We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Water Wears the Stone

by TR Kelley

/
  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $9 USD  or more

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Includes unlimited streaming of Water Wears the Stone via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $15 USD or more 

     

1.
Lilac Trees 06:30
off to the side of a lonely road, lilac trees were blooming gentle purple sentinels watching over space curious i stopped my car and the hush of an older evening wrapped me like a grandma's quilt drawn down around my face hiding in the tangled grass a remnant of some stairs charred timbers, glass and broken bricks scattered here and there farther back an orchard grown wild and wise with years a tired fence and seven stones washed by ancient tears the earth reclaims what has been wrought by the reckless and the dreamer hopes are broken on the wheel of an unforgiving land she hides the scars into herself healing back to beauty and all that's left are lilac trees where none before did stand the moss growing on the old grey stones had softened all the names born in May of 892 was a little boy named James the death date came soon after, my heart filled with knowing tears as a mother who has lost a child that sorrow spans a hundred years the earth reclaims what has been wrought by the reckless and the dreamer hopes are broken on the wheel of an unforgiving land she hides the scars into herself healing into beauty and all that's left are ashes that i'm holding in my hand the setting sun is warm and gold, t he sky above grows dark and cold there is no death if one remembers to sing the names out into space to stroke the stones with certain grace to honor the holy resting place by passing down this roadside changed the earth reclaims what has been wrought by the reckless and the dreamer hopes are broken on the wheel of an unforgiving land she hides the scars into herself healing back to beauty and all that's left are lilac trees where none before did stand and all that's left are ashes that i'm holding in my hand where none before did stand
2.
Jagged 04:39
i am jagged i am clear i just have to get out of here i am soaring i am space and i'm trying hard to hide my face afraid you will see into me the heat and night and spring inside me nothing that you did was wrong but i've just been away too long forgot the power of a song and the passion of the singer you're a road i can not travel, and you're wine i cannot drink and a song that forever haunts me on nights when i cannot sleep electricity and music fill this starry night in may i know i'm a fool to open up and lose myself this way entranced by undercurrents in the things that you do and do not say but roads diverge, we separate, your path i can never know but we're dancing at the junction and watch this night get old you're a road i can not travel, and you're wine i cannot drink and a song that forever haunts me on nights when i cannot sleep someone else is driving and i ride mesmerized by lights and lines and lives in motion, words and feelings left unspoken greener fields that leave me broken, willing shards upon your wooden floor held up to the light of day the magic slowly drains away and i am left just as before, try and chase your shadow out my door you're a road i can not travel, and you're wine i cannot drink and a song that forever haunts me on nights when i cannot sleep your song will forever haunt me and tonight i cannot sleep
3.
i built my walls, bricks of anger tears of stone dark windows of unbreakable emotion a fortress of calamity that i'd learned to call my home water wears the stone, down to flesh and bone when the storm is over, i will find i'm no longer alone you are the rain growing flowers in the shards and ashes of the life i left behind but sometimes in the still of the night i'm still fighting those old demons on familiar battlegrounds water wears the stone, down to flesh and bone when the storm is over, i will find i'm no longer alone if i cannot see you i'm still clinging to shards of pain staring at my hands and the blood running down wash me clean again if i cannot hear you through the voices in the rain forgive me love, it's a little dark in here till the walls come down again water wears the stone, down to flesh and bone when the storm is over, i will find i'm no longer alone
4.
i got a folding metal chair backstage right sipping beer feeling good it's a packed house tonight waiting for my set i got a private fantasy but to my surprise you're looking back at me i try to steal a glance but your eyes are open what's this, the air's a little warm who are you - i'll never really know just some guitar pickin' guy in a late night show it's a hazard i've run into before buzzin' with the power that we conjure with these chords it's a channel to a primal wordless place i know that you've been there, i can see it in your face i try to steal a glance but your eyes are open what's this, the air's a little warm who are you - i'll never really know just some guitar pickin' guy in a late night show up under the lights you're larger than life got a halo in your hair and your voice is like a velvet knife i get sucked into the magic like some kind of giddy fan forget this is my second home and you are just a man i try to steal a glance but your eyes are open what's this, the air's a little warm who are you - i'll never really know just some guitar pickin' guy in a late night show do you look at me that way cuz your feeling what i'm feeling do you like the things i'm doing to my microphone i like the way you play and i like the way you sing but the thing that gets me going is the way you look in jeans after the show, trading tapes and hugs and drinking beer it's on the road goodbye boys maybe see you maybe late next year i'll keep my wild thoughts to myself and you will never know till your driving down the highway and you hear this on the radio i try to steal a glance but your eyes are open what's this, the air's a little warm who are you - i'll never really know just some guitar pickin' guy in a late night show
5.
missed another payment on my pickup truck today it doesn't matter they're gonna take it all away the mill's been closed for half a year my world is crashing around me someone said there's no more forest my daddy was a faller my brother pulls green chain and i went to work in the woods the day i turned 18 there's been good times and hard times and boom times but we never thought that it could end and now some jokers telling me there's no more forest they said the trees would last forever they said my job would be secure you can blame this on the environmentalists looking back i'm not so sure my wife is working at the local Circle K my unemployment it ran out yesterday my kids ask me "Daddy, why ?" i don't know what to say but in my minds eye i can still see the forest they said the trees would last forever they said my job would be secure you can blame this on the preservationists looking back i'm not so sure all around me i see broken men and clearcut hills shopping malls and taverns where we try and lose our ills the timber companies cut and ran raped the people and the land now they're telling me, "sorry but there's no more forest." it wasn't the spotted owl and it wasn't the Japanese it wasn't mechanization that finally took us to our knees just a clear-cut case of rampant corporate greed they couldn't see the forest for the trees missed another payment on my house and land today.....
6.
we have traveled the same roads in different time and different space i recognize the stars in your eyes, there the same ones i used to navigate by until time and circumstance, took me away from the dance of the road between the lines and the ties, between the signs and the lies we live heading for that goal if you can remember what it is and till you go you'll never know if you belong there we have traveled the same roads in different times and different space i can see the tracks of experience on your face and i look in the mirror at my own eyes, and those same lines i recognize but there's been time and circumstance took me away from the crazy dance of the road trying to bring them what you're feeling, trying to know just how to live between the signs and the lies between the ties that bind between the ties that take you home i know you're caught there we have traveled the same roads, i can't follow where you've gone your road is for you now, you let me dance when you're in town you let me dance you never let me down we have traveled the same roads, in different time and different space i recognize the stars in your eyes, they're the same ones i used to navigate by until time and circumstance, took me away from the crazy dance of the road damned if you and damned if you don't, you can't ever get away and i look out my window, at the cold and the grey and i wonder how i'd be, if i'd gone that way
7.
one size fits all (1994) i wanted a skirt something pretty and bright so i set out for mall one saturday night was irritated at the labels, large, medium and small but the most insulting tag is "one size fits all" i took a deep breath and grabbed one off the rack went in to the dressing room, closed the door behind my back first i put the left leg in then i put the right, i pulled it up a little and it was getting kinda tight. then i heard a thread pop, then i heard a rrrrrrrip this dinky little rag was stuck around my hips half the women in the world are over size fourteen but where they hide the clothes for us remains to be seen we come in all sizes small and short and big and tall and there aint no such thing as one size fits all i took the rag to the counter i showed it to the dude he said "you better pay for that" with a snotty attitude here's a hundred eighty pounds of pure power and grace, of womanly perfection in body and face my body or my attitude neither one is small and i refuse to knuckle under to one size fits all i said sit down shut up you pompous little shit if you look here at this label, it said this skirt would fit so it ain't my fault that it ripped down the side even though my thighs are big and my ass is kinda wide but i have a cool solution to this mess that you have begun you can sell me two of these for the price of one, and i'll sew them both together i can do it pretty fast with good strong seams that i know will surely last and then i'll sit you down with a big black pen and you'll fix all these tags so this don't happen again he looked kinda defeated and he said o.k. fine he picked up the first one and wrote in size 9 so i left the store triumphant i was feeling mighty good i try to educate i try to make it understood half the women in the world are over size fourteen but where they hide the clothes for us remains to be seen we come in all sizes small and short and big and tall and there ain't no such thing as one size fits all.
8.
Girlchild 04:02
girlchild, my daughter i will raise you as i would be strong and confident, wild and free girlchild my daughter, fear i will not teach you anything you reach for can be yours girlchild my daughter,we will wander together upon our great green mother goddess, the earth girlchild my daughter, i'll teach you the secrets of womyn the ways of the witches, and the strength of the night when the patriarchy falls, like crumbling prison walls and all the little children will go free at last no roles and games will bind them, confuse them or confine them humble them in fear like i was taunted if you're different, don't fit those little roles submissive little objects in tight designer clothes anger at the system, trapped inside a cage of lowered expectations and woman-hating rage when the patriarchy falls, like crumbling prison walls and all the little children will go free at last no roles and games will bind them, confuse them or confine them humble them in fear like i was girlchild my daughter, the change is coming soon my sisters and my mothers are returning to the moon girlchild my daughter we won't take it anymore won't worship at their altars won't scrub their dirty floors won't sacrifice our babies in their senseless bloody wars maybe not in my life but most certainly in yours womyn will be free again free
9.
i am a pitcher, you are a cup will you pass me on, after i fill you up will you try to keep pouring, you'll be likely to drown there's no time to be selfish, i'll be back around look here's a channel, of a river gone dry can't you smell the rain coming, in the hot summer sky i feel the storm building, way down deep in my blood better get up to high ground, or be lost in the flood i'm the waves on the ocean, i'm the mist in the night a dark lake with no bottom, where you could sink out of sight i'm the ice of the mountains, i'm the tears in your eyes there's no way to contain me, so please don't even try when i was younger, i got caught in the rain it soaked into my spirit, helped me channel my pain now i flow over boulders, i fall from the sky gonna wear down your mountain, gonna drive you to cry i am a pitcher, you are a cup will you pass me on, after i fill you up will you try to keep pouring, you'll be likely to drown there's no time to be selfish, i'll be back around
10.
there's a guy in a hardhat leaning on a shovel munching on a donut with his pants slung low bitching to his buddy about those bums on welfare he's making 20 bucks an hour on the government rolls i myself used to work in retail stocking and selling and sweeping the floor but my time is worth more to me than money ain't gonna work in no store no more hey mister boss man you don't own me i've dropped out and i'm doing fine bartering and scrounging and shopping at the goodwill downwardly mobile on the poverty line i said fuck the american standard of living i can get by on a whole lot less i live in a shack with my bike out back and i ain't giving nothing to the IRS hey mister boss man you can't own me i have chosen a life of alternative ease sitting in the sun and picking my guitar eating top ramen and government cheese well its not at all that i don't like working i get a lot of satisfaction from a job well done but i won't sell my time doing something i hate there ain't no second chance when your lifetime's done call me a slacker on the government tit call me a hippie and a no-account bum curse me blue from your white collar high rise hating the way that your life is run? feeling kinda empty when the working day's done? you got to pay somebody money to do things you ain't got time to do because you are too busy earning money call me a slacker on the government tit call me a hippie and a no-account bum call me a red from your blue collar tavern hating the way that your life is run? feeling kinda empty when the working day's done? taxpaying workadaddy upright citizens pay homage to the system at the shopping mall a consume-a-rama binge with plastic money you'll be working till you're dead to pay for it all trashing the earth just to make more doodads get the economy higher than before growth for the sake of growth is cancer when the earth is gone there won't be no more yeah, there's gotta be some cash for the food and the rent but money can't buy what you really lack time doing what you love is time that's well spent cuz time is the one thing you can't buy back
11.
valentines day has come an gone and our anniversary too, mother's day was un-celebrated, and my birthday late in June no cards, or flowers or shiny trinkets to hang around my neck no negligees or chocolate hearts, gift certificates or checks my friends don't understand why i am not at all upset so i guess i should explain the real goodies that i get he changes didies, he makes me pizza, he walks the children to the park, washes dishes, reads bedtime stories and keeps me purring after dark i prefer the way he shows his love spontaneous and from the heart to store-bought emotions from the marketing team at hallmark the colourful grocery store displays remind us when to care sell cards and cups and plaques and holiday print underwear useless junk to clutter up our lives and waste our hard earned cash we said enough prepackaged sentiments and tossed them in the trash now we don't rush to the store for a card don't sneak some flowers from the neighbor's yard he makes me popcorn, we watch a movie, we ride our bikes down to the park, we hunt for mushrooms, we read together, we lie and listen to the rain long after dark i prefer the love we share a thousand little ways than humdrum social rituals on prefabricated holidays

about

Songs of love, death and subversion.

credits

released January 1, 1995

All songs written by TR Kelley - Darkwater Music (BMI)
Recorded at Don Ross Productions - Eugene Oregon
Graphic design - Rat Salade Grafix

TR Kelley - acoustic & bass guitars, vocals
Debbie Diedrich - piano on #6, harmony vocal on #4
Katie Henry - flute on #3, harmony vocal on #4 #9
Walker T. Ryan - slide guitar on #9

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

TR Kelley Oregon

This pre-Raventones page has music from TR's 1990s acoustic years, which ran concurrently with here time in Babes With Axes (also available here on bandcamp)

contact / help

Contact TR Kelley

Streaming and
Download help

Shipping and returns

Report this album or account

If you like TR Kelley, you may also like: