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Heroes Waking Up

by Anna Tivel

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1.
Look Away 03:14
and if you go walking, in a world made of stars the neon reflection, of your face in the dark and the heat of the city, in the curve of your palm look away, my darling, look away my loved one and god bless the terror, that brings you to bed your lily white knuckles, your bruising, your breath from the dark where you called out, and the things that you said look away, my darling, look away my dear friend you’re not alone, you’re not alone, you’re not alone and under your eyelids, it’s quiet, it’s safe but he stole the sun from where it lay on your face and never a day you don’t cry out to wake look away, my darling, look away, look away look away, my darling, look away, look away and how deep the water that carries you home the warm cotton smell of the clean forest floor and drifting in dreams, let it go, let it go look away, my darling, look away from it all look away, my darling, look away from it all
2.
storm coming in, and hail the size of quarters turn the radio down, yeah they’re always trying to warn you with the static crying and the water rising on road but you built this place out of lust and blood, dug the lines to feed it, fed the bones you dug to the dogs come creeping all mange and mud, their wild eyes shining at you, starved for love get back little doggies, i am not your man i was never the savior of anything just a hungry laborer, reticent, to belong to a world that so soon forgets storm coming in, and you are no performer but your hair stands up for the thunder of a story and the night is howling and the hawks and owls calling your name so you climb to the roof where you can see the town, and the cars all packed hatches boarded down and the trees bent back, till they kiss the ground, limbs all awry, limbs all around snap back sweet branches i am not alone i was never the champion of anyone just a hungry man, all flesh and bone, dug deep inside of my sunken home but they’ll never find me, now that i’m flying, oh how they’ll weep and moan i’ll be a tale to tell, a page to fill and sell, the man who closed the eye of the storm storm coming in, and people say they saw it just a hungry man, with his arms out on the turret like a raven’s wings, they can’t even be certain what they saw but he took to the sky like a black balloon, rising higher and higher in the storm he flew like a warning beacon, like the rectitude, like fire get back little brother, close the kitchen door there is nobody out there in the thunderstorm just a hungry soul, rising from the floor, to the sky but they’ll never find me, now that i’m flying, oh how they’ll weep and moan i’ll be a tale to tell, a page to fill and sell, the man who closed the eye of the storm
3.
an old box of tools and a bible, a coffee can half full of dreams the scar of a name carved so careful, in the side of an evergreen the sweet smell of diesel and lumber, and leather gloves worn by the wind my hero of hoping and hunger, my one real man blue-eyed and out on the water, just watching the lines and the tide but bring him home safe he’s my father, don’t go closing his blue eyes a nickel for what you been thinking, a dollar is more than i own a decade is too long to search for that highway back home so maybe i’ll move to a new town, and start up a life on the edge but then again maybe i’ll sit down and count how i’m blessed blue-eyed and out on the water, just watching the lines and the tide but bring him home safe he’s my father, don’t go closing his blue eyes and the river is mighty at midnight, the canyon just layers of time you’re brighter to me than the moonlight, wider than the night sky i think of you when i’m out walking, or under the hood of my car the steady belief buried deep in the gold of your heart and someday i’ll want for the answers, to questions that i never posed someday i’ll hold my own daughter the way you held yours blue-eyed and out on the water, just watching the lines and the tide but bring him home safe he’s my father, don’t go closing his blue eyes
4.
Dial Tone 02:30
it’s just you, at the window pane, if you breathe just right you can write your name just a couple of lines, in a liars game and nobody’s listening anyway it’s just you, at the marketplace, with your basket full up of empty space and nothing to buy, but time to waste and nobody’s listening anyway you do all your talking, in a one way telephone just a lonely voice that craves the sound of its echo you’re the dial tone it’s just you, making all those plans, what you gonna do, who you do it with and the roads all end up circling and nobody’s listening anyway it’s just you, waking up at night, with a dream so real, you were sure you died you were falling, fighting, man you were flying and nobody’s listening anyway you do all your talking, in a one way telephone just a lonely voice that craves the sound of its echo you’re the dial tone it’s just you, at the window pane, if you breathe just right you can breathe again just a couple of days, in a year of rain and nobody’s listening anyway
5.
Slow Motion 05:21
everything is magical in slow motion the way you tilt your head under the sun and maybe it’s just yearning for a deep moment the heated kiss of heroes waking up but no one ever told you it would be perfect and dreaming sometimes dresses like regret and better men have failed to get the light working they just stumbled in the dark for years i guess and the slow motion color of the empty interstate, like the warm light of a lover when the day begins to break, on the bluest sunday morning that the angels ever made, before they flew away and the LA wind is hardly even blowing you got the number dialed, but you don’t call you don’t believe your words are worth the motion you don’t believe your tears are worth the salt but you better tell your loved ones that you love them says the man beside the fence down at the park and i drove across this country to the bottom it’s beautiful, but man it broke my heart it’s getting late we probably should get going the dogs are glowing ghostly in the dusk another perfect stranger looking lonesome another moment slow and warm and hushed and everything is magical in slow motion the way you tilt your cheek against the blade and maybe it’s just yearning for a true moment on the bluest morning angels ever made
6.
the paper sits upon the step, the messenger already gone and lillian sits next to it, and looks across the coming dawn the type is bold enough to read, for eyes so tired and set with time and lillian cannot believe, the photograph and bold headline she leaves the step and lights the stove, she heats the kettle cracks the eggs and from the porch the paper blows, it lifts and weaves and floats away and lillian, she smoothes her hair, she sits to rest her aching feet and up the old and oaken stairs, martha stirs and leaves a dream she reaches out across the bed, finds the sheets are tucked and cold she calls aloud for lillian, her heart it beats and strains and slows and lillian, she climbs the stairs, she hears her martha’s ragged breath she lies beside her calms her fear, it’s alright darling you can rest and long they lay there side by side, the breath of two becomes the one and down the street the photo flies, of martha and of lillian and now the town it slowly wakes, unrolls the paper, sits to read the news it travels cross the state, of hearts that struggle to be free and from the front in love and tears, lillian and martha wave the courthouse after fifty years, on their long awaited wedding day beyond the step the day begins, the heat it rises from the road and down the stair comes lillian, a promise kept, a band of gold
7.
Reverie 04:58
the streetlights are diamonds, the sidewalk a bed of boot heels and garbage and cigarettes and only the hopeless and lonesome are left to pin up the night and go home and i don’t believe that a fortune is told by the turning of cards, by the swinging of stones but still i’m here hoping for what i can’t hold for some kind of sign from above so turn out the lights, let the diamonds be damned a reverie is sweeter in the dark and i don’t got nothing but two empty hands and this slow burning flame of a heart and midnight comes rolling all bottles and bags they come to rest soft in the park and a beautiful woman, her voice made of glass stirs in a dream in the dark and i don’t believe that the future is told by the weight of a word, but by the way it’s spoke and still i’m here holding your name in my throat and isn’t it sweet on my tongue and the dawn glows, and it spreads like a spill in the shadows, someone whispers it will be alright the streetlights are faded, the sidewalk a song of footsteps, and papers, and telephones and darling it’s raining, come take me back home it seems that i’ve seen quite enough and i don’t know which way i’m bound to believe the story itself, or the space between but still i’m here wiping my eyes on my sleeve at the beautiful world waking up
8.
before i left, i wasn’t anyone a poor laborer’s lonely son and i dreamed of women, gold and guns but they were only dreams then called a cause that needed me my sleight of hand and my strong belief for the west it reigns in a sinful beast that threatens everything but swing that hammer, it’s an awful shame to watch a paper fall, from a stranger’s hand where’s the glory in all of that couple pencils and a photograph the day i left, my mama cried but i was proud to go, proud to fight and a blood red sun rose in the sky and i bent my body east i found my brothers in the sand all that artillery and promising and we bravely faced the task at hand to cut and kill the beast took a plane, fulfilled my place a crowded market and an office space and the heat of heaven, that metallic taste and i watched that paper fall i came to slay, i came to serve my weapon’s weight against the written word and i cried out allah and he cried my lord heaven help us all
9.
rainbows and ridges, and rhymers and rhymes lovers and music all have their time someone gets started and someone resigns interstate highways and buses and planes but we’ll only take horses down memory lane if everything passes, what past will remain? some days you win, some days you lose a chair got knocked over, i got the blues some don't get any, some get to choose rainbows and ridges, and rhymers and rhymes lovers and music all have their time someone gets started and someone resigns
10.
when the buildings turn to tall grass, and the yellow lights to stars and the flag lies down at half mast, like a thousand times before mother don’t forget the letters, sister don’t forget to breathe i am standing at your doorstep, you are down upon your knees will you taste what i have tasted, would you feel what i have felt i don’t need you to erase it, i just need a little help father close the door behind you, i am not the man i was i am standing at your doorstep, just a shadow of a son will you wake me if i’m screaming, will you love me if i run doesn’t mean i didn’t mean it, when i slipped that promise on you and darling don’t pour out the whiskey, you are still so beautiful i am standing at your doorstep, we will never win this war i am standing at your doorstep, we will never win if they call me i will be there, shine my boots and hold my breath maybe i’ll come back a hero, laid to rest beneath the flag but please don’t forget to tell them, everything that i have done i am standing at your doorstep, i am handing you my gun i am standing at your doorstep, i am handing you my gun i’ll be standing at your doorstep, if i’m ever coming home
11.
i lay down in the wild blue field of your bed above us the peeled paint and prayers i wanted to know what the angels said they breathed your name i swear and i know that you’re tired of your life on the edge the corners and cracks of a cage but deep in the wild blue field of your bed only a dream remains so take my good fortune and take my belief you’re leaving before i wake may beautiful dreaming and the sweetest release follow you all through the day i lay down in the wild blue field of your bed above us the stars and the stains i wanted to know what the angels said i swear they breathed your name and i know you’re afraid to be loved, to be left but fences they fall and they fade and deep in the wild blue field of your bed only a dream remains and take my good fortune and take my belief you’re leaving before i wake may beautiful dreaming and the sweetest release follow you all through the day and take my belongings, the salt from my skin my body lies bent and between a beautiful highway where lovers have been and the wild blue field where they dream

about

Heroes Waking Up, Anna Tivel’s third full-length album, will be released on May 20, 2016. It is the result of a year spent living and writing in a friend’s garage and on the road. The eleven song recording winds through a dusky darkness of hopeful strangers, shadowed struggle, quiet love, and flying dreams. Produced by guitar magician Austin Nevins (Josh Ritter, Anais Mitchell, The Mountain Goats), Tivel’s faded-photographic songwriting swells above a soundscape meticulously crafted by Nevins on guitar, lap steel, banjo, and pump organ. He is joined by Sam Howard (Ruth Moody) on bass, Ian Krist (Blind Pilot) on vibraphone, Robin Macmillan on percussion, and Jeffrey Martin and Moorea Masa singing harmonies. Throw in some violin and octave violin from Anna herself and the final effect is a sweeping, dream-like exploration of Tivel’s raw imagery and powerful storytelling.

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released May 20, 2016

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Anna Tivel Portland, Oregon

Anna Tivel's 6th studio album, "Living Thing" will be released May 31 on Fluff and Gravy Records

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