The Returner

1. Springtime (04:11)

So long farewell adieu adieu

To that tunnel I went through

And my reward, my recompense?

The springtime of my present tense

Well I used to think that I was doomed

To die young to be consumed

All lullabies were violent

Those winters of my discontent

So long farewell adieu adieu…

Chaque constellation

Peut-être morte pour mille ans

Mais elle nous donne encore

Elle nous donne encore

Cette brilliance

I’ll be to you a boon a boon

I will be your Halcyon

I will line our nest with eiderdown

Still the waves we will not drown

So long farewell adieu adieu…

Ah le temps ah le temps

Il trompe, il te trompe

Pas une ligne, pas une ligne

Mais une cercle serpente

2. The Returner (03:51)

Now i let go

Everything that I’ve known

Let it go on, let it roll out

With the tide

I can't think of a thing

That hasn’t been shot through with pain

Like a nightingale’s song

In the dead of the night

Goodbye so long farewell

All I’ve been

Ooo oblivion!

Throw me in the ocean

Ooo see if I can swim

I’m wild again, i’m a starchild again

I come ten million miles and ooo I’m burning

I’m a summer dream

I’m a real light beam

I’m worthy

Of all the goodness and the love

That the world’s gonna give to me

I’m’a give it back ten times

People, are you ready?

If you think you’re alone

Hold on - I’m coming

Now I unfold

Every lie I was told

Watch em wither, watch em scatter

With with wind

I can't think of a thing

That hasn't been born of a dream

Like a Love Supreme

Like a Circle Unbroken

Goodbye so long farewell

All I’ve been

Ooo oblivion!

Throw me in the ocean

Ooo Mama watch me swim

I’m wild again, i’m a starchild again

I come ten million miles and ooo I’m burning

I’m a summer dream

I’m a real light beam

I’m worthy

Of all the goodness and the love

That the world’s gonna give to me

I’m’a give it back ten times

People, are you ready?

If you think you’re alone

Hold on - I’m coming

Don’t you know

You are never alone

3. All Without Within (03:13)

Ooo

Put it in

Feel the stinger in my skin

Tell every bumblebee

I’m back inside my body

Ooo

What's happenin’?

Now I feel what’s happenin’

Every cut every kiss

All without within

Freeze! I can stop the time

If the love is good and right

First the blush then a rush

Seasons all are mine

Ooo

What's happenin’?

Now I feel what’s happenin’

Every cut every kiss

All without within

Paper cut, feather kiss

Kerosene licorice

Low moan and the bliss

Gimme them

All those gifts

Gimme them

All those gifts

Gimme them

All those gifts

I love the smell of rain on dead leaves

Your arms ‘round me when I'm angry

You soothe every savage Beast

Lover lay your weight down on me

Spin my straw up into gold

Weave my water into wine

Make my wine into hot blood

Turn my bones back into brine

Tell every moth and moon and mover

Every hornet, fly and flower

In the afternoon light dappled

We are sunlight, we are shadows

You're my love that loves to love

I'm the one you chose you chose

You’re my song of Song of Songs

I am yours, I'm yours, I'm yours

I am yours I'm yours I'm yours

Freeze! I can stop the time

If the love is good and right

First the blush then a rush

Seasons all are mine

Ooo

What's happenin’?

Now I feel what’s happenin’

Every cut, every kiss

All without within

4. Demons (04:29)

Demons (Demons) Demons (Demons)

Comin’ up from behind

Demons (Demons) Demons (Demons)

Been there all my life

Demons (Demons) Demons (Demons)

Surely can’t outride ‘em

Oh turn around look ‘em in the face

They don’t like how sunlight tastes

No no no no no no no no no

Standing on the corner waiting on a school bus

She said I had such bad luck

I got the bad hair and the bad skin

I just could not understand it

Demons (Demons) Demons (Demons)...

Demons in my 3 in my 6 in my 9

Used to be so damn terrifying

So we put 'em on the bus but we didn’t let 'em drive

Turned them all into Freedom Riders

Demons (Demons) Demons (Demons)...

Freedom riders sing, Freedom Singers ride

Lift us up to that Good Fight

Can we carry that song, that shield, that crown

Every last child in every last town

Demons (Demons) Demons (Demons)...

Ah ha, hush that fuss

Send your demons to the back of the bus

No matter how they holler

No matter how they moan

They can’t change where they are going

Demons (Demons) Demons (Demons)...

Ah ha, hush that fuss

Send your demons to the back of the bus

5. Eve Was Black (06:04)

Eve was Black haven’t you heard?

The Mother of All was Dark and Good

Eve was Black didn’t you know?

Is that why you hate my Black Skin so?

Do I remind you of what you lost?

Do you Hate or do you Lust ?

Do you Despise or do you Yearn?

To Return, To Return, To Return

Back to the Motherland

Back to the Garden

Back to your Black Skin

Back to the Innocence

Back to the shine you lost

When you enslaved your Kin?

Why do you try to touch my hair?

Do you hope to find a blessing there?

Why do you try to keep me down?

Do you hope to sow this barren ground

With my black blood black magic blood

Does it remind you of what you lost?

Do you Hate or do you Lust ?

Do you Despise or do you Yearn?

To Return, To Return, To Return

Back to the Motherland…

What do you hope for as you tie the rope?

What do you hope for as you hoist me up?

What do you hope for as you watch me swing?

Will the Witness Tree Salvation bring?

Do I remind you of what you lost?

Do you Hate or do you Lust ?

Do you Despise or do you Yearn?

To Return, To Return, To Return

Back to the Motherland…

Oh my Sister, Oh my Brother

Oh my Mother, Oh my Father

Oh my Cousin, All my pale Kin

Can’t wash this Sin

With more Black Blood

6. Stay Right Here (04:10)

Maybe I’m swimming in happiness

But it’s an ocean of tears in my mind

All that my body can never forget

Why do good things make me cry?

Ooo they make me wanna fly on back

Through that Hole in the Sky

Something that I learned when I was three

How to leave my body yeah

Voices they come back sand say

Go on! Let Go!

You don’t have to say goodbye

It was all a dream

You don’t have to wonder why

No! No! I’ll stay right here

Wanna hear my daughter laughing

She can hear her daughter laughing

When we die, we’ll die

Fighting!

Maybe if it hasn’t killed me yet

It’ll make me stronger in time

All that my body can never forget

Why do good things make me cry?

Ooo they make me wanna fly on back

Through that Hole in the Sky

Something that I learned when I was three

How to leave my body yeah

Voices they come back sand say

Go on! Let Go!

You don’t have to say goodbye

It was all a dream

You don’t have to wonder why

No! No! I’ll stay right here

Wanna hear my daughter laughing

She can hear her daughter laughing

When we die, we’ll die

Fighting!

7. Shadowlands (04:13)

I woke up from a goddamn nightmare

Just to find the house was on fire

Ran outside the flames they were everywhere

Reaching on up to the sky

Maybe it was a dream within a dream

It doesn’t matter anyhow

I can bring the cool rain when I want to

I know how to gather the clouds

It’s all in me ooo…

I can gather the clouds when I want to

I know how to call down the Flood

I can walk between Worlds when I have to

I can read the Future Stars

Every Child who returns from The Shadowlands

Has an Alchemist’s Heart

A thousand Suns burning inside us

We can melt the Hatred to Love

It’s all in us ooo…

Shouldn’t let the Child (you let her out!)

Out of The Shadowlands (yeah!)

Now she’s got magic (now she’s got magic) magic in her hands

(in her hands) You got a problem (you got a problem) You got a problem (you got a )

All you Demons (yeah!)

All you Demons ( yeah!)

All you Demons

We can’t be broken

It’s all in us ooo…

Démon Démon

Trouve ton tannière

On vient pour toi

Nous Toutes

On te voit maintenant

Les Enfants sorts Des Ombres

Alors On Chante

On Chante

8. Rag Child (03:04)

I didn’t know the load I could carry

Till I sank to my knees in the merciless sun

Yeah the voice in my head said someday your burden

Will be taken from you but today’s not the one

Child in Rags

Three times cursed

Gonna teach you

The forgotten verses

Child in Red

Spilled her blood

Know the words

To bring the flood

The Child in White

Walk with death

Gonna sing until

You love yourself

I didn’t know all the joy I could levy

Till I rose to my feet in the merciful sun

And the voice in my head said someday you’ll be buried

You’ll return to the stars but today’s not the one

Child in black

Three times blessed

Gonna lead us

From the Shadowlands

Child in green

Know her worth

Write the world

A holy book

Child in gold

Story bound

Gonna speak until

The lost are found

Child in white

Walk with death

Gonna sing until

You love yourself

9. Snake Life (04:38)

I used to dream I’d shed my skin

And leave it lying on the ground

Crawl away from where I’d been

A new and wet and gleaming one

But every scar and every bruise

They shine like blue Botswana jewels

What did not kill me, fills me

With the power of a thousand suns

Woohoo

Every wound a rift, a hide

A portal to another time

Time slips and folds and flees and flies

She teaches us we are divine

Woohoo

We travel Time back to the Child

Back to that Inner Garden Wild

And further up and further in

To the Indigo Sky past the Red Sea Cliff

Where our wings unfurl

We fly further still

In and up and up and in

Past the Deathless Stars

Through the Breathless Void

We burst through our skins

Skin turns to Asteroids

Now the Bountiful Blackness

Weds that Pregnant Silence

And a Song is born

Those cold rocks transform

Into gleaming Planets

With Purple Moons

And Rainbow Rings

Gently coiling

Circle-ing

In The Gravity

Of the Burning Suns

We now Embody

Bright Constellations

Never seen before

A new Universe

A whole Blazing Force

Unstoppable!

I used to dream but now I write

I wield my words like spindles bright

To weave a world where every child

Is safe and loved

And black is beautiful and good

10. Requiem (06:14)

Oh I know your way

Is hard to see today

Bullets they fly faster

Than mother’s lullabies

And the sparrows cannot sing

For it is theirs to bring

The souls of those lost babies

Back to the Sky

So it is yours to sing

My child, my wild brightling

With the love born

In the Cradle of Time

And fight and fight and fight

In the dying light

For all lost and gone forever

Clementines

Requiem requiem

The question is not if

It was always when

But go on go on my child

Hope is a prairie fire

Set your embers on the summer wind

Courage mon petit loup

Tu chante maintenant pour tous

Les enfants dans Les Ombres

Peurs et froids, perdus

Courage chanter bien forte

Les perdus vont t’entendre

Et suivre le son de dix mille

Voix en joie

La haine est enterrée

L’heure des miracles est née

L’amour est éternelles

Courage mes beaux, mes belles

So it is yours to sing

My child my wild brightling

With the love born

In the Cradle of Time

Requiem Requiem…

1. Springtime (04:11)

So long farewell adieu adieu

To that tunnel I went through

And my reward, my recompense?

The springtime of my present tense

Well I used to think that I was doomed

To die young to be consumed

All lullabies were violent

Those winters of my discontent

So long farewell adieu adieu…

Chaque constellation

Peut-être morte pour mille ans

Mais elle nous donne encore

Elle nous donne encore

Cette brilliance

I’ll be to you a boon a boon

I will be your Halcyon

I will line our nest with eiderdown

Still the waves we will not drown

So long farewell adieu adieu…

Ah le temps ah le temps

Il trompe, il te trompe

Pas une ligne, pas une ligne

Mais une cercle serpente

2. The Returner (03:51)

Now i let go

Everything that I’ve known

Let it go on, let it roll out

With the tide

I can't think of a thing

That hasn’t been shot through with pain

Like a nightingale’s song

In the dead of the night

Goodbye so long farewell

All I’ve been

Ooo oblivion!

Throw me in the ocean

Ooo see if I can swim

I’m wild again, i’m a starchild again

I come ten million miles and ooo I’m burning

I’m a summer dream

I’m a real light beam

I’m worthy

Of all the goodness and the love

That the world’s gonna give to me

I’m’a give it back ten times

People, are you ready?

If you think you’re alone

Hold on - I’m coming

Now I unfold

Every lie I was told

Watch em wither, watch em scatter

With with wind

I can't think of a thing

That hasn't been born of a dream

Like a Love Supreme

Like a Circle Unbroken

Goodbye so long farewell

All I’ve been

Ooo oblivion!

Throw me in the ocean

Ooo Mama watch me swim

I’m wild again, i’m a starchild again

I come ten million miles and ooo I’m burning

I’m a summer dream

I’m a real light beam

I’m worthy

Of all the goodness and the love

That the world’s gonna give to me

I’m’a give it back ten times

People, are you ready?

If you think you’re alone

Hold on - I’m coming

Don’t you know

You are never alone

3. All Without Within (03:13)

Ooo

Put it in

Feel the stinger in my skin

Tell every bumblebee

I’m back inside my body

Ooo

What's happenin’?

Now I feel what’s happenin’

Every cut every kiss

All without within

Freeze! I can stop the time

If the love is good and right

First the blush then a rush

Seasons all are mine

Ooo

What's happenin’?

Now I feel what’s happenin’

Every cut every kiss

All without within

Paper cut, feather kiss

Kerosene licorice

Low moan and the bliss

Gimme them

All those gifts

Gimme them

All those gifts

Gimme them

All those gifts

I love the smell of rain on dead leaves

Your arms ‘round me when I'm angry

You soothe every savage Beast

Lover lay your weight down on me

Spin my straw up into gold

Weave my water into wine

Make my wine into hot blood

Turn my bones back into brine

Tell every moth and moon and mover

Every hornet, fly and flower

In the afternoon light dappled

We are sunlight, we are shadows

You're my love that loves to love

I'm the one you chose you chose

You’re my song of Song of Songs

I am yours, I'm yours, I'm yours

I am yours I'm yours I'm yours

Freeze! I can stop the time

If the love is good and right

First the blush then a rush

Seasons all are mine

Ooo

What's happenin’?

Now I feel what’s happenin’

Every cut, every kiss

All without within

4. Demons (04:29)

Demons (Demons) Demons (Demons)

Comin’ up from behind

Demons (Demons) Demons (Demons)

Been there all my life

Demons (Demons) Demons (Demons)

Surely can’t outride ‘em

Oh turn around look ‘em in the face

They don’t like how sunlight tastes

No no no no no no no no no

Standing on the corner waiting on a school bus

She said I had such bad luck

I got the bad hair and the bad skin

I just could not understand it

Demons (Demons) Demons (Demons)...

Demons in my 3 in my 6 in my 9

Used to be so damn terrifying

So we put 'em on the bus but we didn’t let 'em drive

Turned them all into Freedom Riders

Demons (Demons) Demons (Demons)...

Freedom riders sing, Freedom Singers ride

Lift us up to that Good Fight

Can we carry that song, that shield, that crown

Every last child in every last town

Demons (Demons) Demons (Demons)...

Ah ha, hush that fuss

Send your demons to the back of the bus

No matter how they holler

No matter how they moan

They can’t change where they are going

Demons (Demons) Demons (Demons)...

Ah ha, hush that fuss

Send your demons to the back of the bus

5. Eve Was Black (06:04)

Eve was Black haven’t you heard?

The Mother of All was Dark and Good

Eve was Black didn’t you know?

Is that why you hate my Black Skin so?

Do I remind you of what you lost?

Do you Hate or do you Lust ?

Do you Despise or do you Yearn?

To Return, To Return, To Return

Back to the Motherland

Back to the Garden

Back to your Black Skin

Back to the Innocence

Back to the shine you lost

When you enslaved your Kin?

Why do you try to touch my hair?

Do you hope to find a blessing there?

Why do you try to keep me down?

Do you hope to sow this barren ground

With my black blood black magic blood

Does it remind you of what you lost?

Do you Hate or do you Lust ?

Do you Despise or do you Yearn?

To Return, To Return, To Return

Back to the Motherland…

What do you hope for as you tie the rope?

What do you hope for as you hoist me up?

What do you hope for as you watch me swing?

Will the Witness Tree Salvation bring?

Do I remind you of what you lost?

Do you Hate or do you Lust ?

Do you Despise or do you Yearn?

To Return, To Return, To Return

Back to the Motherland…

Oh my Sister, Oh my Brother

Oh my Mother, Oh my Father

Oh my Cousin, All my pale Kin

Can’t wash this Sin

With more Black Blood

6. Stay Right Here (04:10)

Maybe I’m swimming in happiness

But it’s an ocean of tears in my mind

All that my body can never forget

Why do good things make me cry?

Ooo they make me wanna fly on back

Through that Hole in the Sky

Something that I learned when I was three

How to leave my body yeah

Voices they come back sand say

Go on! Let Go!

You don’t have to say goodbye

It was all a dream

You don’t have to wonder why

No! No! I’ll stay right here

Wanna hear my daughter laughing

She can hear her daughter laughing

When we die, we’ll die

Fighting!

Maybe if it hasn’t killed me yet

It’ll make me stronger in time

All that my body can never forget

Why do good things make me cry?

Ooo they make me wanna fly on back

Through that Hole in the Sky

Something that I learned when I was three

How to leave my body yeah

Voices they come back sand say

Go on! Let Go!

You don’t have to say goodbye

It was all a dream

You don’t have to wonder why

No! No! I’ll stay right here

Wanna hear my daughter laughing

She can hear her daughter laughing

When we die, we’ll die

Fighting!

7. Shadowlands (04:13)

I woke up from a goddamn nightmare

Just to find the house was on fire

Ran outside the flames they were everywhere

Reaching on up to the sky

Maybe it was a dream within a dream

It doesn’t matter anyhow

I can bring the cool rain when I want to

I know how to gather the clouds

It’s all in me ooo…

I can gather the clouds when I want to

I know how to call down the Flood

I can walk between Worlds when I have to

I can read the Future Stars

Every Child who returns from The Shadowlands

Has an Alchemist’s Heart

A thousand Suns burning inside us

We can melt the Hatred to Love

It’s all in us ooo…

Shouldn’t let the Child (you let her out!)

Out of The Shadowlands (yeah!)

Now she’s got magic (now she’s got magic) magic in her hands

(in her hands) You got a problem (you got a problem) You got a problem (you got a )

All you Demons (yeah!)

All you Demons ( yeah!)

All you Demons

We can’t be broken

It’s all in us ooo…

Démon Démon

Trouve ton tannière

On vient pour toi

Nous Toutes

On te voit maintenant

Les Enfants sorts Des Ombres

Alors On Chante

On Chante

8. Rag Child (03:04)

I didn’t know the load I could carry

Till I sank to my knees in the merciless sun

Yeah the voice in my head said someday your burden

Will be taken from you but today’s not the one

Child in Rags

Three times cursed

Gonna teach you

The forgotten verses

Child in Red

Spilled her blood

Know the words

To bring the flood

The Child in White

Walk with death

Gonna sing until

You love yourself

I didn’t know all the joy I could levy

Till I rose to my feet in the merciful sun

And the voice in my head said someday you’ll be buried

You’ll return to the stars but today’s not the one

Child in black

Three times blessed

Gonna lead us

From the Shadowlands

Child in green

Know her worth

Write the world

A holy book

Child in gold

Story bound

Gonna speak until

The lost are found

Child in white

Walk with death

Gonna sing until

You love yourself

9. Snakelife (04:38)

I used to dream I’d shed my skin

And leave it lying on the ground

Crawl away from where I’d been

A new and wet and gleaming one

But every scar and every bruise

They shine like blue Botswana jewels

What did not kill me, fills me

With the power of a thousand suns

Woohoo

Every wound a rift, a hide

A portal to another time

Time slips and folds and flees and flies

She teaches us we are divine

Woohoo

We travel Time back to the Child

Back to that Inner Garden Wild

And further up and further in

To the Indigo Sky past the Red Sea Cliff

Where our wings unfurl

We fly further still

In and up and up and in

Past the Deathless Stars

Through the Breathless Void

We burst through our skins

Skin turns to Asteroids

Now the Bountiful Blackness

Weds that Pregnant Silence

And a Song is born

Those cold rocks transform

Into gleaming Planets

With Purple Moons

And Rainbow Rings

Gently coiling

Circle-ing

In The Gravity

Of the Burning Suns

We now Embody

Bright Constellations

Never seen before

A new Universe

A whole Blazing Force

Unstoppable!

I used to dream but now I write

I wield my words like spindles bright

To weave a world where every child

Is safe and loved

And black is beautiful and good

10. Requiem (06:14)

Oh I know your way

Is hard to see today

Bullets they fly faster

Than mother’s lullabies

And the sparrows cannot sing

For it is theirs to bring

The souls of those lost babies

Back to the Sky

So it is yours to sing

My child, my wild brightling

With the love born

In the Cradle of Time

And fight and fight and fight

In the dying light

For all lost and gone forever

Clementines

Requiem requiem

The question is not if

It was always when

But go on go on my child

Hope is a prairie fire

Set your embers on the summer wind

Courage mon petit loup

Tu chante maintenant pour tous

Les enfants dans Les Ombres

Peurs et froids, perdus

Courage chanter bien forte

Les perdus vont t’entendre

Et suivre le son de dix mille

Voix en joie

La haine est enterrée

L’heure des miracles est née

L’amour est éternelles

Courage mes beaux, mes belles

So it is yours to sing

My child my wild brightling

With the love born

In the Cradle of Time

Requiem Requiem…