Get all 8 Steph Miller and the Winter Station releases available on Bandcamp and save 35%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Melt - Live @ Studio 301, The Riverside (Songs for Social Justice Version), Past Harvest, Colours Of A Clown, Spare Parts And Puzzles, Brickwork, Strange Sea, and Flow Like Wine.
1. |
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There is a town that stands all alone
The dust blows right through and blocks out the sun
The rivers dry up and life turns to bone
And it falls in the cracks
And the cracks come undone
There is a tower that rises from the square
Some call it heroic, some call it despair
It knows nothing of gravity, it just doesn't care
So it's polished with pride and it's spat on
Chorus:
Do the shadows of fortunes keep you warm
Or leave you cold
In the still eye of the storm
There is a grave, a grave cold as stone
Underneath the bridge that shoulders the load
The service was held, the priest was struck dumb
Saying I can't make these words any better
Or more fun
There is a road, the roads fall away
You didn't know where you were going
You just did now want to stay
You weren't moving fast, you were pushed in the back
By life renovators and smug autocrats
There are the lenders, the borrowers
The fake no mistakers, the followers
The green-eyed beast, the pale skinned girl
Pictures of innocence
And wars of the world
There is a town that stands all alone
It's full of complications but you still call it home
It's too much involved, it couldn't care less
It's thrown to the ground
And it's put to the test
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2. |
Autotramp
03:19
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In the light you seemed so pale
Underneath a crimson veil
You stood and heard the fever pitch
Of voices hunting down a witch
You built a box of lies and wire
Drove it hard on moulded tyres
Morals sped and pistons fired
Exhaust and anger
Chorus:
All the byways all the tar
All the lanes of conversation
It feels so wrong inside the car
Just drop me off here
Interior so plush and white
No cigarettes or broken lights
Just pools of gas and hype
The engine thunders
My home is on my back
Or in my head, it's still a wonder
Don't need to share your track
Don't want to share your plunder
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3. |
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Oh my name it is John Kevins
I live out in the suburbs
Got a beaten up Corolla
And a fortune in fines
They replaced my hip at 27
They looked at me with pity
They siad it was disease, fatigue
Or maybe it was diet
As a child I stumbled badly
But I always found the rail
They said I was a drunkard
They wouldn't let me join a team
I found this thing, computer
It was face down in the street
I knew about the wires
So I made it all complete
Chorus:
My junkmail friends, my junkmail friends, my junkmail friends
Write to me and I reply
A letter came straight to me
It read hello, welcome John
I returned the mail in colour
And more friends came my way
They talked of finance, romance
And the future of the world
I spent all night replying
And slept away the next day
I never thought I was important
Never thought I'd be the one
Neve thought I'd have a voice
Never thought I'd have a say
I found chrome caps the other night
I put them on my car
When it stopped they kept turning
I thought it looked so pretty
I told my friends about them
I waited quite a while
No-one wrote back, I felt so black
I felt so...
My junkmail friends, my junkmail friends, my junkmail friends
I write to them
No reply
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4. |
Land Of Ice And Snow
03:17
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I made my bed, I slept down there
I looked for you almost everywhere
But somehow, you looked for me in all the wrong places
Slid around on hard, black ice
The ground rose up and hit me twice
The third time came, I knew the game
Was fast and curious and faceless
Chorus:
Put away your ice-pick at the edge of the crevasse
Don't go climbing frozen waterfalls
You'll fall to the abyss
You had your spikes, you had your sled
You cut the rope, left me for dead
But I forgave and I forgive
This land of ice and snow
Amundsen or was it Scott?
Down in the land that time forgot
I thought it was survival
Not some kind of human machination
Down in the land of the distant sun
I see the pictures, the hues all run
Maybe it was sepia
Or some kind of other colour fascination
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5. |
A Lighthouse With No Sea
05:16
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Spent a long time on this winter station
Years and dreams from a broken city
Those old stone walls, they joked
They said they put madmen in there
We rode our bikes through the rusting gates
To look for the madmen in there
Chorus:
This moment locked inside our hearts, a captured innocence
Would you believe a lighthouse with no sea would ever make much sense?
This moment locks inside our hearts and climbs the waiting fence
And clings to the branches of the world
I walked a crooked mile and found a sixpence in a fountain
Frozen and solemn, like a murder in the dark
I met a man of no-ones age practising his words of wisdom
In the shadow of a silent statue
Practising his words of wisdom
A brass bell calls the holy
To a place where prayers still be unanswered
Where the singers sing, the dancers wait for the chorus to come in
Underneath a weight of stone, the gentle dead are waking
I lie on the breathing earth
Hear the gentle dead awaking
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6. |
The Hail And The Rain
03:40
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It was the middle of the night
I talk to my friends
I talk to everyone
I thought it was the bends
I was reachin' up for air
I was reachin' for
Past the satellites
Past the stars
It was the middle of the night
Or was it the day
Yes, I was drinkin'
Hey...
Chorus:
Hear the hail and the rain
Maybe I'm a child again
I talk to politicians
I talk to their gods
I talk to Sandy Denny
I talk to..
I went out to the postbox
There was no mail
I looked at the computer
There was no mail
I flew past the aliens
There on my wall
I turned the television on
I flew past it all
It was the middle of the night
It was the middle of the day
It was the middle of the night
It was the middles of the day
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7. |
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Take the hammer to the nail
The river and the rail
Free the rope and set the sail
Be a rich man
Build a tower, knock it down
Dig the jewels and salt the ground
Be a partner, be a clown
Be a poor man
Chorus:
But don't you ever, don't you ever, don't you ever
Don't you ever
Steal a worker's tools
Take the pen and the ink
Make the chain another link
Inside the furnace and the kiln
Be a kind man
Run the cattle to the door
Feel the sawdust and the saw
Take the water, take some more
Be a blind man
Grow the cotton, sew the seed
Make the plan, fork the feed
Run the race, clinch the deal
Be a tired man
Pick up the sick and lay the tar
Take the bus, the train, the car
Set the future in the stars
Be a sly man
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8. |
Sweet Time
05:04
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We live in this town
The smoke settles down
Looks like fear or favour
The plastic, the gold
The pioneer soul
The cards under the table
She comes with a twirl
News of the world
She talks to me in dark corners
With a twist she is gone
The night rattles on
The platitudes mix with the morning
Chorus:
Make mine sweet time
We'll travel the whole world over
Make mine sweet time
With the fair heart of a rover
And silence it seems
Was just one golden dream
Or one golden egg to plunder
There are those that stand
With their heads in their hands
Beneath the weight of the thunder
The merry go round
With the sights and the sound
And the damned roll around in the gutter
So tall on the screen
The last cowboy scene
The sunset
The broken heart lover
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9. |
Medina
01:25
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10. |
Money Is Your God
03:00
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Money is your god
Money is your life
Money pays your final debts
Money buys your wife
Money it lies sleeping
Money it will rise
Money claps and people fall
It covers up your lies
There is a walking shadow
It walks beneath the sun
It watches like a silent hawk
And dives on money's gun
There is a walking shadow
It hides beneath the dust
When money talks, it cracks with rage
And swallows what is must
There is a silent shadow
It's carried by the wind
It breathes out strength to stand and fight
And cut the greed within
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11. |
It'll Take A Long Time
04:37
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12. |
Tourist Drive 12
04:50
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Make a line from A to B
Overland, across the sea
From Providence to Coota
And all things in between
Philosophy and marching bands
Politics and fire
From the blather to the cancer
To the depth of our desire
To hell and back and highwater
From the table to the shelf
I'd trade it all for one more trip
Down Tourist Drive 12
Saw a Pre-Raphaelite in a jet-black Getz
A dragon in a tree
The wattle and the rusting rails
And a land called Tennessee
Orchards and foreign pines
Ghosts of Thirlmere steam
A fence made of monoliths
And a gate made out of beams
Picked up a Namatjira
At a garage sale there
All this and so much more
On Tourist Drive 12
There's a mansion where a rock star lived
A shack made oft of sticks
A pole full of No Fire signs
And a tunnel built of brick
Insects and yellow fields
Honey from the bee
A burnt out car, a cheap guitar
There's water in Cave Creek
Drove down a road where steel wheels ran
Now it's show and tell
I found everything a man could want
On Tourist Drive 12
I found everything a man could want
On Tourist Drive 12
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Steph Miller and the Winter Station Sydney, Australia
Known nationally and internationally for his work in Roaring Jack and Eva Trout, Steph Miller has been performing his own songs, solo and in bands, for many years. The Winter Station brings together a fluid studio collaboration of top players from Sydney and regional New South Wales. ... more
Steph Miller and the Winter Station recommends:
Daylight is Bleeding
by visiting aliens
An album by former The Scream bandmate, Michael Bates, recording as visiting aliens. Michael co-produced the debut Railplane EP.
go to album
For a change of pace listen to Winter Station's drummer Tully Ryan's work with Sydney ensemble GODTET.
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The debut EP from Railplane - Steph Miller, Stephen Mitchell and Edmond Kairouz.
go to albumIf you like Brickwork, you may also like:
For She Who Hangs The Moon
by David Luximon
Expansive music that has the gentle hush of ambient and the insistent pulse of post-rock; enveloping and absorbing.
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The Edge of the Land
by Katie Spencer
Spencer's indie folk sophomore album was recorded live in the studio over the course of two days.
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I Used To Be Sad & Then I Forgot
by Mr. Alec Bowman_Clarke
Alec Bowman perfectly captures the dark soil under the pastoral world of British folk with this collection of melancholy originals.
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