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From the Wrong Side of the River

by Jeremiah Brimstone Band

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1.
He walked into town one day upon the road wrapped in dust and calamity; waved his skinny arms and babbled at heaven said, To the church — follow me. Well, many flocked to hear what he would say of the night and the serpent dragon. With popping eyes and drooping jaws, left behind them their shovels and wagons. The strange pastor ripped his bible out and slammed it down to spit and shout that God won’t show until the Devil’s out of heart and soul and body. He said, Brethren, I come to save ye. O the pastor spat and yawed and moaned till his voice it cracked and the pulpit groaned, till the ground did shudder like a prophet stoned, and the air did burst with sulphur and brimstone and all the children fainted. Deliver us from evil cried the people What is this shadow that now grips us so? Lo-wo-wo-wo-wo-wo-wo yeah What’s going on? whispered bent old Moses Why does our forefathers’ ground burp and tremble? Why did we let this man open his mouth? This pastor has gone and woken up the Devil. Then the pastor he flew up from the pulpit. Above them all the spectre wheeled and turned all hell on his lips and God in his soul. Screamed, Tonight you go under, tonight you burn till the whole congregation did swoon and churn and then paid him just to be let out the door. Deliver us from evil cried the people and crushed their humble knees into the floor. When the pastor brought us God he also brought the Devil and now our town will be quiet nevermore. Wo-wo-wo-wo-wo-wo-wo yeah
2.
Can't say I know this place or time because no god would claim me since we forgot to let our thoughts just find us where we are. Like tattered detectives who lean up close to the pallor of death in the red of the rose, we once opened our eyes to chronometrical clues to a doom inscribed in the hours of our youth. Weaving through nights and the bluster of days, in the tunnels of truth running under the stage of life as it brims with the bustle of masks, we filtered the light and the jewels from the dark. Now we scurry up sidewalks replete with the yells and the brawls of humanity held under the spell by the gleam of the surface obscuring our doom, no reprieve, no oblivion, we pick at the gloom. Like alchemists seeking the final secret to the soul that inhabits the prayer, and bright-eyed salvationists waving the script of the way we should be, and not what we are. O veiled life, we have been seduced by its dance and we sway and we shudder to its rhythms of chance. Once we took on the road filled with sorrow and mirth, but we lost our souls in sounding their worth. Our eyes on the clock, our eyes on the gauge, and our eyes on the cracks in the ice of our days — yes, the void underneath, it roars in our rooms — if you want us to quit this, just visit us soon. Pull shut the curtains, and lock up the door, turn down the light, we can’t bear it no more — once we sharpened our ears, and we learned hard to see, now we’ve looked in to deep to ever be free. Like alchemists seeking the final secret to the soul that inhabits the prayer, once bright-eyed salvationists waving the script of the way we should be, and not what we are.
3.
Those eastern clouds glide through the heavens slipping across eye and mind and mouth and it unfurls like the empty shroud of longing blank scroll of heaven all rolled out. The hand brought down, the voice unspoken a devil’s eye in the window no trick of tongue, no magic token just clouds above and worms below. Low my ambition, narrow is my art clouded is my vision, narrow is my art O Anna don’t you hear that low voice calling from the wings as you rise up to join in heaven’s silent hymns. Let’s not dwell upon the tooth that cracks our bones below just lift your voice free from the tyranny of dreams — don’t go slow. But down here things are vague as ever dreams like soup and thoughts like dough the windowpane is cracked and dimming what lies beyond god only knows. Low is my ambition, narrow is my art clouded is my vision, narrow is my art.
4.
Maria 04:33
Maria, Maria, I still see you walking in town at night, with those hips and those lips and those rollicking breasts all so fine. But the woman you were, so broken and pure, she will never return. There were nights when my trembling hands descended upon you like two black crows haunting a golden field. But the way that you’ve been, so lovely and keen, that is history now. O Maria, I first saw you lying under that looming oak, sinking a sweet little tooth into a peach. And you said, “Hello friend, just one bite of this mends the entire world.” So I ate and we spoke… In my bed you once promised that love never dies, and I turned my back on the wide world outside. Now I howl at the moon at the sun at the skies from the gutter of love to the tower of lies. I loved you with soul and with heart and with mind and with belly, even when later you came to shudder at me, with my doubts and my wrath, like some unholy moth circling our flame, growing tired and lame. Until one night I waited and sweated and cursed and finally took to the streets, and found you under the tree with another. And no devil or hell could undo the spell of drowning at sea that you cast upon me. I left there, said nothing, returned to the void of the wide wild world while his hands traversed those hips, those lips, those rollicking breasts. But the way that she was, so lovely and lost, lies in the past. In my bed you once promised that love never dies, And I turned my back on the wide world outside. Now I howl at the moon at the sun at the skies From the gutter of love to the tower of lies My voice rattles and dies.
5.
The narrow way cuts deep into the woods, and night won’t fail to find us there. His eyes are glowing with infernal history, and broken fingers clutch at what was never here. Smoke rises from the bushes and strange sounds cut the air. Throw your die and run with witch and tokoloshe into that wide dark heart that lies open like a lover’s and when you die your grave will be a continent. Pressed from the womb into the endless night. Once set to walking upon thorns and thistles. Once driving cattle among these cannibal trees. Once murdered in the grip of sleep. The mud-shack crumbles and the walls they lean in close; the air is mean and dolorous. Perhaps he did once read his fate in dolos bone... well, Mistah Kurtz — he dead and gone.
6.
The dim-lit bar across the town hall is a place where men and women lose their souls, and to my mind a place to pay a call, a real palace of philanderers and whores — and to its brown bar I am chained with a thirsty soul and conscience stained, oh no. It was the Reverend Smit who told me all about sin, the Devil’s Hoof and the brimstone down in hell — mouth like a claw he tore it from within, said, “Your soul is safe as long’s your heart’s a cell.” Well, my heart is locked, my soul is safe, and I make sure you scum behave, hey-ho. Your look into my eyes I cannot bear — you see, with love I’ve been unlucky and undone. It’s a dirty business, Love, so just beware: you don’t ever return here once you’ve gone. Why don't you move along, why don't you just get out of here... So many nights I’ve judged the room from here, picked out those mangy bastards I should show — I’ve got the Word, and you’ve got ears; if all else fails there is this blade I hold. I am the man to purify the world of crimes and scum and lies, hey-ho. This misfit came up to me through the din: I said, “O whoreson, would you deal with me?” and explained to him the nature of his sins and I’m proud to say he saw it finally: blood on his lips, knife in his heart, he shut his eyes and cried at last, “O Lord!” I often wonder what a man must be to take the measure of eternity. You know I'm righteous, yet I fear: Some fucking thing is wrapped up tight in here and I can’t make out its name, I can’t make out his name, my dear.
7.
Lilith 04:29
Down in the marketplace, you took my hand, and carried on before, and carried on behind. The world it smells like crime, but I don’t mind, I don’t mind, between these hags and thieves and murderers we’ll find our own time. But the real test is the fear when there’s nobody near, and the thin air that’s between us, it will not interfere; and all truth and honesty, and all that lies between, are burned clean of the world, and set out naked, pure and mean. When your spider-fingers crawl across my flesh, across my soul, there’s a recoil deep within and a mournful hearkening. It seems too late to trace what pays and what doesn’t pay; when love fritters at the door you just don’t let it crawl away. And it doesn’t come from night, and it doesn’t come from day; no, it comes from some strange sorcery and it will not go away. And once summoned, well, it glows, as every lover knows, all at once the red brand of despair and a beacon of repose. Well, love it is true crime, it lives off unearned energy, but if we end up outlaws to ourselves it’s just what we’ll have to be. I don’t pretend to know why your eyes they sear me so, but I know the flames are licking now at the dead moon of my soul. Some strange alchemy is here of black magic, curse and prayer, and the litany of sighs you grant when I press you for a tear. Oh, the moon it swells and grows — as every lover knows — when that grim old couple, Day and Night, round out their love with light.
8.
Music from the lonely house like a scar across the night there’s music in the lonely house alright among the broken glass and spite so though the rivers and the poplars weep and the cockroach, bug and fungus creep it’ll drown the sound of muddled prayers tonight there’ll be no sleep I guess. Music coming from the lonely house through open windows and open doors and we’re welcome in the lonely house tonight as long as we don’t pause so every lawman, joker, hack and fool let’s move on in and pull up a stool and tap our feet until the darkness goes whether someone wound that desperate spool no-one knows. There’s a fellow with a twisted hand unfolds into a claw of gold there’s a fellow with a crooked hand I know and with him comes the cold but there is music from the lonely house and we’re dancing, every rat and louse, so that wicked hand it can’t come close we’ll be dancing till all hell is froze I suppose...
9.
Freak Train 08:08
Freak train freak train freak train freak train o we all are a-barrelling on shaking and rattling across steels and sleepers in this closed-up carriage smelling like a barnyard no — not like a barn, like a l-a-t-r-i-n-e (on this freak train) outside the wind is a-whistling like a lonely boy (freak train) while in here we’re all bawling in our common misery or just sitting back vacant with that old dead-eye look just like antediluvian halfwits drooling at the reddening sunset on this freak train freak train (moanin moanin moanin moanin) freak train freak train o brother, here is a stench that would curl even satan’s lip o sister, here is a vision to murder sleep (forever) just look at the donkey girl go hee-haw and look at the dog-man, he’s barking barking barking (freak train) that boy crouching like a wounded sparrow while Max the Toad he jumps all night from melancholy to violence the whole lot of us travelling down to the very last sleeper where them tracks they open up eternal yeah freak train freak train (holy holy holy holy) freak train freak train hoo hoo with the lord of hosts and all the angels of mercy freak train freak train (holy holy holy holy) freak train freak train

credits

released September 8, 2016

Dawid de Villiers - vocals, acoustic & electric guitars, banjo
Elmi Badenhorst - accordion, harmonica
Heine du Toit - bass, slide guitar, hang
Hendré Retief - drums, percussion
Natalie Mason - viola

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Jeremiah Brimstone Band Cape Town, South Africa

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