Get all 6 Hugh Christopher Brown releases available on Bandcamp and save 35%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Pacem 2 music from the original motion picture soundtrack 1968, Oblivion, Burden of Belief, The Ropes, Waterfall, and Pacem.
Excludes supporter-only releases.
1. |
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Every star shining in the midnight
Every measures day against the sun
Every wild persuasion of the moonlight
All things said and all things ever done
Oblivion
Every wave and ripple on the ocean
Every feeling noticed by the mind
Every desperate labour of deceit
Every courage willing to defy
Oblivion
On my way I've learned to pay attention
half way there my heart has found a clue
Don't you want something more than good intention?
Don't you want nothing less than 'I Love You' ?
I do.
So thank the rooster for the warning
it's dark out there but the heavens move the same
Half way home and we'll be there by morning
Listen kid they're calling out your name
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2. |
Simcoe
01:37
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3. |
The Gates
05:49
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The rapture came, and it only let them down
Questions remained in the cities and the towns-
What had they wanted? An end to everything they scorn?
Now nothing's over, but capacity to mourn.
The Lie was total, society was spent.
We did as we pleased, while the soldiers came and went.
I took a lover, but all she wanted was my fear-
I know to some people, it's the only thing that's real.
Did you march here, or were you dragged here on your knees?
Compelled by orders, or the shackles at your feet?
Was it in a dungeon, or on the highest floor
that you received these sacraments of war?
The streets were filled long before the towers fell-
and most presumed, that it was meant for us a well.
Kind people pray-poor people do what you must do-
what's really wretched in this world, is letting others sin for you.
Freedom came my way in the form of nervous friends
who felt they had less to betray than to defend.
Love is no burden! Love is no sentence, love is no trial-
Love is the final freedom.
So did you march here, or were you carried by the chain
that links every stranger's cruelty to every martyr's name?
Satan and St. Peter tend to dress the same-
Through these gates, everything and nothing are exchanged.
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4. |
Image of a Man
03:49
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I went to sleep and dreamt of music
And I awoke to sing a song
A melody somehow familiar,
Felt that I’d known it all along
So the image of a man appears
On the tapestry of time
Enough stitches in as many years
And he begins to be defined
As a child I ran barefoot
I earned my boots and left my youth behind
But that boy kept promises for me it took me years to see
Now I consult him all the time
Lay me down for I am tired
Place a bible in my hand
Remember me as I appeared to you
In the image of a man
Through Toronto on the Beltline,
North to Algoma on the Sioux
Through this mystery the whole time
Life is but a fleeting view:
Dark and folded all around me,
Green and bending like a bow
The angels of my life surround me
Remind me of the things I know-
To look on strangers with affection
And let mercy show her face
I pledge allegiance to compassion-
The United States of Grace
There’s a new path through the garden
A winding way to Promised Land
I cut it from the rock of my mistakes
And I laid every stone by hand
So think on where you’re headed,
Less on where you stand
And think of me as love eternal
Dressed in the image of a man
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5. |
The Return
03:59
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The door is open wide
And you step in
Shake the snow and ice outside
Leave it to the wind
Feel the warmth and kind relief
As all the fear that was love’s thief rescinds
There’s a quiet light
around you and me
On this quiet night
Winter frozen like a lock
Beneath the ice the old lake knocks
Wind is weaving through the trees
And moonlight on the snow agrees with this quiet light
Oh the falling snow
As gentle as your breath
Moments come and go
You tell me we’ve met before
But not this night and not this shore
And not this conversation’s spark
To hold your profile in this dark
I’ve been holding out
Waiting for some spring
To melt this wanting into giving
And melt this longing into living
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6. |
Go On 3
04:30
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7. |
Willing
06:14
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Trying hard
You’re still trying
You wanted out
And you weren’t lying
So why does it feel that way?
Why can’t you leave it?
When leaving is the only thing you’ve come to believe in
You found yourself in someone else’s song
Tell the singer, he’s got it wrong-
Oh, what don’t I love?
What don’t I love?
Bitter stone
Cast to be left alone
When what you crave is what you dread
Oh, worried head
You wonder what would they all do
If they admitted all they knew?
Consciousness is a lonely place
Without the hand of grace
It’s coming down- why don’t they hold it up?
If it falls, shouldn’t we all be under?
I wonder why God made me willing-
Because it’s killing me
To see the point in everything
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8. |
Everything
03:14
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Some say it has no place
Some say it’s in your mind
But I know I see its face
All the time
Some will use your heart as bait
Stab you with your own concern
When you feel the fire of doubt,
Don’t it burn?
Is it real?
Can you prove it?
Now what’s all this about?
Do you feel you could lose it?
She use to call my name
This world was on its knees
What happened to the world?
Tell me please
The Ivy climbs the gate
The seconds rise and fall
I thought I saw the truth
That is all
Was it real?
Can you break it?
This mantle is not what it seems
When it heals- can you take it?
Will you die denying everything?
….at your mercy
Don’t deny
Everything
At your mercy
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9. |
Amen
04:34
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Was it the old sun that turned you around?
Did you begin to love he river’s sound?
What woke you up?
What changed your plan?
Who know beneath all your success and failure lay a different man?
Seeds in the old husk
Put them to use
It’s time to build useful things
It’s time for the truth
And you feel the danger in living free
But now every stranger opens his heart and presents a key
Amen
This love exists
And now hope does too
This thought insists
You follow through
And it might be silence
It might be space
It might be the end of you and the dawn of grace
When the architect of light
To the birdsong gives reply…..
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10. |
Dry
06:59
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Dry, dry, dry
Why ,why, why
Can’t even be quenched by tears
Truth and love
Locked above
This dark eclipse of lies and fear
Oh the faithless and the fearful
Make a cross of time and space
Their statues are all cracked
I can no longer brace
So let them fall
Knowing, it won’t be all
I hear gentle thunder
Awakening the sky
And all these clouds we’re under will break
In your dream
You were free
To dream
To be free
Open your eyes
Lift the veil
Be seen
To see for real.
Point out your God to me in a burning bush-
Holding fire and not consumed.
This promise and waste
Combine in bitter taste
Waiting for these clouds to burst
Oh the gravity of our thirst.
But I hear gentle thunder
A promise from the sky
That all these clouds we’re under will break
Oh love be a storm
Oh kindness be a tree
Hold fast and shelter me from the thought that I am alone.
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Hugh Christopher Brown Ontario
songwriter, organist and pianist, clavinetist, what-is- necessaryist, to translate loveist, HCB makes music on Wolfe Island, in New York City and many other places. Founder of the pros and cons program producing music in prisons.
Hugh Christopher Brown recommends:
Geronimo
by Kate Fenner and Hugh Christopher Brown
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A masterpiece by this incredibly gifted Irish bard
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