Get all 11 Migrant Birds releases available on Bandcamp and save 20%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of My Honest Face — Deluxe Edition, Eveline, Stonewall // Asherah, The Debt, Winters Like These, Feel It All, Lay It Down, Shade Grown, and 3 more.
1. |
Lay It Down
03:40
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Come on, little sister, and lay your burdens down
The lamp is in the window, the seeds are in the ground
I've got room for healing and you've got room for change
So come on and open up the doors, let the sun light in again
Come on and lay it down
Come on and lay it down
Come on, mama winter, I wanna hear you sing
We'll sing a song of dying, lay down your life with me
We'll come up from the river, we'll come up hand in hand
And I'll kiss you in the morning and let the sun light in again
Come on and lay it down
Come on and lay it down
Come on, brother shepherd, that armor's not for you
Go on and put that sword away, now what you trying to prove?
It's not about the giant or the battle or the sling
'Cause when you're picking guitar, boy, the demons have to flee, I said
Come on and lay it down
Come on and lay it down
Come on and lay it down
Come on and lay it down
Glory, hallelujah, I see the coming of the King
His feet are in the garden, His hands are on the suffering
There's treasure in this clay bank just waiting to be found,
And I ain't got much to trade for it, but come on let's lay it down
Come on and lay it down
Come on and lay it down
Come on and lay it down
Come on and lay it down
I've been carrying this weight
I don't need this shame
I'm laying down my burdens
I'm laying down my pride
Come on and lay it down
Come on and lay it down
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2. |
Three Strand Cord
04:29
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I cut away down through the mountains
A trail of dust through trees of pine
In search of gold or youthful fountain
But found not treasure, truth nor time
But in my search I found a friendship
A bond as a three-stranded cord
And in the company and kinship
I set my strings and I smithed my words
I’m going home to ease my ramblin’
Upon my grave I make my pledge
I’m going home to see my family
And rest my feet at the fire’s edge
I dressed myself to fit the picture
I chalked my hands to earn my bread
But through those years I heard the whisper
“This ain’t your home” is all it said
So I’m going home beyond the breakers
I’ve got my fingers on the ledge
I’m going home to meet my Maker
And wrestle there at the water’s edge
Let’s drag the pen across the pages
The tape is spinning on the track
Can’t say we’re made of the stock of ages
But this three-strand cord will bridge the gap
The moment’s now, the past is splintered
The future’s out ahead of us
I’d rather rue the past remembered
Than think of all that never was
So I’m going home to wooded acres
I’m going home my songs to dredge
I’m going home to meet my Maker
And rest my feet at the fire’s edge
I’m going home to meet my Maker
And wrestle there at the water’s edge
Winter descends, the weeks I’m countin’
Till down the coast again I’ll ride
I’m going home to the Blue Ridge Mountains
To where my family reside
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3. |
Chalk Peddler
04:30
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I come peddling chalk
Foreign tongues to talk
Tales of distant deserts and the mountains I have walked
Patches at my elbows and my knees
Boxes full of books and melodies
My fingers on the frets begin to freeze
In Spain there are no winters like these
Now I’m tugged between
The figs that I could be
A prophet or a poet or a ship tugged out to sea
But the Massachusetts winter bites deep
I can see the wild ocean in my sleep
I don’t know how long these melodies will keep
Yeah the road to limelight microphones is steep
Doubting won’t relent
The future seems a threat
And I’m trying to read the ending to a book not written yet
If he should want to be a writer let him write
Or track the whistling robin in its flight
Close the lonely stage on Monday
There are battles aplenty left to fight
But oh I say that it will never be my choice
To clench my jaw, surrender up my voice
I will raise my melody above the noise
This chalk will be my crutch, will be my joy
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4. |
Feel It All
04:01
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Well now I hear, I hear the echo of some dream
That I had tucked between the creases of my mind
It is a call, it is a whisper
It is a melody like honey and like vinegar and rain
It is a grainy vinyl record with a familiar old refrain and it sustains
And so I pause, and so I listen
Just like a fox whose fur sticks out against the snow
Till something stirs, something awakens
And wipes the sand of from the corners of its eyes
Before I know it, it has grabbed me like it did a-way back then
I feel it still, I feel it all, I feel it now, oh
I feel it all again
And now it shakes, and now it rumbles like the clouds
A bolt of lightning flashing right before my face
Oh how I run, oh how I stumble like a drunk
Who just can’t seem to quite recall his middle name
And at the power here before me I am mice among these men
I feel it still, I feel it all, I feel it now, oh
I feel it all again
Well the book now tumbles open, and all the memories roll out
The lake, the fire, the rooftops, and the ever-nagging doubts
The years of lost connection and then rekindling within,
I’d locked it all away, but now I feel it all again,
I don’t know
Cause every touch and every whisper is a double-edged blade
And if I take it in the ribs, all of this progress is waylaid
But whether punishment or pleasure,
Can’t have the good without the grim,
I’d rather open to the possible, to fight to sink or swim
Cause I’m in the river pushing towards you and any pain that underpins
I feel it still, I feel it all, I feel it now, oh
I feel it all again
Oh my fate defend me now; I will not answer to these doubts
I’d rather face oblivion than never feel that bruised and battered joy ever again,
yes I’ll feel it all again
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5. |
Trying to Be a Stranger
03:06
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Forgive me, but I’m trying to be a stranger
Forgive me, but the distance masks the anger in my way
Well I tried to find a little spine
To hold the line long enough
To shake you
But it’s a surèd sign with the pass of time
I draw myself up to the line and scream:
“I never told you I loved you.
Should’ve told you I loved you.”
Then maybe, I wouldn’t have to be a stranger
The rest of my days
Oh defend me, ‘cause proximity’s a danger
But within me, still I know I’d never change her, anyway
Yeah it’s not her fault my heart she halts
A drunken waltz that I can’t stop dancing
But when I leave the haze the walls are raised
A labyrinth of wasted days
And oh, there’s no way forward
No path that leads forward
You may hate me, but I’ve got to be a stranger
The rest of my days
And it’s long since you turned me away
Yes, I heard clear the words that you spoke,
But each time that you call it just gives me a shadow of hope
They consume me, all the dirges that I sang her,
But it wounds me to discourage or defang her day by day
And the memory and subtlety
Of self-inflicted atrophy are blinding
So I cut the hook and closed the book,
Refused to take the time it took to burn
But I couldn’t shake you,
Couldn’t ever quite shake you
May sound crazy, but I’ve got to be a stranger
You may hate me, but I’ve got to be a stranger
Still someday maybe,
I won’t have to be a stranger
The rest of my days
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6. |
Nothing to Show
03:25
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Tell me something
Is this the way you wanna go?
Just a feather
Just the shadow of a ghost
Cause I built next to nothing
By the sweat of my brow
Tell me something
Is this what you wanna see?
When you look back
At the sowing of the seeds
Cause I built next to nothing
By the sweat of my brow
And I’ll tell you:
Man, it ain’t easy
Having nothing to show
For nothing
Sit and let the moss grow
Hoping someday when I look back
I won’t call it a waste
But I don’t know
I got nothing to show
Can someone call back and tell
From the years when I’ll rest
If the days that I’m spending here holding my breath,
Well do they add up to something
Or is it just a slow death?
Just a slow death
Cause I built next to nothing
By the sweat of my brow
And I’ll tell you:
Man, it ain’t easy (Nothing to show)
No, it ain’t easy (Let the moss grow)
No, it ain’t easy (Nothing to show)
No, it ain’t easy (Let the moss grow)
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Migrant Birds Winston Salem, North Carolina
Migrant Birds is an indie folk band from Winston-Salem, NC. Their debut album My Honest Face was released on September 29.
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