pdf version - JF Robitaille Music

DEDICATIONS
Photos
Front cover, Palace Blues cover and pages 4, 45, 47, 51, 55, 57, 59, 63 Andrew Hamilton
Back cover Liam Maloney (liammaloney.photoshelter.com)
Page 53 Meghan Hicks Pages 61, 65 Danya Zaitzow Page 49 Ryan Taylor
Credit for the 11 photographs illustrating the songs of Palace Blues appears alongside their work.
Illustrations
JF Robitaille
Editor
Suzanne Zelazo
Design
Cristine Giampaolo at SGR
Published in Canada in 2016 by
Sparks Ink
Box 726, Station A, Toronto, ON M5W 1G2
sparksink.ca
All Lyrics © 2016 Gutenberg Songs. All Poems © 2016 JF Robitaille.
® 2016 Sparks Ink. All Rights Reserved.
DEDICATIONS
Major DeDications
For my grandfathers, Frank Ress, who drove a taxi in Montreal
and Jean Paul Robitaille, who painted the streets of that city.
staineD Glass
cities sinG
ReADInG THe SounD oF JF RobITAILLe
Minor Dedications is the first collection of songs and poems by Montreal singer-songwriter JF Robitaille.
Brimming with the fullness of his language, yet distilled in its delivery, the text is accentuated with playful
line drawings by the artist, which disperse the soulfulness of his verse in provocative ways.
In 1944, when A. M. Klein, one of the first Modern Montreal Poets, captured the spirit of the city in his poem,
“Montreal,” he did so through bifurcating each line into the city’s bilingualism, underscoring the extent to which
place becomes the words we speak, but also the visions we dream and the sonic backdrop to our thinking.
o city metropole, isle riverain!
Your ancient pavages and sainted routs
Traverse my spirit’s conjured avenues!
…You are part of me, o all your quartiers—
—A.M. KLeIn, “MonTReAL”
As Irving Layton’s poetic mentor, Klein is the artistic grandfather to Leonard Cohen, Layton’s protégé. Klein
was a poetic interpreter who located and appraised the relics of his cultural mileu. Similarly, Robitaille brings
into focus the rich emotionality of Montreal and its inhabitants. In many ways the city is itself a muse.
Through his reverence, Robitaille is able to ascertain the mythic in the mundane. As it is for Cohen,
Robitaille’s Montreal is a place of longing and desire. In the song “Sweetheart,” for example, the stillness
of the Mount Royal cemetery casts its shadows over the city below, conjuring what it means to be missing
someone—having in love something to be lost:
I’m set in new ruins with the drawings you sent me
of Mount Royal tombstones . . .
. . . This place is a breathless new kind of empty
Lit like a factory, as still as my century.
Elsewhere, in a seemingly innocuous line, his poem “Dirty Mirrors,” captures Montreal’s passionate, if
divided cultural identity. The hint of protective linguistic affiliation shows the imprint of the Quiet Revolution
on the contemporary moment:
I had my tickets ringside
to the riots in a language you love
The century burned all its saints into me
and I’m looking at you but it’s them that I see.
Robitaille’s Montreal, however, is also a place of surrender and connectivity—even as that connection
threatens to dissolve, as in his poem “It Looks Nothing Like This.” Here, two lovers pose: one literally for
the camera by what could be Jim Dine’s Twin 6’ Hearts public art sculpture prominently adorning Rue
Sherbrooke, and the other posing metaphorically in the fleeting immediacy of passion:
I took your picture
standing
by the arrow through the heart
in the alley in rain
The shutter, the lens
the light when it bends
near the cross on the mountain
and the past it defends.
The saints of Robitaille’s Montreal are the strangers in the airwaves picked up and recorded by the artist
as flâneur. His deep affection for his generation is palpable—it’s a generation of lovers, of film-goers, of
readers, of those seeking witness and the space to be heard.
Robitaille’s sound is artisanal without being sentimental. A lineage of poetic lyricists can be heard in his
rhythmic shifts between melody and productive discord. While the grace of Cohen’s art is the most
perceptible, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young and Tom Waits are also to be heard. Though fiercely
Canadian, Robitaille is a biblio and audiophile whose tastes are far-reaching. The intermingling of the
mundane and fanciful characterizing the New York School of poetry, particularly the work of Frank O’Hara
and Roberto Bolaño is also audible.
As a poet-musician, Robitaille is liminal—occupying that generative space between the universal and
interiority, and to be sure, his language conflates the senses, lending itself easily to sensory response. To
that end, the photographs illustrating the lyrics of his second album Palace Blues, were commissioned for
this collection by eleven contemporary art and commercial photographers. Significantly, the photographers
were asked to respond to the text of the lyrics exclusively and not given the chance to hear the songs first.
The result is a testament to the potentiality of Robitaille’s language as such.
It’s been a long time since any revolution was quiet in Montreal, but Robitaille’s is loud and unapologetic
even when the language is tender and exegetical. Minor Dedications affirms Robitaille as a master of desire
with a perceptive eye and ear powerfully attuned to his generation.
—bY SuZAnne ZeLAZo
WORK CITED:
Klein, A.M. ”Montreal.” A.M. Klein Selected Poems. Ed. Zailig Pollock, Seymour. Mayne and Usher Caplan. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997. 89-91.
iron DreaMs
We’ve come apart at the seams
I remember the flames Forged both our names
In my iron dreams
Julia said
The past's worth repeating And I don't want to start a scene
history's the air
I've been breathing
and it’s caught in my throat
like a silent scream
In my iron dreams
Wide-eyed, I wandered
to this midnight corner
a stale devotion
to the notion
of leaving
we’ve come apart at the seams
The empty shops, the echoing bars
stand in salute
under American stars
in my iron dreams
I took your picture
standing
by the arrow through the heart
in the alley in rain
The shutter, the lens
the light when it bends
Near the cross on the mountain
And the past it defends On its knees and in silver
the city pretends
we can repeat this
with saints on every corner
shielding sighs
you said
it’s easy being ruthless once
and I’m speechless
You’re still framing my youth
with a hand in the light
when it bends
near the cross on the mountain or
the song that it sends
through the shutter, the lens
it looks
nothinG
like this
I'm saving one breath
For my best lines
Before the curtain
Before the uncertainty
the apartment is burning
like we left all the lights on I'm making a list
Of the things up in flames
a window-cracked warning
our longing ablaze
all the rooms unfurling
book-bound reminders
of you
the globe you painted gold
mapping sunshine
your name on a splintered street sign
and my drowsy defences
that sang the neighbours to sleep
Colonial avenue
alive on the fumes
of our twisted regrets
throwing shadows and threats
against the walls we made
against the sound of us turning
our separate ways
the apartment is burning
and your heart’s unfazed
and your eyes, alight with song
colonial
avenue
Frozen Flowers
The ghosts stay quiet here,
but fill the room with restlessness
They've got me acting like I couldn't care less
plotting dreams for our next sleep
I'd rather get it wrong than let it go
we buried our defeats in snow
Was that a million verses, or nights ago?
There was no summer to speak of
frozen flowers kept their colour
an angry hue
We snapped their petals off like pen caps
rigid stems of lack
I misremember Your long fingers
balancing them
like expired schedules
for trains missed and missing
cruel and calm
I watched you watch the lights go out
then come back on
Were we dreaming
Staring up at the stars, or was it the ceiling
peeling back our scars?
My grandfather
spoke broken English and history
burned words at their edges
worked parking cars
Reverse in love Breathless on ledges
On the train, before we met
the catch of your eye in mine
thinking about what I'd say to you
Then, now
Hospital withdrawals yellow room comforts and Styrofoam cups
and my grandfather’s silence
settled between us
loud through the halls
At his funeral strangers said,
“you speak with his hands”
reaching and empty
on the train
Fighting words reveal your genius The dark side of you slept and dreamed us
into thunder
Book list
Going through the files you sent me
It's all here in black and gold
On ink-stained pages
I'm told
history pretends our civilization’s old
But we're a teenage dream, the opening scene’s
an explosion
And the flowers you sent, you stole From a funeral for your resurrecting soul
And the damages you’ve paid
were traded
for love
I've read the books you left behind
kept every thought you underlined
The deep scar I refused to touch though I retrace our steps
through the space you left behind
my fingerprints
convict us both
Your strange demands leave us empty
These guilty hands
My violent luck
The love you lent me
Made perfect sense
then
my dedications
hesitate
but still reflect
In certain mirrors I'm alive as well
When you're not here
So I'll disguise
These faults as blessings
Say my goodbyes
And spiral home
Together
It's always second-guessing
til were alone
The love you lent me
Made perfect sense
then
carefully undressing
the moment
and my violent luck
DeDications
escape artist
The sound of locks unlatched
Half-heartedly Hardly remembered
In some fine city
The night took on
Our frozen breath And carried on
We spoke
In your mother's tongue
elbow to elbow
The Maltese Falcon
Playing for no one
On our silver screen
At the foot of the bed
The platform saints
At Grand Central Station
And the cool Cavaliers Watching you that winter
New coat, new shoes
New subway blues
Doing your makeup on the train
Skyscraper sunsets
Hint of tracing paper
On windows at dawn
On the wrong
Side of the street
And I'm looking up When I miss you
GranD central
Stained glass cities sing
wild applause and white still light
the insistent curtain on opening night
Dirty
Mirrors
I had my ticket ringside
to the riots in a language you love
The century burned all its saints into me
and I'm looking at you but it's them that I see
This minor chord sadness
Our method madness
Adapting the script for the stage
and it always ends well
In your voice
Your dirty mirrors
blur what I recall
Counting the letters of my middle name
blinking sleep
just enough
To see what I look like
And I encounter myself less often these days
In the morning haze
fluttering
in the mutual care of our memory
my heart-heavy lifting
and the city singing
DeceMBer Moon It happens sometimes
In my dark Decembers
I hear your voice Coming on like a whisper
It happens sometimes
When I least expect it
The moon remembers
You’re resurrected
And all those champagne celebrations
Slipping in and out of frame
And all our lonely demonstrations
Your soft tears, the dagger rain
Under this December moon, this kind of blue light Never ending skyline, never ending night I’m a fool and so are you
It’s in the stars
Under this December moon
So caste off the cold east
Go on forgive me
Leave these tragic rooms
I still can’t imagine
How we lived that fiction
In the early days
Beyond description Under this December moon, this kind of blue light Never ending skyline, never ending night I’m a fool and so are you It was in the stars
Under this December moon The song seems to yearn for a past love that brought both joy and
pain. I shot a dream-like image of a woman just out of reach and
slightly obscured (in time and emotion) and in moonlight to capture
the ambiguous and often conflicting feelings of nostalgia in love. I
used moonlight as a reference to enhance the connection to the lyrics.
Thomas Dagg
It’s rained rivers this winter with nothing to tempt me
I’m set in new ruins with the drawings you sent me
Of Mount Royal tombstones, signed near the death date
Their powers devoured now you see what the truth takes
This place is a breathless new kind of empty
Lit like a factory, as still as my century
These shadows I find, detailed and divine
As the ink on your skin was
Now we just worship what keeps us apart
And we sing the same songs with heavier hearts
Invisible scars certain mirrors allow
I hope someone’s calling you sweetheart now
There we were courting trouble, the eternal, the dangerous kind
The defenceless, stunned dumb and senseless Nearly devoured in this search for the endless
So go on and give up if you can’t stand the beating
It stands to reason even Buster Keaton just stopped showing up
Broken bones or the heartbreak
His powers devoured now you see what the truth takes And now we just worship what keeps us apart
And we sing the same songs with heavier hearts
Invisible scars certain mirrors allow
I hope someone’s calling you sweetheart now
Balloons, especially red ones, often symbolize love or happiness but,
when floating away by themselves, I find them sad, and symbolic of loss.
The sign in the field is for a long defunct drive in movie theatre in rural
Saskatchewan. The balloons in conjunction with the deserted space
once full of community are meant to invoke the loneliness of the song.
Dan bannister
sweetheart
valentine
The rain’s Morse Code on the window
Saying “slow down” (like I don’t know)
There’s a new division I’ve divined
It splits seconds and stops time
She said “I love you”
I said “I hope so”
Saw you again in a stranger
It was the eyes
Could be no other
We communicate through telegraph messages
In royal blue rooms
I think that we could love each other
We could embrace, lock eyes like the dead each year
On Valentine’s Dye your long black dress bone white
Snow White’s dull dream of a prince On Halloween
On Valentine’s
We cried funeral tears, once upon a time
My cursed words, your postcard devotion
We spent several years, once upon a time
Building memorials to going through the motions
Saw you again in another
All calm and later
And we spent several years
(once upon a time)
Just waiting for the same elevator
We could embrace, lock eyes like the dead each year
On Valentine’s Dye your long black dress bone white
Snow White’s dull dream of a prince On Halloween
On Valentine’s
Split beads of water like the poem’s “funeral tears,” divide to create the
subtle shape of a heart that's been spliced in two ”or a new division.”
Pamela Hamilton The rain’s Morse Code on the window
Saying “slow down” (like I don’t know)
There’s a new division I’ve divined
It splits seconds and stops time
She said “I love you”
I said “I hope so”
I know you find yourself beholden
To a past that’s still unfolding
I’ve seen you mapping the mine fields
Marking the moments your fate sealed
I know you’re not alright
I don’t have to ask you
I know you’re not so tough
Just playing the part because you have to
And I’ve seen your old friends
Turn and walk right past you
The world can be unkind
It lets you know you’re alone
And for what it’s worth and all it means to you
When it feels like no one out there cares
I do
I know you’re looking for disaster I used to let it define me
And you can’t fight for what you’re after
But sometimes it’s fun swinging blindly
I know you’re not alright I don’t have to ask you
I know you’re not so tough
Just playing the part because they cast you And I’ve seen your old friends
Turn and walk right past you
The world can be unkind
And for what it’s worth and all it means to you
When it feels like no one out there cares
I do
We all miss someone for one reason or another-this
project gave me an opportunity to send a universal
message “I miss you” to those I’ve lost.
Marrianne newman
MissinG you
hearts BehinD Bars
Here’s the thing, the reckoning
Our long farewell, fought well
It’s been dead quiet, since the fire and the flash
Since we torched this town And traced our bodies in the ash
My heart’s behind bars
It’s just a worried beat away
Just behind yours
Just a single breath away from blind love Our weakened wills
Led to second drafts
Confessions signed and sealed
Each one sadder than the last
It’s been dead quiet Unsung and unspoken But I remember when our hearts were open
My heart’s behind bars
It’s just a worried beat away
It’s just behind yours
Just a single breath away from blind love "Hearts Behind Bars" reminds me of love and loss and how hard we try to hold on to it.
We hold our breath and keep treading for as long as we can or for as long as we last.
Clay Stang Marina
Not worried about the time
I was seventeen and reckless
With a worried restless mind
Smoking cigarettes, hanging posters on your wall And I was falling
I just needed you to sing along
When we want something (we get it)
When we get tired (we hit the road)
Marina With the stars on her arms and those red, red roses
When we get tired
We hit the road
Not worried about the time
Blue jeans, clean sheets, those lazy kisses
I’m dedicating lines
To the details the camera misses
I boughed arrows, put ink on paper
Gave in to the fog, the mist, the haze, the vapour
When we want something (we get it)
When we get tired (we hit the road)
Marina With the stars on her arms and those red, red roses
When we get tired
We hit the road
A winding road was the image I shot for this
project. I've ridden my bike down this road near where
I live. Like the song, it winds in search of something.
Philip Jarmain
Don’t Go soFtly I remember raging eyes
Unadorned, undefeated
So unlike mine
Looking for the second hand and wondering where the time goes
It felt like love, now it feels like murder
But I don’t sit around and get too sentimental
We didn’t go softly
We didn’t go gentle
It just gets worse
No minor affliction
The anticipation hurts
These forgiven addictions
To our former faith exhaled like smoke
In the extra breath
Of days and months and years
Soon we’re going to sit around and wonder were the time goes
It felt like love now it feels like murder
But I don’t sit around and get too sentimental
We didn’t go softly
We didn’t go gentle
I’ll remember raging eyes
Unadorned, undefeated
So unlike mine
Love that has changed me was fast, striking and cut through everything else that was
happening in my life. When that intense bond was severed, it felt like an explosion.
Kerry Shaw
the kniFe
I held you high above these streets
Over every inch of failed concrete
If I weren’t weighted, iron bound
I’d have never let you down
Now take a look at this mess
Bound by laws I can’t express
A dull aching carelessness
I’m finding ways to love you less
So don’t be lost
Don’t ever be a stranger
Scream across the wires
Tear this city down
Your blood is in my veins
I still breathe your name
I’m sorry for almost everything
But mostly for the words that never came
Everything you hold you hold true
And all I ever asked of you
I wouldn’t wish on enemies
In words that don’t fit the melodies So don’t be lost
Don’t ever be a stranger
Scream across the wires
Tear this city down
Your blood is in my veins
I still breathe your name
I’m sorry for almost everything
But mostly for the words that never came
We have high expectations in life. Our live-wire
brains are constantly flicking from one connection to
the next - trying one option and then sparking wildly
to the next without thinking much of the past, or the
destruction we may cause enroute.
Courtney Lee Yip
My grandfather kept his mother’s first ever radio
from the 1940s. When I was young he used to
show it to my brother and I and explain how
he and his parents heard Winston Churchill’s
broadcast over it, telling the nation the war was
over. I always remembered looking at the mesh
over the speaker on it – unlike today’s modern
foam/plastic grills, this was made from very fine
rope-like material tightly bound together into a
front panel. I wanted to shoot a slightly abstract
shot of that mesh close up – so I could see the
texture of the woven pattern, but so that it wasn’t
immediately obvious that it was a radio speaker.
I wanted to juxtapose this heirloom with my style
of photography and a colour palette I often use.
Pip
on the raDio
I could spell it out when the light’s real low
Whisper every tired song on the tired radio
I could write your lines let you steal the scene
If I can keep the records and the stereo
I can talk about forever like I wrote the book
And every tired song on the radio
We were waiting for a sign
The coffees came I let you drink mine
For the hundredth time
I’ve been tethered to the air
As light as a song
Exhaled like a prayer
She said - blue eyes and pretty smiles
Come on and hold me for a little while
My heart is for the winter and leaving
I’ve got a certain style I could spell it out when the light’s real low
Whisper every tired song on the tired radio
I could write your lines let you steal the scene
If I can keep the records and the stereo
I can talk about forever like I wrote the book
And every tired song on the radio
We were waiting for a sign
Rearranging the stars to your old design
One false word and you’re mine
She said - blue eyes and pretty smiles
Can only hold me for a little while
My heart is for the winter and leaving Lisa sings herself to sleep
She wakes up late for work on most days
Coffee and her horoscope
She doesn’t trust a word
And she says
My faith’s failed and these fairytales don’t move me
like they used to
There’s no second chance when romance
Is thinking new eyes will renew you
love sonGs
For
the lonely
And she wants to let the past go
She’s holding on so tight though
There aren’t a billion one and onlys
That’s why there are love songs
They’re for the lonely
That’s why there’s minor chords and poetry
Tarot cards and the rosary Chris would rather let it go
But every night outside his window
He swears the stars spell L-I-S and almost A
That’s fate he’d say
But fate failed and is its own jail
Thinking old loves really knew you
He thinks “How can someone you held so close See right through you?”
And he wants to let the past go
He’s holding on so tight though
There aren’t a billion one and onlys That’s why there are love songs
They’re for the lonely
That’s why there are minor chords and poetry
Tarot cards and the rosary The first thought of the image came during a yoga
class, without provocation, simply from intention and
patience. It is a Polaroid taken from a Mamiya 6X7.
Dawn Quiacos I tried to capture the idea of the time between
moments, knowing better days are on the horizon.
I shot on 35mm film, on a grey day on an icy beach
to suggest the wistful yet hopeful feeling of the song.
Heather Rappard Blue eyes
anD
no one
I’ll meet you
In some strange grey dawn
When the world is new
In that electric hum
Some time after the last bright idea
I’ve seen you
In a vague daydream By a white brick wall
Watching strangers embrace as they fall
Back in love
And we’ll watch the lights go out
In the last cold rain
With cathedral bells
And cheap champagne
They’ll be fireworks
In reverse
I’ve seen us
Meet again We were done
I saw blue eyes and no one
saint
catherine
Cathy came down to this city surrounded
Her heart full and empty handed
Her dreams were like dead men’s, partly promised
Hollowed by strangers, more than she could speak through
Named for the Saint or one of these streets
She was too perfect, breathing whispers
All the failures they couldn’t resist her
Their futures partly promised
To the heartsick boys and the hard luck girls
So she’s cracking spines and tearing out pages
Finding the passages this life predicted
About a boy who knew nothing
And a girl almost traceless
And an air sick with secrets
And a faith that gets wasted
On the heartsick boys and the hard luck girls
She’s made her choices, she has her reasons
She gets to digging, she’s buried legions
She lets her kindness do the killing
Most go softly, most are willing
They’re pebbles and stones deep in her pockets
Their buried moans are haunting these halls
It’s a long walk from the front door to her bedroom
And they always want more
Is it wicked to ask for so much?
Is it worth it?
She’d say “I think so”
For the heartsick boys and the hard luck girls
jessie
Jessie maybe I’m too far gone
The city’s empty, the light’s all wrong
Lately I conjure you
In the cigarette smoke on Parc Avenue
Tired eyes
Why the masquerade?
We’re all haunting the same dead parade
Haunting or hanging around
Drunk on the dreams that bleed this town
Jessie it’s the electricity
Between these buildings
Consuming me
Tired eyes
It’s just shadows and shade and flashes of light
A soft serenade
You were the actor, playing the saviour
As if my faith was stronger
Like some beginner
I’ll stay here until this place closes
I’ve buried my rivals in whiskey and roses
Damned and feather light
You can wear your best dress out every night
DeaD letters
I’m hanging on my every word and louder disapprovals
My name’s in the blood, posted and delivered
After the flood is it the fire or nothing at all?
She said you wouldn’t believe all the ways that I’ve found
Of getting back up when I get knocked around
All of these dirty tricks I’d forgotten
Like how to defend myself at the bottom
I’m tied to the tracks and trailing the static
All I’ve left behind you can burn
You can have it all
We both know how these things end
We’ve counted on it all along
But it’s taking forever
Nothing should be this hard, I know
And all our best intentions have turned into disappointments We watched them burn like we enjoyed it
Nothing should be this hard, I know
She said you wouldn’t believe all the ways that I’ve found
Of getting back up when I get knocked around
All of these dirty tricks I’d forgotten
Like how to defend myself at the bottom
I’m tied to the tracks and trailing the static
All I’ve left behind you can burn
You can have it all
Black
anD
white
She comes in black and white
A negative and some light
She doesn’t seem it seems to me
The antique machinery
Looking for a vein in the concert
Singing someone else to sleep
In the shadow of the cross
In the ruins where the ruined get lost
That’s where she appears to me
Breaking in broken smiles
A cast off dream
A reflection for awhile In her debt ‘till death
I’ve been tied to less
In the shadow of the cross
In the ruins where the ruined get lost
So I’m bound until I break
Until I undeclare
There’s only so much I can take
I left the rest back there
In the shadow of the cross
In the ruins where the ruined get lost
Dark olD Days
When we were young we’d disappear
For days or was it years?
Escaping the cold winds off Coney Island
I caught the last train with the last ghosts
In your pearls and your drugstore diamonds
Your blue eyes hidden
My heart when I find them
I’m still waking up to the dark old days
I’m still living up to the dark old days
The dark old days
We were sainted, we were haunted
You were everything I’d ever wanted
We had the time to set a watch to
I lost track now look what I slept through
But I thought we both knew the same devils
The same shadows, the same black metal
The boys have been drinking
The streets are singing
November’s dead neon’s got my ears ringing
I’m still waking up to the dark old days
I’m still living up to the dark old days
And I hope you fall down laughing
unDevoteD
Red dresses and youth’s dead echo
I got used to fingerprints on photographs
Notes between the paragraphs
Trapped in stone like a cavalier’s bright feather
Grey and faded by the weather
Promises and dead plans
Put the future in your hands
And ask you all the wrong questions
Point you in the wrong direction
I only needed you to see these distractions
These smoky chain reactions
We have considerable nothing to show for these narrowing hours
This undevotion
We are diminishing
Oh unrivaled genius you’ve broken everything else left between us
Maybe next time, probably never
I’ll know my lines a little better
More than just the curtain call
I’ll know the lines under her breath
I could invent the awful rest
I wouldn’t let her
I swear I wouldn’t
echoes
Got your coat on like you’re leaving
Light another, look away
We’ve been here
You’re breaking so brave though
In that armor till the grave I know
Those echoes
And the moon under water
Those echoes
Clear calm and calling you
Those songs caught and tied to the shadows
Those echoes
It’s the devil you know or a curse, Love
This is like no dream I’ve heard of
Everyday gets us further away
And the greys fade the black and the white
Into echoes
I made her up I wished her
On Orion or the Seven Sisters
Everyday gets us further away
And the greys fade the black and the white
Echoes
And the moon under water
DreaMs with you
You’re my weakness still
The whispered voice no noise could kill
I know we’re almost air
But can you see me standing?
These old inventions sing
They ruin everything
The horizon’s desolate
Let’s hit the road
White knuckle it
In a dream with you
When we were wishing side by side
The prayers were endless
Saw forever for awhile
A couple seconds and it ended
In a dream with you
From summer till September with the rail lights right behind me
From winter on down you know where to find me
In a dream with you
And it’s a cold return
It’s your city now
cry
to keep FroM
lauGhinG
I’ve been cruel and foolish
I’ve wandered in the darkness
I’ve mostly made mistakes there
Just ask the people that I take there
It would take a lifetime
Just begging for forgiveness
It’s a messy business
Desperate and hopeless
And it makes me wanna cry
To keep from laughing
Makes me want to disappear
For weeks or months or even years
I used to keep my eyes shut
I was walking blind, but I can see the light now
And it’s a brutal, ugly sight now
I’ll try to get it right, I know
Don’t think I’ll start tonight though
And it makes me wanna cry
To keep from laughing
vanisheD rival
My vanished rival you’re not drowning in heartache
I’m not looking for you everywhere I know
I’m not lost, you’re not lost and what does it matter?
When somebody leaves where they go
You weren’t some staggering debutant
I never made a stunning debut
Maybe in some dark run down restaurant
Your black coffee and mine so sweet
I was sugar sick and we were in so deep
Is that where I left you?
I know sometimes smoke gets in my eyes
But I seem to recall almost nothing else at all
Just you across some table
The rest is a mystery
Our sick city fable
We’ll call it My Vanished Rival
What’s left of you and what’s left of me?
We explained it away so easily
But I miss your highs and lows
Your lows and your highs
And our thousand goodbyes
The first of the last of the true one and onlys
Not wide-eyed but careless
See, what happens is the rest
I still don’t love you any less
I still don’t know what’s good for me.
There’s some film locked away with a few other things I kept
And if I watched it I might dissolve
Or go up in flames
Ashes to ashes ‘till nothing remains
Like my vanished rival
Grey to Blue
San Francisco’s fading out
In that red halo summer storm
Down the highway where the sky hits the rocks
That’s where she wishes she was born
I got her through the worst of it
When she feels alive I feel alone
She’s waiting for a black cloud nightmare
I’m counting on the calm before the storm
I’m pulling the strings
The southern sky down on you
From grey on grey
To baby blue
I’m pulling the strings and the sky down on you
Oh baby blue
I drew a map from memory
To get me out of this
It’s all too heavenly
And that sounds like a death wish
Celluloid and silver screen
From the golden age to the decline
So I drew a map from memory
Yeah that’s what I did in the meantime
aBout the author
JF Robitaille is one of Canada's most engaging and gifted new songwriters—a troubadour cut from the
same cloth as Lou Reed, Bob Dylan and fellow Montrealer Leonard Cohen. He has shared the stage
with prominent musical talent including St. Vincent, Tegan and Sara, Jonathan Richman, and Sean
Lennon. He’s lived (and played music) in Toronto, England, Germany and New York, where he was
discovered by Labelle member, Nona Hendryx. She would eventually release his 2006 EP debut, The
Blood in My Body, on her label Rhythmbank. His first full-length album, Calendar, was released in 2011
by Blue Cardinal Records. His second LP, Rival Hearts, came out in 2013 under Sparks Music/Universal
and was named one of the top 10 albums of the year by the Montreal Gazette. Robitaille's third album,
Palace Blues, (Sparks Music/Universal) became available in June 2016.
sparksink.com
jfrobitaillemusic.com