The Truth Will Set You Free. Debut EP from Christchurch singer/songwriter Greta Yeoman. Recorded live at MAINZ Christchurch. 
Love is a Long Road recorded by Fetu and mixed by Greta Yeoman and Fetu. 

Love is a Long Road

Thanks to my mate Amy (yeah Cluggo!) for introducing me to this duo. I now proceed to have their songs stuck in my head often, so I decided to record a very crappy cover of one of their songs. Forgive me Amy for wrecking their music. 

Goodbye, Goodbye (Tegan And Sara Cover)

This a song I wrote from my lovely friend Ivy Rossiter and all others who knew Sam Prebble. This is for you x It mightn't do much but it's here. 
“Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it.” ― J.K. Rowling,

I'm doing all right 
Just getting by she said 
Our fears were flaunted 
The sound haunts our heads 
I'm doing fine 
The truth that is only a lie 
When we look across the harbourside 
There is hope as strong as the night
But she is out on the road again 
Downing the drink drowning out the pain
All music will never sound the same
She'll sing the victory song again 
And love I will dance with you
Until the skies turn a little more blue
For we are getting by with worn hearts and tired eyes 
It's time to call this a night 
It's waking up on the otherside 
When you realise what you feared was right 
When the day is as dark as the night 
We can only trust there is daylight 
I'm getting by

Tired Eyes

I wrote the lyrics to this song in early January, wrote the music at Ebony Lamb's in mid-January, played it live at Chambers Sessions last week and got around to recording it today. 

I wrote it at a time of complete confusion as to what lay ahead, with much uncertainty over work and where I would end up and what I would spend my time doing in the coming year. I named it Dawn in dedication to the mother of Adam Mcgrath of The Eastern, who Ebony informed me had passed away the day before I went to stay at Eb's place. That night I finished the song. It's just really about confusion and grief, life and death, hope and faith and things that lie ahead. 

The air was gold 
The morning is growing old 
But our minds are cold
Just not our souls 
These are things we can't know 

There are far better things ahead 
Than any we leave behind 
A little faith is stronger 
Than any plan we've ever tried 
You could pull your ship into port 
But in time we can find we're caught 
Left floating but we can't go far 
There's a storm out there little star 

We were tired 
Out on the road 
The tires tread 
A sense of dread
Has come down over me 

Dawn

This is my Christchurch song. I've spent the last 5 years trying to write a (good) Christchurch song. I wrote this coming back from the West Coast, after hearing Katie Thompson play her beautiful 'West Coast' song on tour with the Warratahs/Eastern. This tells of the late, cold winter nights wandering down St Asaph St to the Darkroom or the 3-hour round bus trips to the Wunderbar. 

I think winter was my favourite time
The empty streets and harbour lights 
The joy we tried so hard to fight 
We go back out into the night 

But I think summer brought the brighter days 
More confusion but we had less to say 
Some things they never go this way 
Just turn another page 

But the leaves now they die away 
I don't haunt this city I don't know if I can stay 
It hunts me down this broken town 
It's broken voices ring all around 

And all these questions I ask myself 
Are they truths or calls for help 
I'm back into the daily grind 
It's confusion to which we're resigned 

I think winter was my favourite time
The empty streets and harbour lights 
The joy we tried so hard to fight 
We go back out into the night 

Winter Was My Favourite Time

Retreat

Letters to Saurus is really a joke because it's all the things I want to say but don't say. Saurus is a friend of mine who I've been meaning to write a letter to for months... hence why the things I want to say but don't say thing. The song is basically about comparing Dunedin and Lyttelton, my new dwelling place vs my old love and letting go of the past, claiming it but moving on to new things as well. 

Harbour lights on southern shores
Moored our hearts in the small town
Do we want nothing more
Than what went before

I can't go home tonight
These words don't sound right

Remember this little town
Where the past was only coming down
But everything seemed so bright
Without the city lights

And I'll dance with you
In the bar in the back room
Where the past seemed so far away
But in our hopes we cannot stay 

Letters to Saurus

Lyttelton Man (rough recording)

I had this dream as a child that when someone died they could send back a letter to earth to tell you what heaven was like. Letters falling from the sky.
I've had a couple of friends pass away in the last few weeks, it's been painful. This song is a lot lighter than a lot of the other ones, and more complete as an acoustic guitar number for a rough phone recording version than the other ones.

Letter from the Heavens 

I never said goodbye 
I just always said hello 
You'll be looking down from above 
On those you loved

Send a letter 
From the heavens when you get there 
Tell us of the joy you felt now 
Now there is no fear

And I won't see you again this side of the dawn 
I've got many years to go before I knock upon the door
That leads me home to the other lands 
So I carry on with the love in my hands 

Letter from the Heavens (rough recording)

I began writing this song after the recent announcement that the Anglican Synod had failed to come to a decision again on blessing same-sex relationships. Unfortunately, I added to it after the despair today after the horrific Orlando shootings. This is both a song of hope and despair, a cry and a prayer. Love to everybody in the LGTQ community and the wider world today. That first verse has become my cry every time something fights against us. As Jodi Picoult said in one of my all-time favourite books 'Sing You Home': “The optimist in me wants to believe sexuality will eventually become like handwriting: there’s no right way and wrong way to do it. We’re all just wired differently. It's also worth noting that when you meet someone, you never bother to ask if he’s right or left-handed. After all: does it really matter to anyone other than the person holding the pen?” 

Lyrics:
I'm so sorry
It's all that I can say
We are beaten down
It should not fall this way

This is the way we're wired
It goes up in smoke
Is our hope now just ashes
Love where is your fire

This world is always changing
Breaking, shattering, dividing itself
Unity is not a break through
When you're waiting for your hope to be split in two

There's a glow in the morning sky
First light of dawn breaking through
They talked of pride you talked of blood
There's no way to numb the pain

We get constantly told
That all we do is wrong
It's a bitter fight to belong
Even in the shadows  

There's little hope here today

All That I Can Say

I am trying to understand the other side 
But we hide from their hatred in broad daylight 
There are more than two sides to each story 
I agree, this existence should not be a constant fight 

But is there any way out of here tonight 
Daughters with their father, 
Mothers and their children 
Let the sea sing my fear away 
Drowning is a little escape 
Sisters with their brothers 
People with their lovers 
The open skylines clear my mind 
In this hope we cannot hide forever 

I am trying to understand the hopelessness 
The mess of the world, destructiveness 
Vindication is nothing new 
But truth is seen through different eyes 

This world cries for many reasons tonight 

I sang for the hopeless, the angry, confused 
The lovers, the losers, the angry, abused 
I sung for the sunshine, the storm and the rain 
I looked for the beauty, I clung to the pain 
I sang for the beaten, the hopeful, dismayed 
The child, the dead, those who long for a change 
I cry for myself, for you and the world 
For every soul crying for their voice to be heard 

This world cries for many reasons tonight 

Everyone's selling out another, 
Hoping to change
Their world to be, 
another kind of way 
But the system is broken,
the words that are spoken 
Are just hollow, we've been fighting, 
the same way for years

The Same Way (The World Cries)

Singer/songwriter from Christchurch, NZ. Major influences include The Eastern, Luckless and Laura Marling. 

Greta Yeoman

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