Witch's gloves
Ugly names
For a pretty one
Such a pretty flower
With a poison bough
It doesn't need much
It doesn't need much

Just a crack in the wall
A little rain, a little rain to fall
A crack in the wall
A little rain to fall

Matt Bauer

[dark silver font on shades of very pale silver blue]

Folk Lyrics in a Dangerous Time @folklyrics.bsky.social · 5d ago

Foxglove 8/20 "Miracles of Nature" www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWI0... Written by Christy Moore #MusicSky #folkmusic 🎶

Minister, minister
Pause for reflection
As you fly by helicopter
In pursuit of re-election
An obsession with affairs
Of state and legislature
Leaves little tie for us to share
In the miracles of nature

Like the fairy foxglove
And the rusty-back fern at Poll Na Gollum,
The silver cranesbill
And columbine at Caher Connell
The juniper at Bellharbour
The wintergreen around Slaibh Carron
These miracles of nature
Surviving in the crevices of the Burren

Christy Moore

[mix of very pale pink and very pale purple]

Folk Lyrics in a Dangerous Time @folklyrics.bsky.social · 5d ago

Foxglove 7/20 "The Lupine" miriamhacksaw.bandcamp.com/track/the-lu... Written by Miriam Hacksaw #MusicSky #folkmusic 🎶

We breathe tear gas
Keep watch every night
We sleep on the barricades
You weren't forsaken
But born into war
Tomorrow we fight again

The lupine blooms
From blue to pink
Foxglove pink to white
But I see the fire
That burns in your eyes
It warms me through the night

Miriam Hacksaw

[white font on soft pink background with slight texture like stone or fabric]

Folk Lyrics in a Dangerous Time @folklyrics.bsky.social · 5d ago

Foxglove 6/20 "RHODODENDRON" hftrr.bandcamp.com/track/rhodod... Written by Alynda Segarra of Hurray for the Riff Raff, with Jim James #MusicSky #folkmusic 🎶

Rhododendron
Night Blooming Jasmine
Deadly nightshade
Fox Glove renegade
Rhododendron
I can hear you speaking
You can feel me breathing
Break my head open

Morning Glory
Naked Boys
Limestone Everglade
Police barricade
Rhododendron
Oh, I can't look back
I lost it all on
This one way track

Hurray for the Riff Raff

[white font on a background of wispy green-blue fading into light purple]

Folk Lyrics in a Dangerous Time @folklyrics.bsky.social · 5d ago

Foxglove 5/20 "As It Was" www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7q-... Written by Andrew Hozier-Byrne with Alex Ryan #MusicSky #folkmusic 🎶

There is a roadway
Muddy and foxgloved
Never I'd had life enough
My heart is screaming out
And in a few days
I would be there, love
Ever here that's left of me is yours
Just as it was

Just as it was, baby
Before the otherness came
And I knew its name
The drug, the dark, the light, the flame

Hozier

[white font on midnight blue]

Folk Lyrics in a Dangerous Time @folklyrics.bsky.social · 5d ago

Foxglove 4/20 "Like Bees to Foxglove" jamesyorkston.bandcamp.com/track/like-b... Written by @jamesyorkston.bsky.social Backing vocal by Sarah Scutt #MusicSky #folkmusic 🎶

Some people I love made bad decisions
Through their fears or their addictions
But like bees to foxglove they return
And all the common sense there is
Cannot save a man from this

And all the wisdom that I can offer
Had no use, it had no comfort
For sure, I could not keep them here
I could not read between their lines
Pull the wool within their eyes

Time is so easy, if you have it all
If you have it all, time is so easy

James Yorkston

[orange-brown font on off-white background]

Folk Lyrics in a Dangerous Time @folklyrics.bsky.social · 5d ago

Foxglove 3/20 "Runaway Horse" themontvales.bandcamp.com/track/runawa... Written by Sally Buice of The Montvales #MusicSky #folkmusic 🎶

Used to believe it
When I told her it would all be fine
Refused to see her
Getting weaker all the time
But we walk around the garden
And she shows me what's in bloom
Day lilies and foxgloves
And I've got to leave too soon

Time is a runaway horse
And I've forgotten all my cues
That dream you had in childhood
A game you play to lose

The Montvales

[sky blue]

Folk Lyrics in a Dangerous Time @folklyrics.bsky.social · 5d ago

Foxglove 2/20 "Foxglove" haleyheynderickx.bandcamp.com/track/foxglove Written by Haley Heynderickx #MusicSky #folkmusic 🎶

We grow tired
Over the days
We grow tired
Over and overthinking

When I take a foxglove
And I twirl it all around
And I feel next to you
On the bare ground

Oh daydream die slow
Oh daydream die slow

Haley Heynderickx

[brown font on beige background]

Folk Lyrics in a Dangerous Time @folklyrics.bsky.social · 5d ago

Foxglove 1/20 "Stockton Gala Days" www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTXx... Written by 10,000 Maniacs (lineup of Natalie Merchant, Rob Buck, Dennis Drew, Steven Gustafson and Jerome Augustyniak) #MusicSky #folkmusic 🎶

That summer fields grew high
With foxglove stalks and ivy
Wild apple blossoms everywhere
Emerald green like none I had seen
Apart from dreams that escape me
There was no girl as warm as you

How I've learned to please
To doubt myself in need
You'll never, you'll never know

10,000 Maniacs

[white font on background that starts peach-pink at the top and darkens to the medium purple common in foxgloves]

Folk Lyrics in a Dangerous Time @folklyrics.bsky.social · 6d ago

Instrumental "Foxglove" - written by Bruce Cockburn Named in honour of his friend and fellow musician Fox Watson www.youtube.com/watch?v=U012...

Foxglove

YouTube video by Bruce Cockburn - Topic

youtube.com

Folk Lyrics in a Dangerous Time @folklyrics.bsky.social · last mo.

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Folk Lyrics in a Dangerous Time@folklyrics.bsky.social · last yr.

Folk Lyrics in a Dangerous Time @folklyrics.bsky.social · last mo.

Summer Vol. 2 20/20 "My Tennessee Mountain Home" www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG2k... Written by Dolly Parton Backing vocals by The Nashville Edition #MusicSky #folkmusic 🎶

Honeysuckle vine clings
To the fence along the line
Their fragrance makes
The summer wind so sweet
And on a distant hilltop
An eagle spreads its wings
And a songbird on a fence post
Sings a melody

In my Tennessee mountain home
Life is as peaceful as a baby's sigh
In my Tennessee mountain home
Crickets sing in the field nearby

Dolly Parton

[white font on a background of wispy green-blue fading into light purple]

Folk Lyrics in a Dangerous Time @folklyrics.bsky.social · last mo.

Summer Vol. 2 19/20 "Surface Tension" leannesimpson.bandcamp.com/track/surfac... Words by @biidaasamose.bsky.social Music by @ansleysmusic.bsky.social , Nick Ferrio, and producers Jonas Bonetta and @jimbryson.bsky.social Backing vocals by John K. Samson and co-writers #MusicSky #folkmusic 🎶

These are simple stolen moments
And we love when we are able...

And there are beating wings
Reminding me if you fly
Forever you can have
Two summers
And the river only goes
One way
And you can't get lost

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

[very pale sky blue]

Folk Lyrics in a Dangerous Time @folklyrics.bsky.social · last mo.

Summer Vol. 2 18/20 "Outlaw" skylargudasz.bandcamp.com/track/outlaw Written by @skylargudasz.bsky.social #MusicSky #folkmusic 🎶

Summer of some of us in our prime
Summer of some of us fighting for our lives
Summer of resistance
Setting it all on fire

Take me to the river, midnight rider
Swim with me naked 'neath the stars
Shooting through the Perseids up in the sky
I swear I saw NEOWISE
I dreamed I had new eyes

And baby, oh, this country's trying to kill you
The dark is everywhere
Too hard for just one heart to hold
Hold on, outlaw

Skylar Gudasz

[white font on background of dark sky of stars]

Folk Lyrics in a Dangerous Time @folklyrics.bsky.social · last mo.

Summer Vol. 2 17/20 "Complicit" listen - www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7Fc... buy - theweatherstation.bandcamp.com/track/compli... Written by Tamara Lindeman of @theweatherstation.bsky.social #MusicSky #folkmusic 🎶

You got a job and lost it, and they never told you why
And you can't seem to get past it, this ordinary lie
And they're saying this summer is the worst it's ever been
With the radio on, and they're talking
Another shooting, floods creeping in the lowlands
And everybody's shouting, and I just hold your hand
And I say nothing, I say nothing at all
I don't think my voice matters really after all
I was raised to hear the curlews, I was raised to notice light
And I watch the little swallows, delicate in their flight
I trail my hand down through the water of the familiar riverside
For hours in such silence I lay beside, terrified

The Weather Station

[shades of pale grey]

Folk Lyrics in a Dangerous Time @folklyrics.bsky.social · last mo.

Summer Vol. 2 16/20 "Summertime" lonnierott.bandcamp.com/track/summer... Written by @lonnierott.bsky.social #MusicSky #folkmusic 🎶

While we sit and talk for days and days
The war machine goes on its way
Is it right? Who gives a damn
Your pension's safe with Uncle Sam

I'm just trying to make it
To the summertime
When I don't have to work
Away from home
Come then we'll sit and play
But in the meantime
I'm stuck in this office
All alone

Lonnie Rott

[brown font on beige background]

Folk Lyrics in a Dangerous Time @folklyrics.bsky.social · last mo.

Summer Vol. 2 15/20 "Through & Through & Through" joelplaskett.bandcamp.com/track/throug... Written by Joel Plaskett Horns arranged with David Christensen Featuring vocals by Rose Cousins and Ana Egge #MusicSky #folkmusic 🎶

I'm the Berlin Wall
I'm a communist
You're a wreckin' ball
In a summer dress
You're the horizon line
I'm the last sunset
I might be goin' down
But I'm not set yet

I'm as white as a ghost
Diggin' foolish gold
I will man my post
But I won't do what I'm told
Got a purple heart
From a bloody war
Can't take it
Anymore, more, more

Joel Plaskett feat. Ana Egge and & Rose Cousins

[pale grey with gritty texture]

Folk Lyrics in a Dangerous Time @folklyrics.bsky.social · last mo.

Summer Vol. 2 14/20 "Gone Again" sunnywar.bandcamp.com/track/gone-a... Written by Sunny War Featuring vocals by John Doe #MusicSky #folkmusic 🎶

We keep on growing, no, it never stops
Our bodies change, and so do our thoughts
Time will make strangers outta your best friends
You catch your breath and then it's gone again

Under that smile is just a mound of stress
You're Armageddon in a summer dress
Suppress it all until your stomach hurts
Honest and lonely, it would only be worse

Sunny War feat. John Doe

[slight blue through very cloudy beige sky]

Folk Lyrics in a Dangerous Time @folklyrics.bsky.social · last mo.

Summer Vol. 2 13/20 "Neon Summer Skin" bedouine.bandcamp.com/track/neon-s... Written by Azniv Korkejian (as Bedouine) #MusicSky #folkmusic 🎶

Wrangled in the bath
Beads of water
Down my tangled hair
And my neon summer skin
Chalky eyes still
Blushing from the chlorine

It never portend
It ever would end
But oh, everybody's older now
Oh, everybody's older now

Bedouine

[purple font on background of shimmery white changing diagonally to purple and then green]