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Births, Deaths and Marriages

by Heist

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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    CD album, released October 2022

    Includes unlimited streaming of Births, Deaths and Marriages via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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  • Full Digital Discography

    Get all 5 Heist releases available on Bandcamp and save 35%.

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Births, Deaths and Marriages, (We Are) The Infidels, Happy Families, A Shopkeeper will Not Appear, and Friday Night At the Trabi Races. , and , .

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1.
And yet, it moves! Blow off the cobwebs, shake the dust and start anew... And yet it moves! Where have we been? Through time and space we’ve raced this marvelous machine, oh the sights we’ve seen I must have dialed-in the wrong co-ordinates And ended up crash-landed in this wilderness, this emptiness... But I’ll be back to tell you all, to tell you all. How now my friends? My Transit van of Fire, the tour that never ends? that never ends... The morning’s cold. Catch my reflection in the glass I have grown old! how time has told. I’ve slept a thousand years, in troubled dreams I’ve roamed. But now I am awake, I’ve rolled away the stone And I am back to tell you all, to tell you all, And now like Lazarus I’m back to tell you all, Like Lazy Lazarus I’m back to tell you all!
2.
Alfred Mynn 04:02
Do not ask me for advice, for I’m a man who measures once and cuts twice. I learned the error of my ways lost between the landscape and the life-class. But with the sun upon my face, suddenly I warm towards the human race, as I consider Alfred Mynn who hit the ball into the tall grass. Picture green playing fields and then, you might picture two ungainly Gentlemen, Who did fierce battle through the day then took their pleasure in a tall glass And though I live without a plan, set no example to my fellow man, For this I offer Alfred Mynn who hit the ball into the tall grass, the Kind and Manly Alfred Mynn who hit the ball into the tall grass And if the sun shines, make hay while the sun shines. It’s better to’ve been burned and to have learned than to have stayed inside Drink deeply from the cup of love, there is no calling-in the days past. Forgive the philistines’ indifference, and those who mock you in their ignorance; Truth is, they could not tell the difference between their own culture and a cow’s arse. Heed not too much of what your parents say for though they love you they have had their day and you must make your own mistakes, just cross your fingers as the die’s cast! Never forget that you are free and make half-heartedness your enemy, just like the kind and manly Alfred Mynn who hit the ball into the tall grass the strong and gentle Alfred Mynn who walked out into the tall grass And if the sun shines, make hay while the sun shines It’s better to’ve been burned and to have learned than to have stayed inside Drink deeply from the cup of love, there is no calling-in the days past In which I picture Alfred Mynn who walked out into the tall grass the kind and manly Alfred Mynn who sleeps at last under the tall grass.
3.
Eve bought an apple as she walked in the morning sun She wasn’t thinking much about the life to come just market stalls, swept on the human tide. A pound-shop prophet in a mac rails at passers-by the placard on his back says ‘The End is Nigh’; their shopping bags hang heavy by their sides. He tells them:’Plague, pestilence are the signs of the Apocalypse to come’. His sermon fell on cabbages and kale. They answer: ‘Doubt, blasphemy... We carry on when catastrophe befalls. We are compelled: we are the Infidels.’ The church-bells in the square toll the afternoon the sound drifts through the streets to an upstairs room where time stands still. Two lovers slowly rouse. He’s singing softly to himself while the fawcett drips, she puts a cigarette to her lipsticked lips. As she exhales, she says: ‘This is what I’ve found: ‘Lust, vanity, are the guiding lights of humanity. They shine a light sublime, and how they lead us well. You can take piety, the leaden pall of sobriety to hell We broke the spell, we are the Infidels.’  
4.
Gas and Air 05:23
I was the scarecrow, Prince of the Hedgerow with frost on my frock-coat and rain in my ears. You were the May Queen, attended by butterflies and ours was a harvest that lasted all year. Well soon there were spinning-tops and skipping-ropes the building blocks of a strange new world order so we feathered the nest, and from the school to the factory to the green fields there was deference that one generation passed on to the next And they gave us pleasure parks, dogs that bark, a pub that never closes, carriageway and marriage vows and photo-album poses: It’s gas and air, forget your cares for life’s no bed of roses or so they say. Well, it’s enough to get you through the day There’s no need to doff your cap or break your back your feudal lords are history, pull up a seat and warm your feet and tell me that you’ve missed me. It’s gas and air, forget your cares, but where we’re going’s a mystery; well anyway, it’s getting closer every day. Cold ashes in the firebox on a branch-line grown-over where the flower of youth lined the platform full-blown. And the seargent-at-arms had straw for a bayonet It was the flight from the land, destination now known. And he wore a tin hat midst the tank traps and the tumbleweed, it was she sowed the stripes on his corporal’s vest. But with the wars of the roses their chapter now closes and one generation makes way for the next And they gave us starter-homes, stepping-stones, the art of conversation...‘ Just called to say I’m on my way, I’ll see you at the station. I’ve got no doubts at all but I just can’t recall what was my destination. Well anyway, it’s getting closer every day. There’s no need to doff your cap or break your back your feudal lords are history, pull up a seat and warm your feet and tell me that you’ve missed me. It’s gas and air, forget your cares, but where we’re going’s a mystery; well anyway, it’s getting closer every day. Oh my love, there’s a caterpillar on the motorway he knows where he’s going, but progress is slow and you’re still the May Queen as you fly past in the 4 x 4, heading here or heading there Or wherever you go.
5.
Bad King John ruled on a whim, well he was just a man quite ordinary. And England's woes flowed not from him, but from the sceptre that he carried. For every grand old duke of yore there are ten thousand tired soldiers, and 'dirty people of no name' who carry them upon their shoulders Ours is the brisk October breeze that wakes us from a summer slumber, to fill the shops and football grounds in unvainquishable number. Our's is the trusty '3-for-2' their's the power and the glory. Our's is just to carry on, that is the never-ending story. Headmistresses and shopkeepers, air-raid wardens, homesick sailors accountants and solicitors, nurses, janitors and gaolers. In the hour of great need it was they who moved the mountain not a prophet, priest or anyone that the holy books recounted. Good Queen Bess was strong indeed but not the equal of her daughters who stack the supermarket shelves and bring home the bacon -- as they taught us. And in the hour of great need it is they who move the mountain though they are lost to history as the history books recount it.
6.
Potts the Painter’s Son would have visions. New colours in his head, grand ambitions It’s time to break away, see what you can be But now matter what you say, however far you stray forever shall you play Happy Families Great-grandfathers’ choices, Victorian voices, all of them echoing still, echoing still. Mrs Bun the Baker’s Wife spurned her daughter who’d struggled all her life to support her. Still it’s hard to turn away from all these sad things: the struggle to belong, or just to get along, Always choosing wrong – Happy Families. All of the pain, all the searching in vain all of it echoing still, echoing still. And so I stole away the Baker’s Daughter I didn’t do the things that I oughta. But luck was on my side. Love was on my side.
7.
There lived a handsome rambling man, who owned a smile and a panel van. In the age before everything, how polaroid captured him How we leave our mark, oh let me count the ways How we write our names upon the sand So I signed my name by yours and we stood before the town hall doors. For what kind of a life is this, if there are no witnesses? Midst mums, dads and half-sisters, a love duly registered. Yes we choose our allegiances and harbour our greivances midst births, deaths and marriages, and such gravity as this. Now the cat gets kicked in spite and the baby howls all night, when did we sign up for this? Was there something that I missed? The memory of a kiss and such eternal bliss. But I remember a summer’s day, of which there’s no record made. All of our friends still there, all laughing without a care. The sum of a life was this less births deaths and marriages.
8.
In the spirit of adventure, you're a braver soul than me so you enrolled yourself in night-school and took French lessons to see New sights, unbroken horizons, dark nights. Still life, in pointillist colour, half light If we could turn the clock back now I don't know if you would return, but if the past were not imperfect there'd be nothing we could learn. Show me, water lillies and warm seas. As rain sweeps the Tuilerie gardens, a Cezanne sketch on Gitane cartons. In ancient/other times, the language/lyric of love flowed line by line now I find I search for those words we left behind, Vainly, vainly... Now for casual repartee I leave the phrasebook on the shelf and though I think I've grasped the grammar, I'm a stranger to myself. Lately, i'm lost in translation, lately. Save me, from conditional clauses, hopeless causes, pregnant pauses... Dans la foret des tristesses mes mots sont perdu, comme l'amour. Dans l'apres-midi de nos coeurs, je les chercherai encore. je les trouverai encore.
9.
I was lying in a bed of delphiniums blue, and geraniums red. It was like the dormouse said... How shall I begin this tale of no consequence? It takes place within municipal offices where I catalog your births, deaths and marriages, vaunted times Chrysanthemums white, or a rose for a button-hole funeral wreaths or confetti that falls on the cold marble steps you ascend and descend in an endless line And at night, walking home, I look in at the light of human company, bright without knowing the taste of it Like a fly, seeking sunlight who’s drawn to the glass, but who cannot get past to feel the embrace of it 'Dear Diary,' I write... So I write these words, the words of a nobody there are many like me, composing our litanies largely ignored, we navigate corridors weightlessly it's the urge to record while we still have memory to show that we've lived to show that we'd meant to be more than we were more than we amounted to, finally In my books, I arrange A to Z the lives of others long dead are painted into posterity and they live again these unremarkable men, who picked up a pen to fend off eternity And so, 'Dear Diary,' I write... Other people's lives, are a strange carousel I can hear the organ grind.
10.
Spaces, empty spaces. Ancient pathways, sacred places Mute memorials of wars and weddings from long before. Quiet Life, it's the Quiet Life: sleeping streets on lonely hillsides, village stores where be;;s on doors will ring no more When my heart feels fit to burst, why does the woodlark sing its verse so softly, oh so softly? Faces, smiling faces. Passing ghosts with cardboard cases filled with longing for the song they knew before. As the darkness falls around me, far below builds the tsunami, quietly, very quietly Crowded rooms that fill with laughter, bring me noise forever-after, for the storm inside of me will not relent No it'll never be the Quiet Life, no not the Quiet Life... For me.

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released October 29, 2022

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Heist Saint Igest, France

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