Phosphorescent Harvest

CRB Harvest
April 29, 2014

April 29, 2014

Phosphorescent Harvest
Shore Power

Something like love
Takes a lot of hurt to learn
No stone left unturned
And the fire on the mountain burns

What did you get hold of?
Was it too much yesterday
Dropped out hidden away
Left you with the bill to pay

Burned out faded away
Sideways, backwards, straight ahead
It’s all the same
It must be hard to play a lonely guitar
When no one remembers anyway

Of all the things to choose from
Why a pair of dusty wings
Some old sad songs to sing
And a kitchen that is never clean

From a maze, to a mist to a place like this
From a hole, to a star where ever you are
Burned out faded away
Sideways, backwards, straight ahead
It’s all the same
It must be hard to play a lonely guitar
When no one remembers anyway

Rat trap, New York City
That finger came with a gold splinter in it
Satin shoes tip toe thru the eves
Who spilled pollen on my sleeves

Something like love
Takes a lot of hurt to learn
No stone left unturned
And the fire on the mountain burns

From a maze, to a mist to a place like this
From a hole, to a star where ever you are
In a daze, from a haze, in the highest way

Burned out faded away
Sideways, backwards, straight ahead
It’s all the same
It must be hard to play a lonely guitar
When no one remembers anyway
It must be hard to play a lonely guitar
When no one remembers anyway
Well nobody, no one

About A Stranger

Fiddle tunes call the band
A simple melancholy melody
A new day mist a soft Pacific rain
Now it’s all coming back to me

About a stranger and it’s real inside
Sometimes no where ain’t make believe
Orchard girls know only of Spring
My love is what this Autumn brings

No hen house rules just an old tin can
And a ladder made of stars to Eden’s dream
Like the silver roots of the tree that sings
A thing so rare as not to know it’s name

About a stranger and it’s real inside
Sometimes no where ain’t make believe
Orchard girls know only of spring
My love is what this autumn brings

I have found you lost among the willows
You have held me crying in your arms
I never could and now I can’t
Leave well enough alone
What’s a Saturday boy to do
When Sunday comes?

Here I am
I’ve been gone away to long
Trying to find some time
Between tomorrows
How much is gone?

About a stranger and it’s real inside
Sometimes no where ain’t make believe
Orchard girls know only of Spring
My love is what this Autumn brings

Meanwhile In the Gods...

Older than the mountain
Younger that this day
Barefoot dreaming
Sleeping children dance a figure 8
Lost soft velvet in a state of decay
Sweet tooth youth could take the abuse
But not stand the cage
If it don’t move it, loose it, lay it down
Pick it up when the next one comes around
Find good reason to make great cheer
Find time to mention the other dimensions
The highest sphere
Magic makes the circle, morning makes the day
Love from the sky, love from the mud
And the words you say

Is that an arrow thru your hand
A road nailed to your feet
Have a go off the fat of the land
And find gold in the fleece
Yes love is hard to find
And in the Gods they stand and cheer
Throwing flowers on the stage

The sun don’t shine thru a buzzards wings
Hollow or whole, skin or bone, twig or leaf
Come like a lion and you leave like a lamb
To seek and wander, to hear the thunder
To understand

Is that an arrow thru your hand
A road nailed to your feet
Have a go off the fat of the land
And find gold in the fleece
Yes love is hard to find
And in the Gods they stand and cheer
Throwing flowers on the stage

Let me ease your mind
Won't you lend your burden my shoulder
The sun waits outside
To light the way of yonder
For people born to wonder

I asked for bread she brought me a bird
I let it go without saying a word
She kissed my mind and I understood
Sometimes things work this way

Badlands Here We Come

These black eyed dandelions
Have a taste for sweet
Never sharing with the dogs
Some are born to vanity
They see six but I see three
Who keeps marking on my walls?
Forever is an August choked with dirty weeds
Dreaming some foggy dawn
Sometimes you leave the sunshine
And sometimes it leaves you
Just a reaction to the cold

Now the brambles have all gone dry
Burnt and blackened by the sun
Into this darkling away let’s fly
Badlands here we come
Badlands, Badlands here we come

There’s words you say in bedrooms
Words you say when lost a sea
What will your truth become
And if my words were daggers
There’d be nothing to repeat
Just a cop telling people “move along”

Now the brambles have all gone dry
Burnt and blackened by the sun
Into this darkling away let’s fly
Badlands here we come
Badlands, Badlands here we come

Another jewel in the outlaws crown
Another weary memory
Something wicked has rolled into town
New rope swinging in the breeze

In the space between black and sky
In this hollows purple eve
Behind a screen door bids goodbye
Incantations to believe

The coward counts his money
In the back room of his soul
A dirty end to a darker need
The singer can’t stop cry’n
Though he never stops his song
Sing along, sing along
Sing along, sing along

Clear Blue Sky & The Good Doctor

If you find a yourself in a boxcar baby
Then you got rails to ride, You got rails to ride
But from love you cannot hide

If you wake up thirsty on some dry Monday
But Sunday wants back the well
Sunday wants back the well
Like the hole wants back the pail

Leaning into a sideways rain
Waiting for the better days
I'm down from the mountaintop
Man has my view changed
Won't you let me stare into your
dark and roving eyes
Won't you take me by the hand
to your clear blue sky

And sometimes it's raining in West Virgina
And some ones missing someone in Omaha
And sometimes LA, Is the darkest trip of all

If the song you sing can't make you happy
Then you really got the blues
You really got the blues
The only game that you can lose

Leaning into a sideways rain
Waiting for the better days
I'm down from the mountaintop
Man has my view changed
Won't you let me stare into your
dark and roving eyes
Won't you take me by the hand
to your clear blue sky

And as the sun comes up this morning
Same old charcoal grey sky friend
A blood red ambulance is screaming
Up 6th avenue again
These things happen without warning
Just like sadness, just like rain
The navigator has lost all feeling
And the good doctor has gone insane

Beggar's Moon

A beggars moon, Enough to light my way
Sieve & scissors, Dogtooth sisters, Snow & rain
Laid down in a dark wood dreaming
Woke up to the sunlight streaming down
Through the redwood trees
Lazy bones, Pinky rings
Stale champagne & an empty bed
For the comedown king
Blood from a cherry, Sand from a rose
Do what you will or do what your told
Just don't, ask me to name names

Drain that barrel, Fill that pipe
Let the big red head do her dance all night
Backbeat mama make you feel all right
Groove'n it loose when I'm getting to tight
And in the dark days
When's there's a cold on the ground
Black water churning
Beckoning you come down
Hitched my ride to the Showboat Queen
Went overboard in New Orleans
Good lord will'n, That sun gonna rise and
Shine a light on this mystery

Faded days, Lunar & suede
Dreamless night in the white walled room
of no escape

Thoughts in a tangle love for a loss
Stars on the ceiling coins to be tossed
And bones, to be laid away

Torn from love, left in disgrace
Hunted & haunted but still with a smile
on my face

Angry sun, turquoise sky
Silver tears the longest spoon the whitest lie
Look down your noses build more fences
The will is the wisdom to come to our senses
And see the open space inside

Wanderer's Lament

Dreamer come springtime,
Water running quick
The black winged dance of fireflies
In the garden where we sit
You never dreamed to gypsy
Of rolling over stones
An eternity an instance
Forever a heart a home
Yellow burns this summer,
No grape shall go to waste
Hold my hand & let's go under
To be reborn in some new place
Where our souls are never strangers
Let our shadows find the day
As we stand in the light of our love
Until we fly away
You're never alone, You're never alone
If there's thunder & rain
The wonder of love the weakness of love
Makes us all the same
You get so tired treading the waves
And I'm not afraid of an empty page

To take away such sorrow
To give another you're hand
You the untamed daughter
Oh, let the water, let the water
Wash it all away

Mornings cold in these lowlands,
Wild geese still fly away
I will build you a fire
If you'll be my serenade
Come a tender new season
Come a somber July
Come anyway, anyhow
You will find me by your side
You're never alone, You're never alone
When there's thunder & rain
The wonder of love the weakness of love
Makes us all the same
You get so tired treading the waves
And I'm not afraid of an empty page

Tornado

Sit down by the window and watch the tornado
We'll wait for the sheriff
To bring some dirty water by
Help yourself out to some of my disaster
Its movin' faster than the last time I was on speed
So don't you know what I mean
It's ways and means & your ways are mean
By definition
I could fill this page up with this boys ambitions
I don't audition
You know that's true
I would never act for you

Heard you saw some friends of mine last winter
Then again, I heard you disappeared into ether
I don't laugh and you smile because I'm tired
I'm feelin’ wired oh so weary, oh so old
Am I being too bold
Bold enough to ask you if you really love me
Oh in my shadows and in my breeze
And just one last thing
Please let me say
And that is please,
Oh please, please stay

Sit down by the window and watch the tornado
We'll wait for the sheriff
To bring some dirty water by
Help yourself out to some of my disaster
Its movin' faster than the last time I was on speed
Don't you know what I mean
It's ways and means and your ways are mean
By definition
I could fill this page up with this boys ambitions
Oh one last thing, I gotta say
And that is please, oh please
Stay away from me

Jump The Turnstile

Smoke ring halos, feet made of clay
Open spaces and narrow ways
Nightbird cry’n at the end of an age
White leather gloves lay the saint in his grave
Hung on a rusty nail in the back room of a
Nickel a dance pass the jug around
The devil’s plain lazy if he don’t bust out
No one’s a stranger when it’s raining outside
If there’s a hole in your shoe then come on inside

Do you know how you feel?
Are you that far gone inside?
Let love make it real
Come on let’s jump the turnstile

Bag full of beads, black tongue divine
Let go the rabbit by the pale moon light
Don’t stoke the fire with paper hands
To build you a boat you need a little dry land

Do you know how you feel?
Are you that far gone inside?
Let love make it real
Come on let’s jump the turnstile

Soft grass lullabies
In the cinnamon sunshine
Rose pedal soft, sickly sweet
Love sick Charlie and tear drop Molly
Just jumped out of their seats

Euphoria dancing, dripping chandeliers
Flatfooted shufflers or those well heeled
Call my mind diamond
Call my heart gold
Call me gone and off down the road
Call me gone and off down the road

Burn Slow

Curious to the taste
Oblivious to the take
A thinking mans mistake,
Then you’re far away
I had a grand old time
With these good friends of mine
A golden light did shine
and the world did sing

Burn slow (Burn Slow)
Burn slow
Burn slow (Burn slow)
Burn slow

I’ve had to pass the hat around
Drink some black water down
In a great walled lonely town
Full of ghosts and clouds
Had to keep the dogs at bay
Heard ‘em howlin’ every day
‘nough to drive a man insane
So I stayed a boy

Humboldt Windchimes

Instrumental.

While Big Moon Ritual and The Magic Door were cut from the same sessions early in the Chris Robinson Brotherhood’s development, Phosphorescent Harvest has a lush openness and a wealth of carefully placed sounds that a yearlong recording process allows. The CRB’s twin inflections, of psych weirdness and laid-back cowboy rock, get further apart here—the strange gets more ethereal and more precisely mind-bending and the guitars even earthier. The songs, largely co-written by Chris Robinson and Neal Casal, breathe in the juxtaposition. The album is dark and strange and pretty, a collection of love songs. There’s a lot to listen to: complex song structures, recurrent images, hints of a cycle, a system of metaphor being laid out. We hear acoustic strumming, Spanish picking and pedal steel swells, but also urban tones and shout-outs to New York City. Among the most satisfying moments are when the songs break into psych meltdown or prog instrumental. Adam MacDougall’s broad arsenal of organ, electric piano and synth tones is often foregrounded. It’s rock music turned inside out, as the synchronized riffs provide rhythmic context for the synthesized phantasmagoria, which sets the subtle roar of the guitar leads. Robinson’s voice has grown mature, and easy. This band is maturing, too. They’re finding their true sound in the process.

– Richard B. Simon Relix

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