Lateral drifts

by Dwight Smith

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  • Digital Album

    Immediate download of 15-track album in your choice of high-quality MP3, FLAC, or just about any other format you could possibly desire.

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  • Lateral Drifts CD

    On four panel card stock with original artwork by Alison Dubois (alison-dubois.com)

    Includes immediate download of 15-track album in your choice of high-quality MP3, FLAC, or just about any other format you could possibly desire.

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about

With an absurd wish from my perch high on the wall
I empty my pillow case into the vast night
That some clandestine wind might carry my longing
Feathers rising through the void to those distant lights

credits

released 23 October 2012
artwork/ design by alison dubois
mixed by michael kiefer
mastered by mark alan miller
horns by becky lipsitz
drums by michael kiefer
horns recorded by michael mood
written and recorded by dwight smith
℗ 2012 sonisoma
twin lakes records

tags

tags: folk twin lakes records baroque pop freak folk indie folk nu-folk Austin

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about

An indie folk artist residing in Austin, TX, Dwight Smith developed his catalog of songs while roaming The Americas over the last several years, living and working in Brooklyn, Chicago, Guatemala, Ecuador, Alaska, and Connecticut. His work has been called "haunting and delightful" (Terrascope), "wise, sobering, refreshing" (The Freequency), and "a fascinating personal take on folk" (Folk World) ... more

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Track Name: sargasso sea
When the wind it fills your sails
And sends you on your way
Across the wide sargasso sea
A year's trip and a day

I know that I will shed a tear
For the day and for the year

For though it's not for me to go
It's still so strange a thing to know
How to tell the savage thing
That promises hot tears to bring

I've never known the way to show
Why the soul swings to and fro
If there are words, ain't heard 'em yet
To help the broken bones to set

So when the wind it fills your sails
And sends you on your way
There may be no way to tell
The things I need to say
Track Name: bone eaters
What is it that always happens to you?
Your heart turns
Rivers change their course
And fertile valleys wilt

To whistling wells of dessicating wind
That whips the dry and shattered earth
The sun sends down its hammer
In disgust

Your heart turns and lakebeds go dry
The sky opens up and rends the earth apart
With arrows blue and grey and gold
Revealing blood and tooth and bone
That dirt and stubborn stone
Track Name: vain prince
I want to be loved by every woman and man
More than any one has ever been
I'll admit that I am vain, but then
Show me any one who is not
I guess that I've got a whole lot
To learn from her

Eternal feminine ghost who resides
In you and in all women and men
I'll admit that I'm afraid, and don't
Want to bring you down, but I want you
Embedded in the sweetest nectar
Is the gravest poison

I've asked too much of love before
I'd rather not make the same mistake again
Is sex misunderstood if one's dream
Is to be wild, and the other's, to tame?

O, marrow of my life, I'm a coward
But I try to seem brave

Am I only the intersection of other people's love?
Particle manifested by affection's elusive higgs boson?
Track Name: wasp in the water
Clearing debris that was left by the storm
I saw you floating there
Motionless, resigned to your fate
No recourse anywhere
To escape your watery grave
Til I offer my aluminum arm
Your tiny soul to save
Or at least your minuscule form

When I lift you from the water
You hold on tight, you hold on tight
When I lift you from the water
You hold on tight, you hold on tight

You don't wanna lose your grip
On the dripping net, the island that appeared
Suspicious, now, of dry land
Where a treacherous fall will hereafter be feared
Track Name: winter blossom
My life is now a void
I pour myself into
Without touching any walls
Or reaching any floor

No vessel to contain
I'm spilling any way
Outward into empty space
I fear it is the case

Still, every now and then
I wonder where you are, and
If I enter your thoughts,
What is it that you think?

I'm not begging for return
I'm just not sure that I can say
I know that I was right
I'd hate to have been wrong
Track Name: good advice
Brother, I've got years and not much more on you
I want to give good advice but don't know that I have it
I'm gonna try, I'm gonna try
Hope what I share can shed some light
Hope that the words that come out can do you right

Brother, I've got words and not much more for you
If you're needing promises I'm not gonna do
All that I want is for you
To discover the good life
All that I hope is that my counsel won't bring you strife

Brother, I know what it's like, I've been there before
But that I learned what's to learn I'm not quite so sure
All that I think that I know
It ain't one hundred percent
Best I can say is don't you go where I went
Track Name: take me with you
Brass wound nickel cords do recommend
Themselves as a perch for my hand
And when my clawed fingers fly they sing
Take me, take me with you

Unaware that they, themselves, allow us
To escape to a place strange and sweet
Where the troubles of our lives can't reach us
Or, at least, cannot reach with such pain
Track Name: highlands
Today I stepped in dog shit right outside my door. Ain't no mistakes. Domingo wants me to go with him to catch the midnight bus to Guatemala City but I have to teach in the morning. Stars in the sky went on and on in their bright course. The bard made bold to murmur some tiny sound and it had started.

The road it carves an open wound into the earth revealing its true colors-- bone white, blood red. On my right side the bubbling song of a small child whose voice has yet to be subdued. She stares up without shame. Her eyes are bright and cast wide in wonder.

And on my left a woman who pays me no mind, ancient and grey, chewing her bread silently. She does not stare because she cannot see.