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Penny Orchids

by Penny Orchids

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    "Lucinda" compact disc with trifold inlay

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1.
Lucinda 06:49
Lucinda was a girl I'm told Her hair was black and her heart was cold Her lips were red and her eyes were dark She lived in an old amusement park I've heard folk say in the dead of night She roams the scaffold neon lights. Looking for her home Lucinda was a girl I saw Her hair was red and her heart was raw Her nails were black and her eyes were green She was old at 17 She walked one night in the evening air To the carousel at the boardwalk fair She never made it home Lucinda vanished late one June On a balmy night and a harvest moon On her way to meet an older man Or a college boy in an old Trans-Am She slammed the door, did not look back Hurried down the dusty track She never made it home Lucinda was a girl I met In a '55 Blue Flame Corvette Her eyes were brown and her hair distressed She told me she was headed west She gunned the engine to the floor And disappeared for evermore She never made it home Lucinda cast a shadow black They found her down by the railroad track On the wonder wheel, on the ghost train ride In the ebb and flow of the sunset tide On the carousel, in the old arcade On the Santa Clara esplanade She never made it home Lucinda was a girl I knew. Her hair was blond and her eyes were blue Her heart was warm and her smile was wide They found her on the ghost train ride. I've heard folk say on a quiet day You can hear her cries from miles away Finding her way home
2.
Travis Hedges was born at sea In for a life of infamy To a girl from a dusty market town In a torn and soiled bridal gown As the seas leapt up and the waves crashed down Sought his fortune in London Town At a trading post of world renown Sold golden eggs from a market stall Then journeyed beyond the city's walls and Founded the town of Bedford Falls He founded Camden's finest zoo The sort of thing boys ought to do And filled it with the wildest beasts From north and west and south and east Then set them free on day release Travis filled a room with balloons To capture April's fullest moon He launched a lasso to the night Brought down the moon with all his might And locked it up, as was his right Thought of him the other day When his oldest foe done passed away No longer know where he resides Somewhere out beyond the tides Take your glasses one and all A toast to mighty Travis's call We'll come running when he shouts And follow him into the mouth And never ever ever shall we doubt They say his father a psiren met And tore his body from his head But not before the seed was sewn That made young Travis fully grown His legend carved in living stone Travis climbed a mountain high And poked great Zeus in the eye Then got drunk on Roman wine Just to pass the evening time With Aphrodite's daughters fine
3.
Tattoo Flash 04:13
When Tattoo Flash was young and brash he was sent to meet the jailer I've heard it said he killed him dead and was sentenced to hard labour In 1810 with other bad men, board the Neptune to Australia He returned one spring as a different thing on the body of a sailor Now the sailor's name was Steven, a lad from Plymouth town He'd retained his innocence though he sailed the world around In Singapore he went ashore to mark his skin with art The piece he chose was sinister but Steven thought it smart It took two weeks for the piece to heal, in that time Steven changed He turned from an innocent sailing boy, to be bitter and deranged When they cast him off in China, the crew was ten men down Steven Smith had killed them all, then terrorised the town I am dust I am bones I am ink on your skin I am evil and wrong and insane I am lines in a book won't you give me a look I am ink in your blood and your brain Once there was a parlour near the new York city port A man named Sam O'Reilly was the artist they all sought The guvnor tattooed customers who'd come from far and wide People from the boroughs, people swept in on the tide When people came into the shop without a clear idea O'Reilly showed them pieces he'd collected down the years And so it came to pass he inked a man from Illinois Who ended up a murdering a hundred orphan boys In Jamaica, in Japan, in Korea and Bhutan In New Zealand and Samoa and a hundred other lands In a dusty book of work there lurks a glimpse of darker times And woe betide the bastard who is drawn to that design When Tattoo Flash was five years old, his daddy held him still And marked the flesh of his innocent boy With an evil as old as the hills
4.
Got a suitcase in my brain And a raven in my hand My thoughts ran out the door And my hands are flecked with blood Since you were everything to me I’m grieving all the time My carousel flight eyes No sharper than a butter knife My legs are out of stock And my hair has said good night Since you were always the focus I’m crying like a child Hold me down Hold me down til I’m gone They said that I was cured But in this room I’m just preserved Late at night when I’m alone The years how they’ve flown Since you were everything too me But I never got your name Hold me down Hold me down like I held you down
5.
Dybbuk 04:01
I’m just an idea roaming the land And everywhere I go, I’m a different man Looking at the world through different eyes The flesh is the best disguise Living a life that is not my own Trapped in a body, all alone Seeking to put right what once went wrong With a feeling that I don’t belong I don’t know what I did Or what I didn’t do What I wouldn’t do to be with you again And in my own skin I had a sweetheart in my old life We couldn’t be parted with a switchblade knife But now I exist on a different plane I may never see her again We had a love that was strong and sound Perfect kids and a basset hound A great big house with a picket fence Now we live in a different tense Oh how I hate that I’m on this track Oh how I long for my old life back Oy gevolt! How I curse these bones And a constant stream of clones. But there’s a girl who I met this week Makes me glad of my new physique When she smiles, I am someone new A man with a brighter view It was all going fine Until I fell for her Now I long to stay in this new life of mine And not my old skin
6.
Well you're drunk and you're dressed In your Sunday best By the grave on burial day Folks say that you're coasting Cos you're brazenly boasting The deceased was a beast anyway Now they say they need closure And demand your composure For the generous man we have lost But the truth they've contrived How he touched all our lives Is a crock I would mock and riposte Now you're shaking maracas as they shovel the dirt Playing the trumpet as they're sullen and hurt And your melody's lilting while their dreams are left wilting And you dance as their rhythms are cut-off and curt Now you're drunk and you're dressed In your Sunday best The day after burial day And you're no longer coasting Cos you're tipsily toasting Here's to pissing your whole life away Now you're sober but you're swaying While your host lies decaying Still hellbent on causing a scene But the moment has finished And your prospects diminished And it's only yourself you demean
7.
The town is fed on lonely souls My body is out with the flowers Smiling down on house and garden Put in the grave you left behind So mute the vase and love the vase Love the vase and love, love god Save me Hold me My heart aches I know It’s a world for you The times we’d leave in old boats and sorrow Mutated for tomorrow It’s all old guard you know where to put it It fits all wrong so go on and stick it You love the vase and hate all wrong Your god’s out of luck you can’t go on I must replace my hand in the glove It’s too late now the wheel’s come off The wheel Shut

credits

released December 16, 2012

1, 3, 5 & 6 written by Dom Green
4 & 7 written by Sam Astley
2 written by Dom Green, Peter Adams & John Willshire
All songs arranged by Penny Orchids

Tom Harrison - drums
Dom Green - bass & vocals
Sam Astley - vocals & guitar
Kate Dornan - piano, organ & vocals
Phil Whaite - saxophone, whistle & vocals


Trumpet on Dybbuk: Melissa Reardon
Engineer: Bob Earland
Alchemy: Dave Draper
Mixing: Dom Green
Cover art: Phil Whaite
Cover story: Tom Harrison
Cover photo: A Secret Picnic

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Penny Orchids UK

tall tales, tragedies, cheap sideshow distractions

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