Get all 6 Mandolin Jack releases available on Bandcamp and save 35%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Raking Through The Ashes, Jukebox, EXILE, Phoenix In The Ashes, Lonesome Road, and Oil, Grease & Diesel.
1. |
EXILE
03:24
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In the dark and the stillness of the night
I stand my trial, I stand my trial;
The difference 'tween what's wrong and what is right
Is but one turn of the dial.
Time hovers by the wall
Waiting on me to fall,
Go meet my kingdom come;
Where I will stand & face the truth
One thing I must do, 'cause I don't run.
She was like a spirit in the moonlight
So alive, a firefly;
Her innocence it burned so bright
But I was in denial.
I found what it takes to take a life
Run the sharp edge of the knife
Across my thumb;
Desire spreading like a stain
The hurt, now the pain won't be undone.
There’s a light, the brief crescent, of a falling star;
Never more to grace the heavens, leaving just a scar
Straight across my heart …
In the dark and the stillness of the night
I stand my trial, I stand my trial;
The difference 'tween what's wrong and what is right
Is but one turn of the dial.
Now I walk this this road alone,
Kicking every other stone
Watch them skip and run;
And with the passing of each mile
My exile has begun.
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2. |
SEA GLASS
03:13
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I couldn’t buy you a diamond ring
So I found you the next best thing
Sea-glass, pale sky-blue
Hold it up & you can see right through.
CHORUS
When all’s said and done
When all’s said and done
There’s only just the one
When all’s said and done
Down where the ocean
Meets the sea,
You’re my sheet-anchor
Lookin’ out for me;
And as each wave collides
With the turning of the tide,
You’re right here by my side
Where I knew you would be;
I own no mansion
Up high on the hill;
Pockets full of pebbles
Don't pay the bills;
On wild & windswept shores
Time brings its own rewards,
All that’s gone before
Lives within me still;
When all’s said and done
Take life the way it comes
There’s only just the one
When all’s said and done
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3. |
THREE MINUTE SONG
03:50
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I take the record from the sleeve
Opens up old memories
Of a time and a love, forever gone
And all that went before
It’s all there in the score
Wrapped up in a 3 minute song
I can't let the stylus hit the vinyl
And hear those first few notes of melody
I can’t let the singer have the final word
Without recalling how it used to be
She’d never heard that song before
‘Til we found that record store
And the salesman put the needle in the groove.
The singer started low
Like he got nowhere to go
But you knew right then he’d everything to lose
He sang about a girl he met one Sunday
How words to every gospel song rang true
“A marriage made in heaven” was the sad refrain
That soon went wrong the way things often do
CHORUS:
It’s just a 3 minute song and we’d both sing along
And she would go up high to harmonise
A 3 minute song ‘bout how love can go wrong
And all the heartache left when true love dies
The way things come around
I let that woman down
I did things I always will regret
And this old 45
Is all that has survived
A song that won’t allow me to forget
I can't let the stylus hit the vinyl
And hear those first few notes of melody
I can’t let the singer have the final word
Without recalling how it used to be
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4. |
SPIRIT FRIENDS
03:22
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Got the Devil in my whiskey
Dæmons in my beer
You don’t need to ask me why they’re here;
There’s a djinn in my tequila
A kelpie in my wine
These are just some spirit friends of mine;
They come to stop me talking to myself
‘Cause if I don’t talk to them there’s no one else.
And when the glass is empty
You’ll find me here alone
Drifting like a ghost around my home.
‘Cause you really left me nothing
That I could hold on to
You cleared this house of every trace of you.
And as the nights grow longer
And the silence settles in
I feel the need to see my friends again;
‘Cause they don’t mind they’ve heard it all before
My spirit friends will help me up for sure.
But when the glass is empty
You’ll find me here alone
Drifting like a ghost around my home.
Sittin’ by the fire
Watchin’ a host of restless shadows on the wall;
Embers flare and embers fall,
And I stare into the flame
Wond’rin’ if I’m the one to blame
Got the Devil in my whiskey
Dæmons in my beer
You don’t need to ask me why they’re here;
There’s a djinn in my tequila
A kelpie in my wine
These are just some spirit friends of mine;
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5. |
HIGH WATER
03:33
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All the letters I write
Run like tears off the page
In the middle of the night
Sittin' listenin', to the rain
CHORUS:
And the waters rise
High water
And the waters rise
It’s all a-gettin' swept away
Looking down at the flood
Angry, sullen and grey
There is no love
All I got left is my faith
With every sweet heart-beat
Every precious breath that I take
And each tear that I weep
I fear for the life that’s at stake
I took the long ‘lone road
I couldn’t help losing my way
And now waters erode
Ev’ry mark I made on that trail
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6. |
HEART SONGS
03:52
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I once had ’69 Ford
We drove it to the end of the world
Doin’ gigs for just a cut of the door
Writin’ songs from the heart for my girl;
Chasing the smoke
Promises and hope
Waitin’ for the big one to come up;
Placing my bets
On caffeine and cigarettes
Oh, those miles that we covered in that truck
She’d say, “We just need a little luck” .. (with your)
CHORUS:
Heart songs, heart songs
I wrote for ‘em for my girl
And I sang ‘em just for her
Heart songs
We’d dream I’d get on AM radio
50,000 watts across the world
But my songs never made it on the show
The only one who heard ‘em was my girl.
I’d try to make the scene
She’d be my go-between, (puttin’ my)
Home-made cassettes out there to sell
‘Cause she could see the spark
She’d nurse it through the dark, (in every)
Bar, every cut-rate motel
The days when I stumbled and fell;
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7. |
MY SWEET GIRL
03:51
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CHECK OUT THE VIDEO ON YOU TUBE!
I'm bruised and battered from a hard-work day
Drove back from so far away
The room is dark and I find you sleeping
I lift the sheets and in I slide
In the warmth by your side
Lay there listening to you breathing
You’re my sweet girl
Ooh, my complete girl
In the way you try to understand
This tried and troubled man
The world outside is cruel and cold
As each day unfolds
With all its greed and all its scheming
But that world disappears
Now I feel your body near
And you drift out of your dreaming
The nearness of a beating heart
A sigh in the dark
Hair tumbles down like rain
I feel all my pain slip away
Don’t let dawn’s grey light
Come steal away the night
There’ll be time enough for leaving
With you near to me
It all comes clear to me
My heart is in safe-keeping
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Mandolin Jack London, UK
Mainly a songwriter - in Americana mood ; with some mandolin, a bit of guitar, some boogie-woogie keyboards and starting to get to grips with some lap-steel!
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