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The Great North Islands

by Reichenbach Falls

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about

A new Reichenbach Falls song, recorded in isolation on the Fife coast -- free to download, but all proceeds to help the Anstruther food-bank meet increased demand during the Coronavirus crisis.

lyrics

we laid the weaker ones to rest out there
in the great north islands
and we marked each grave with a splintered driftwood cross
washed stained hands and sailed for home
made pacts of silence down below decks
by candle-flicker and the smell of blood

i thought i saw an albatross but it was just an angel

we sailed home through the winter
and we tried not to remember
quite what we'd done what we'd promised to keep hid
beneath constellations of dust and gods
we forgot all the sailings off
and we began to weep for all the ones we'd lost

i thought i saw an albatross but it was just an angel
and oh that broke my old stowaway heart
i thought i saw lost time come back to me but it was just the future
and now i can hardly tell the two apart

we sang songs at home of our great deeds
in the great north islands
double of heart and rough of wing
the crowds wept at our tragic tales
and jesus love me i did as well
though i knew that there were things of which we did not sing

the short straws and desertions
the shrinking cries as we descended on the weaker ones
we chosen ones with knives
we invoke the tragic muses
but all the while we sang the awful truth was whispering
in the pages of our hearts

i thought i saw their ghosts at the curtain call, but those were only angels
oh that broke my understudy heart
and now it's hand-in-hand and heart in mouth, death in life and long-lost loves
and buried years unquiet beneath the ground

credits

released April 5, 2020

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all rights reserved

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about

Reichenbach Falls UK

A folk-pop project currently based in Scotland and Canada and widely acclaimed in outlets including the Guardian, Line of Best Fit, Exclaim! and Music OMH.

Following the home-spun lockdown release 'the past may be dead but its nails still grow', 2024 will see the release of our first studio album in eight years, 'Wayfarer Beware', from which 'Back to Poet's Lake' is the first single.
... more

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