Another Night On Earth

Another night on Earth
Waits on the corner for him to come

Just a father’s words 
The sounds of morning in the sun

Ooo

Another night on Earth
The song went through you like a knife

If you could hear that voice
Bigger than could fit inside a life

Ooo

See the moon upon your finger
See you life it shines like silver
See the moon upon your finger

Ooo

Another night on Earth 
Waits on the corner for him to come

Remember all your hurt
Flows like a river to the sun

Ooo

Inspired by Dancers On The Shore by William Melvin Kelley

Charlie Nieland: Acoustic 6 and 12 String Guitars, Electric Piano, Samples, Pepper Shaker, Vocals

Another Night On Earth

Some Things You Keep To Yourself

Where we hide when the love is calling
The things we make when the bombs are falling
What we admit when we turn the lights out
No time to lie just revealing every doubt

But what you never say speaks the loudest of course
An unleashed secret has a terrible force
It's just out of reach at the back of the shelf
Some things you keep to yourself

The tiger's loose 'cause the zoo is burning
Like stars that move 'cause the earth is turning
Lock them up in a place inside
And kill the ones from the other side

But what you never say speaks the loudest of course
An unleashed secret has a terrible force
It's just out of reach at the back of the shelf
Some things you keep to yourself

You hold the space for what we couldn't receive
Took the place of what we forgot to believe
And you are the one who kept us under the spell
Some things you keep to yourself

Inspired by The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht

Charlie Nieland: Electric Guitars, Acoustic 12 String Guitar, Bass, Vocals
Susan Hwang: Vocals
Billy Loose: Drums

Some Things You Keep To Yourself

Skin

It brings you up and brings you down 
What you let out and let in
The fleeting pleasure of what you found
It’s all happening inside your skin

I look right through you and shut my eyes
As if you’re made of sun
I do not see you or even try
So I do not imagine 

And what happened to all the time
We were supposed to have?
What’s it looks like and where is mine?
I just have to ask

I cannot see and I cannot hear
Pain as bright as yours
The icy flow of 10,000 years
Running beneath the floor

All I see is you skin
The only way out is the only way in
All I see is your skin

All the dazzling patterns in your mind
And the need to win
They’ve made a place frozen deep inside 
Nothing happens from the outside in

All I see is you skin
The only way out is the only way in
All I see is your skin
Nothing happens til you begin

Inspired by Good Talk by Mira Jacob

Charlie Nieland: Roland Guitar Synth, Bass, Vocals
Heather Cole: Violin
Patricia Santos: Cello
Brian Geltner: Drums

Skin

I Refuse

I won't be trading love for approval
These binds are only meant for removal
You seem to only show your teeth
But can you show what's underneath 

You want the strictest kind of love around you always
You call this home but you are lost in all the hallways
You want the strictest kind of love
You want the strictest kind of love

I refuse!
I refuse to take a turn with you
Dancing with all of the love removed
I refuse
You're asking of me what I cannot do
I refuse! I refuse!

With all the camouflage that's between us
We kick up all the dust of indifference
I could always read the signs
Why can't I read what's on your mind

We say what we don't mean til we mean just what we don't say
I'm so completely vexed it doesn't matter anyway
We want the strictest kind of love
We want the strictest kind of love

I refuse!
I refuse to take a turn with you
Dancing with all of the love removed
I refuse
You're asking of me what I cannot do
I refuse! I refuse!

I Refuse

So Few Have So Much

'Tis the season To wish for yours
As you yearn for the other shore

Hold your breath Try not to drown
As this whole whirlpool pulls you down

Tell us what you wanted
What you cannot have
In one little message
You'll be so glad

So few have so much
So few have so much
You'll remember just
When to look and not to touch

We pulled down the stars In this gilded age
And built for you a concrete cage

Locked in your space With the exits blocked
When the fire came you weren't even shocked

We've got a surprise
We've brought him to life
Right before your very eyes

So few have so much
So few have so much
The world you see above
Is not the one you're dreaming of

This Is not a Christmas song
And the story that you know is a Santa - con

So few have so much
So few have so much
There's nowhere to run
When you're the one they're preying on

So few have so much
So few have so much
The world you see above
Is not the one your dreaming of

Inspired by The Santa Claus Man: The Rise and Fall of a Jazz Age Con Man and the Invention of Christmas in New York by Alex Palmer

Charlie Nieland: Acoustic and Electric 12 String Guitars, Electric Guitar, Bass, Glockenspiel, Percussion, Vocals
Susan Hwang: Vocals
Billy Loose: Drums

So Few Have So Much

The Land Of Accidents

Nothing happens the way you expected
You cannot read fate, you must be connected
As the thin sons of fat men brandish their weapons
And where you were born overtakes the message

Give up belonging
You belong nowhere
Birthplace is an accident
You are an accident

Where do you go? Does anything matter?
Factions and fictions, they splinter and splatter
Drag around history like a ball and chain
And the thin sons of fat men remember your name

Give up belonging
You belong nowhere
Birthplace is an accident
You are an accident

Sounds like freedom
Sounds like paradise

Inspired by White Teeth by Zadie Smith

Charlie Nieland: Electric Guitars, Bass, Glockenspiel, Vocals
Brian Geltner: Drums, Samples

The Land Of Accidents

Tightrope

  You're just doing everything  
That you can not to drown 
At least that's what you tell yourself
 While the curtain's coming down  
On another little tragedy 
Or maybe just a farce 
And still you cross your fingers 
There behind you, in the dark  

The colors run together 
And the coins are thrown forever 
An instrument of trust  
Achieve the speed of falling 
By the time they split the surface 
Never break the veil of dust  
Around you  

Where's the fairy godmother saying 
You will go to the ball? 
Now you've pinned the angel's wings 
You've collected, on the wall  
See the tightrope swinging 
So much harder than before 
When the latch goes click 
You're on the wrong side of the door  

The colors run together 
And the coins are thrown forever 
An instrument of trust  
Achieve the speed of falling
 By the time they split the surface 
Never break the veil of dust  
Around you Around you Around you  

And savage flows the river 
Between me and my forgiver 
Across the boundary  
And so there comes the wishing 
Alone with all the wanting 
As far as I can see  
The colors run together 
The coins are thrown forever  
Can you see the speed I'm falling 
Can you hear my voice is calling  
Around you Around you Around you

Inspired by Little Liar by Julia Julia Gray

Charlie Nieland: Acoustic 12 String Guitar, Electric Guitar, Bass, Programming, Vocals
Heather Cole: Violin
Susan Hwang, Drums, Janggu, Vocals

Tightrope

Meta Incognita

Set off to find the Last Kings of Thule
With your Hemishpherium
But you never really do

He heard of them from visiting whalers
Sailed to find the Inuit
From the Isle of Baffin the shaman sailed
With 38 souls continuing

He gave them all a bird's-eye view
Setting out for unknown shores
Found a way to feel the moon
To find a way back home

We tell the tale again until 
We see ourselves in stars and snow
Blowing hard or standing still
Being watchful as we go

Landmarks link to form a story
The story forms your very mind
Navigate your territory
Free you from your purgatory

It's The Dreaming, the Everywhen
It's in the past and has no end

And if you're lost, feel the moon above
Meta Incognita
As childhood navigation defeats amnesia

As the world moves backward past you and your boat
All the names and places in sequence

And so you must be watchful as you go
Your life is like a trail and the trail is home

Found a way to feel the moon
To find a way back home

Inspired by Wayfinding: The Science and Mystery of How Humans Navigate the World by M. R. O'ConnorInspired by Wayfinding: The Science and Mystery of How Humans Navigate the World by M. R. O'Connor

Charlie Nieland: Acoustic 12 String Guitar, Electric Guitar, Lap Steel, Bass, Mellotron, Vocals
Susan Hwang: Vocals
Brian Geltner: Drums, Samples

Meta Incognita

The Falling Man

So worried about his air supply
Forgot why he wanted to stay alive
So hurry up and put out the light
Reach for the ones you talk to at night

Your eyes, your mouth, your face
Not a single hair is out of place

So the falling man slips through your hands
Like watching the glass as it shatters
You are paralyzed
In the silence of passing disasters
The lens is wide
Can you see what really matters?

I got off the plane and was swallowed by
The light of the world that was left behind
All I could do was try to find
The place where you and I were so entwined

Your kiss, your skin, your breath, your fire
Crane to meet your own desire

And the falling man slips through your hands
Like watching the glass as it shatters
You are paralyzed
In the silence of passing disasters
The lens is wide
Now you see what really matters

When will you know
No one will ever come back
So you can let go

I think you know
Nothing will ever come back
So you can let go

Inspired by The Sleepwalker's Guide To Dancing by Mira Jacob

Charlie Nieland: Acoustic and Electric 12 String Guitars, 8 String Bass, Electric Piano, Mellotron, Vocals
Heather Cole: Violin
Patricia Santos: Cello
Billy Loose: Drums

The Falling Man

Exploding

Inside my head music explodes
I try not to listen to close
'Cause this time I might not escape
Besides my love, I might not be awake

Held together by a memory
This melody is gone
It's exploding like the stars where
All this comes from

The light that shines as I move out of the way
The radio that tells me what to play
It might just be an accident of birth
I might just be a song sung by the earth

I may not escape the quicksand
Or your hands as you play
With the constellations turning 
I'm burning just to say
How I love you in the night time
And every single day
I just want to let the light shine 
So I move out of the way

So you just might see it for a second
So you just might hear it for a second
For a second
Feel it
For a second

Held together by the memory 
Of all that is gone
It's exploding like the stars where
The music comes from
You might hear it for a second 
And remember that it's true
Like the way that I remember
Everything about you

Just for a second
One second
This second

Inspired by Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks

Charlie Nieland: Acoustic 12 String Guitar, Electric Guitar, Roland Guitar Synth, Bass, Vocals
Billy Loose: Drums

Exploding

Always on Fire

Take me to the lights so blurry
Each night over the city purring 
Molecular strutting, timeless, complete 
The seeds are planted in concrete
Every breath, every brethren 
Jagged rhythms in the broken pieces of heaven
Friction in the callous and cruel,
Between the heartlessness and you

And all the thirst for power brings
The appetite of kings
And all your desire sings like a siren
Brooklyn is always on fire

The sacred and profane, just temperature 
Your mind is playing tricks on you
Behind a mother holding hands, 
A child who was once a man
So disparate yet tightly wound 
Our appetite seduced by sound 
Fuchsia, Aquamarine will play
The latest micro-dosed decay 

While the crooks and kleptocrats
Dress in basic black
We dance and we fan the flame forever higher, (listen) 
Brooklyn is always on fire   

Here, how we made it with the ice inside our veins
Here, the honor to share this moment with everyone on this train
Here, the molten gold that runs so hot beneath this bliss
Here, I’m so in love I’d drink the very air with the thirst I feel every time we kiss

And all I see is your face while we spin in place
Spiraling through time and space
And desire
Brooklyn is always on fire


Inspired by Leaves Of Grass By Walt Whitman

Charlie Nieland: Electric Guitars, Bass, Korg MS20 Synth, Piano, TR808, Vocals
Brian Geltner: Drums, Percussion, Samples

Always On Fire

Charlie Nieland has been writing, playing and producing music for decades, with a focus on the atmospheric and imaginative. He played power dream pop with the band Her Vanished Grace for over 20 years before establishing himself as a solo artist with a mix of nuanced songwriting and sonic exploration. Along the way, Charlie wrote and produced material with Debbie Harry, Rufus Wainwright, Rachelle Garniez, Jessie Kilguss, Sweet Soubrette, and is currently half of the literature-inspired songwriting and performing duo Lusterlit with Susan Hwang. He scored the feature film THE SAFETY OF OBJECTS (starring Glen Close), the pilot episode of The L Word on Showtime and the VH-1documentary NY77:THE COOLEST YEAR IN HELL. Charlie was awarded a Gold record (UK) for his production work on Blondie's GREATEST HITS SIGHT & SOUND and achieved a Top 10 Billboard Dance Chart Position with Debbie Harry's single "Two Times Blue", which he co-wrote and produced.

Charlie Nieland Music

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