Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Silence - Glassjaw cover

Laura Elsa lived a little while down the way
Walked her baby for miles through the heat and through the rain
I watched her struggle and wring the perspiration from her clothes
Bug-eyed and wondering where all her buried resentment goes

Laura Elsa pulls her limping boy to her side
Says he got too brave in the face of some poor sad man’s pride
Yeah, she don’t say much but I saw her jaw get real tight
Once something’s got in deep you can’t pull the wool out of that dye

Called her mama before they came to take her away
Dragged him to that precious truck, carried on and rumbled down the lane
‘Tween grape vines, they’ll find him in a nine-inch grave
“It's done. He’s dead.” She said, hung up and walked away

Small town whispers through leaves and vines and soil
I seen their son with his grey face milling round the hall
News of Laura’s man spread, and once they learned his fate
Townsfolk shrugged their shoulders, better without him anyway

--

Music and lyrics by Yasmin de Laine

Yasmin de Laine - vocals, banjo
Anita Quayle - cello
Shane Reilly - pedal steel
Roger Newall - percussion

Recorded, mixed and produced by AJ Bradford at Tender Trap Studios

Mastered by Timothy Stollenwerk at Stereophonic Recordings

Cover photo by Tanya Voltchanskaya

Laura Elsa

Written by Yasmin de Laine
Vocals and banjo performed by Yasmin de Laine
Cello by Anita Quayle
Pedal steel by Shane Rielly

Recorded, mixed and produced by AJ Bradford at Tender Trap Studios
Mastered by Timothy Stollenwerk at Stereophonic Recordings

Lyrics:

I writhe in ecstasy 
And they just laugh at me 
Beneath my blessed bed 
The devil’s cursed ingress 

They don’t want me living 
They’ll have me when I’m dead 
No use while I’m living 
They’ll revere me when I’m dead 

The wounds dug in my skin 
My greensick verbatim  
She sighs a hollow moan
And cleans the bloodstains in my room

The silence makes me whole
My lonely victim soul
In the morning, my heart burns 
I await for his return

Strengthen me
Purify me
Make me godlike

Each Heart Devours The Other

Greensick

Written by Yasmin de Laine

Vocals and guitar performed by Yasmin de Laine
Cello by Anita Quayle
Percussion by Roger Newall

Recorded, mixed and produced by AJ Bradford at Tender Trap Studios
Mastered by Timothy Stollenwerk at Stereophonic Recordings

Cover photo by Tanya Voltchanskaya

LYRICS:

It’s time the young plants are hardened
Carefully lest we bruise the stems
Damage the delicate roots

The exposure is too gradual
My agony perennial

Mother taught me mercy in the cutting of soft things
I sing quietus at the altar of beauty
If I can’t have their worship, then I want their pity
The shame of being born to someone they’ll bury

Daughter craves my comfort more than my violence
She was not born with my lilting fingers
I know that she’s a monument to the bodies inside me
That awful place where the emptiness lingers

I bury daughter in the backyard with the animal bones
I love them so much it tears me apart
What else but to consume all that you could have been
Each heart devours the other heart

Each heart devours the other

If I Can't Have Their Worship, I Want Their Pity

Written by Yasmin de Laine

Vocals and banjo performed by Yasmin de Laine
Cello by Anita Quayle
Pedal steel by Shane Reilly
Percussion by Roger Newall

Recorded, mixed and produced by AJ Bradford at Tender Trap Studios
Mastered by Timothy Stollenwerk at Stereophonic Recordings

Cover photo by Tanya Voltchanskaya

LYRICS:

Laura Elsa lived a little while down the way
Walked her baby for miles through the heat and through the rain
I watched her struggle and wring the perspiration from her clothes
Bug-eyed and wondering where all her buried resentment goes

Laura Elsa pulls her limping boy to her side
Says he got too brave in the face of some poor sad man’s pride
Yeah, she don’t say much but I saw her jaw get real tight
Once something’s got in deep you can’t pull the wool out of that dye

Called her mama before they came to take her away
Dragged him to that precious truck, carried on and rumbled down the lane
‘Tween grape vines, they’ll find him in a nine-inch grave
“It's done. He’s dead.” She said, hung up and walked away.

Small town whispers through leaves and vines and soil
I seen their son with his grey face milling round the hall
News of Laura’s man spread, and once they learned his fate
Townsfolk shrugged their shoulders, better without him anyway

Traditional folk song/hymn
Adapted and arranged by Yasmin de Laine

Vocals and banjo performed by Yasmin de Laine
Cello by Anita Quayle
Pedal steel by Shane Reilly

Recorded, mixed and produced by AJ Bradford at Tender Trap Studios
Mastered by Timothy Stollenwerk at Stereophonic Recordings

Cover photo by Tanya Voltchanskaya

LYRICS:
Talk about suffering here below and talk about loving Jesus
Talk about suffering here below and let’s get to following Jesus
Gospel train is coming, don’t you want to go?
And leave this world of sorrow and trouble here below

Talk About Suffering

Written by Yasmin de Laine

Vocals and banjo performed by Yasmin de Laine
Percussion by Roger Newall

Recorded, mixed and produced by AJ Bradford at Tender Trap Studios
Mastered by Timothy Stollenwerk at Stereophonic Recordings

Cover photo by Tanya Voltchanskaya

LYRICS:

Watching with wonder as we gaze a yonder
A corona halo bursts in the sky
Soft belly’s shaking with the threat of more ailing
We wait for the teeth and thousand eyes

With bated breath, we’ll gasp in the hot black air
Domesticate it, yeah, you tried to fake it
You know we never really belonged here

We don’t belong here
We never belonged here
The landscape rejects us
And God, who could blame it

My neighbours load their rooms with crosses and canned goods
Kiss their kids and blush at the rot
Pick at my fingers, the humming blue lingers
I hope I’ll be eaten by God

Child, don’t look at the sun, it would burn your eyes out
But now it’s a pink bruise up above
Nurturing aching, the dumb hope of waiting
How dare you come to Her with your love

We don’t belong here
We never belonged here
Stolen land rejects us
And God, who could blame it

The harvest is past
The summer has ended
And we are not saved

YASMIN DE LAINE

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