Get all 4 Ben Ashman releases available on Bandcamp.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Ring Street Session, The Revenant, Sunshine, and 1054530.
1. |
Love Letter
01:08
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(wordless)
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2. |
Night Mirrors
03:32
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Where do you suppose
you'll go to bed
when the real bears come?
Tell me
it's time for bed
little bear.
The rabbits read
Goodnight Moon
back in the warren.
Who will read
to them?
Rabbit moms.
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3. |
Reverend Edwards
03:16
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I love it when you read the Bible,
at least a chapter every night
gentle admonitions, strengthening convictions:
you are doing what is right.
Words of peace from the mount
words of comfort from the plain
a righteous yearning and a thirsting.
Is that really what I mean?
CHORUS:
Do I really want to be good,
or just love what I see?
Day by day I'm getting older
my medial inusla getting colder.
Dopamine and oxytocin
just don't mean what they used to.
Reverend Edwards,
you say I have salvation from an angry God.
I'll be saved by a word
three thousand years of Egyptians never even heard
CHORUS
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4. |
Leo Frank
05:18
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They took me down to the police station
I didn't do anything
I didn't do anything
Don't think for a moment
that I doubted myself
or believed what they said to me
Truth shouldn't be put to a vote
the jury can't know what I know
how else can I say no?
Just one Saturday afternoon
will last for years
last for years
Fifteen minutes in the court room
will echo for eternity
God help humanity!
The same papers visiting me
will print pictures in July
of me hanging from a tree.
They're coming to get me
to take me from my bed
they already sent a man with a knife.
Out of the prison
into a car
from Midgeville to Marietta in the dark.
Men on either side of me
masks on their faces
say "Did you do it?
Did you do it?"
Oh, Lord.
Oh, Lord.
We get out by a tree
beside the old mill
Judge Black with a table and a rope.
A bag over my head
and a rope 'round my neck
they say "Did you do it?
Have you anything to say?"
Not to you! Not to you!
Take my ring to my wife.
And let me write a letter to go with it.
Oh, Lucille.
Please believe me.
I've ne'er been quite so well known
as for this deed.
But believe me, I am not guilty.
No virtue of mine stayed my hand,
I'd just never betray you, Lucille.
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5. |
Johannes Kepler
05:29
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Born to a father
who left me for war
got my good name
but the money's all gone
Variola vera
made my hands weak
racked by disease
I can hardly see
Don't think this left me
without any means
with my mind I perceive
a cosmic mystery
I can tell you your future
it's written in the stars
of love and good fortune
battles and wars
Numbers describing
the heavens above
(are) a damned sinner's sign
of God's perfect love
Papist believers
got nothin' on me
their dead end religion's
not the God I seek
CHORUS:
The heavens make more sense to me
planets trace perfect elipses
lines go to infinity
They took
my mother
for a witch in the war
This world
has fallen
from grace
I see
no perfect
circles in space
Six children dead
my wife buried deep
the Almighty's purpose
is a secret He keeps
Great man on his death bed
papers in hand
says "Let me not seem to have lived in vain!
Let me not seem to have lived in vain,
let me not seem to have lived in vain!"
CHORUS
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6. |
Margo
03:49
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Margo, I know, I don't live here at all
but it's not that far away, it's not that far away.
Scarce do I think of that the place that I'm from
it's not that far away, it's not that far away.
CHORUS:
Margo, we have reason enough
for leaving this behind.
Airplanes and telephones may be too much,
even for the good that we find.
You know it takes seven minutes to fall asleep
it took eighteen men for you to get to me
I don't live here, it's just a city
on the Hocking, the Potomac or the Great Miami.
CHORUS
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7. |
Across the River
03:16
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I have loved women before
they have all left me here
don't mean nothin' no more
I am looking for something to depend on
somethin' that won't just move on
leave me here and be gone
CHORUS:
There is something for me out there
I see it just across the river
the lights are promises I hear
from my window it makes me shiver
I thought all I wanted was for someone to hold me
but now I'm re-evaluating my priorities
Don't misunderstand me, I know it won't be the same
but whatever will be missing
I won't miss the pain
CHORUS
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8. |
Good Friday
04:51
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(instrumental)
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9. |
Beneath a Rougher Sea
02:06
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Think of when we were young
you say
but her eyes are looking past you into the sun
Now is not then, then is not now
she says
there is nothing, nothing more to say
Oh man, how I've longed to take you by the hand
Oh man, what's forgotten is not lost
it has brought you to stand where you stand
Oh man, how I've longed to take you by the hand
Oh man, you find yourself so alone
Oh man, oh my Lord
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10. |
Reed Jones
03:16
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Oil
bought me a life I could not sustain
in an effort to be human
I created all my pain
Lord have mercy dare I strike you
all else I have the right to
I will die beautiful
I will die beautiful
Beautiful I will die
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11. |
Tolle Lege
02:20
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(instrumental)
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12. |
The Revenant
03:55
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Selections (spoken):
I was born and grew up in a little town of about eleven hundred people. After graduation you took whatever job you could find. . .
My grandmother, my grandmother grew up not too far from here. . .
Even in those days, in the forties and fifties, they called 'em coffin nails and had all sorts of names for tobacco . . .
My mother was in her twenties, I don't know. . .
. . . Well, grandma lived to be ninety five and she smoked!
. . . my dad and three brothers and Mary were playing cards. . .
She was taking creative writing, I was just taking plain old english. . .
I joined the US Air Force, can't say as I enjoyed it 'cause you sat . . .
. . . The paper was handed back; it was a poem I'd written on loneliness. .
. . . If there are ashes in it, close your eyes. . .
(When Jesus wept the falling tear
in mercy flowed beyond all bound
when Jesus groaned a trembling fear
seized all the guilty world around)
It was February. . . riding along, the snow was, you know how it does, it goes across and swirls
When it's cold it doesn't lie in one place, it just keeps going.
These things, they can make me to suffer, but if it's not my time to leave this world I won't. Because God is there for me.
Der Herr ist mein Hirte. . .
Once upon a time. . .
. . . you won't be the same . . .
. . . dein Stecken und Stab. . .
. . . one built a house of straw, and one built a house of. . .
You see our book, the Qur'an, is funny, you know? Even is written . . .
. . . and the bad gods. . . the bad ones, those who disobey god. . . and even them who kneel. . .
. . . and then, and then the pigs ran away. . .
open up the door! No. . .
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