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Cracked Picture Frames

by Robert Chaney

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Travis Button There's very few artists these days that will get you thinking in the likes of Woodie Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Billy Bragg, or any of the other great folk artists of the past (and present). But Robert Chaney is definitely one of those. Right there with Vikesh Kapoor and Luke Redfield, a few other modern troubadours carrying the torch today. Favorite track: The Simplest Words.
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Jeremy / HI54LOFI An album whose soul is a lot older than the '2015' that is on the tin. Favorite track: Patch It Up.
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1.
it was four o'clock on a sunday morning the birds still sleepin and all the fog still rollin and i opened up the door and i let em inside their badges all shinin and all the lights flashin they asked me what is your name boy and what is your profession i said my name is an echo and i barely do nothin and then they turned to her and she spoke not a word and i was relieved when they turned to leave i said one of these days you know i'll quit this for good but did i mean the woman or did i mean the beatin or did i mean the seemingly cowardly being crumblin under a burden of choosin and im the one who's torn inside but she's the one that's bruisin thanksgivin and christmas and the fourth of july when everyone's over her mother and father i wonder just what it is that goes through their minds past the holes in the wall, the cracks in the door frames i'd have something to say if it was my daughter but it's been the same since i can remember back when i was little, each evening was a gamble and the teachers in school had other business to handle and im still playin that same old game today and sometimes the shame don't even taste bitter and the cracks in the wall might even heal yet her fate aint the one of her choosin' cause im the one who spun the wheel but she's the one that's losin' adam and eve existed in innocence with everything tranquil at least for awhile and we lived in our eden with all those weeds tended and we played at perfection and managed to smile and though the green season was long in stayin' it started to tell me it was thinking of changing its breezes turned cold and its colors turned fading and i caught that wind on the side of my face and it spun me around and i spun her with me and i lost all the threads and the heads of the needles i lost all of the pretense of choosing cause im the cyclone in the garden and she's the black eyed susan
2.
i always hate the morning after, lipstick on the champagne glass your hair upon the pillow telling truth where you were lying it's not that daylight brings surprise, i've often seen those jagged lines the sunlight writes upon the wall, the patterns of the blind but sometimes dear it appears so clear that where you are's so far from here i always seem to end up in this empty room again with nothing but my endless contemplations and its like as if you were a pill as if i had no force of will to overcome regrettable temptations but i can see that it aint me the one with whom you're bound to be though your leaving is not what i would choose it's clear the converse serves no use to keep you locked away for selfish reasons and though you show you're fond in part i do believe to own your heart is something just like trying to own the seasons and so it goes the reddest rose the sharpest spine so often grows
3.
you draw a hand that smacks of all but remorse you play the cards you can and watch those kings of course lay the right suits down and chalk it up to luck twist some hearts around to try and turn a buck but you can't leave a dime unwon yes every time someone walks up to the table if you think you're able you trap him in your orbit's pull oh mama, does your love pay out in full? i might be sore but i've heard it said you can still be poor lyin' in a rich man's bed you got stars in your eyes and you can't see a thing except that car parked in the driveway and that rock shinin in the ring but that little house up on the hill if i squint i see it standin' still that little shelter that we made you gave it up in trade for that chiseled crystal spectacle oh mama, does your love pay out in full? i don't harbor any blame don't want to hear the reasons why you quit i don't hate the player, i don't even hate the game i only hate the fact i fell for it but you asked me for forgiveness and then to understand said you can't build a kingdom on a mountain of sand but this desert im stuck in must be your kind of place because on each path are your footprints and on each stranger your face but we both been here before we both know what's in store when you meet some traveler and you start to unravel him with that glance of yours thats so typical oh mama, does your love pay out in full?
4.
Patch It Up 03:24
when the phone rings darlin' are you hopin' it's me don't you think it's time to come on home so we can put those pieces back together now that all those wetter weather clouds are gone and your memory still lingers like some splinter in my finger stuck from hangin' all those boards of pine and i can't swing a hammer to repair all the damage your abandonment left behind let's patch it up let's patch it up i was losing you darlin' when the roof was falling in on us lightning and rain and gale force pain it blew all through the house and out onto the lane smashed all the dishes and cracked the picture frames and it was gone by the break of day i don't mean to imply your desire to try sweepin' all the debris from the street where it lies but if we meet eye to eye come back inside we'll retire all the spite, rectify the incitement stay up all night then you and i will try and patch it up let's patch it up let's patch it up i was losing you darlin' when the roof was falling in on us
5.
when the streetlights shined down in your eyes that night i almost slipped and told you somethin too many drinks i might have sipped but in the light of day my consciousness can't seem to grip upon the simplest words i wish that i could say i have no need to claim you as my own or to posess your endless charming i don't want to second guess you perhaps someday i'll somehow find the right way to confess the simplest words i wish that i could say spare us the missing, kissing, crying, fighting, loving curse it does not suit us i've got mine and you've got yours but even so i often sit and silently try to rehearse the simplest words i wish that i could say and maybe if we lived within another time and place and we were actors on a different kind of stage then i could find some room to write upon this cluttered page the simplest words i wish that i could say but there's just one thing left i wish to say before you turn to go and head back homeward i'm sure you already know cause my eyes are screamin elegies that my mouth can't speak and so i got some simple words to say
6.
The Cyclist 05:23
i've only had one love in my life and she and my brother were married but her eyes they were mine, and the same with her heart and the same with the babies she carried twice a week noontimes we'd head out of town to a motel the next county over we'd whisper our secrets and sweat out our demons in the backwoods of east oklahoma one day it was late on the backroad back home she was driving my black eldorado i was catching up sleep on the passenger side dreaming dreams that i'd never wake up to then a thud and a thump and a screeching of tires and a bicyclist mangled and flying and i snapped wide awake and i burst out the door but when i reached him i saw he was dying she ran up to my side and we stared at the ground to where the price of our sins was layin and the silence of guilt echoed around just the buzzin of crickets was playin back in the car i stared at her tears flowin down the seat cover's stitching and with a glance and a nod and an unspoken promise i turned the key and started the engine weeks hobbled by and we didn't speak once i didn't touch her nor wish to be touched spun alone in the bed in the sick depths of night and my daytimes were faded and broken til one wednesday noontime when the telephone rang and i froze when the voice shined electric cause the sergeant was friendly but stern like a priest called me downtown to answer some questions one small little room one hot burning lamp one cigarette gone then another one paper to sign one phone call to make and i dialed the house of my brother the trial it went quick, the pleadin went easy in a courthouse in east oklahoma it was open and shut cause the witness they got was that bicyclist out of his coma and i've got ten years now to think long and slow on that vision of my brother beggin for the love of god why won't you testify but i only thought of his wife and his children i serve one for the broken bones that we left two for the shatters of spirit three for the babies that i'll barely know and four for the corners of heaven
7.
there ain't no convention or typical touch there's a difficult question i don't ask it too much there's one kind of answer that's easy to say i didn't want her anyway her certain perspective it ain't my type when i pull left she pulls to the right and it aint a game that i wish to play i didn't want her anyway she got those eyes those dark gypsy eyes that sing your songs, and laugh, and burn she got that hair that long curlin' hair that leaps on its own, and twists, and turns her voice like the clover, and her bronze colored skin i know i don't want her i forget why again i got this woman i wish it werent so and the things that i've learned i don't want to know that net that we've woven is beginning to fray i didn't want her anyway
8.
i wish that i was a little hummingbird i'd not build my nest on the ground i'd build my nest in some pretty girl's dress so those other boys couldn't turn down but if i was a little hummingbird within my nest i'd not stay as soon as i'd found a pretty girl to stick around i'd be up and on my way if i was a little rose bush i'd bloom in the month of may and every time my sweetheart pass i'd throw her a rosey bouquet if i was a little rose bush then all my petals they'd be shorn if i'd so much as some pretty girl touch and draw her blood on my thorn if i was a little honeybee i'd not steal my honey from the comb i'd steal my honey from some pretty girl's lips and then i'd fly away home but if was a little honeybee and i could not hide the buzzin of my wings every time i'd come all those pretty girls would run because they feared my sting
9.
corazones amarillos in the streets of san jose corazones amarillos somebody died there one day little yellow school bus drivin in the rain swerved to miss a mother spun on down the bank corazones amarillos in the streets of san jose corazones amarillos somebody died there one day and now here come the workers with their cans that spray another yellow heartbeat upon the road they paint corazones amarillos in the streets of san jose corazones amarillos somebody died there one day and the headlines in the papers day by day they fade and that yellow, static symbol is all that will remain corazones amarillos in the streets of san jose corazones amarillos somebody died there one day
10.
my name is lisa your honor white female aged forty-­one and i hope that you punish me proper for all the sins that i done cause i failed to protect little edward from the vices that stoke satan's fires from the violence and sex throughout our world that he'd witnessed with his own two eyes dispatcher my name is jason please dispatch the police at once cause my girl's got a wound on her face and her nephew is covered in blood and his grandma is pacin the kitchen edwards lyin down facin the sky and lisa's recitin religion edward's cryin red tears from his eyes may the lord be with poor little ed now through the dark of the rest of his days i know even a blind man can see how the lord works in mysterious ways and next the news at eleven with al sunshine on your channel five south florida woman arrested for stabbin' a boy through the eyes and for ten hours he was left bleeding his grandma did nothin at all til a man arrived on the scene and summoned police with his call may the lord be with poor little ed now through the dark of the rest of his days i know even a blind man can see how the lord works in mysterious ways and me i'm just sittin here thinkin about the fields full of sufferin' seeds sowed in the name of religion planted throughout history they say the ways of the lord are mysterious and you know they're a mystery to me so somebody preach to poor edward exactly how much god he needs may the lord be with poor little ed now through the dark of the rest of his days i know even a blind man can see how the lord works in mysterious ways

credits

released February 15, 2015

Produced and recorded by Ken Brake at Regal Lane Studio, Regent's Park, London.
All songs written by Robert Chaney.
Photography by Tom Medwell.
℗ and © 2015 Jagged Lines.

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