Within​/​Without

by Danya River

Within/Without cover art
/
1.
04:18
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2.
04:19
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3.
05:54
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4.
04:23
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5.
04:12
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6.
04:18
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7.
04:29
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8.
05:27
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9.
06:52
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credits

released 01 January 2001
Music & Lyrics by Danya River

Produced by: Danya River
Assisted by: Wil Masisak and Robert Gass
Engineered by: Wil Masisak | Velvet Recording Studio, Boulder, CO
Mastered by: David Glasser | Airshow Mastering, Boulder, CO

Cover Photo by: Jordan Schevené
Graphic Design by: Danya River, Jordan Schevené and Magnus Schevené

tags

tags: aaa pop alt pop contemporary folk female singer songwriter Boulder

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Track Name: Half-Black Man
He was nervous like he was thirteen years old
and when we kissed he unbuttoned all the closures to his soul
he dropped a tear from his shocking green eyes
and whispered as he disappeared into the full moon night

He said he'd never felt so loved
for the half-black man that he really was

His mother's skin was white as cream
his father was dark as earth when it rains
and he was somewhere in between
he gives his love to everyone though he's only halfway seen

He said he'd never felt so loved
for the half-black man that he really was

You stood up in a room of white faces
flung your arms and cried "I am the marriage of two races"
and in that moment you felt free
and when we kissed you shared your pair of wings with me

He wrote me a poem on the day I left
He wrote it as he sat and watched me pack my bags
We said goodbye he held my hands
We thanked each other for the blessing of our one-kiss stand

He said he'd never felt so loved
for the whole man that he really was
Track Name: Within/Without
I am living quasi-on-my-own
in the halfway house of my body
I haven't made it past all the trials of the path
but the roses smell dizzyingly lovely

CHORUS:
From within, from without
it don't matter where the spirit comes from
just as long as you have got some

There's a paper price for everything
and we fly around on frail green wings
and we fly just to die in the crash and burn of greed
and with every breath, the death wish grows
we hide from life behind tinted windows
band-aids and booze to fix all the ways we bleed

Ephemeral is this holy space
a dying flash of wasted grace
Choice is here between my fingers
wisdom strike but you know it never lingers...

CHORUS

so you turn to him, Cosmic Comedian
and you ask for his forgiveness for the childish things you've done
On the opium of a forgiving god
you call out praises to the Holy Ghost to the Father and the Son.

CHORUS

I am living quasi-on-my-own
in the halfway house of my body
Track Name: San Francisco (the original version)
I rode the Zephyr
I boarded in Denver
my savings tucked in a wad in my sneaker
Utah was flying past the window beside me
sweeping away all the clutter that confines me going to...

San Francisco where online people
can't find parking and resort to walking seven days a week
past the houses, Painted Ladies
swaying gaily from the hills down onto Mission Street

Here at the station I've lost my tempo
You, my love, lead me to a palace in the Castro
I meet the master, a lord in leopard and lace
who gives us red wine and lets us crash at his place in...

San Francisco where graceful people
can't find parking but prefer their walking seven days a week
past the houses, Painted Ladies
swaying gaily from the hills down onto Mission Street

Remember the day that we hiked to the tower
Gray winding streets through the afternoon shower
Peeling off layers as the incline heated our veins
We were impossibly light, our feet in flames

San Francisco where we are cradled
urban infants finding our feet everyday this week
past the houses, Painted Ladies
swaying gaily from the hills down onto Mission Street
Track Name: Infuse Your Blues
Here in the mountain womb of Costa Rica
I'll be sitting at a table at Montaña Linda
and I'll be playing my heart out
singing my heart out

Farlin's whittling a spoon out of coffee root
He'll be whittling away 'til his arm grow shoots
and he'll be carving his heart out
carving his heart out

CHORUS:
Infuse your blues with joy
don't stop at just any red
don't wear your hands out
wear your heart out instead

My lover he is sitting playing to my right
I love the way his forehead wrinkles when he cries
when he is crying his heart out
crying his heart out

Evening crawls over fertile hills
hear the crickets talking to the whipporwills
and they are talking their hearts out
talking their hearts out
they are talking, talking, talking...

CHORUS

and you'll be living your heart out
wearing it inside out
living your heart out
playing your heart out
singing your heart out
crying your heart out

Infuse your blues with joy
don't stop
Track Name: Seneca
Your clothes are wet through and through
Your fingers cold, your lips are blue
You're trailing rivers through the door
growing oceans on the floor

CHORUS:
Seneca, Seneca darling
This is no day for a sweet girl to be working

Drawing in your soaking limbs
stretching out your frozen grin
You're hiding from this needy day
feeling absolutely lazy..

CHORUS

Your pale skin, your crimson hair
the gap between your front teeth
the spring leaf, the damp earth
the rivulets of the street

I'm singing to the echoes of this room
to the flooding of this Upstate NY monsoon
inspired by the genius of your company
I'm capturing your Boticelli beauty

CHORUS
...Seneca, Seneca darlin'
come sit and rest with me
get off your tired feet
Track Name: Don't Draw the Shades
Don't draw the shades
I want to see into your living room
What kind of girl are you?
What kind of boy are you?

Don't draw the shades
I want to see what kind of clothes you wear
when there is no one there...

Ya-lie-lie, lie-lie-lie, lie-lie-lie

Don't introduce me to the same locked door that you show everyone
I know there is an open one
Please usher me in
I long to kneel in your secret chamber
where you hide your treasure

Ya-lie-lie, lie-lie-lie, lie-lie-lie

Don't draw the shades I want to see out side my living room
Don't draw the shades I'll bare the view into my living room

Ya-lie-lie, lie-lie-lie, lie-lie-lie
Track Name: Dear Friend
Dear friend, I'm in love with you again
Funny how I felt so sure of our extinction
The way you love me makes my breath go soft
makes my logic weak
it dissolves my thoughts

CHORUS:
I forgot my judgments of you
It's so good to love you purely and deeply
Madly and truly sweetly

I love the way you wear the pant you made
how you author words
how the world's your game
and you sense the beauty in most everything
and you draw it out
and you make it sing

CHORUS

I remember the morning you first touched me
wove my breath entangled in your seaweed eyes
rocked me in the cradle of your focus
lured my tears and caught them in your kisses

you said to me the other day
that you love the way that women age
and you asked me if I'd love you with a belly and no hair

and I giggled, though I meant to say
that I would love you anyway
that if you couldn't walk, you lost your thoughts
I wouldn't care

CHORUS

Dear friend, I'm in love with you again
Track Name: My Hands
Is this my garden sinking in quicksand?
Passion has a dandelion will.
But now I seem to follow the path of most resistance
Perfection is the master of me still

CHORUS:
My hands, they can do so much and
my plans, they are so hard to touch

Twisting to fit in a check box
Labels really cramp my smile
Call me what I will
I'm growing by the hour
writhing, laughing, yearning all the while

CHORUS

I have memories, painted tainted
colored by retrospect and devised in envy
Cleanse me.
I am foot worn, soul torn, my hair's shorn.
I'm weary, so leave me be.
Caught between woman and girl
Heart and Starvation.
I am in hibernation. I am
sleep walking I'm dream talking
I'm waking
and listening

CHORUS
Track Name: Desire
Paper sky and burnt orange trees
The prickle of the air makes my nose freeze
Cinderella hears her call
When my love's in San Francisco my slipper falls

And I get the urge for holding something
I'm a vessel of desire and I'm overflowing

recently I've thought about
the challenges of dropping out
of blazing my own trail through social woods
of cutting through the social "shoulds"

And I didn't know my cage until I ran
'til I collied with the greater plan

And I get the urge for knowing something
I'm a vessel of desire and I'm overflowin

Why is it that conformity
has her fingernails so deep in me?
Why should living be a sacrifice
With all I value under her knife?

and I get the urge for proving something
and I get the urge or choosing something
yes I get the urge for loving something
I'm a vessel of desire and I'm overflowing...