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Like a Dancer Unstrung

by Kit Soden

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1.
Like a dancer unstrung Cut your shadow loose And run Like a dancer unstrung I don’t want things to thin I don’t want to hang by a thread Whatever we knew In the here and now Don’t matter When it’s when You got to choose Cut your shadow loose And run Like a dancer unstrung Like a dancer unstrung It’s the only race you need to win The only line you gotta cross Whatever you knew In the there and then Don’t matter In the end You got to choose Cut your shadow loose And run Like a dancer unstrung Like a dancer unstrung Like a dancer unstrung Words by Steven Erikson Music by Kit Soden
2.
Tuxedo Cadillac Grey Man’s Tuxedo Cadillac Keeps on rolling Past the smokestacks Of whatever’s churning Round in my head You can stand there Wearing your certainty You can feel it Driving you forward Like a big black car, babe Now there’s a line I heard somewhere About dogs Clawing at the door But baby it’s worth knowing -- Chains can spin For eternity Rings can glitter With a life of their own And on this road Nobody wins Without paying The Grey Man home So we stood there In this crazy dream With our thumbs out On a bridge above a stream As if we knew where we’re going And when the last Chariot rolled past The last wagon rocked by When the last greyhound Chased the rabbit around This caddy rolls up and the window rolls down Now there’s a line I heard somewhere About black dogs Clawing at the door But baby it’s worth knowing -- Chains can spin For eternity Rings can glitter With a life of their own And on this road Nobody wins Without paying The Grey Man home Words by Steven Erikson Music by Kit Soden
3.
Reapers Gale 05:27
Reaper’s Gale Crawl down sun this is not your time -- This is not your time -- Black waves slide Under the sheathed moon Upon the shore a silent storm Heaves up from crimson foam A will untamed A new age born From your mountain nests -- High mountain nests -- Your iron clouds To leave the sea its dancing Refuse of stars On this host of salty midnight tides Gather drawn and draw tight Your tempest The storm comes Shouldering aside The storm comes In a marching wind This reaper’s gale The storm comes On this wild ride (Nowhere to run) The storm comes Riding a black sail This reaper’s gale Words by Steven Erikson Music by Kit Soden
4.
Caged Bird 03:52
Caged Bird And these things were never so precious Listen to the bird in its cage as it speaks In a dying man's voice; when he is gone The voice lives to greet and give empty Assurances with random poignancy I do not know if I could live with that If I could armour myself as the inhuman beak Opens to a dead man's reminder, head cocked As if channelling the ghost of the one Who imagines an absence of sense, a vacuum awaiting The cage is barred and nightly falls the shroud To silence the commentary of impossible apostles Spirit godlings and spanning abyss, impenetrable cloud Between the living and the dead, the here and the gone Where no bridge can smooth the passage of pain And these things were never so precious Listening to the bird as it speaks and it speaks And it speaks, the one who has faded away The father departed knowing the unknown And it speaks and it speaks and it speaks In my father's voice And these things were never so precious... Words by Steven Erikson Music by Kit Soden Album Artwork and Design by Emily Soden
5.
Bottomless Well No sermons on the mount Climbin' the hill Got loaves got fishes Got blood got wine Bottomless well Bottomless well Rhinestones on your crown Can’t get your fill You got needs got wishes You got watches to wind Bottomless well Bottomless well Wood on my shoulders Weighing me down I got flesh and fault-lines I got bones to the ground Bottomless well Bottomless well Pushin like a preacher We’re lost till you’re found Are these the ties that bind? No echoes no sound Bottomless well Bottomless well Bottomless well Bottomless well Words by Steven Erikson Music by Kit Soden
6.
Lay of the Bridgeburners I have seen the face of sorrow She looks away in the distance Across all these bridges From whence I came And those spans, trussed and arched Hold up our lives as we go back again To how we thought then To how we thought we thought then I have seen sorrow's face, But she is ever turned away And her words leave me blind Her eyes make me mute I do not understand what she says to me I do not know if to obey Or attempt a flood of tears I have seen her face She does not speak She does not weep She does not know me I am but a stone, fitted in place On the bridge, where she walks I am but a stone, fitted in place On the bridge, where she walks
7.
Stand Alone 03:40
Stand Alone When can he not stand alone Where in darkness no shadow is cast Whose most precious selves deny the throne When nothing held in life will last a moment longer Than what is carved into the very bones But this is where you would stand When can he not stand alone Where darkness bleeds so vast Whose every yearning seeks a new home While each struggle leaves the meek to the stronger And the fallen lie scattered like stones But this is the life you would take in hand When can he not stand alone Where in darkness every shadow is lost Whose weary selves cut away and will roam While nothing is left but this shielded stranger Standing against the wind's eternal moans But this is your hero who must stand Words by Steven Erikson Music by Kit Soden
8.
Song of old Friend My friend, this is not the place the cut flowers lie scattered on the path and the light of the moon glistens in what the stems bleed in the day just forever lost I watched a black wasp darting into the face of a web, and the spider she dropped only to be caught in mid-air footfalls leave no trace in the wake of the hungry creatures wrath you can only lie in hope dreaming she lightly touched the ground and danced away like a breath hiding beneath leaves nodding in place while the hunter circles and listens but pray, nothing is found so, my friend this is not your face so pale and still, never again to laugh when the moon's light fell and then stopped cold as silver in the glade look back on the day it's forever lost stare into the night where things confound and the web stretches empty winds keening in threads of absent songs... Words by Steven Erikson Music by Kit Soden
9.
Bard's Curse 04:36
Bard's Curse Rage and tell me then Not every tale is a gift When anguish gives the knife One more twist And blood is thinned by tears Cry out the injustice Not every tale is a gift In a world harsh with strife Leaving us bereft Deeds paling through the years And I will meet your eye Neither flinching nor shy As I fold death inside life And face you down With all my mortal fears And I will say then Every tale is a gift And the scars born by us both Are easily missed In the distance between us Words by Steven Erikson Music by Kit Soden
10.
Tales of the Fallen Now these ashes have grown cold, we open the old book. These oil-stained pages recount the tales of the Fallen, a frayed empire, words without warmth. The hearth has ebbed, its gleam and life's sparks are but memories against dimming eye - what cast my mind, what hue my thoughts as I open the Book of the Fallen and breathe deep the scent of history? Listen, then, to these words carried on that breath. These tales are the tales of us all, again yet again. We are history relived and that is all, without end that is all. Words by Steven Erikson Music by Kit Soden
11.
One Thread 08:15
One thread I came walkin' in from the desert On a cold October morn And the clock in the tower spun backward In that dusty prairie town The weather vane on the steeple Was a unicorn covered in rust It’s been pointing north now A hundred years (pretty much) Now it spun a wild squeal And followed me up the street And I heard it say I’ll give ya one thread for your blanket Two threads for your soul Ageless as the hills from where she came, And nobody had ever heard her name She’d watched the locomotives roll Between piles of buffalo bones It was an iron skull all the same She lived in a house of rusty rail spikes And sat in front of the door Rocking wild in her bamboo chair Something slithered in her eyes Gaze tracking my every stride She stretched out her hand And gave me one thread for my blanket Two threads for my soul A man with silver studs was standing Like Jesus Christ reborn But there was change in his pockets He wouldn’t give to no one He never thought past his own opinions He had no conscience to be torn The heels on those cowboy boots Well they weren’t even worn He wished I’d just wither Under his righteous regard And he pointed a finger Taking one thread from my blanket Two threads from my soul Now the sky looks big in this parta the world And the sun it walks a slow slow mile The wind it’s just God’s long breath out And you’ll know how that never ends But it’s talkin a blue streak all the while When the devil under ground rises up That weather vane spins 'round south And the unicorn, well, he just smiles While the twister ties one on The devil will beguile And with teeth’s he’s filed Steals one thread from my blanket Two threads from my soul So now that town’s behind me a dusty state of mind And this road’s the sweetest river Through promises made of sand There’s an angel with her thumb stuck out Her skirt a white sail in the wind I shivered before her warning smile I even thought about taking a stand Instead I just walked on past And when our shadows crossed God just nodded And so tippin my hat I gave her one thread from my blanket Two threads from my soul In this world and every other it’s worth remembering What it is to stay warm On a cold October morning It’s only in your mind That clocks run backward To summers forlorn & gone Try to recall it was this cold On the day you were born And she was there Her breath so soft Givin ya this: One thread from her blanket Two threads from her soul ---- Words by Steven Erikson Music by Kit Soden

about

collaboration between singer-songwriter Kit Soden and author Steven Erikson - www.stevenerikson.com

album cover by Emily Soden www.emilysoden.com

Produced by: Kit Soden, Alejandra Bernal, and Gonzalo Garcia
Engineered by: Alejandra Bernal and Gonzalo Garcia
Mixed by: Alejandra Bernal
Mastered by: Ryan Morey – www.ryebreadmastering.net

Recorded in Redpath Hall,
at McGill University's Schulich School of Music,
Montreal QC, from November 2009 to April 2010

Guitar & Vocals: Kit Soden
Bass: Evan Stewart
Mandolin: Luke Fraser
Fiddle: Sarah Frank (on tracks 1,3, 5, and 11) www.thebombadils.com
Flute: Anh Phung
Violin & Backup Vocals: Aliza Thibodeau (Violin tracks 1,7,8, and 10 - and Vocals on tracks 1 and 11)
Trumpet: Sarah Bellefeuille-Reid
Horn: Jonathan Camiré
Trombone: Mikolaj Debowski
Tuba: Marshall Gayman
Viola: Lillian Belknap
Cello: Andrea Stewart
Backup Vocals: Meghan Riley (on tracks 3 and 8)
Cajon: Noam Bierstone
Percussion: Chris Olsen

credits

released June 21, 2010

Kit Soden and Steven Erikson

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about

Kit Montréal, Québec

October Gold, an acoustic alt-folk duo based out of Montreal, is the latest collaboration of singer/songwriter Kit and his partner in music (and life), violinist Aliza. This marriage of Kit's folksy roots and Aliza's classical sensibilities has created a unique sound that has been described as "painting your imagination with song." ... more

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