Written and recorded in a single take late one December 2013 evening in Chiang Mai, Thailand, this original song explores the empty spaces and unfilled hours that come with a bad habit. This otherwise pared-down recording also features the frogs in the pond outside the studio. You can find the mp3 for this and other songs at http://EllenAdams.net .
.

I'LL KEEP THE LIGHT ON

I'm
gonna buy me
a portion of
grilled chicken

because you
won't be coming
for dinner
after all

because you
got a call
from the one
you love most of all--
for now.

I'll keep the light on.
I'll keep the leftovers in the fridge.
Come on back.
Follow the light o'er the ridge,
o'er the ridge the doubt built up

I'll keep the light on.

I'm gonna go out
for a six-pack of my favorite Belgian beer
because you are at the bar
with the one who's keeping you from being here.

I'll keep the light on.
I'll keep two or three in the fridge
in case you wanna come drunken o'er the ridge,
o'er the ridge.

We can sober up
or we can get laid up.
We can hit the lights.
Why can't I hit the lights on you?

I'll keep the lights on.
I'll keep the fridge hummin'.
I'll keep the lights on
in case you wanna come.

I built a fluorescent bridge
in case you wanna come drunken o'er the ridge.

I'll keep the light on
when you're gone,
and you're gone.
I'll keep the light on.

Ellen Adams - I'll Keep The Light On

Recorded in Brooklyn the summer of 2013, this piano- and electronic-based track explores the moment of a departure from the song's namesake airport. For mp3s of this and other songs, please visit http://www.EllenAdams.net !

CNX

Leave me at the airport
I got nothing to do but cry anyway
Leave me at the airport
I'll be alone soon enough anyway

From now on in any other
Airport I will shudder
Thinking about today

Go on, go on, go on
Get on your way

Oh, lover, wrapped in laurels in my head
Times that felt like clouds in your bed
Oh, lover, everything
And everything we never said
Why say it now?
Why, why—

Get back to town
Go on, get on
Get back to town

สวรรณภูมิ กรุงเทพฯ
สวรรณภูมิ กรุงเทพฯ
Boarding now กรุงเทพฯ
กรุงเทพฯ

Go on, go on, go on
Get on your way

(c) 2013 Ellen Adams

Ellen Adams - CNX

Recorded in 2011 in Chiang Mai, Thailand, this song has both PNW fauna and a love forlorn. For more songs, please visit http://www.EllenAdams.net !


SALMON

Salmon are an ugly fish on the outside
But you cut 'em open, they're that pretty pink
I wanted to wrap my hands around your insides
When swimming upstream was all that you could think

Salmon are an ugly fish on the outside
But too many want them, too many go by the wayside
I should have known better than to cast my net
But into it I wanted to see you

Glide

Salmon are an ugly fish on the outside
But you get just one and you got energy all night
But come morning, hunger comes again
And all you got is river water, river sediment

Sentiment
You said it meant
Sentiment
To glide

Strange fish, strong stream
Strange fish swimming away from me
Strange fish, strong stream
Strange fish, get gone from me

(c) 2011 Ellen Adams

Ellen Adams - Salmon

Recorded in February 2014 in Chiang Mai, this is a more electronic-based song about a love-turned-disappearing-act. For more songs, please visit www.EllenAdams.net !


I KNOW WHAT THE FLOWERS DID

Where did you go?
I had my suitcase packed
Stood the announced train track
Where did you go?

Thinking about calling it quits, are you?
Let me know and I'll cash out on my last stack of chips
Where did you go?

Where is she now,
The girl who gave you cold feet,
Keeping you from my arms and sleep?
Are you leaving me now?

Are you thinking about calling it quits?
Let me know and I'll cash out my last stack of chips.
Where did you go?
Is there an eye in the sky who knows?

Sorrow
Goes down better on the rocks of a reason
But you've given me silence
Ain't easy to swallow or stomach or stand

I know what the flowers did
Alright, alright
I feel jilted
Wilted

Where did you go?


Ellen Adams - I Know What The Flowers Did

Written and recorded in February 2014 in Chiang Mai, here is a new electronic-based song "Secrets Worth Keeping." In this track, I'm trying to capture the dreaminess of a love that just can't be held onto. This song samples Erin McKeown and Emiliana Torrini.

For mp3s of this and other songs, please visit www.EllenAdams.net !

SECRETS WORTH KEEPING

When you write me
I feel like a million
When you write me
I don’t feel so old
Here I want freedom
There you want children
But then you write me
That we could grow old
We could grow old

When you write me
What-Ifs feel like facts
When you write me
I don’t feel alone
Here I’ve got long nights
There you’ve got a straight track
When you write me
I know you’re alone
Don’t feel alone

Secrets worth keeping
Secrets we share
Secrets worth keeping
'long the way
'long the way, 'long the way
Secrets worth keeping
Different, now different
Secrets worth keeping
'long the way
'long the way, 'long the way

Would you write me
When you know you’re alone
That we could grow old
We could grow old

Secrets worth keeping
Secrets we shared
'til secrets got different
'long the way
'long the way, 'long the way

Don’t feel alone

Ellen Adams - Secrets Worth Keeping

Written and home-recorded in Seattle in 2014, this is a song for the times when advice feels as irrational as impulse. Oh, that whole matters-of-the-heart business. (lyrics below)

For mp3s of this and other songs, please visit www.EllenAdams.net !

SHOULD

I.

Should
tells me please don’t call
my baby,
that maybe

I shouldn’t
care at all
bout my baby,
that maybe

I could
tear or fall
away
from the one who made my day.

II.

Hey you, listen up
—off the record—
I love you and I’m stubborn.

Hey you, listen up
—off the record—
I love you and I got scared.

Hey you, listen up
—off the record—
I love you and we got scared.

And we got scared.

Hey you,
got my heart wide open.
I love you and I’m hopin’.

Ellen Adams - Should

Written then live-recorded during a concert at Richardson Auditorium in Princeton, NJ, here's a song when neither money nor matters of the heart seem to add up.

ENDS MEET

You don’t owe me anything that wasn’t free--
not the subway fare,
not the cigarettes,
not the whiskey.
But you can jump my turnstile,
you can steal my breath,
you can drink me right on down.
Just give me back our night on the town.

I don’t want to be nobody’s second somebody
but I want another round of you--
but I know I’m gonna get less
the longer it’s overdue.
If you can hold me the whole night through,
if you can’t stop kissing me in the street,
why can’t we make ends meet?

You don’t owe me anything.
Go on and keep that change.
Keep my favorite books, keep my poems,
there’s worse I could estrange.
But you could read me over,
you could write me down,
you could close this cover tight.
Just give me back the time our inventory balanced right.

Well I was wrong, I was right,
I was wrong, I was right--
that we could break even more than one night,
that we could turn this red ink into black,
that we could send the invoice back.
Well if I was wrong, then tell my why.
If I’m not wrong, why can’t we try?

(c) 2010 Ellen Adams

Ellen Adams -  Ends Meet (live with some hiccups)

Work-in-progress recording for Space Kittens + Hegemony Exhibition, Seattle, 9/9-10/2017. This song samples YouTube videos of flooded homes outside Bangkok, 2554.

I learned my lesson
You schooled me good
Can’t keep a fire going
with waterlogged wood

Floods came that year
Floods came that year
That year you forgot my name
 
If there’s a leak in the levy
it’s all gonna roll
I seen a sand bag missing
I think I know

I learned my lesson
Earth schooled me good
and the standing water knew well
where we stood

I learned my lesson
God schooled me good
Can’t sail yourself to safety
if it's stolen, cursed wood

Rain on sandbags
Rain on towns
What them clouds came open
we came a long ways down

I crossed the biggest seas
to see water standing freely
to see you swim on from me

น้ำท่วม
ปีนั้น



.

Floods Came (น้ำท่วมปีนั้น) - Work-in-Progress

This song's a play on an old Willie Nelson tune. It's also about the bad behaviors that pass down generations.

MAMA DON’T LET

Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys
Not that kind of trampin’ around men
Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys
We don’t need another generation of them

Raise him to be a better marksman than his father
Raise him to plot and tend a field
Sell that saddle away ’fore he finds it in the barn
’Fore he learns to loop a lasso, to rope a horse or steal

Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys
Let his daddy’s spurs go to rust
Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys
We know just what them spurs’ll do to us

Raise him to be a better marksman than his father
Raise him to plot and tend a field
Sell that saddle away ’fore he finds it in the barn
’Fore he learns to loop a lasso, to rope a horse or steal

Someone else’s mare
Someone else’s mare
Someone else’s mare
Mama, take good care

Someone else’s mare
Someone else’s mare
Someone else’s mare
Mama, take good care

Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys
Not that kind of trampin’ around men

© 2018 Ellen Adams

Written in Chiang Mai, Thailand, then recorded live in Sointula, British Columbia at the Athletic Hall on November 30, 2018.

Mama Don't Let - Live

Workin’ 3 Jobs - Ellen Adams

He says, “I miss you,
but every time I think of you
I got a cleanin’ bottle and a rag in my hand.”

He’s workin’ 3 jobs
but I want him to be my man.

Can we just live in a tent
out on Coeur d’Alene Lake?
I’ll bring all the booze and food your body could take.
You say we’ll move out to California.
It’ll be easier—
but meanwhile, I go waitin’ on you.

I wait, I wait, I wait
on you.
I wait, I wait, I wait
for the good life you say’s comin’ through,
you say’s comin’ through.

Workin’ 3 jobs
Workin’ 3 jobs
I want your time, but you’re workin’ 3 jobs.
Want your time
I want your time
You ain’t got much. All I want’s your time.
You ain’t got much.
I don’t need much.
You ain’t got much, but you’re workin’ 3 jobs.
Want your time
I want your time
You ain’t got much. All I want’s your time.

But the times were hard
and the money is hard.
The times were hard
and the money is hard.
Yeah, the money is hard.

Workin’ 3 jobs
Workin’ 3 jobs
I want your time, but you’re workin’ 3 jobs.
Want your time
I want your time
You ain’t got much. All I want’s your time.
You ain’t got much.
I don’t need much.
You ain’t got much, but you’re workin’ 3 jobs.
Want your time
I want your time
You ain’t got much. All I want’s your time.

But the times were hard
and the money is hard.
The times were hard
and the money is hard.
Yeah, the money is hard.
Yes, the money is hard

and I lost your heart.



© 2019 Ellen Adams

Workin' 3 Jobs - Live

I grew up listening to country and Motown. Still figuring out how it all comes together.

I got my start a decade ago playing my songs at small folk venues, but in the past year I've been composing more electronic-based music. We'll see where this goes!

I left New York City to move back to Chiang Mai, Thailand, where I researched and wrote about about contemporary art. I then settled in Seattle to work and write--my first love was fiction writing. I now split my time between Seattle, Western Canada, and the road. You can find out more about this, those and other projects at www.EllenAdams.net .

Ellen Adams

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