Get all 12 The Magic Lantern releases available on Bandcamp and save 35%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of No One's Fault (2022) - Single, A Reckoning Bell (2021) - Album, Blades of Grass (2021) - Single, Bound for Glory (2021) - Single, My Soul Is A Strange Country (2020) - EP, The Life That I Have (2020) - EP, To The Islands (2018) - Album, Holding Hands (2017) - Single, and 4 more.
1. |
Bound for Glory
03:35
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Bound for glory
Headed nowhere
Jump on board
We’re leaving soon
All this sound and fury
Signifies nothing
The heart’s a drum
That’s losing time
We’re heading home
Home to glory
Clothed in self-importance
Dressed for a future
That seems so sure
To youth’s naked eye
It’s a heavy load hope’s pulling
Distant horizon
Bends to meet
Us as we go
We’re heading home
Home to glory
To find a place of our own
[Without love a clanging cymbal be]
Light a candle baby
Run a bath as a star implodes
Do that thing that makes me smile
We’re heading home
Home to glory
To find a place of our own
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2. |
This Life
04:21
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This life
This life that we have
Is a fragile thing
That creaks with age in the morning
And a crow waits
And he’s got all the time
That you don’t
The end
The end when it comes
Is a tug on a string
Scrim-shrouded light on a black wing
And the crow’s gone
With barely a beating of breath
Barely a beating of breath
For each a silent bell
Reckoning with a wave
Gloaming’s crow-dark beak
Swallows everything
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3. |
Blades of Grass
03:50
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Let it be known
I cry a lot
Let it be known
I’m stronger for to feel
Let it be known
The heart’s a boat
Let it be known
That love’s a fisherman
Let it be known
If this is all there is
Then let it be known
Then that’s enough for me
Enough for me, yes
That’s enough for me
Let it be known
I’m scared to stop
Let it be known
That silence swallows me
Let it be known
That youth’s a stone
Let it be known
Just skipping out to sea
Let it be known
It’s a long migration home
So let it be known
We sleep upon the wing
Upon the wing, yes
We sleep upon a silver wing
Let it be known
That life’s a blade of grass
So let it be known
The wind blows right through you
The wind blows right through you
It’s blowing right through you
Let it be known
That hope’s a wild thing
So let it be known
It fights to find a way
It finds a way yeah
It fights to find a way
I’ll be right here
When you’re ready
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4. |
Fault Line
04:37
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There’s a fault line
Running right down the middle
Running right down the middle
And it divides and splits
Us from each other
Us from each other
There’s an old song
Woody Guthrie sang
This land is your land
And this land is my land too
Though it sounds so simple
I dare you to say it’s not true babe
What if it’s true babe?
Fear’s an inquiline
Living right in here
Living deep in here
And it takes what it needs
And leaves you gasping
Leaves you hollowed out
There’s an old, old trick
That will break your heart -
Tilting at windmills
Believing they’re swinging at you
Till you’re trapped in the flag
That you’re wrapped in too tight to undo babe
Your lips are blue, babe
Does it trickle down?
‘Oh simmer down!’
Does it trickle down?
Beware the prophet in a paper crown
Does the head swim but the heart drown?
At the shoreline
There are dreams and bodies breaking
Dreams and bodies breaking
And they say not a word
For who would listen?
Who would hear them out?
These are old, old bones
And they know their worth
Ringing with truth of the struggle
And pain of the birth
Now all of the promise they carried
Returns to the earth
The bleached ash earth babe
Does it trickle down?
‘Oh simmer down!’
Does it trickle down?
Beware the prophet in a paper crown
Does the head swim but the heart drown?
Mighty river
Roll on, roll on
Mighty river
Hold on, hold on
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5. |
How Simple
03:34
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I went out
One spring morning
And I came back changed
There was silver in my hair that night
And my cheek was wet as rain
We’re each in search
Of what it means to be
How simple
How simple
To say goodbye
A hundred times
How simple
How simple
Life and fate
Are such sticky things
You can’t shake them off at all
We were so scared
To watch a proud man fall
But we named our fears that day
Oh we cried and cried and said it’d be alright
But deep down we all knew
To learn from love
When the hope is gone
How simple
How simple
Now I’m supposed
To be the adult here
How simple
How simple
How simple
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6. |
Enough
03:15
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I know you feel the pressure
Dragged down by the weight
[Of the world upon your shoulders]
But wouldn’t it be better
To give yourself a break
Before the hope we need’s
Drowned out of you
So come on darling
Sweating bullets about the weather
A fever of change unknown
[Our pale blue dot is precious]
Drenched like an oily feather
The past is where you can’t fly home
You can’t fight a fire
When you’re all burnt out
So come on darling
You’re doing enough
For everyone
But you
When it’s always now or never
Time’s a whale upon a ledge
[This savage beauty’s fragile]
Can’t hold your breath forever
Grace is in the moment’s edge
You seem more sad
Than you’ve ever been
So come here darling
You can’t love enough
For everyone
Just you...
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7. |
There's a Light
04:00
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The smallest life is fathoms deep
A blossom blown by history’s sweep
Meaning’s made where love commands
The dots you join with time’s two hands
Today’s gonna be a good day
I decided that while I was crying
You can’t keep folding a tragedy
Over and over again
Tin-roof rain dreams coruscate
Off paper cranes of fear we make
But there’s a light we can’t all see
It shines in you and not in me
Today’s gonna be a good day
I decided that while I was crying
You can’t keep folding a tragedy
Over and over again
But no one told me
No one told me
Tonight’s gonna be a better night
Some are born
And some take flight from the earth
There’s no rhyme or right or worth
Just an unsheltered heart
Beating
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8. |
Learning to Swim
03:29
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When you came out crying
Breathing fresh
Life instead of water
We drank you in
Hearts full to the brim
Just learning to swim
And though we floundered at first
And it wasn’t easy
The world made sense
A reason screaming wake up
I need you like the rain
Fill me up again
Love comes soaked in pain
A wave
Never knows
It’s worth
‘Till its breaking
Never knows it ‘till it’s breaking
Lord knows it’s breaking now
The promise of each day dawning
Salt neon pink
Fragile light on two small hands
And fresh eyes, yet to see the sea
But set to follow me
As the seed to the tree
A wave
Never knows
It’s worth
‘Till its breaking
Never knows ‘till it’s breaking
Lord knows it’s breaking now
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9. |
Holding On
03:34
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I don’t deserve you
But I’m holding on
With all that I have
To be worthy of wanting
And to be loved anew
I’ll put my shoulder
To the wheel
For us
And if I should fail
May the wheel break me
With a butterfly’s grace
A parting glance at your face
But here we are now
And I love you
More than I ever could love myself
My troubles are all mine
But I’m trying not to let them
Drag both of us down
And if that looks likely
Then I’ll cut the line
It’s ’cos I love you
I’d let you go my love
My soul is a strange country
To roam
But here we are now
And it’s beautiful, babe
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10. |
Weariest River
06:47
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Mother, you’re trying your heart out
But he’s slipping though your grasp
Into the long green grass
That will cover us
Just be there, just be there, just be there
You’re not supposed
To know what to do when
Your best friend forgets you
Or how to do this at all
When an empire falls
But beauty remains
There are wild flowers in the cracks
And sometimes it rains
And the past comes flooding back
And you can be sure
That though those glory days are gone
Beauty remains in even a half remembered dawn
And I’m shocked by the future
How little I know will be
And the stories you used to tell
No longer comfort me
What an incredible human journey
What an incredible human journey
What an incredible...
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea
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11. |
Coda
03:07
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Light a candle baby
Run a bath as a star implodes
Do that thing that makes me smile, babe...
Run a bath as a star implodes
[Without love a clanging cymbal be]
[See there on the hill, see...]
What does love feel like?
[At first..it’s a wonderful balloon]
[But when the blossoms bloom
Then they can go their own way]
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The Magic Lantern London, UK
The Magic Lantern is the musical moniker of singer-songwriter Jamie Doe
His fourth album
'A Reckoning Bell' written and recorded while helping to care for his father with Alzheimers disease, see's The Magic Lantern exploring what loss can teach us about love and how love's small acts give a life meaning.
His new album is due for release in October.
... more
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