Get all 3 Carlton ("Colly") Wilkinson releases available on Bandcamp and save 15%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Inside Voices, Certain Dark Things, and Three Rooms.
1. |
All Done Smiling
04:35
|
|||
Are we all done smiling?
The hurt begun
No more children’s games
Old Snake Eyes has won
And the flames are rising now
Are we all done
Are we all done smiling?
Bullets pop in the heat
Don’t stop, hit the gas, man, put this sucker in gear
Heads down, we’re hiding in the back seat
Get us far from this place, the hell out of here
A family rides from the graveside,
their child gone –
are we all done smiling?
Cowards cursing insults and rages
Goose step white feet that march a beat to that drum
carry the children into animal cages,
stone faces staring down, staring down, staring down.
Great again this evil line
of good undone
Are we all done smiling?
Pull out the stitches, let it bleed free
This the body of all your wounded worth,
Sell it all, let the market fall, let darkness mighty
roll over the sons and the daughters of all the fevered earth
gold jackpot burns
for no one
Are we?
Are we all?
Are we all done?
Are we all done smiling?
|
||||
2. |
All the Long Way
04:04
|
|||
All the Long Way
Carry what you know is true.
Maybe what you don’t know too.
Keep faith,
Strange the days and wild,
Love is the pathway through.
See it signs to you, shines to you,
Hoo hoo hoo
All the long way.
Creatures peak inside for you,
Faces that you can’t undo.
Watch the eyes,
And voices surprising.
Sing it that way too.
Feel it flying some, crying some,
Hoo go on,
sing it the wrong way.
That’s your song.
Leaping into arms of the night stars,
Listen to the pulley when you’re pulling up the water in the well,
And the grasses brushing eye high listen to the shell,
Listen to the pulley drawing up the water in the well.
(In the hands of the rain.
In the hands of the rain.)
Feel it flying some, crying some,
Hoo go on,
sing it the wrong way.
That’s your song.
|
||||
3. |
In the Cold Water
04:22
|
|||
Looking out the window
at the falling snow,
I find myself wondering
About the river far below,
the river far below.
I could turn into an otter,
I could make myself at home,
I could swim away in the cold water…
Carrying my stone.
In the cold water,
I could find a new life
all my own.
Could it be you didn’t know
What your words would do to me?
Walking away from
All that you loved,
Just to say you’re free?
Just to say you’re free.
In the cold water,
You found a new place
You can be.
We’re sitting in the darkness
With the candle burning low.
How long, how long
do we linger so?
Clouds of incense rising
in the hollow wind,
and outside all God’s creatures singing,
singing sweet and low,
and the cold water
rushing through the valley
far below.
|
||||
4. |
Way Down Below
03:46
|
|||
Poor man, sagging cigarette
takes the subway.
(Way down, way down below)
Rich man, folding old regret
steps onto the runway.
(Way down, way down below)
Saint Street straight down the line
and the engines whine.
Minds burned blind and fell down the well below.
Way down, way down below
She walks into a room she knows she should
never have walked into.
(Way down, way down below)
There isn’t a soul there who can
help her to carry through. (Way down, way down below)
That cinder in her eyes glows true.
(Way down, way down below)
Moved by soul shining pretty
In the blackest cell, she cries,
angel fell down the well below.
Way down, way down
Way down, way down below
Darkness aspires down to the
darkest view.
(Way down, way down below)
Bright light cries out to move in gloom.
(Way down, way down below)
Aggrieved you play your part, you
show your tell, you give your heart away.
(Way down, way down below)
Believe and baby you’re doomed.
Reel and rocking rolling over where the
fear burns bright, you find
your eyes shut tight as hell, down and fell, down the well below.
Way down, way down
Way down, way down below
|
||||
5. |
The Sea Has No Oranges I
00:20
|
|||
6. |
Restless Shade
03:56
|
|||
There’s some changes headed,
like the Gulf Stream rising,
like some gale that’s been blowing
off this wild bird island shore.
And I can’t say where and I don’t know when,
but some old door’s been opened
in the restless shade.
When there’s change you’ve got coming,
and your hand feels empty,
like a night’s thunder won’t rain,
and your heart’s hard and heavy,
like a soul’s chains been severed
and the God air flows full
of nothing.
And I can’t say where and I don’t know how,
but I feel it coming, this very hour.
And I can’t say where and I don’t know when,
but some old door’s been opened
in the restless shade.
There’s some change that’s coming,
like some Hollywood starlet on that walk of fame
nobody’s ever seen before.
There’s a full moon rising
down my avenue,
knock-knock-knockin’ on my door.
And I can’t say where and I don’t know how,
but I feel it coming, this very hour.
And I can’t say where and I don’t know when,
but some old door’s been opened
in the restless shade.
|
||||
7. |
Secrets
02:41
|
|||
Take one of the society,
Take one of the secrets.
Listen to the kingdom of this snowfall down.
One of the secrets
of this life.
Keep it.
Cinder block walls,
apartment complex walls,
refuse when she knocks,
refusing to even open
when she knocks.
Quarantine, quarantine.
Take one of the society,
Take one of the secrets.
Open that door,
Open that door.
One of the secrets
of this life.
Keep it.
Beautiful sky, I’ve never seen
an ugly sky—I’ve never seen.
Open that door,
Open that door.
Quarantine, quarantine.
|
||||
8. |
Father Rain
05:43
|
|||
Half of my life without you,
Half of those dreams blown through,
Half of all sacrament, all of innocence,
Swept aside by the rain broom.
Half these junk implements, all my innocence,
lost in you.
Father Rain, see you
come, claim my eyes,
come, stand behind my face,
smear your tears, in a glass
shattered
Half of my mind denies you.
Half of my name, I don’t use.
If I could separate, take myself apart,
this piece me, that piece you,
if I could cut away all your broken heart
Father Rain, see you
come, claim my eyes,
come, stand behind my face,
smear your tears, in a glass
shattered
I lost my mind over you.
I left those shoes I outgrew.
Half of me leans to you, even leaving you,
my bare feet across the lawn.
Leaves of diaries, leaves of the old trees,
leaves of the old trees.
Father Rain, see you
come, claim my eyes,
come, stand behind my face,
smear your tears, in a glass
shattered
down on hands and knees like
yours,
heart, like yours, breaks
mine.
|
||||
9. |
Out of Time
03:37
|
|||
Low clouds hanging on
all day.
Still here when we’re all gone,
some new life soars beneath this song.
Pole star turns around,
always,
twenty-five or six thousand years,
some other name, by eyes,
some other child,
That day.
The meter is running.
I’m down to my last dime.
The driver is scowling in the rear-view mirror.
Am I the suspicious kind?
Am I out of time?
Feel the shelf divide,
that day.
San’dreas takes LA.
New Jersey falls to the sea.
All the same to me.
Crawling through the weeds and night shade.
Crawling across the highway.
Headlights a cutting blade.
The fever is coming.
I hear the distant chimes.
I hear the dogs are howling,
I feel their suspicion, fear suspicious minds.
The meter is running.
I’m down to my last dime.
The driver is scowling in the rear-view mirror.
Am I the suspicious kind?
Am I out of time?
|
||||
10. |
||||
11. |
Easy to Lose
03:23
|
|||
Gun with a son that never unbred,
marred, scarred your brother till you fallen down dead.
Mazed in the dark that you travel all alone,
lost tribe of the cellphone.
Alt-Jesus my ringtone.
What’s hard to win is hard to prove
And easy to lose.
Given this day of our sliced white bread
at the table of the bones of the thousands dead.
They came from the big house to the near and now
to take mule, my hands, my plow.
Take it all.
Hear my prayer.
What’s hard to win is hard to keep true,
and easy to lose.
Hard to prove it’s hard,
and easy to lose.
Stained glass dark in the church window
got a dull point of nothing when the sun don’t show.
The black and the white who came for the bread
and the blood and the wine
are home, home with the dead.
What’s hard to win is hard to prove,
and easy to lose.
Hard to prove it’s hard,
and easy to lose.
House is gone and the family and me are laying low
under the bridge where the limousines go.
Comes my time it won’t be news,
gone, gone for the blues.
What’s hard to win is hard to prove,
and easy to lose.
Hard to prove it’s hard,
But it’s easy to lose.
|
||||
12. |
Man & Superman
04:06
|
|||
Shake my knife,
you hollow life.
Blankets for my fists,
all you hypocrites.
Your crazy words
fall by my sword,
little man.
Take my bloody hand.
Join me, man and superman.
Man and superman.
My flashing cape flies
above your life.
Crushing coal you’ve mined
into diamonds in my hand.
Let me inspire you
with all that I can do,
little man.
This is how it stands:
you, me – man and superman.
Man and superman.
They tell me it’s the diabetes
from the Agent Orange.
I don’t complain,
I’m just back there everyday.
I’m a little man.
Who will take that stand?
Who will be man for superman?
Man and superman.
|
||||
13. |
The Hour
04:07
|
|||
Now, the hour has come.
Vengeance to nations
with spittle and wire,
bring us their nobles down
fettered for fire.
Let the soul of this new song be sung.
The hour has come.
Reversion to the mean,
just the way it used to be.
A dream becomes a memory, a bitter plea,
not the way it has to be.
Sing a new song
to the tune of the liar.
Feet are the drumbeat so loud and the funeral fire,
breathing free, sparks in the flames of a morning
where I follow, where I follow.
The hour has come.
Reversion to the mean,
just the way it used to be.
A dream becomes a memory, a bitter plea,
not the way it has to be.
Every gravestone,
Epitaph and eulogy,
dreams spared no cruelty,
no love, no human concession,
but comes old hooded intention,
mean.
These are the mornings I wake up
Longing for a new song ringing in my ears.
|
||||
14. |
Marionette
04:17
|
|||
The painted life you know,
I don’t think about it.
The grease paint and saw dust, man,
don’t think much about it.
Where you have to go, I can’t see.
Those animated eyes, blind to me,
watching with the crowd when the lights go low,
don’t you know,
Weigh your rock,
Cradle your roll,
bass the music chowder and the sax soul,
hear that knock-knocking at your door,
the urgency, the death metal roar.
Where you have to be’s a mystery
to me, all your heights wuthery,
preening for the house empty, a dream
‘s all you know.
Walking on the line up there,
umbrella and clowning.
Strings that jerk you everywhere,
dancing you around.
Where’s the loving eye that finds me,
in the shadow passed the prancin’ ponies,
crying for the bow that’ll end this show?
Don’t you know,
Weigh the rock,
Cradle your roll.
bass the music chowder and the sax soul.
Who’s that man who knocked upon your door?
He looked so familiar and here he comes once more.
Where you have to be’s a mystery
to me, all your heights wuthery,
preening for the house empty, a dream
‘s all you know.
|
||||
15. |
||||
16. |
Snowblindness
03:33
|
|||
If I could make you cry
wash out the dirt and the slumber,
wake up, the scales falling from your eyes.
If I could make you cry,
mascara rain falling under
those barricades, could it change your mind?
You brought the whole ensemble here
(white stains so easy).
Your words sharp, crystal clear,
such unkindness.
Snowblindness.
If I grouse and grumble by,
I’m feeling white’s not your color,
and there’s some tattoo that lace can’t hide.
For all the rough and tumble lives,
your bread still breaks down to crumbles,
you sweep away what you can’t decide.
Behind that veil and fake fur stole
(white stains so easy),
spray tagged graffiti on your soul,
such a fine mess.
Snowblindness.
|
||||
17. |
Made Me Cry
00:47
|
|||
The way you
The way you made me
The way you made me cry
|
||||
18. |
Worried Man
02:42
|
|||
Old worry song,
The song I’m singing all night long.
It takes a worried song
For a worried man to sing along.
You go off and find a man,
any man, a man like me,
I guarantee, he’ll be wrong.
Cursing at the stars
for caring for the moon.
Bitter as a stone,
Bitter cold, cold as wind.
Cursing marked and marred, scarred
the singer sore, curse the song.
Bitter as a whore,
bitter as a slamming door.
That’s the state I’m in,
that’s the state I’m in.
|
||||
19. |
Tian Wen
02:52
|
|||
Bring it to a soft stop now,
It consumes you.
Anxiety drenched the tubes.
Pick up sticks where we find them,
Sprawling legions, news.
It consumes you.
We were left out in the cold
television.
Blue light blinding my eyes.
Pick up sticks where we find them,
In the canyons, low.
It consumes you.
|
||||
20. |
(Untitled)
00:10
|
Carlton ("Colly") Wilkinson New Jersey
Inside Voices is here! 20 tracks, all written by Colly, produced by Dane Scalise, arranged by Colly and
Dane.
Lifelong composer, songwriter, musician and writer. Ph.D. in music. Piano is my main instrument I also sing and play guitar. A Pittsburgh native living in NJ.
... more
Contact Carlton ("Colly") Wilkinson
Streaming and Download help
Carlton ("Colly") Wilkinson recommends:
If you like Inside Voices, you may also like:
Bandcamp Daily your guide to the world of Bandcamp