Come When I Call

Garden Gloves

a song of choosing between the familiar and the unknown. 
About a year ago I began tracking a version of this song more alike to how it sounds in my head, with fuzzy and spaced out electric guitars, heavy bass, and a killer drum line. Both the song's producer and I having moved to opposite corners of the country since, it remains as it appears before you - solitary and acoustic. One day I hope to complete it, but I find the message to be just as meaningful in it's current settting. Hopefully you will too. 

from the palms you plucked me
from stormy atlantic shores
the riverbank is where you brought me
the rolling hills are where you taught me

you have seen me at my darkest
you have seen me brought to light
I would stay if I thought you loved me
I would leave if that's not right

do you want me
do you need me
do I really need to know
is the road that
so released me
really leading me from home

from the mountains to the rivers
you have been my house of rest
I the lover, you the liar
she lifted higher on the crest

I could close my eyes
meander mountains higher than high
I could turn my face
watch the waves rise and fade away
I will fix my eyes
you'll be my sight
set my face
remain in this place

as it was when I was young

As It Was (When I Was Young)

In celebration of the changing of the seasons, both of the earth and the heart, I humbly offer this tune - an old personal favorite. 

september weather, cold and hot
you think you're ready when you're not
the wind will blow from east to west
before you find your final rest
october weather, falling fast
the year doesn't have long to last
the moon is glowing bright as gold
collect your harvest 'fore it's old

and if you call me in the meantime
you will find me in the trees
counting leaves as they fall down
wait for my time to come around

november weather, coming home
raise your glasses all as one
the air outside is dark and cold
but here we kindle embers warm
when the day is slow in coming 
the night starts pushing up the day
when the hours fall long and dark
I'll have a light on in my heart

december weather, by myself
the winter's heart is cold as hell
frigid beauty breaks my heart
the wind sings melancholy art

when the evening drowns the sunrise
when she's close and still she's far
I will sit and watch the snow fall
wonder at the meaning of it all

january comes around, what is lost may yet be found

Seasons

This one has been cooking for a while. The lyrics I first put down back in May, and ran them through a number of different melodies and chord arrangements before almost stumbling upon their present form (shout out to open tunings). Then it took me a while to get a recording of it all together that was coherent. But music tends to go that way for me - slow and convoluted, sometimes frustratingly so. Learning to be patient with the process is something I'm still learning. 

the evening was blooming
I knew the tune and I knew you lied
every note from your lips
though sweet as a kiss, was false as the fading light
when I kissed you farewell
I could tell you were overjoyed
when you got in your car
you were already far away
when you crossed the state line
and made up your mind
but you were gone

oh, how I love your lies
warm and sweet like the evening skies
oh, how I miss your eyes
gleaming from glass into mine

when I saw your dust rising
you'd left your lies and I ran your way
I hid a smile
feet were a-flying and I knew it'd be fine
come to find times a-changing
living room rearranged and
you were gone

Mother (Lovely Lies)

Hello friends, Fall has been incredibly busy. I crossed the continent - once physically and many hundreds of times spiritually - started a new job, and began work on an actual EP (not just demos, keep an ear out for a single in a couple weeks). All that to say the stream has been in sore need of an update and weighing heavy in the back of my mind, so I thought I would do something simple and throw a quick cover up to tickle the tympanic membranes (also a first for me as everything up to this point has been original material). I've been on a Robin Pecknold kick with the new Fleet Foxes album so I thought it would be appropriate to share an old classic of his, performed - regrettably without the cathedral-like reverb - from my desk. The lyrics strike me as intimate and vulnerable though, so I think the setting of my performance should do them some justice. Thank you as always for listening, and I can't wait to share my EP with you soon.

Montezuma (Cover by Fleet Foxes)

I penned the first half of this song in May of 2017. I pictured it as a chorus of sorts, with the idea of adding verses later, though I never wrote any that I quite liked. Then I remember jamming it by myself at one point and playing another as-yet-unfinished songlet, "lessons learned" right after it. The combination of the two, however distinct rhythmically, resonated with me from a poetic standpoint. Lessons Learned was written in December 2016, at a turning point in a particularly tumultuous relationship, while Blind came to me at its end. For me they articulate the emotional journey of resolving the story of that relationship in retrospect: I made a decision to end it, and though I wish things had gone differently in many regards, all I can do now is learn from it. 
If you read or enjoy anything from these little blurbs I include with the demos, thank you for reading and listening. It's a privilege to share my stories with you. 

baby one more time, we'll give this a try 
set our differences aside
they say love is blind and I should close my eyes
but they're still open wide

baby one more time, I will live the lie
I will try and try to love you
and if love is blind then give me back my sight
keep my eyes wide

you are far beyond my reach
you are to me as a dream
distance makes the heart grow cold 
and dry like leaves that fall and blow
if we are to wake up dead
if all we gain are feet of lead
in few short hours we will find out 
if we fail or if we fly
baby I will let you down
burn this house into the ground
heavy hearted, watch it burn
take my leave my lessons learned

BLIND/LESSONS LEARNED

This is a poem I wrote back in February and finally figured out a chord arrangement for. It's a song about waiting and longing and expectation for things to come. In keeping with the arrival (however faltering) of the Spring, may these lyrics and this melody bring comfort, peace, and (however faltering) the hope of rebirth. 

three months a lifetime
three months my lifeline
fighting fine, pages thick with refining rhymes
twice removed hours proved through
three months of life with you

three months autumn worn winter
three months beams barely splinters
october's end made amends, our friends
in the same town, autumn all around
three months of leaves falling to ground

oh my love, how bright your eyes
oh my darling, we'll make it through the lies

three months, oh my summer rain
three months till we wash away each mile's stains
the open road our home, our open sandaled toes
no longer in line, summer time
I am yours and you are mine
In three months

Three Months

she who smiles like the copper mountain sun
grandmother aspen, swiftly as the avalanche you run
the curve of your shoulders bending like a tree
rings of beauty, wrinkle with your eyes so bright to greet

you hold your arms just the way I fold my own
leaning lightly, lofty in the morning air we roam

she who speaks like the colorado tide
no wandering wing or desert bloom is hidden from your sight
the curve of my shoulders bent from a bleeding heart
bought with a bloodline, sought to sell but never far away

you hold your arms just the way I fold my own
heavy hearted, lingering in an empty stair alone

my home as yet unknown
you love me as your own
now held with open hands 
free and strong
rest in rage 
in roaming belong

Grandmother Aspen

While we with baited breath await the final mixes of The EP As Yet Untitled, please soothe your ears with this demo I recorded today, in Georgia, of a song I wrote a week and a half ago, in Utah. A dear friend (pictured) and I were enjoying a final camping trip in the woods before I moved across the country. As the title suggests, the words to this song arose as I sat in a hammock strung up in a grove of aspen trees. In a rare instance of musical synchronicity, my musings on a classical guitar (passed down to me by my grandfather) developed alongside the lyrics into a haunting and rhythmic dirge that I quite enjoyed. Some trimming and polishing produced that which is before you. It brings to my mind retrospection and growth. I hope it brings unique and wondrous scenes to you.

LYRICS
eyes wide but sleeping
lungs silent, singing
bones dry and bleeding
seasons retreating
visions repeating
steady and beating
bare skin and green rings
slaves to a feeling

underneath, roots run deep, as you sleep, roots run deep

limbs cracked and creaking
lessons in leaving
memory deceiving

underneath, roots run deep, as you sleep, roots run deep

eyes dry but grieving
lungs silent, screaming
leaves shed and fleeting
seasons retreating

loss, shed like leaves
love, grown like leaves

bradley knudsen