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Onliness (songs of solitude & singularity)

by Josienne Clarke

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  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    17 track compact disc (15 tracks + 2 Bonus tracks)
    Includes Full Lyric/Photo 8 Page Booklet

    Includes unlimited streaming of Onliness (songs of solitude & singularity) via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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    edition of 120  5 remaining
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  • Onliness Smokey Marble Effect 12" Vinyl
    Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    15 Track heavyweight Smokey Marble Effect Vinyl 12" + 2 Track Bonus 7"
    Includes Art Print & Full Lyric Inner Sleeve

    Includes unlimited streaming of Onliness (songs of solitude & singularity) via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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1.
Footsteps on the cold ground Lead straight to your door And the birds in my tangled tree Sing of love but call to war Beautiful birds are not meant to be caged You should have been true to your wings You should have flown away So left my tangled tree That once bore strong branches and leaves of green But how cruel and inevitable the passing of time can be This tangled tree Watched every inch of its majesty fade With fall of every leaf It always seemed to call me The crooked stoop, the bend and swoop Of its complicated beauty They cut it up to burn it down Bright lights rise out and over the fire
2.
Only Me Only 02:23
Live on the turn of the tide Ever to burrow but never to hide Always the tears in the edge of my eyes Delivering truth of the live and let lie Rivers that never run dry Fed from this bleeding heart of mine Suffer the scratching thorn in my side Ever the itching of precious pride Lament of the lonely The lost all along Only me only can carry them on This heart is so heavy I wish I was strong Only me only the only one The left of the living In suffering song The weft of the weaving, perceiving it strong The burning and stinging in heat from the sun Forever in turning for never undone The tide in the morning is nearly gone Its lilting and leaving till back it comes The birds are all winging the dawn is done It’s only me singing the only one
3.
If it were a flower It would not be a rose And if it were a bird Would be fast on wings away from home And if it were a tree Down in the deep dark its roots would be But if it were a flower It would not be a rose If it were a room Would be one with corners lost in gloom And if it were a song Would be sung with a slow and plaintive tune And if it were a face Would contain a sadness you couldn’t place But if it were a flower It would not be a rose If it were the sea Would rise-up, swell and swallow me And if it were my heart Would fill up full and fall apart And if it were the ground Would pull me in without a sound But if it were a flower It would not be a rose
4.
Ghost Light 04:14
Open my mouth to speak Nothing comes out I don’t want you To think that I don’t want you We’re all afraid of the dark We all believe ours is the weakest heart I don’t want you To think that I don’t want you But nothing I could say Would save the fading stars so far away I want to think that love conquers all I want to say that hope helps at all I don’t want you To think that I don’t want you There’s a breaking in the beating of my heart Can’t bear to watch the world fall apart I don’t want you To think that I don’t want you Whatever I could say Would it be the light from stars that already died away
5.
Silverline 03:09
For a long time now I’ve wanted to say Something to lighten your load, brighten your day But there aren’t the words for the colours I see The patterns the change won’t stay the same And somehow my view is always imbued with melancholia hues At dusk and at dawn Moments to wonder but somehow to mourn These moments they pass to never return Melt into nostalgia as my memory yearns For each pound of joy there’s an ounce of regret If the sun rises you know it will set So I’m taking it down to tuck it away Saving some sunshine for my rainy day And I’m trying to find that silverline That runs through the clouds that collect in my skies
6.
Bells Ring 02:27
Our love is a pendulum swing We are two bells with alternate rings In the sequence of high and low You’ll be the other side of wherever I go Forever repeating The only tune you know The other side of whatever I know Never resolving Hanging in the air A pendulum swinging My here, your there Our love is like bells ring, bells ring Sweet and sad The pull of the longing, longing, longing Is all we have
7.
It was something familiar Like the sound of the sea I forgot I remembered Like some lost part of me It was only a flicker It was barely a trace Only there for a second and then gone from your face Like the wayward tide still tethered to the shore The thought just pulled me back to before I wouldn’t say I was lonely But I know we’re alone And my mind clings to memory like a heart to home Reflections at sundown can make me so sad For there’s no way of keeping the day we’ve just had
8.
Like morning dew frozen where it fell If you longed for love little you could tell Is it just the birds and the blues of the wintertime Is it just the birds and the blues? It draws you down back under its spell And it churns you and turns the pearl out from the shell Is it just the birds and the blues of the wintertime Is it just the birds and the blues? You try to take some sunlight for this side But you cannot break the turning of the tide Is it just the birds and the blues of the wintertime Is it just the birds and the blues? Is it just the birds and the blues
9.
I’ve a heartache, it’s something that I make And no matter what I take it won’t go away For it’s like I need it and somehow believe in it And it keeps me going, along the wrong way Yeah it’s my hard homemade heartache that keep me awake And I should release you but I still hold on to So sure I can feel you slipping away And then all my racing will turn into chasing With all fires a blazing till it’s all burned away Yeah it’s my hard homemade heartache that keeps you away But I’ll learn my lesson no amount of aggression No pushing and pressing will get you to stay I just hope that you want to and feel you belong to Someone who wants you everyday And hope that my hard homemade heartache Won’t scare you away And hope that my hard homemade heartache Won’t scare you away
10.
Chicago 03:42
It’s lucky I learned young You’ve got to turn the other cheek I knew before I had begun I’d have to earn the right to speak It’s not Chicago’s fault that no one came to see me play It’s not the rain that ruined the parade The cookie’s gonna crumble and money’s gonna burn So make your peace with failure, a lesson that you learn You’re gonna look foolish as the sun is in the sky Some if it is painful and you’re gonna have to try But you wouldn’t trade it for all that glitters gold You only went and made it despite what you were told It’s not Chicago’s fault that no one came to see my show You sing the best you can and then you let it go That cookie’s gonna crumble and money’s gonna burn You make your peace with failure, an early lesson that you learn You’re gonna look foolish as the sun is in the sky Some if it is painful and you’re gonna have to try But you wouldn’t trade it for all they’d offer you You sing and play and make things for that is all that you can do
11.
That song plays and my heart actually aches I need a guarantee Though I detailed all the things I didn’t need And turns out I’m weaker than I would care to seem Come to me this is enough Before I turn my head and it disappears to dust What have you done to me, what will this do? Now I cannot think of anything but you That song plays and my heart actually aches I need a guarantee And it turns out there’s weaker man in me And his need more than I would have believed Come to me this is enough Though I cannot give you anything but love What have you done to me what can I do? To show you I’m the only one for you? Come to me this is enough Though I cannot give you anything but love What have you done to me how can I be? The only man that you will need?
12.
There’s a ringing in my ears There’s a taste tart on my tongue There’s a weight to the tears As my heart takes the air from my lungs As the light in my eyes Shines on all I thought I’d disguised I’m so scared I’m not brave What in me am I trying to save? And you say you want to be bathed in light There’s a doubt in my mind I’m the one that will get left behind That I’ll write every day, but no one cares to hear what I say That I’ll stand and I’ll sing but no one will be moved to join in That I’ve lost all I’ve got, all it was that it turns out I’m not And you say you want to be bathed in light Yeah, you say you want to be bathed in light It’s too late to go back now my destiny’s tied to this track I’ve no love nor nought else an end of this is no start of myself I’m too old, I can’t change, I’ve no life made to be rearranged I don’t know what I’d do, just die dreaming of singing to you And you say you want to be bathed in light Yeah, you say you want to be bathed in light
13.
I’d go back if I could Take you down and bury you in the woods Steal your past and erase it if I could Don’t think I wouldn’t, I would For how dare you love anyone but me How could you love anyone but me Like a captive I would keep you chained Keep every moment in every single day And every person who’s ever meant a thing to you I’d erase them that’s what I would I do For how dare you love anyone but me How could you love anyone but me And this madness what am I thinking of? So destructive for my love I’m a coward and I’m trying not to scream “oh you traitor what have you done to me?” For how dare love anyone but me How could you love anyone but me And I’ve seen you laughing in the light I see it over and over every night And it’s torture to think of you with them instead And it hurts no less for being only in my head For how dare love anyone but me How could you love anyone but me
14.
I never learned French Like I said I would Never returned your call That book you gave me is still on the shelf I forgot about others and remembered myself I worried my parents when I didn’t come home To scared and to lazy to pick up the phone And I’ve sung the tune and forgotten the words And I let love languish and others be hurt
15.
Done 03:50
I've been mining for gold But only finding tin, glinting in the sun light Now it is leaving dirt in my hands like only the truth can Maybe I am done, done, done So please don’t look at me, no more Your eyes burn like the sun Oh now I am done, done, done To you I’m a strange girl An adorable fool Who's full to the brim of nothing you need Is my sincerity such a surprise Cause you just don’t find it nowhere, no more? Be honest with yourself You can't forget me ‘cause I’m like nobody else But you don’t know what to make of me I am just too much But somehow not enough So please don’t stare at me, no more Your eyes burn like the sun And oh how I’m done, done, done Yes I am a strange girl An adorable fool And full to the brim of nothing you need
16.
Workhorse 03:22
I think it was a Tuesday It was dark There was something that I needed But I couldn’t ask Cos I don’t know how to love me The way that I should But lately I’ve been learning I don’t have to be good I don’t have to earn I can be I’m not your workhorse Or your busy bee And I won’t be your cash cow Now I will be the one If I’m making money Then I want some I think it was the lying And how it felt I tired of the standards Applied to nobody else I am going to love me The way that you should Lately I’ve been learning That I could I don't have to earn it I can be I don't have to give you things You don't give me I don't have to carry everyone If I'm going to give love Then I want some I think it was a Tuesday It was dark If there's something that I need now I will ask
17.
Words were never the answer Resplendently recondite they are It’s just a way to tolerate the universal pain of simply living A smouldering sun over a swelling sea Upon my tongue in adequate poetry Now somehow belongs to me Thought I could write it off, stop the sky falling What could I control? But I know now how little words hold Imaginary meaninglessly lovely Summarily succinctly all I know Which words to let go

about

Today, indie-folk artist Josienne Clarke has announced her new album Onliness (songs of solitude & singularity) will be released on April 14th, 2023. On her new album, Clarke revisits songs from her back catalogue, a combination of fan favourites as well as hidden gems that have, until now, never had the spotlight she felt they deserved. The first single, out today, is a reworked and re-recorded version of one of her earliest compositions, ‘The Tangled Tree’.

Following the release of her 2021 album – A Small Unknowable Thing – Josienne began thinking about the idea of reclamation. Cutting her teeth in an industry that so often works against the artist it's supposed to support – and with a lingering idea in the wake of Taylor Swift’s ‘Taylor’s Version’ project – Josienne began revisiting the songs in her back catalogue that felt buried somehow, for myriad reasons. She took some of those songs and started playing around with them, viewing them from the place she was now, in charge of every little detail, free to do what she truly wanted with them.

Of her new album, Josienne says:

“Artists are constantly required to create new content, this content is consumed in the short term and forgotten about. When a big label owns the masters of your songs forever you earn little to nothing from those recordings, it’s not surprising that an artist would have to explore re-recording from a financial standpoint alone. I’ve found that it’s no longer financially viable for me not to revisit material, even being a prolific songwriter it’s just not sustainable for me in the long term.

But there is also a creative argument to reworking material. Great songs can wear a variety of interpretations and perhaps the idea of one definitive recording is a bit rigid and reductive. Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy has been revisiting his own songs, reworking and re-presenting them wonderfully over and again throughout his career. Anais Mitchell’s XOA is on constant rotation in my house and I love the reframing of songs I know from her other projects in that stripped back simplified setting. So it’s not a new idea, or one that’s exclusive to me, but it’s a much more creative endeavour with much more for the listener to gain than a consumerist driven ‘best of’ compilation.”

Released in the Spring of 2023, some five years after she left her contract with Rough Trade, Onliness is both a wholesome project and a spellbinding work in its own right. Opening with one of her earliest compositions – ‘The Tangled Tree’ – and closed by a brand-new song, it presents a career retrospective viewed through a new lens and is comprised of reworked versions of fan favourites and hidden gems from a back catalogue that always glimmered even when the noise around it was at its most imposing.

‘The Tangled Tree’ is a song Josienne wrote back in 2004 and one that she considers very important. “I wrote that song so long ago, I always liked the guitar part I’d written. I never felt like a great guitarist, but it was mine, and I lost that over the years when I stopped playing it,” she explains. “Now I’ve put it on an electric guitar with some distortion at the edges, and I’m playing it exactly how I want to play it. Going back and reclaiming that, and playing it myself, felt like it captures the spirit of this whole project.”

credits

released April 14, 2023

All songs written & composed by Josienne Clarke
Arranged by Josienne Clarke
Produced by Josienne Clarke

Josienne Clarke: Vocals, Guitars, Piano (The Birds), Saxophone

Matt Robinson: Keyboards, Harmonium, Piano
Dave Hamblett: Drums
Alec Bowman_Clarke: Bass
Mary Ann Kennedy: Harp

Nick Turner: Recording
Mike Hillier: Mixing & mastering

Recorded at Watercolour Studios, Fort William

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Josienne Clarke Isle Of Bute, UK

Songwriter/Singer 'Onliness (songs of solitude & singularity)'
Out 14.4.23 on Corduroy Punk Records

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