Get all 10 Kathie Touin releases available on Bandcamp and save 25%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of The Falling Keep Falling, People Keep Dancing Here, All I Am Is Here, In The Bleak Midwinter (2022), There's A Wireless Station Down In My Heart, This Time (Save The World?), Facing The Falling Sky, Dark Moons & Nightingales, and 2 more.
1. |
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BLADES BEYOND THE BOUNDARIES
Are there no deep dark secrets about you
Do you wear your thorns on the inside
If you open up will nothing scare me
Could you be a place where I could hide
Is there nothing here but softness
No cutting words to wound my soul
Are there blades within the boundaries
An open hand become a slap to stop me cold
How do you know
How much fear insulates you
The feelings that make you shut down
How do you turn
The fears of years standing
When they're all so demanding
To put you down
Shut you down
Can I trust your hand to be there when I reach
Are you pulling out the carpet as I come near
Do I need to find support for when you let go
Can I trust that I'll come home and find you here
Alone
How do you know
How much fear insulates you
The feelings that make you shut down
How do you turn
The fears of years standing
When they're all so demanding
To put you down
Shut you down
All I want is to throw myself in deep
All I want is to be the one you want to keep
How do you know
How much fear insulates you
The feelings that make you shut down
How do you turn
The fears of years standing
When they're all so demanding
How do you know
How much fear insulates you
The feelings that make you shut down
How do you turn
The fears of years standing
When they're all so demanding
To put you down
Shut you down
To put you down
Shut you down
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2. |
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THE WORLD AND YOU (GREEN MAN)
You are my green man
My little bit of wild in the city
You are the sunlight on a leaf
That keeps me rooted to the ground
You are the bird against the sky
That teaches me to love what I have found
You found me in the forest
Tangled in the brambles and the briars
I brought you stones and rain
And the smoke from Beltane fires
You give me love and grace
And guide me through the worry and the wonder
You love me for my wyrd ways
And hold me through the thunder
We show each other paths
That lead through sunlight and through shade
And while you're walking here beside me
I will never feel afraid
A hand so strong
A touch so soft
The world and you
This is enough
You found me waiting for you
Dressed in stars and velvet black
I left the forest for this island
I have all that I could ask
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3. |
Back To California
04:20
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BACK TO CALIFORNIA
Bold as brass that sky above
such a tired, washed-out blue
If you say you miss the rain
they look at you strange
must be something wrong with you
Devil winds howl through canyons now
almost all year-round
and I don't miss the dust
or those winds I couldn't trust
or the shakiness of the ground
So where have all the redwinged blackbirds flown
and where have all the tumbleweeds blown
Are October skies still that brilliant blue
I might miss them, but I don't miss you
and I don't want to go back to California
Sunset driving down the Grapevine,
poppies spread 'cross the hills like wildfire
squinting hard against the sunlight
burning my eyes
I'm hot and sweaty and tired
But I've come to say goodbye at least one more time
to the dry and sun-baked place I used to live
'Cause I need clouds and rain to wash away my pain
and a softer light than this sun can give
Looking down from high above
the ocean dazzles, diamond and blue
but those wide-open spaces
and wild places
have disappeared from view
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4. |
The Breaking Of The Day
03:30
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THE BREAKING OF THE DAY
And I know you
at the breaking of the day
so close to me
yet miles away
Did I not try hard enough
I just wasn't strong
I didn't trust you
Did I wait too long
And now we fly
on a separate path
in a cloudless sky
with no way back
And I miss you
like I've missed a lifetime
no second chance
no words, no rhyme
Do you know how you run so deep
I can't escape you
even in my sleep
Just a word or a song
from a stranger's lips
and I relive
every touch, every kiss
We came so far
we got so close
but the world pulled us apart
and swallowed us whole
But I stay tangled
and the thread remains
but I cannot reach you
and I can't disengage
Do you still think of me
how I was that day
I turned my back on love
and walked away
And I know you
at the breaking of the day
so close to me
yet miles away
Forever I will breathe you
forever we will be
at the breaking of the day
you're forever part of me
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5. |
Little Bit Of Blue
03:54
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LITTLE BIT OF BLUE
There isn't much that I can find here
It's all shadows and echoes and images
Of all the things I thought I knew
All that keeps me focused
On that little bit of blue
The sky is cracked
along the grey and the black
Keep looking up
Keep looking up
That window where the sun breaks through
A quick reveal, that little bit of blue
I've told you you could search for days
And only find starlight and dark moons and nightingales
Only you know what you have been through
The thing you held on for
That little bit of blue
But sometimes we meet in the centre
Hands reach for hands and we touch as if right on cue
And everything that keeps us together
We find in each other's eyes
That little bit of blue
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6. |
It May Rain
04:35
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IT MAY RAIN
Another step, another mile
So far to go before I smile
But it will be there at the end
I can almost see it around the bend
The path is dark, the way is long
I used to know it, used to be strong
So much has happened in this down time
With no words written, and nothing rhymed
It's light and elusive
And you choose how you live
Gossamer yet strong as steel
Don't let the sky tell you how to feel
It may rain
Moving through currents of time
Looking back at cruel and kind
Moments that pushed you out
Let you crash-land in fear and doubt
Great strides and deep breaths
Deep footprints and gentle tread
Silence, cacophony
Science or anarchy
Sunlight glancing through the trees
Reveals the places I need to be
And I can take whatever's mine
Be it here or now or the rest of time
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7. |
Bruised Again
03:55
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BRUISED AGAIN
Not again she said
I thought I'd closed that stupid door
That keeps on swinging open
I've walked into it so often before
Thought I was through
And out the other side
But I guess that I lied
She told me
Bruised again
Not again she sighed
That careful reopening of a wound
That took so long to close
When it couldn't heal too soon
Thought it was over
Relieved it was done
But it's once again begun
She told me
Bruised again
Returning, still burning
Dormant or unstoked coals
A circle turning inside this yearning
For contact, connection from soul to soul
And it's been going on so long
Something so hard must surely be wrong
It's an embrace that goes on just a little too long
Till it's hard to know
Just when to let go
Not again, she shouted
My ears are ringing from the quiet
That is all I pull around me
What I won't give up just yet
Thought we were through
And beyond these tides
But one of us lied
She touched me
Bruised again
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8. |
Season Of The Raven
04:24
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SEASON OF THE RAVEN
The wind blew open a hidden door
no one noticed had been there before
bird flew in, covered in rain
season of the raven began again
On a soft spring morning
he came without warning
eyes of jet and hair of obsidian
he seemed to spring from the very earth
sang of returning to the land of his birth
his hands held flowers, vines covered the towers
hearts were opened and knew how to love again
Sunlight surrounded him
the fields all turned golden
those dark eyes of his gathered everything in
the sun stood high in the summer sky
on warm dry winds he circled high
his hands held a wheat sheaf, scattering dry leaves
the days are closing and nights drawing in again
The trees shine in gold red
winds whisper what he said
the night like the moon on a raven's wing
the thin veils are parting, leaves are falling
autumn lies waiting, migrating birds calling
his hands held the answer, this wind and sky dancer
and opened the old ways again
The snow lies deep around
weighs heavy on the ground
everywhere white but the black of his eyes
the world lies sleeping, holding its breath
waiting for springtime to end its rest
his hands held against the night
clinging to dawn's pale light
and circle around, begin again
The wind blew open a hidden door
no one had noticed had been there before
bird flew in, covered in rain
season of the raven began again...
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9. |
The Solace Of Birds
03:44
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THE SOLACE OF BIRDS
The solace of birds is a trust that hurts
It's something so small you could crush it with a sigh
It will stay there and hold fast
Secure in the knowledge
That to damage one feather would make your soul die
The solace of birds is a freedom that flies
When everything else is weighed down to the ground
By the petty and paltry, the day to day meanness
It's the hope that you cling to
The escape you have found
And I don't have wings
And I'm scared of heights
I'm allergic to feathers
And I don't like to fly
But the trust and the freedom
Can still lift me out of me
And when touched by such things
There's no need to ask why
The solace of birds I often take with me
When swallowed by city, drowning in crowds
There I find solitude alone in the multitude
There I find silence in a world that's too loud
The frailty of birds is belied by their swiftness
Just try to follow when they fly past the sun
And never you mind
The distances travelled through
Whatever the journey, it's only begun
And I don't have wings
And I'm scared of heights
I'm allergic to feathers
And I don't like to fly
But swiftly I'm taken
Again lifted out of me
When touched by such things
There's no need to ask why
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10. |
Indelible
03:55
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INDELIBLE
You're unshiftable
You lie like bedrock
A river running through me
A theme endlessly repeating
I can't shift you
You've always been here
A part of everything I am
Brilliant, infuriating man
Why can't I write this song
I've been trying for so long
It just won't seem to end
I get it done and it begins again
I fled the darkness
I was afraid of
The light was bright and blinding
But the shadow was so frightening
Blunted by the hardness
Headaches from the wall
Torn to pieces by your silence
And bewildered by your absence
I, I don't want to return
I can't believe there's anything left to learn
But I could use an ending
Just some sign my soul is mending
You're etched into me
Indelible
But I could hold this close inside
If I could only get a kiss goodbye
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11. |
Earthquake Weather
04:33
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EARTHQUAKE WEATHER
The sky is lemon yellow, dirty ochre
It's stiller than it has a right to be
And everything is hazy, holding its breath
Feels like earthquake weather to me
You're sitting there stony-faced again
Right next to me but miles away it seems
I can't decide if I should stand my ground or go
Feels like earthquake weather to me
And everything could shift at any moment
How can I trust the floor when it won't stay still
And everything I counted on
Relied upon, depended on
Seems to scatter like the dust clouds on the hills
When the days seem set and certain
You say you've seen all there is to see
I say there's a world out there, horizon to horizon
Looks like earthquake weather to me
And everything is still and waiting
No breeze to blow this lurid sky away
I hang onto the world in case it slips sideways again
Feels like earthquake weather today
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12. |
Still Life
03:32
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STILL LIFE
I'm a flowerless vase
Mourning its loss of orchids and roses
Never knew I could feel so empty
Without you somewhere near me
And everything smelled so good
Not like here where it smells
Of paper pulp and acid rain
And everything felt so good
Not like now where it all feels as if it's gone away again
I'm the book you left behind
With its pages creased, dog-eared and tattered
You didn't stay to see how it ends
I'm the car abandoned on the road
Not worth fixing, nothing left to salvage
Memories tucked behind the seats
And every scratch and dent and rusted seam
One by one
they come along and leave again
One more season
Of wind and fog and rain
I'm the soul you left behind
All hollow eyes and no surprises
And I don't miss you anymore
Except sometimes in the morning
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13. |
The Dark Season
02:49
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THE DARK SEASON
It's a time for going in
To find where all our endings begin
It's the time we lose the sun
And all that's stopped
Has only just begun
Black nights bring cold winds
The year turns and seems to slow
We pull in close and staring out
We leave the open air and move below
Days move through swiftly now
But night time pulls them down again
The winter can seem so harsh
But its gift is to let us look within
Huddle close, enjoy the fire
Images found to inspire
Take the time that's handed you
Emerge in spring to start anew
The snow is like a gentle blanket
Icicles splinter the sun
Only now is the sky so blue
Another year's worth of work is done
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14. |
Left
03:55
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LEFT
How can this be all
that I have left of you
You were only here
A moment ago
Just memories and unsung dreams
And scents and sounds I almost catch
If I could only gather it all
Would it bring you back
How could you leave
When everything was so fine
How can I grieve
When you still feel like mine
How can something make me cry
By being dusty
That fingerprint upon it
Would be yours
What am I to do with everything
That's left of you
In closets, wardrobes, cupboards
And chests of drawers
How can I sleep when there's
A hole here where you were
Why do I dream if I only dream of you
How can I go on when
The door shut so hard on us
And left me here not
Knowing what to do
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15. |
Home
03:52
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HOME
I want to make a home
I'd build it beautiful and strong
To keep the rain out
And the sunlight in
'cause I don't want to move again
I want to make a home
One that would last my whole life long
To keep love in
And keep fear out
'cause I know what that's all about
And it would stand
Beneath a sky of blue
And it could shelter
Both me and you
And we could make it all our own
And call it home
I want to make a home
To hold all these precious things
To keep them safe
Not let them slip away
'cause I might need them all someday
Let's build a better place
And call it home
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ORCADIA (WIND, SEA & SKY)
There's an island in my head
and I'm not sure why
It crept in through that wide-open sky
Skylarks sing when I close my eyes
high against summer's long light
Wind, sea and sky
are calling me to return
to sand and stone
loch and burn
wind, sea and sky
There's an island in my head
I can hear the sea sigh
It washed into me bringing seaweed and brine
Waves crash when I close my eyes
Sliding me in on the tide
Sea and sand and stone and strand
grass and sky and birds that fly
seal and light and summer twilight
and the wind and the storm and the warning
You will return
and the calling
Return, return, return, return
There's an island in my head
I'm not sure how it got there
it must have blown in on that crystal clear air
It sings through my blown-about hair
pushing me to go back there
Wind, sea and sky
are calling me to return
to sand and stone
curlew and tern
wind, sea and sky
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17. |
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MUSIC IN SEARCH OF A FILM
(Instrumental track)
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Kathie Touin Scotland, UK
linktr.ee/kathietouin
Singer/songwriter from California, now living in Scotland's Orkney Islands. Kathie writes, arranges, produces and records her music from her own Starling Recording Studio.
Kathie Touin recommends:
Orkney at Dawn
by The Birds of Orkney
Amazing recording capturing the sounds of the Orkney Islands at sunrise. Transports you immediately to the shore and moorlands.
go to album
Great band, amazing songs.
go to albumIf you like Kathie Touin, you may also like:
Side By Side (Duets Vol. 1)- Deluxe Version
by AM
featured on Bandcamp Radio Jul 30, 2013
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These delicate little pieces from throughout Arovane's career bring a sense of tenderness to the idea of transitory space.
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A stunner—dense, richly textured electronic music with songs that crackle like mysterious outer space transmissions.
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Anton Belov’s “Piano Works” feel composed in low light, their fragile melodies summoning a sense of mystery.
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