Own Sweet Time
1. Burial at Sea (4:34) – lyrics/credits
2. Gone Gone Gone (3:42) – lyrics/credits
3. Glorius Enemy (6:01) – lyrics/credits
4. Red Rain (3:54) – lyrics/credits
5. Vanquished (3:10) – lyrics/credits
6. The Fox Fires (3:45) – lyrics/credits
7. Lily (4:09) – lyrics/credits
8. Hotel Esmeralda (4:43) – lyrics/credits
9. Xanadu (6:19) – lyrics/credits
10. Three Pipe Night (5:16) – lyrics/credits
11. La Fin du Monde (3:36) – lyrics/credits
12. The Compass Rose (4:48) – lyrics/credits
Listen
Burial at Sea
The Fox Fires
Three Pipe Night
Produced by Ken Whiteley
Engineered by Nik Tjelios
Recorded and Mixed at Casa Wroxton Studio, Toronto, Ontario (2006-2007)
Mastered at Music Lane Inc. Uxbridge, Ontario
All songs written by Kristin Sweetland – Arbora Vita Music 2007 (SOCAN)
Art Direction, Design and Layout by A Man Called Wrycraft
Photography by Kevin Kelly
Thank you, and lots of love to Ken for your kindness, patience and believing in me… Nik for saving my life too many times to count, Ellen and Ben for having me in your lovely home, Mom, Dad and little Raven (xo), the Boy (Paul Brennan), Jenny Brodsky my dearest BF, Michael Wrycraft, Kevin Kelly, Kt and Miss M, Gina Farrugia, Peter Janes, Bill Bourne, Pierre Bensusan, Samuel T., George Noory and Art Bell, Mulder and Scully, Amelia Peabody, and Lemony Snicket. A special thank-you all the folks at Toronto’s old City Hall who helped us with the photoshoot, and those masterful, mysterious Masons for building such a fine clocktower.
Burial at Sea
Victoria, British Columbia, April, 2005
The waves are crashing in upon the shores of Vancouver Island as I prepare to leave this place once more. I am reminded of a drive I once made from Victoria all the way to the tip of Cape Breton Island and beyond. When I finally reached the other ocean, I knew even the longest road was not long enough for me to forget all I had left behind… and so the journey began.
Call to me the captain
Bury me at sea
Wash away my body
And this language painted over me
I’ll write the words for you
The things you might have said
Your lips could bloom a crocus
In the darkened February of my head
Over ships of folded paper
Does the blackened raven fly
Scavenging both life and limb
With eyes that shift from side to side
There never was a time
When you’d watch over me like he
And when I said I love you
You’d say, you are far too innocent for me
Chorus
So bring to me the maiden
Let me shake her hand
Hair as black as leather
And fresh from Never Neverland
That pirate on the ship
Might have strapped holsters to her hips
But later in the shadows
She raised a tender finger
To his lips
Chorus
Kristin Sweetland: vocals, acoustic guitar
George Koller: double bass
Ken Whiteley: accordion
Anne Lindsay: violin
Roman Borys: cello
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Gone Gone Gone
Route 1, Northern Ontario, April, 2005
I’ve been driving for days along the endless ribbon of black that is the Trans-Canada highway. Yesterday found me walking miles along a dusty Saskatchewan prairie railroad track after locking myself out of my car in the middle of nowhere. Today, I once again find myself stranded, but in the stark wilderness of Northern Ontario as my car slowly sinks into a pit of sand. I break apart an old wooden fence by the railroad tracks and try to dig my wheels out of the cold, hungry earth. My hands are bleeding now, and frozen. I believe it’s time to crack a bottle of whiskey, call a tow-truck and perhaps write a song…
Train rolls by and the whistle blows
I slide off the side of the road
Dead-car dust in the dark of the
Trans-Canada
Do I live, I don’t know
Wind’s cold and it starts to snow
I gotta call a man cause I gotta get towed
To Ottawa
Once more the whistle blows
Give me shelter from the cold
Dark night of my soul
I’ll lie down with a bottle of Jack
In front of that train rolling on the track
I’ll go to meet my maker and I won’t be back
Gone gone gone
In a town in a room in a cheap motel
Louie’s lying and I’m giving him hell
I could see the future but I never did tell
Anyone
Lipstick stain like a sweet red plum
Cheap smokes and a bottle of rum
I could stay and argue but it’s just no fun
Gotta run
Once more the whistle blows
Give me shelter from the cold
Dark night of my soul
I’ll make peace with a wintery grave
Where no one will hear me
And I won’t be saved
Gonna pay the piper for mistakes I’ve made
Gone gone gone
All is quiet now
I hear it coming
Thunder roar
Wild engine running
I’ll hail the fateful hour
From high in a whiskey tower
Storm rolls in and it’s giving me
Power
Once more the whistle blows
Give me shelter from the cold
Dark night of my soul
Till I ride high on the wind and rain
I’ll fly to the heavens back again
I’m gonna be delivered just like that train
Gone Gone Gone
Kristin Sweetland: vocals, Hammertone guitar
Ken Whiteley: bass, slide guitar, Hammond organ, train whistle
Paul Brennan: drums
Suzie Vinnick: harmony vocals
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Glorious Enemy
New York City, November, 2005
Strange dreams have been haunting me in this city and I’ve been up late every night listening to conspiracy radio against the wail of sirens. There’s a waltz playing in my head and in a dreamy haze I see enemies dancing, each leading the other in an elaborate choreographed routine… Is this the true and ultimate nature of “good” and “evil”? Will antagonistic forces always need each other in order to simply exist? Or, perhaps, it is just time for me to forget all about it and finally get some sleep…
Midnight
Something’s come over me
Streetlight
Blows out right over me
Heavy orange moon
Hangs down low over the road
Late-night
Radio haunting me
Moonlight
Pouring down onto me
Over my face
It carves out my shade in the snow
Chorus:
And we know
And we know
Dark without light
Wrong without right
Isn’t so
Cold war
Global conspiracy
No more
Free to be you and me
One in the same
We all fight in the name of our Lord
Save me
Glorious enemy
Give me
Purpose and destiny
Hold me so close
I know you’ll never let go
Chorus
Never look back
You must never show fear
You must never be envious
Don’t let them hear you
Be doubting yourself
They must not see you cry
You will stand strong
Live for the cause
Till you die
Chorus
Midnight
Something’s come over me
Streetlight
Blows out right over me
Heavy orange moon
Hangs down low over the road
Kristin Sweetland: vocals, electric guitar
Ken Whiteley: bass, mandolin
Paul Brennan: drums
Roman Borys: cello
Stephen Fearing: harmony vocals
Suzie Vinnick: harmony vocals
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Red Rain
Somewhere Out There, June, 2006
Once again, late-night radio is my dearest friend and I’m listening intently to new information about the red rain that fell in Kerala, India. In 2001, showers of red rain sporadically fell on this southern Indian state and were originally attributed to a meteor burst. Now, some scientists suggest that the rain contains extra-terrestrial cells which replicate without DNA, offering evidence of panspermia (the seeding of life on earth by alien microbes.) Accounts of these “blood rains” occur throughout history from Europe to Africa to Tennessee. Were red sands and algae simply swept up into clouds from the Sahara, or are They coming…?
In the streets the faithful prayed
Lovers loved and children played
Deep beneath the darkened sun
That cast a shadow over everyone
Water turned to wine and turned to blood and then
It rained red rain in India
Rained red rain in India
Controversial mystery
Stain blood rains through history
Was it this phenomena
That Darwin wrote about in Africa
Or rapture come a callin’ to the end again
It rained red rain in India
Rained red rain in India
Come to me and lay me down
Out beyond the lights of town
Open up the sanguine sky
And make it thunder like a battle cry
Cover me and flood my ruby lips like when
It rained red rain in India
Rained red rain in India
In a scientific study
Ruddy rain was flesh and bloody
Run and tell Mulder and Scully
Falling
They’re coming
Falling
They’re coming
Down
Do you think that if or when
Our civilization ends
We’ll return to starry dust
Reunited with the rocks and rust
To rise and then to fall again
When in rains red rain in India
Rains red rain in India
Rains red rain in India
Rains red rain in India
Kristin Sweetland: vocals, acoustic guitar
George Koller: double bass
Ernie Tollar: bansuri flutes
Ken Whiteley: electric sitar guitar, shaker
Ben Grossman: udu, tambourine, triangle
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Vanquished
Tofino, British Columbia, November, 2004
The grey, damp west-coast autumn has finally penetrated me to the bone. I shiver and look out through the deep green ancient forest as rays of sunlight pour in through the canopy, thick and palpable with viscosity. I think of Emily Carr, the artist and writer who inspired me so much in my youth and her magnificent painting “Vanquished.” Solid light descends from a sculpted grey cloud and scatters amongst hollowed out bone-coffins that have fallen like trees. Here, civilization has come, gone and been reclaimed by nature once more… and so it shall be.
Kristin Sweetland: acoustic guitar
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The Fox Fires
Gid Brown Hollow, Virginia, February, 2006
I have come to the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia to bid adieu to the little cabin in the holler I have loved so. My best friend Jenny has lived here for years and it’s become a sacred sanctuary for me. Now she’s getting married and moving far away and we’re both struggling to let go of this place in all its strange, magical beauty. I tell Jenny I want to write her a song for her wedding present and ask if there is anything she would like me to say… there is. We will miss it here terribly, and shall mourn by celebrating.
Dirt road mountain bride
Why so sad today
Did the cock not crow, the sun not shine
Did the birds all fly away
No, love, something is calling me
From far in the foxfire
Oh so haunting a melody
Sings in me of the wintertime
Ax chop, wood-smoke rise
Burn it hot and low
No man by your side
Could ever warm you so
Still, love, something is calling me
From far in the foxfire
Oh so haunting a melody
Sings in me of the springtime
Red bud, sweet desire
Venus and the bees
Warm bread baked in fire
And cups of honeymead
Still, love, something is calling me
From far in the foxfire
Oh so haunting a melody
Sings in me of the summertime
When will my heart make amends
Will all of the struggles end
When everything I dream about is mine
There’s a long row left to hoe
Plant a seed and let it grow
Everything is ready in its own sweet time
Rain rain, hurricane
The sky is falling down
Good god will, the crick don’t rise
Cause you’ll be leaving town
Oh, love, something has called my name
From far in the foxfire
I’ll leave, never to be the same
Till the end of my lifetime
Kristin Sweetland: vocals, banjo
Ken Whiteley: acoustic guitar
George Koller: double bass
Anne Lindsay: fiddle
Suzie Vinnick: harmony vocals
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Lily
Toronto, Ontario, April, 2007
I’ve been reading about the biblical story of Ezekiel’s wheels and how some ufologists claim that what he saw was not from God, but in fact some type of alien spacecraft. However, in that raging storm it was not only wheels that Ezekiel saw. Four creatures descended from the sky each with four faces: A human face in the front, an eagle’s face in the rear and on each side the face of a lion and a bull-these were the angels called Seraphim. Now, I hear an old story about a girl mysteriously saved from a flaming car-wreck in the Pacific Northwest. It is said she was found lying safe on the ground some distance from the crash after witnesses saw what they described as “a blazing wheel of light” coming from the sky…
Lily and a boy and a pickup truck
Crossed the line between wrong and all fucked up
Lay in the back by the grapestake fence
Wheels, wheels turn faster
Wheels, wheels turn faster
He said “Baby you can sing
And I’m gonna buy you a diamond ring
We’ll go south you’ll be a star”
Wheels, wheels turn faster
Wheels, wheels turn faster
Chorus
I will not lie
I would not die for you
I will not bleed
I will not be love’s fool
Hush now mama don’t you cry
All little birds must learn to fly
I’ll make big and come back someday
Wheels, wheels turn faster
Wheels, wheels turn faster
400 miles in the driving rain
Truck blew a tire outside Spokane
In a whirl of fire like the gospel said
Wheels, wheels turn faster
Wheels, wheels turn faster
Chorus
A blaze of light came from the sky
According to the passersby
It circled with an angel’s grace
Above the ground where Lily lay
Her heart beat faster
Chorus
Lily and a boy and a pickup truck…
Kristin Sweetland: vocals, Hammertone guitar
Stephen Fearing: electric guitar
George Koller: double bass
Paul Brennan: drums
Ken Whiteley: Hammond organ
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Hotel Esmeralda
Paris, France, May, 2005
It’s too early for cathedral bells to be ringing and I get up to close my hotel window that looks down towards Notre Dame de Paris. I had a glorious and very-late night in the basement of a small French club full of gypsy flamenco guitar players and beret-clad crooners. Fell asleep after sunrise and dreamt I was driving through the Arizona desert in my old van Esmeralda. The last time I travelled through there I got caught in a storm so bad I was nearly swept off the side of the highway. I pulled over for the night at the first motel I could find, and soon wondered if that had actually been a good idea after all…
Rainstorm west of Winslow, Arizona
Think I’m gonna take it slow
Put my hair up, light a cigarillo
Listen to flamenco on the radio
Hearts they are breaking
As he plays an old guitar
Please don’t leave me
Mi amor
Flash flood warning, better not be driving
Weather man is saying so
Sign says “Stay at Hotel Esmeralda
Thirty dollar rooms and we have HBO”
Ohhhhh
Rooms are clean, I’m lucky number 13
Guess I should have known
One lamp blinks and there’s a dripping sink
I’d better close the blinds or I’ll put on a show
I have a secret
I did it all for love
Dreaming of the one that I
Should not be dreaming of
Room 14, a drunken couple screaming
I don’t wanna know
Door slams, it’s the last time that she’ll see him
Till he’s found on some dark road to Mexico
Ohhhhh
There’s something coming off the desert
How those strange winds blow
I think we’re in for nasty weather
Ohhhhh
Howling winds without me and within
Just won’t seem to go
I can’t sleep, I don’t think I can eat
La Dama de Tequila is simpatico
Old movie on TV
I’ve seen this one before
Quasimodo’s wailing
As they haul her off for ever more
Ohhhhh
Kristin Sweetland: vocals, electric guitars
Jorge Miguel: flamenco guitar
George Koller: double bass
Paul Brennan: drums
Ken Whiteley: Hammond organ, harmony vocals
Suzie Vinnick: harmony vocals
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Xanadu
Poplar Beach, Ontario, February, 2006
A thick blanket of ice leads all the way to the horizon and I look out at Lake Huron glowing twilight blue. I’m here beside the roaring woodstove, a place I’ve hardly left all day. A huge winter storm hit last night, blowing out the power and snowing me in at the end of the long cottage road. I’ve been trying to write, but keep staring at a blank page. I think I’m going crazy. Have been keeping myself entertained by memorizing the Kubla Khan, my favourite Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem. Everytime I start to feel miserable I recite it again: “In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure-dome decree, where Alph the sacred river ran, through caverns measureless to man, down to a sunless sea….”
Thought that I was headed for paradise
Got caught between the fire and the ice
There wasn’t anything I couldn’t do
In the dark of my room
Dare to strike a match in the field
Rollin’ down the road with no hands on the wheel
I could do anything, all by myself
With the books on my shelf
Chorus:
Xanadu, Xanadu
When will kingdom come for you
Where you go you’ll always be
Down in a sunless sea
Down in a sunless sea
Madness is the master of all
Ghosts of all the writers who wrote on the wall
All of the suffering that drove them insane
I would swear in my name
Blessed is the pen in the night
Cursed are the words when you can’t get it right
I would give anything not to give in
To the darkness within
Chorus
A vision, a fragment, a beautiful maid
With a dulcimer sings a tune
I will revive her symphony
In the dark of the light of the moon
(Opium Dream)
Listen gentle reader, you see
Those who came before were as crazy as me
We would all suffer the fire and the ice
Just to drink of the sweet milk of paradise
Chorus
Kristin Sweetland: vocals, electric guitars
Stephen Fearing: electric guitars
Ken Whiteley: acoustic guitar
George Koller: double bass
Anne Lindsay: violin
Roman Borys: cello
Ben Grossman: udu, tambourine
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Three Pipe Night
Amsterdam, Netherlands, May, 2005
It’s my birthday and I’ve decided to celebrate in style. Have been wandering along the Amsterdam canals all day taking in the beautiful scenery. A man in front of me drops an armful of books and a carton of strawberries onto the sidewalk. I help him and he gives me a book, some strawberries and buys me a bottle of birthday champagne as a reward. I take “The Illustrated Sherlock Holmes” and my decadent libation to a nearby bridge and sit. Drinking in the mystery, I remember when I was young how badly I wanted to grow up to become a detective. I read on, and it seems our Mr. Holmes has found himself a rather vexing case to contemplate. These very difficult problems he would refer to as a “three pipe problem” – one that would take him all night, and at least three pipes to solve – the dusk comes, the moon rises, and the mysterious night presses on…
Kristin Sweetland: Hammertone guitar
George Koller: double bass
Ernie Tollar: pennywhistle
Ben Grossman: udu
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La Fin du Monde
Montreal, Quebec, August, 2006
I’m at the top of the majestic clocktower at the end of Montreal’s old pier. I am not alone. There’s a man standing, looking out the west-facing window holding a briefcase and looking very nervous. I ask him what he’s doing. He looks at me and trembles. I look at him, I look at the briefcase, and then I look at the clock. It’s one minute to the hour. I think to myself, if anything’s gonna blow, it’s gonna be now. My life flashes -is it all about to end? I close my eyes and envision myself wrestling the man for the briefcase, seizing it, then throwing it out over water just in time for it to explode in mid-air… The clock strikes and -Nothing! The man and I look at each other. I walk away. It may sound cliché, but all I truly wish for is the power to save the world one day.
(“La Fin du Monde” means “The End of the World.”)
La la la la la
La la la la la
La la la la la fin du monde (x 2)
One day when the end has come
By plague or a kill-shot sun
No Y2K déjà vu
Take me to the final show
Give me wings and let me go
High as only I could fly to
La la la la la
La la la la la
La la la la la fin du monde (x 2)
Love fiercely like it won’t last
Go boldly and don’t look back
Say fare thee well and adieu
Imagine a symphony
In glorious harmony
Four horsemen come unto you
La la la la la
La la la la la
La la la la la fin du monde ( x 4)
Kristin Sweetland: vocals, electric guitar
George Koller: double bass
Paul Brennan: drums
Ken Whiteley: accordion, harmony vocals
Roman Borys: cello
Ernie Tollar: clarinet
Stephen Fearing: harmony vocals
Suzie Vinnick: harmony vocals
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The Compass Rose
Halifax, Nova Scotia, August, 2006
From the top of Halifax’s Citadel Hill, I look down towards the harbour. I see a tall ship sailing in the distance and I want it to take me away somewhere lush and exotic. I’ve been reading a book about the history of the magnetic compass and can’t help romanticizing the sea. I’m sure it wasn’t really so romantic all those hundreds of years ago, pitching and tossing about with malfunctioning compasses de-magnetized by everything from gun metal to the naturally shifting forces of the earth’s poles, but alas, I dream. Although we have certainly come a long way in the technology of navigation, one thing remains the same – as travellers of the roads, skies and seas we are always in need of a prayer to help us return safely home.
O star in the sky
O star in the sky
Letting us know where we lie
O lamp in the night
O lamp in the night
Guide us with shimmering light
Burn with a fever
Like fire but sweeter
Until we are homeward again
Chorus:
Go slow compass rose
Only the road that we travel on knows
Roll with the valleys and sail with the sea
Always remember
O rose of the winds
O rose of the winds
Give us our bearings within
Carry us safely
With courage and bravery
So far away from our home
Chorus
O star in the sky
O star in the sky
Letting us know where we lie
Guide us ’till morning
Through calm and through storm
And until we are homeward again
Chorus
Kristin Sweetland: vocals, acoustic guitar
Ken Whiteley: classical guitar
George Koller: double bass
Ben Grossman: hurdy gurdy
