After the Hole - Lyrics

All I seen is what I thought I would have seen
At the end all I found were other ends

Suddenly I know, you live to know after the hole

On the screech of the city brakes I heard your name
Feel as though we're living in a recurrent dream

Suddenly I know, you live to know after the hole

And the life is after the hole

And the life is after the hole

Strange Part of the Country

After the Hole

Bandcamp

Round Midnight - Lyrics 

Round midnight when the engine’s on
Lose my head from the rolling throng
Get my house out of the fire
Get my car out of the wreckage pile
Straight out of lullaby land 
Straight out of Birdland
Like waking up in the morning without my head in my hands

And I’m getting on
Well it’s been pretty long
And I woke up around midnight to see Charlie Parker fly in a saxophone
Well there's gold on the road

Round midnight getting, I'm just getting on with you

Charles Mingus
That’s so like Philly Joe Jones
Miles she likes your Miles Davis shit
Miles Davis shit 
Miles Davis shit 

Gone midnight and I'm just moving on 
With a couple of fellas with sticks and songs
Got my head into a St. Louis fire
Haven’t seen daylight for a couple of nights
Straight out of lullaby land
Straight out of Thelonious land
Like waking up without feeling like my head’s been up my ass

And I’m getting on
Well it’s been pretty long
And if I’m not home before midnight I'll be playing here with this whiskey and these songs
From somewhere out of the earth

Round midnight getting, I'm just getting on with you

Second cousin of the Dizzy man
And the nephew of the devil
A girl sent to me by the devil

I'm getting it on and I can’t do me wrong
Got jazz inside my vein now and the blues even comes out of my asshole
It's the door to my soul

Round midnight getting, I'm just getting on with you

Round Midnight

Woke Up Around Midnight

Years Between - Lyrics

Time to go home
Time is not enough

And I have seen down the ways of time
And I feel them coming through me in waves

In my life, like a shadow in the sunlight
Just passing over all the days and the years between
And the long way and the journey into night and day
And when it's over our days are lost into real life

Breathe in the years
Time greeting me

And how all these things have me weighed down
When I have seen far away

And in my life, like a shadow in the sunlight
Just passing over all the days and the years between
And the long way and the journey into night and day
And when it's over our days are lost into real life

And what about when I get old?

And in my life, like a shadow in the sunlight
Just passing over all the days and the years between
And the long way and the journey into night and day
And when it's over our days are lost into real life

And what about now?

Years Between

Strange Part of the Country - Lyrics

The night falls on Nong Bone town

Seventeen ladyboys and he are beating up small change Europeans
Someone gets drugged by three old ladies

This is a strange part of the country
This is a strange part of the world
This is a strange part of the country
And we are not welcome
We are not welcome

The night falls, I have no past

Twenty three hostess girls and me
The edge of the roads turn into decades rubbing against me

This is a strange part of the country
This is a strange part of the world
This is a strange part of the country
And we are not welcome

We are not well

This is a strange part of the country
This is a strange part of the world
This is a strange part of the country
But we are not welcome
We are not welcome

Dog Meat Stew - Lyrics

I just drank three bottles of the best excuse on the planet
Going back to Camberwell to sign on and then shoplift
Lost my dog after I smoked something I knew I shouldn’t have
Days that followed followed me and I was following the days

They saw you, they saw you, they saw you with her
They saw you, they saw you, they saw you with a girl

Neighbours said they thought we were dead, we only slept one hour a night
Working jobs that we both hate to buy some shit we don’t need
Dog meat stew from Mexicans who dig in trash cans for breakfast
Burglar alarms are disconnected when they want insurance

They saw you, they saw you, they saw you with her
They saw you, they saw you, they saw you with a girl

I knew her before the thing, I never knew her after
Don’t like too much noise and I don’t really like the weather
Changed my name to John Coltrane 'cos no one took my phone calls
Best times are always the ones that you just walked away from

They saw you, they saw you, they saw you with her
They saw you, they saw you, they saw you with a girl

Dog Meat Stew

Camden Town and I Should Be Happy - Lyrics

Feel unusual maybe we should get outside some time this week or maybe we should go on scraping the walls

Head's gone weird
Head's gone weird

Feeling derelict, if I was a house I’d be the end of a terrace knocked down leaving my inside walls outwards

Head's gone weird
Head's gone weird
Head's gone weird
Head's gone weird

Camden Town and I should be happy

Camden Town and I Should Be Happy

A Waterfall Is a Poem Pouring Through a Rock - Lyrics

A waterfall is a poem pouring through a rock
A mild case of death in the park
Meant I was looking for someone

And the old guys keeping us straight with their stories
The death of a bricklayer in Dublin
And claims that there once were leprechauns 

And I was living with the night
Sleeping with the eyes
All night kept breathing

After two years of digging up my roots in back rooms
I found out there was only one truth 
That roots were meant to be buried

A waterfall is a poem pouring through a rock
The water will never fall back 
So I stopped looking for anyone

And I was living with the night
Sleeping with the eyes
All night kept breathing

A waterfall is a poem pouring through a rock
The water will never fall back 
So I stopped looking for anyone

A Waterfall Is a Poem Pouring through a Rock

A Waterfall Is a Poem Pouring Through a Rock

Kitty’s Wake - Lyrics

At Kitty’s wake we sang the old songs
And the priest was telling me about his world

I’m at the old house for the last time
All the workers at the church stop when we arrive

And everyone dies
And everyone is born with life
And everyone might find someone they want to spend their lives with
Find someone they want to spend their lives with

All the kids are playing grown up
I’m remembering that once I was a child

Some are lonesome when they’re on their own
And then some of us never get the time alone

And everyone dies
And everyone is born with life
And everyone might find someone they want to spend their lives with
Find someone they want to spend their lives with
Find someone they want to spend their lives with
Find someone they want to spend 

And I should know

Kitty's Wake

Old Irish Drunks - Lyrics

Well he left home one Sligo day and he kept on going until he came to a halt
And they heard nothing of their lost son since London had swallowed him up
Each night he drank himself to sleep in a town where he lived but did not belong
These streets were built by men who came from the earth then covered it up

They built these streets of Cricklewood
They built these streets of Kilburn
They built these streets of Cricklewood
And they built them good
Built them good

Living on the far edge he broke his toes in the High Road cold
His last days he told me how much he loved all he said he hated most

They built these streets of Cricklewood
They built these streets of Kilburn
They built these streets of Cricklewood
And they built them good
Built them good

And all the roads remain
And all the roads remain
And all the roads remain
And all the roads remain

Built them good
Built them good
Built them good
Built them good

Old Irish Drunks

“4 Stars - Q Recommends”
- Q magazine

From the album Strange Part of the Country:

w/ Grammy-winner Tchad Blake (Tom Waits, Elvis Costello), and bass legend Danny Thompson (Robert Plant, Nick Drake)

"One of the most original artists out there"
- Blues Matters magazine

Time Settles - Lyrics: 

And the decision made a hole, a vacancy in a vital inner chamber in my bones
This is what finally separated me from all my friends for whom I became skeletal

Time settles over me
Time settles over me 

And then the places I visit became the same inside world that I thought I was in
And like a fly scribbling the air I know neither the place nor what the hour is

Time settles over me
Time settles over me

And I, far off inside, was old

And now the years are closing in, each minute the last minute and following me

Time Settles

Songs from the edge of somewhere. A place that doesn’t announce itself. You step in and can’t tell if you’ve walked into a protest, a party, or the end of something.

Conil’s music comes from the blues and from the life that followed it. A voice marked by the places it’s been.

People heard it early.
Danny Thompson said, “You don’t sound like anyone else.”
Tchad Blake still plays Strange Part of the Country.
Peter Green walked into the studio one afternoon and cut a track.

The record didn’t arrive with noise. It surfaced—four stars in Q Magazine, a Blues Matters cover, a single reaching number three on the U.S. Alternative Radio Chart.

The early years were England. Then came New Orleans, New York, Berlin, the Himalayas, Kilimanjaro.

The second album is close now. Marc Ribot on guitar. Danny Thompson’s final sessions. Tchad Blake in Wales.

Some things reveal themselves only at the end.

Conil

Pinned to spotlight

Popular tracks