Get all 8 There Will Be Fireworks releases available on Bandcamp and save 35%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of No Christmas Bells / This Christmas Is Forever, Summer Moon, Something Borrowed, Classic Movies, Ash Wednesday [Alt. Version], The Dark, Dark Bright, Because, Because, and There Will Be Fireworks.
1. |
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Well this year is wearing thin —
can’t believe the state I’m in.
I go crashing round the house.
I lie sparkled on the couch
in the television light.
I am not myself tonight;
I have heard the poets sing
(and they don’t know anything).
But the summer moon is up
and I’m starving for your love,
so I go out in the night
and I walk forever.
(But I come home.)
I tell you all my favourite songs.
I tell you where it all went wrong;
how quickly days now turn to nights,
how I’m haunting my own life.
All the hopes that summer built:
smoke machines and Catholic guilt.
So I sing you Sparky’s Dream
and I try to remember.
I’m coming home.
I’m all worked up.
I’ll keep your secrets.
I won’t mess this up.
I will be there when the summer’s over.
I will be there when the sky turns red.
I will be there when the summer’s over.
I will bring a love as stern as death.
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2. |
Holding Back the Dark
05:46
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I have seen a century of loss.
I have loved you in the morning
(I never count the cost).
It hasn’t all been bad
and it will be good again.
As sure as our tide goes out,
it will come in again.
And that’s okay.
I set my seal on your silhouette at dawn.
I remember the feeling —
it hasn’t ever gone,
though all our wild young years
like summer swifts have flown.
Do you still see the boy you loved
or a man you barely know?
I am sweating out this fever.
I am holding back the dark.
Let me lay here for a moment.
Let the morning light stream in
while our daughters sleep so soundly.
Let the world begin again.
I am singing out my joy now.
I am telling you the truth:
you’re a match struck in the darkness;
you’re a summer in full bloom,
holding back the dark.
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3. |
Bedroom Door
01:37
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I’ve never felt this way before —
got claw marks on my bedroom door.
I know they’ll be there in the morning.
Yes, I just need a little space,
a little time, a little faith,
and to tell myself
the sky is still not falling.
So don’t say it
don’t say it
don’t say
you want to leave.
I’d come over unannounced,
I’d get down on my knees.
Because there’s a time
and there’s a place
and there’s a love you can’t replace,
and my hollowed heart is here
if you still want it.
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4. |
Love Comes Around
04:33
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Today we sleep in late.
The day reveals its face.
Where are we now?
A lifetime on the run
from the world to come,
and now it’s bearing down.
December’s coming fast.
At least, if not at last,
you were on my mind.
The secret silver kept,
the records you collect:
the things we leave behind.
It comes around
and love will tear you down.
And didn’t I?
A dove burst into flame.
I’ll never know its name.
(It will know mine.)
You there in your white dress.
A love as stern a death
has been on my mind.
No fickle fleeting thing,
no hazy summer fling —
give me everything.
And whatever song I sing
with this broken battered thing
won’t make sense at all.
It comes around
and love will tear you down.
And didn’t I?
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5. |
Our Lady of Sorrows
04:03
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Now last night’s blood is dry,
last year’s love is on my mind.
I go howling round the streets.
I was all the rage,
never knowingly upstaged.
The city shimmered like a sea.
And now my head’s a wreck;
I wear the past around my neck
and hold it up in front of me.
And all that waiting, incessant,
in the hospital fluorescence.
I mouthed a silent prayer
I barely believed:
Our Lady of Sorrows,
are you praying for me?
See I begged, stole and borrowed
but I never shook free.
There’s something in the darkness —
it’s staring at me.
Will it be here tomorrow,
Our Lady of Sorrows?
I turned my friends away,
I slept through New Year’s Day.
I should have called; I should have told you that,
that you were honestly different —
the brightest thing existent:
a great white moon in a bold black sky.
I tried and tried.
Our Lady of Sorrows,
are you praying for me?
See I begged, stole and borrowed
but I never shook free.
There’s something in the darkness —
it’s staring at me.
Will it be here tomorrow,
Our Lady of Sorrows?
(Darkness, darkness,
I can see that burning bridge inside of me.
Who called your name? Who let you in?
Who said I need you for a friend?)
Our Lady of Sorrows,
are you praying for me?
See I begged, stole and borrowed
but I never shook free.
There’s something in the darkness —
it’s staring at me.
Will it be here tomorrow,
Our Lady of Sorrows?
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6. |
Dream Song
04:28
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I am the half-light on the bay
I am a nameless autumn day
I am a song that’s never sung
I am a door slammed shut
I am a city made of smoke
I am the fear when you’re alone
I am a bell that’s never rung
I am flat out of luck
Is this what you want?
Is this what you want?
Does this moment feel familiar?
I am the snow between your brakes
I am the sound your silence makes
I am a dream you can’t recall
I am a warning sign
I am the name upon your tongue
I am a voice from kingdom come
I am the tree before the Fall
I am a lost coastline
Is this what you want?
Am I what you want?
I am the half-light on the bay
I am a nameless autumn day
I am a song that’s never sung
I am a door slammed shut
I am a city made of smoke
I am the fear when you’re alone
I am a bell that’s never rung
I am flat out of luck
Is this what you want?
Is this what you want?
(Never going to make it back home.)
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7. |
Old-Time Tunes
03:04
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Do you remember those nights that summer?
Man, I passed by your old place —
it brought it back.
You loved those old-time tunes
(the kind your old man sang to you)
but now they only make you sad.
So we were young then.
The night was warm, the air was still.
We drank beneath the high white moon
And you said, “Love is strange.
It gives to you what you can’t take,
and then it leaves you far too soon.”
For what it’s worth
my heart remembers how it hurt
the day you went away.
I hope you found what you looked for;
I hope that joy has found your door.
I guess I wanted to say
I hope you are okay.
Where did the time go?
The years have passed like birds in flight.
One day you’re young, the next you’re not.
But I still see your silhouette against the trees
and hear your singing in my dreams.
For what it’s worth
my heart remembers how it hurt
the day you went away.
I hope you found what you looked for;
I hope that joy has found your door.
I guess I wanted to say
I hope you are okay.
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8. |
Something Borrowed
05:39
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So love,
do you recognise me?
Am I still the boy you saw
in that basement
in that summer?
Are you sure
of all that we were sure of?
Do you lie awake at night
wondering who’s this by your side?
And we’ve changed
in one hundred different ways,
but my heart still beats the same.
It’s coming, coming, coming:
the day when this present pain will fade,
when we will be okay.
It’s coming, coming, coming.
Something borrowed, something blue,
something broken now made new.
There’s a ring around the truth
and I feel it too.
When there’s no one else around
what was lost can now be found
in sheets of snow upon the ground.
So love,
do you recognise me?
Am I still the boy you saw
in that basement
in that summer?
And we’ve changed
in one hundred different ways,
but my heart still beats the same.
It’s coming, coming, coming.
It’s coming, coming, coming.
I hear the notes all bending.
There will be time and time and time
for every summer’s ending,
for every life you dream at night.
Somewhere in deathless darkness
waits every hope and prayer and plan,
unanswered by the silence —
all our tomorrows on our hands.
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9. |
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I remember you
in that vivid blue,
in our salad days,
like a dream I knew
would be over soon
(and that’s what made it seem
so beautiful).
Do you remember me?
I was staying gold.
I was still in tune.
I was coming up.
I was making moves.
And the summer moon
in the summer sky
was a perfect thing.
I never wondered why.
There will be no more counting curses;
I will pay my debts
in the life I have left.
I should be running now but it won’t let me go.
It won’t let me go.
This year has been a slow defeat
[I dream, I wake, in hands I hold]
and I don’t know what’s up with me.
[a loss, a wake, we hope, we pray.]
Everything I touch just turns to stone.
[A hope, a dream, a home.]
When you’re on your own,
when the winter’s rough,
when the love that’s left
is the realest stuff
and in autumn leaves
pile the passing years
and you wonder how
you found yourself here:
soon the birds will fly,
soon the trees will grow,
soon the bells will ring,
soon the moon will glow.
And that summer moon
in that summer sky
will be a perfect thing
on a perfect night.
(On a perfect night.)
There will be no more counting curses;
I will pay my debts
with the life I have left.
I should be running now but it won’t let me go.
It won’t let me go.
This year has been a slow defeat
[I dream, I wake, in hands I hold]
and I don’t know what’s up with me.
[a loss, a wake, we hope, we pray.]
Everything I touch just turns to stone.
[I dream, I wake, in hands I hold
a loss, a wake, we hold a hope, a dream.]
You’re not alone.
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10. |
Classic Movies
04:04
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In the season of my silence:
red and violet light,
the western sky ablaze,
and Glasgow gleamed
beneath the Cathkin Braes.
Will this shadow ever leave me?
Does my heart again deceive me?
Restless days and endless nights —
they’re all the same.
There must be something in the water.
There must be something in the wine.
Have I been wasting all my time?
(All my time.)
Is this sorrow now shot through me?
Classic movies beamed into a boyhood room.
In the television light a flower bloomed.
And it’s been so long.
And in this season of my sadness:
who would have this
shadow of a waxwing slain?
An old machine that dreams itself awake.
And would you love me or haunt me?
This gathered storm of fates.
I bolt the windows closed
and wait for days.
It was only us,
just the two of us.
I held you in my arms.
Tinseltown — in love —
Coming through the stereo.
And those sea-grey eyes
saw the morning light.
(Saw the morning light.)
There won’t be an open door,
can’t go through it any more.
I have been around this town;
I have seen it all by now.
It was only us,
just the two of us.
I held you in my arms.
I held you in my arms.
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11. |
So Long, Sundown
04:32
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So long, sundown,
time to turn this thing around.
All the friends I’ve ever known,
all like summer swifts have flown.
But the light hits the stone
of the tenements at dawn,
and my heart it still fills up:
it’s approximately love.
I’m a wreck,
I’m a ruin,
I’m a thread lost to the loom.
Fix my tie and fix my hair;
shake me out of this despair.
Grab my coat, leave my drink,
take me home, don’t let me think.
I am tired of make believe.
Make the sun come up for me.
Those old familiar eyes
are pulling on my heart strings.
Just wait and give it time —
the art of doing nothing.
And you, Star of the Sea,
won’t you spare some light for me?
Still the storm and hush the wind.
Say my luck is coming in.
At the end of this gloom
there’s a garden in full bloom
where the Wild Mountain Thyme
sings to sleep my little lights.
Those old familiar eyes
are pulling on my heartstrings.
Too late I realise
I have all I need.
So please give me a sign:
a weird eclipse or something.
Just wait and give it time —
the art of doing nothing.
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12. |
Second City, Setting Sun
04:57
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So I came to see you one cool clear night.
“It’s been a while.”
(It’s been half a life.)
“So how’ve you been?”
“Keeping busy too.”
And “How’s so and so?”
And “Did you hear the news?”
Still the sirens sing,
still the west wind howls,
still there’s magic in this old grey town.
But you can’t undo what time has done —
the second city’s setting sun.
For the loves you’ve lost,
for the friends you found:
a parting glass raised to the sound
of a long-lost scene,
and the nights that gleamed
back when you were you
and I was me.
They lit us up in electric lights
and the basements glowed in the August night.
A rooftop walk,
a lost weekend,
the painted moon,
the sky was red.
Now the summers come
and the summers go.
We’re not growing up;
we’re just getting old.
And some of us kept the dream a dream.
Some were strong and some were free.
And some of us walk a real rough road,
and there but for the grace I go.
You knock on wood
and you hope and pray
that you’ll be spared another day
the pale white face —
the sorrow that you know
will be your fate.
Love won’t come with a blinding light,
a thunder crack,
a lightning strike.
No, love it comes unannounced,
silently and slow.
You wake one day
and you know it’s there
in the way she moves;
in the way her hair
falls across her face,
and the way you notice that.
I could tell you things I never told a soul.
I’ve been dreaming of those nights in Glasgow.
Open up your arms and let me fall;
I can barely stand at all.
The pale white face —
the sorrow that you know
will be your fate.
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13. |
Bloody Mary
02:35
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Come home.
Lift those eyes:
the mirror and the flame.
The same air
and the same sky,
but everything has changed.
It’s not like
there’s a bad sign on the rise.
(Did you say her name three times?)
It’s not like
there’s such a thing as fate.
You can make your own way.
Whatever this life brings,
at the end of everything
I want to hear you sing.
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There Will Be Fireworks Glasgow, UK
Making music at a glacial pace since 2007. Still alive.
theimaginarykind.bandcamp.com
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