1. |
To the River
02:15
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TO THE RIVER
When the drama is over, and the crowd has moved on
Will you walk with me to the river?
When the storm clouds have rolled over, and the sun begins to shine
Will you walk with me to the river?
When my swan song has been sung, and the moon calls my name
Will you walk with me to the river?
Fate McAfee: Guitar, vocals
Melanie A. Davis: Vocals, shaker
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2. |
Appalachian Dream
03:36
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APPALACHIAN DREAM
She renders me request-less, restless as a key
Spins the thread into a quilt and skins up both my knees
I am old I am new I am dying I am born
In the moment we wake together in the morn
I feel the dead weight of a poem handed down
From a one trick pony in a one horse town
Who gave up on catharsis and settled for a square
In a downtown apartment with central heat and air
She lingered on his sidewalk, she looked up longingly
He moped around beside himself bound to his beliefs
A ceiling or the sunset on the river down the block
Turns around to find himself, the movement of a clock
A taxi cab below murmurs to a stop
And she is gone upon the street
The temptation of the feather, the leather, and the grease
The hydroponic solitude you conjure up for free
The chemistry of youth, the moral of the scenes
Beautified in hindsight; inflected memory
I feel I’m moving past it in an Appalachian dream
The potential of the promises to remedy the scenes
The angles of her eyes when she looks to me to hold
Are the same as the sun’s through the trees in the grove
When the day is breaking and the creek is cold
And I feel her wakeful whispering
Fate McAfee: Guitar, vocals, lapsteel
Melanie A. Davis: Lead guitar
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3. |
To Blanche
05:35
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TO BLANCHE
Feels like we’re driving down the highway with one foot out the door
The present moving past us at the pace of a mystery that we adore
Jingles and hashtags fly by at the speed of the fad they’re attached to
Don’t @ me
I thought I heard you say you were ready to leave, oh no- what would I like to drink
Well water’s always wiser, but whiskey sounds better for now
Troubled by the thoughts of my own mind, oh the trying times we bring on ourselves
The harness is useless for all of the darkness between us won’t keep us from finding the other side
I hear someone calling from the bottom of the great divide
Chorus:
Everlasting light I don’t advise it, I’ve been blinded for the last time
I’ve been blinded by my self-righteousness, I thought everything was fine
I hear someone calling from the bottom of the great divide
And then I’m reminded of all of the kindness from strangers I’ve relied on over the years
Amplified opinions split democracy, restless angels linger with a winged hypocrisy
Focused on the notion that the spirit isn’t flawed, but bound by their vocation to witness and absolve
Abandoned in the heartland, a feather in the wind, a crucifix intrepid with a wistful kind of grin
Seeking less from the world to make it through the day, we’re just showering vices on these comfortable graves
Someone’s calling from the bottom of the great divide
Chorus
Fate McAfee: Guitar, vocals, bass, drums, tambo
Melanie A. Davis: Keys
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4. |
Eveline
02:19
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EVELINE
Eveline don’t board the ship, the shore you seek is false
The windows ain’t for dreaming and the gold washes right off
It’s a lonely bed you’ll keep but a harder road to walk
Is across that lonesome ocean, the shore you seek is false
Remember all the dinner conversations never had
Staring in the mirror like who’s that looking back
The dreams that died in silence on the nights you lay awake
When the wind come in the alley make a shutter even shake
To flee is not the answer, nor is to freeze and toil
In the incongruent present, breathing with a lung beneath the soil
Your hand is on the rail, your heart is not to blame
Hold tight to the dock, Eveline, you don’t have to explain
Fate McAfee: Guitar, lead guitar, vocals
Melanie A. Davis: Piano
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5. |
Breathing Room
03:16
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BREATHING ROOM
I don’t mind living my truth, it’s just time for a new one
Like a sole that’s glued on keeping you dry in the rain
The pleading of my keepers the allegiance to the chain
Will dissipate as soon as I’m across the astral plane
Forgive my consolations I knew not what I spoke
When I calmed our fears of changing by saying we just won’t
Let’s not avoid the past, or drape it in a cloak
Of fabricated innocence: a false and futile hope
For ours is deep and jagged and the moral of the scenes
Seems to be whatever was easily in reach
Autumnal proof exists of our infinite mortality
In this life, love is the light within a dark reality
The weatherman was wrong again but I don’t feel dismayed
After all it’s almost April and things are bound to change
The sky reveals Orion, Polaris emancipates
Daylight drains into a blue deeper than can drain
Fate McAfee: Guitar, vocals, lapsteel, bass, drums
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6. |
Vonnegut Scene
03:32
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VONNEGUT SCENE
Chorus:
When your intent is only half of what you seek
You’re lucky to learn, you’re certain to grieve
Oh, it’s not all bad, but it’s a Vonnegut scene
If you can find the humor, I can find a seat
Plagued by memories from a dead session man’s tele
And a harmonica in the key of Eb lost in the rain
Red wine and tall strangers who reverted to angels every time I looked away
I only dreamt it that way
Chorus
Marked with the scars from the heartache and wars
Of the lone man on the Minnesota plains
A soldier with a wound, tempted by the tomb, but bled just enough to remain
He only dreamt it that way
Chorus
Fate McAfee: Guitar, vocals, tambo
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7. |
Starlines
03:17
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STARLINES
I dabbled in magic and blackened my lungs
My heart was on fire and my eyes they were young
Dreaming only of finding a way
To be at ease
I swept all the dirt under the rug for so long
That the pattern is heaping and bleached in the sun
Of a thousand truths whose light
Never ceases
Chorus:
Is it something I lost,
Or is something lost on me?
In California went looking for weed
Thinking that someone would have what I need
When a man offered a coffee and taught me
Don’t sell your habits
Cutting the ribbons and pleading for time
The damaged go searching for something divine
Whose faceless form and features
Are always back-lit
Chorus
I traced the starlines from Harriet to Rome
Thought about the message from the scripture to the phone
And the meanings we inevitably
Attach to them
My mind was a gamble and my heart was the pot
High in a casino I stopped at the thought
Shuddering, what will they find
Among our ruins
Chorus
Fate McAfee: Guitar, vocals, lead guitar, bass, drums
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8. |
Vegas
03:04
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VEGAS
I don’t know what all I’m grateful for, but today it’s you
With a fever on the rise, and the diamonds burning blue
Time will have its temper, love will have its loss
In your unresponsive winter, just remember you can talk
I am no stranger to a bad thought
The chips were on the table, red and black where they lay
The future was disabled two time zones away
A mother is in mourning, a doctor’s needing rest
When the sun brings up the morning, Mother Robin feeds the nest
Is it all just a test I fail to comprehend
Waking up on a cold morning after dreaming of the deceased
They way it grips my mind makes me wonder what’s the reason, oh, when’s the release
But even still I’ll return to it like a dog’s favorite place to lay
May the chemicals in your mind allow for sunshine today
I’d hate to see you wish it away
Fate McAfee: Guitar, vocals, harmonica
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Fate McAfee Murray, Kentucky
fatemcafeemusic.com
Hailed by American Songwriter as "A songwriter to watch in folk and Americana",
Fate McAfee is an independent musician, engineer, and singer-songwriter. He frequently collaborates with Midwestern acts like Leonard the Band and Melanie A. Davis.
... more
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