1. |
The Republic Theme
05:19
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I belong to a sphere where words
Are far mightier than any sword
And guard a collective heart.
I belong to suits and ties
Legal process, political pyres
Proceedings, agreements and bargaining tables
Where love is taboo and souls are for sale
But you belong on the streets of the city
In the neon gardens of excess and plenty
Where forgetting is the basic means of survival
And stamina is charged by your fitness and style
You belong in a club where your dance
Tells your story through your gestures, midriff and fluids
Where your movement is a potent pheromone
We all need a place to belong
I feel desperate and vital for a sense of the right place
We all need a place to belong
Over all of the dance, matter, time and space
We all need a place to belong
Mediating movement, escaping the rat race
Yes, you belong to the people
To the eyes of every voyeur
You belong to our collective soul
My jealousy burns
A bright hole in my spirit
Until you return
We all need a place to belong
I envision lands of ample proportion
We all need a place to belong
Worlds expanding by sheer force of your motion
We all need a place to belong
We’ll be the big fish in strobe-lit ocean
We all need a place to belong
I fall down with fatigue and filthy devotion
‘Cause there are so many days when you just wanna’ run
Away from the bitterness in everyone
Away from the rules that you’ve made for yourself
It makes you just want to lay yourself down and dream
And when you dream you always see the same old scene
You see coloured, flashing lights and hundreds of people
And each of them are dancing to that sweet, steady rhythm
That moves through your pores like a sweet body lotion
And you’re always with ‘em dancing out there on the street
And you’re dancing so hard you wear the shoes off your feet
And you’re dancing so hard that they’re giving you room
But you’re moving so smooth that they’re crowding around you
And that hi-hat kicks in you make a little scream
Like nothing in the world could ever stop you from moving
‘cept that sexy Puerto Rican who’s been checking you out
He makes you feel wanted, makes you wanna’ shout…
We all need someone to belong to
I putter on my knees at the legs of your table
We all need someone to belong to
I offer my goals as recompense for your fable
We all need a place to belong
From the darkest legislature to the childless cradle
We all need a place to belong
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2. |
Strangers
05:02
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I’d never shared much with strangers
There are things that I just need to know
Before I share my secrets
You are the only anomaly
With whom I shared my deepest needs
At our first meeting
I think we knew just what we were doing.
As strangers we met and as strangers we shared
Our passions, problems and improbable cares
And like those men in a tub or some lifeboats at sea
We used up our flares once the shore could be seen
And as strangers we loved, although we didn't know why
We felt like some shiny new husband and wife
We might’ve mimicked or admired in the movies.
Now, consider this: think about all the examples we’d seen
All the dark hotel rooms and and steamy shower scenes
Where, without fear or trembling,
They’d hold out ‘til the morning
Saying almost nothing.
We knew what we wanted,
We knew how we’d lose
As strangers we met and as strangers we shared
Our passions, problems, and improbable cares
And each word we spoke was as pure as gold
No baggage, memories, or language of old
And as strangers we loved well into the night
Like we were some recently eloped husband and wife
We might’ve seen, mimicked, admired or even cried for at the movies.
I sense that I’m a stranger
who’d just slipped into your home
And treated everything that you’d worked for
like it was worth little more than nothing at all
like it was Friday night and we’d settled for a foreign film
We never cared to see
I sense that I’m a stranger
Who just shared everything you didn’t care to hear
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3. |
Two Mirrors
04:53
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4. |
This is our Land
05:49
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I saw the image of Chief Poundmaker
On a puzzle box through a toy store window
It cost $22.95
His dignity pulled my gaze, stopped my step.
Airbrushed and modern, it didn’t seem right
Some puzzles can’t be solved
The pieces just don’t fit
Jammed with wanton interest
In Cutknife Creek and Treaty 6
But his words remain – articulate and relevant —
And sometimes when I sleep I hear his voice proclaim
This is our land
It’s not a piece of pemmican
To be divided up and sold back to us
This is our sustenance
Misused, abused, maligned
E’er since you came to us
I can’t say I’ve fully understood the terms of lawyers and lobby groups
Executives of government, activists and chiefs
I hear them on the radio – their confident clear voices
Their passion seeps through murky, legal words
But I’m entitled to my space as they’re entitled to their birthright
As I’m entitled to my privacy.
(Sometimes it seemed so simple)
No fear of reparations, ‘cause all their power’s been taken
It still barely affects me when I hear rich voices say
This is our land
It’s not a piece of property
Settled by one and one alone
We all…
And it’s so far away
And I’m sure they know their place
To share that land I’ll never walk on
And to think that the Island farm where I was raised
Was once unbounded forest – I can’t imagine!
And to think the place that I call “home” –
It simply wasn’t there! Hell, it wasn’t at all!
Nothing defined my property line
Non-existent, unideaed, without form or void
And when I step inside our house
I can’t help but be astounded
by my absentee stewardship
when I still I want to shout
This is my land!
A vital piece of my family, of my childhood
Of the way I’d climb these trees and hills
Of my need to get away
This is my context
The foundation of my Self
my inherited aspect ratio
my narrow field of view
But this ain’t our land
We’ve merely named it and claimed it
Merely set up camp
Temporary inhabitants
This isn’t our land
‘Tis but a piece from whence we came
A piece to where we turn
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5. |
Breathe on Me
04:07
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6. |
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7. |
How it Came to Be
06:22
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8. |
Further to Go
05:17
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9. |
Burying our Promises
05:29
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10. |
The Snow Blazed
03:06
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In the morning when I woke up for you there was rain.
It poured your love upon me like a hefty morning dew
While I was the Lily of the Valley
The snow blazed with light
Nests of hair and denim overalls were my home
Out the window, over waterfalls I flow like a sparrow falling madly
The snow blazed its white
July's naked sun makes everyone have more fun
Tonight, sky came grey, temp'rature dropped to snow from sun
Arms spread open wide you ran from there to here with your golden wings
It's all just an allusion that I do not understand: a lover to his prodigal love
Your eyes blazed with light
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11. |
The Trouble with Symbols
05:08
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12. |
Five Highway Junction
10:49
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Jeffrey Nordstrom Vancouver, British Columbia
Singer-songwriter, teacher, photographer.
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