Living In Skin

by Jason Harrod

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frank armstrong Living in Skin is a perennial favorite of mine. If there was any justice in the world, it would be available as 180gm deluxe gatefold vinyl, sitting right next to Mark Heard’s Second Hand, Luke Brindley’s Crack of Light, and Lyle Lovett’s I Love Everybody. Favorite track: Siobhan.
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  • Full Digital Discography Full Digital Discography

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    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Out in the Fields, Highliner Acoustic, Highliner, Root this Mountain Down (single), Big Black Bear (single), This Land is Your Land (free track), Moon River (single), Living In Skin, and 2 more. , and , .

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1.
04:19
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2.
05:37
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3.
03:14
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4.
03:22
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5.
02:56
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6.
04:37
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7.
03:57
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8.
04:50
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9.
04:44
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about

featuring:

Jason Harrod: guitar, vocals, harmonica
Marjie Alonso: vocals (track 1)
Jake Armerding: violin (tracks 3 and 4)
Ducky Belliveau: pedal steel (track 2)
Jim Cooper: bass (tracks 1 and 6)
Chris Fall: drums (tracks 1 and 6)
Brian Funck: guitar (tracks 1, 6 and 7) vocals (track 7)
Kerry Haps: percussion (tracks 1 and 6)
Claire Holley: vocals (track 9)
Andy Pinkham: keyboard (track 6)

Recorded and mixed by Andy Pinkham at Mortal Music, Boston, MA except tracks 1 and 6, recorded by David Houk at Studio B, Wheaton College, Wheaton IL. Tracks 7 and 9 recorded live at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, MI.

Mastered by Brent Lambert at the Kitchen, Carrboro, NC

Graphic Design by David Kilian, Killer Creative group, Clayton, NC. Cover illustration: detail from "Rome" by Bruce Herman, oil on linen, 1999.

credits

released May 1, 2000

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Jason Harrod Brooklyn, New York

“What singer-songwriter Jason Harrod does best is turn daily moments numinous. Quite simply, Harrod’s imagination is for
this world; he finds deep secrets in ordinary places.” — Image Journal

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Track Name: Siren Song
Woke up this morning, tossed out my cigarettes.
So much empty burning, so much wasted breath.
I think things'd be better back down south, or maybe way out West.
There's nothing I'm sure of, it's just hypothesis.

Late last night I opened my eyes,
The sky was full of fire.
There was a bar of gold underneath my door.
Conversation outside, rising higher and higher and higher.

Like a fool I've missed the voices tickling my ear.
The siren song sounds so sweet and clear, I'm out of here.

I hate the hum and the roar, this mechanized whine,
The city's broken monuments to filth and grime.
I want heather and moss, sunlight and frost,
Oh, I want to get out of it all, I want to get lost.

Like a pool won't you ripple my surface, shake up my frontiers?
The siren song sounds so sweet and clear, I'm out of here.

Leaving won't re-seam the broken places.
But travel is a tonic for the soul.
The city's full of bodies without faces.
And aren't we all just transients on the road?

I'm want to sneak out. I'm want to peek out.
I'm want to scratch and flare like a match in the face of pitch dark death.
I'm want to stretch out. I'm want to reach out.
I'm want to face the Hurricane and match him breath for breath for breath.

Like a fool I missed the voices tickling my ear.
The siren song sounds so sweet and clear, I'm out of here....
Track Name: Waiting For My Day
Mothers and children all around on a Monday morning,
The air is cool and clear.
I am too alone to be part of this suburban scene.
I am just an observer here.

I'm sitting here thinking, "Is this my inheritance?"
This dusty gypsy atmosphere,
This dust I'm breathing in is someone else's skin, not mine.
I grew up far from here.

Today I answered some primal call.
Found myself looking at the sea.
I can never get enough of this big ocean loud and rough
With the sighing sifting melody.

Right here is beauty like I have never known,
And I'm carefully placed here, not some cast away,
But I'm weary and aching for my home,
And I'm waiting for my day.

Longing in starlight,
I'm too stricken to move, too impatient to sit,
At the same time strong and weak.
I am loved enough to be part of this eternal scene.
Thus I am bold enough to speak.

And I say, "I used to read the Bible saying,
'This I know, this I know, this I no longer know,
This I no longer really care.'"
What's that matter anyway, that was yesterday.
Tonight I have belief to spare.
So much belief that I get scared, yeah.

Right here is beauty like I have never known,
And I'm carefully placed here, not some cast away,
But I'm weary and aching for my home,
And I'm waiting for my day.
Track Name: When I Get Home
When I get home, darling, when I get home,
When I get home, darling, don't want to be alone.
Say you'll marry me and be my wife.
I've been waiting, darling, waiting all of my life.

They brought me over, darling, foreign lands.
They brought me over, darling, put a gun in my hands.
They want me to shoot this boy that ain't done me no wrong.
Ain't gonna shoot no more as soon as I get home.

Peaches in the summer time and apples in the fall.
If I can't have you in my arms, don't want no arms at all.
When I get home, darling, when I get home,
Ain't gonna shoot no more as soon as I get home.

Well, I'm gonna throw away this gun and get behind a plow.
Yes I'm gonna throw away this gun and get to you somehow.
When I get home, darling, when I get home,
Ain't gonna shoot no more as soon as I get home.
Track Name: Ferry Man
"Hello," the ferry man calls.
Just fifty cents to get across.
Hear his voice above the wind.
He'll take you there, come back again.

It's hard to see his face by night.
I wonder what the man looks like.
I wonder what the man looks like.

Hey, afraid, what you doing gone?
Hey, afraid, on the road so long.
Do you feel you're left behind?
Find a window with light behind.

It's hard to see his face at night.
I wonder what the man looks like.
I wonder what the man looks like.

And down he goes,
And gone he glides.
Just don't look him in the eyes.

"Hello," the ferry man calls.
Just fifty cents to get across.
Hear his voice above the wind.
He'll take you there, come back again.
Take you there, come back again.
Track Name: Siobhan
I'm looking for a sunrise,
Nothern morning green and wet,
All this beauty crowds my eyes,
But it's you I can't forget.

Ever since we've been apart,
I've been tense and tangled about the heart.
Miss your laugh in the light of the day,
Your lisping wisper in the dark.

Long supple smoky girl, you rambler, you.
You know you liven my eyes.
I was hungry and you held the end of my spoon.
You filled my up by surprise!

Oh, there was comfort in your touch
Made all the colors fly in my head
Just like a thirsty fish drinking cupfuls of breath.
Pleased to breathe you, oh, you lovely rest.

Well, I've been practicing your name, trying to get it right.
Practicing your name, trying to get it right.
Icy, black, and warm; vital, wet, and white, you know it.

I'm a sad schoolboy, I'm a sad schoolboy.
I'm a sad schoolboy, I'm staring at you.

Long supple smoky girl, you rambler, you.
You know you liven my eyes.
I was hungry and you held the end of my spoon.
You filled my up by surprise.

Hey, Siobhan, where you gone?
When you go, take me with you.

'Cause aren't we becoming? Haven't we been
Plunged in cool water, stricken by wind?

Now you're far from me,
Gone across that pond to stay.
I'll just stand here on the shore and watch the horizon fade.

All the music of the spheres,
And still it's your voice I hear,
Full of lilt, full of tune in languorous days.

There's gold in them hills, oh, come back and see.
There's gold in them hills, oh, and there's gold in me.

Oh, long, supple, smoky girl, you rambler, you.
You know you liven my eyes.
I was hungry and you held the end of my spoon.
You filled my up by surprise.
Track Name: Looming
Something is barreling down.
It's hard and it's heavy and fast.
Something is coming around.
It didn't wait to be asked.

Roof peaks cut up the sky.
A bric-a-brac border for your weary eyes.
Check on the kids one more time.
Ease up your worried mind.

It's looming over us.
The hard and hungry storm.
The sound is so uproarious and calm.

The water is high on the dam.
The sky's set to overflow.
You'd better get out while you can
Pack up your bags and your clothes.

I'm tense and beat up as a drum.
Whatever you're giving, I'm wanting some.
Won't you shine all your colors on me?
Shine all your colors on me.

It's looming over us.
The hard and hungry storm.
The sound is so uproarious and calm.

If you'd come back right now,
I would gladly go with you, with you.
And if you'd just come back right now,
I would gladly go with you.

The roofpeaks cut up the sky.
A bric-a-brac border for your weary eyes.
Check on the kids one more time.
Ease up your worried mind.
Track Name: Lifeline
I've been lost in some growing gardens,
Resting in the space of your arms.
My feet are moving, walk and run through times that I should die,
But you bring me no harm.

Rain-scented silver comes and builds a new house for me,
And I hope I'll never get out.
They tell me it's a stage I'm going through,
But I've been having my doubts.

And here I am on time.
Will you throw me a lifeline?
I've seen spirits filled with fear and rotting on the vine,
But you're breath is in me now
And I hear it whistle all up and down my mind.

Nothing is sweeter than the softness of the hungry sky
When it calls out your name.
Green fields are full of the life of your flowered touch,
And now I'm feeling the same.

I want to know you like a saint, like a beggar man.
I want to cry in your ear.
I want to fly a million worlds out of reason's reach.
I want to touch you right here.

And here I am on time.
Will you throw me a lifeline?
I've seen spirits filled with fear and rotting on the vine,
But you're breath is in me now
And I hear it whistle all up and down my mind.
Track Name: Carolina
Night tonight we made good time,
Straddling that yellow line.
Another town, the same old songs.
My mind is racing down the street.
These shoes are suffocating me.
The only place I want to be is gone.

Take me where them rolling hills
Can gather up and cure my ills.
Let me smell that long-leaf pine.
Here I come clear off a space,
Just don't for get my name or face
Before I get back down to Caroline.

Oh, oh, Carolina.
Over greener hills.
Beside bluer waters,
Carolina, I love you still.

America's so big and great,
Goes coast to coast, goes state to state.
I love you from the east to the west.
New York island, California,
Woody Guthrie had it for you,
But there's a corner of you I love best.

Oh, oh, Carolina.
Over greener hills.
Beside bluer waters,
Carolina, I love you still.

'Cause nothing could be finer
Than to know where you stand
And feel that big love coming down.

Hey, gray skies, don't rain on me.
I got someplace I got to be.
This emptiness is all in me, I think I should be going.
Sixty-one or sixty-six,
Any road can give you kicks,
But only one can carry you back home.

Oh, oh, Carolina.
Over greener hills.
Beside bluer waters,
Carolina, I love you still.
Carolina, I love you still.
Carolina, I love you still.