Get all 13 Under This Cold Sky releases available on Bandcamp and save 20%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Vera (Single), Borealis (Single), A Few Christmas Songs, Up North Demos, Fall 2021 Demos, Summer '97, Covers & Demos, Indian Paintbrush, and 5 more.
1. |
On the Shores of Winter
05:17
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Back again
Can't count all the hours you stole every thought
What lovely intentions, emotions in knots
Summer's gone
Don't be surprised when the leaves change this fast
Like a warm day in fall, seems we weren't meant to last
Can't pretend
I can't be dishonest, you already know
Bittersweet patience, her story untold
Holding on
As the months turn to years, ever-longing, we sigh
With unspoken words we'll forget over time
And so we wait
And so we ache
Let it fade away
Bring me the winter, bring me the cold
I'd still love to say it was you
We're still so young, try to walk this narrow road
Maybe someday we can call it love
But for now, here's enough
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2. |
Dead Leaves
02:14
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Finding you here
Without any words, we pass by
Just walk away
I thought I would call one last time
Only loneliness knows of such love as we chose
Dead leaves will fall spiraling down
In time you can claim you've forgotten my name
When at last it's forever you've found
Wasted our chance
Not right when I'm in it for me
After all this silence
What good are apologies
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3. |
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Senses dull in chill, damp dawn
Muddy footpath, trudging on
Here I thought I finally lost you
Couldn't let that one thought go
Beautiful bleakness, lonely as hell
Some kind catharsis minutia couldn't quell
Here I thought I finally lost you
Couldn't let that one thought go
At dusk the sky was blood and orange
No respite found in cedar warmth
A few good friends and firelight
Couldn't compare to your goodnight
Barren trees, like ghosts they haunt
The woods forever 'round that pond
Here I thought I finally lost you
How little did I know
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4. |
Dusk
03:10
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Burdens that another year did bear have all but gone
Stripped away unwillingly, unyielding, unkind
Graced with new reminders of 'til now forgotten wrongs
Later on we'll understand time has something else in mind
In dark, abandoned basements out of sight and locked away
Dreams of countless lifetimes finally die a lonely death
Our entrance and our exit have a floor to separate
Welcome new life, kiss goodbye to old among this mess
One by one we seek a peace that always will elude
Seeking warmth amidst this frozen darkness we stumble through the cold
Daylight break, resolve the dissonance of this prelude
Every generation born to die and forcefully grows old
Oh death, why your blade so dull
Oh death, you know we pay in full
When we lose ourselves we find our final worth
This hearse will usher in a second birth
This hearse will usher in a second birth
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5. |
Western Skies
05:15
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Seasons come and turn again and hearts are changed
Weathered by the icy winds of time and pain
When winter comes, will you still be here
Will you still be here with me
I will always wonder, though I’ll never know
How my heart can take it when I hold you close
That summer was so perfect
Every chance you had you stole my breath
Love is my intention, love is my true aim
In the wake of life’s destruction it’s all that will remain
And though its burden’s overwhelming
Still I long to bear its weight
Knowing never did I love you in vain
Left with few directions, still we amble on
And I’m scared to death the little that I know is wrong
Though tomorrow’s overwhelming
Let me just be here with you for now
So we set our sights on Western skies and the roads we’ll take
As we leave behind the shelters that our families made
I’ll hold you ever-closer
Even as I learn to let you go
And so we dance, gently as the late June nightfall
Beneath starry candles and a moonlit chandelier
In your eyes I find the love I’ve always longed for
Let’s stay a little longer right here
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6. |
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See the colors, one by one
The leaving reaches of the sun
Oceans painted midnight blue
The light of stars is never new
Silhouettes in firelight, the tree line fades into the night
Soon these summer nights will end
But we'll see them again
When Labor Day comes at last
Another summer comes to pass
When the gold and auburn leaves perform their annual routine
We'll take up hands and warmer clothes
These fallen leaves will pave a road
As we wander through the woods, my darling, isn't this love good
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7. |
State Street
02:36
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Artful, artificial lights
Liquor store coffee house heroin fights
I'm charmed but not swayed by your friendly facade
Wide-eyed and wide open
Fearless and flawed
Architect enmity, progress is pain
Homesick, homeless, ten-story crane
I'm obliged to partake in your music and wine
Unemployed and indebted but we're doing just fine
Power a god, political, malicious
Hatred so often is white and religious
Have you room at the foot of your hypocrite's cross
Privilege is blind to the lives it cost
Empty I come, empty I leave
Miles apart, the same air we breathe
Lights on the water are lovely and hushed
Suburban life is so strange and rushed
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8. |
Yahara
05:18
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This room is so stifling and flushed
With the smell of cigarette smoke that never left the walls
This building's slowly shrinking
Stifling and shrinking and desolate and dark
Early summer, silent Sunday mornings
Coming down where the river pools so stagnant and green
This town is so sweltering
Silent and sweltering and so damn far from home
And nothing will have changed
Everyone will go their separate ways
And we'll more or less remain the same
Until next week when we meet again, again, the same
These days here have been disillusioning and dull
Wandering the vacant streets sometime in late fall
These hours have been breaking
After nine and all I find is dull and breaking down
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9. |
Rust
04:38
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Rust and cancer strip away
Fading scenes of better days
Step back slow and be amazed
How fickle, how fleeting they are
Plant flowers ‘round these resting bones
Passersby reminisce with stones
Memories here indeed are ghosts
Keepers of all our stories, so dear
This heartbeat’s the line, there are six feet between
It’s hard to get close enough to love but worse not to try
One second; one bullet; one bad break away
God knows it’s more than enough to bear
These headstones cast a shadow over the living
Debts that were never forgiven
Exposing all our brokenness within
Across a fragile, all-consuming divide
All we know is broken or in the process of breaking
Where in hell has our light and our hope all been taken
Beneath beautiful masks which are fit right for faking
Break me and carry me home
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10. |
Old U.S. 45
03:55
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Something's uneasy
Something's uneasy here
Heat and headlights
Heat and headlights sear
It's hard to focus
It's hard to fix my eyes
Shadows moving
Moving toward the light
Wait for hours
Wait until the dawn
Have you found it
Now I've found it, now it's gone
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11. |
Indian Paintbrush
05:24
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I used to have a vision of a band up on a stage
Amplifiers screaming; every hand raised in that place
And when the lights had faded, one man still remained
Speaking words of hell and death and unfamiliar grace
I used to have a vision of a crowded lecture hall
The professor very subtly twisting truths before us all
And when he proclaimed science and the god that never was
I stood up to defend with the entire room abuzz
I never knew the difference in a flower and a weed
Seems it's mostly what you call it like the folklore we believe
If truth and grace were truly what we all were striving for
Beside your holy lies and proselytizing bullshit culture wars
There's a flower on the roadside and though I never knew its name
We always called it Indian Paintbrush to mark the numbered August days
Not knowing's not the problem; rather choosing to retain
The many fractured pieces; all the idols of your faith
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12. |
Five Until Forever
05:24
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A thousand new directions
An ever-changing riverbed
Unmapped trails we've never traveled
Just a foggy picture in your head
In the absence of all certainty
On the whims of what we're sold
Watching longingly for signposts
Entangled in the weeds along the road
Have you the time
I wanted to share it with you
People and places we knew
Five until forever
So we chased the burning summer
And the promise of the new
California sunsets
Sprawling Rocky Mountain views
We made our home beyond the water
And the stoic evergreens
Endless childhood stories
Up and down these old familiar streets
Walk with me a little longer
Or another sixty years
I hope our children will remember
The love we had, my dear
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Under This Cold Sky Marquette, Michigan
Genre-spanning songwriting shaped by the Upper Peninsula wilderness.
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