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A Shard of the Mosaic

by Robert Leslie

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    Get all 6 Robert Leslie releases available on Bandcamp and save 35%.

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Halfway Home, Masks & Mirrors, Sunny Kindsa Lies, A Shard of the Mosaic, Sense of Distance (EP), and So long! (EP). , and , .

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1.
In Rio the air is still warm in November Blowing along by the bay And you're locked in the bathroom of some rented palace Washing the traces away I wonder if you could have grown up an athlete Breathless and lonely and free But there you are clubbing in darkened sunglasses Working it out on TV They showed me the pictures, they gave me the story Saw you splashed over the screen Saw you wrapped in a sheet like the ghost at the feast As they dragged you away from the scene Out in the crowd by the Copacabana Pushing your way through the press For God's sake be quiet, there's nobody listening There's no one about to confess Is this what you dreamed, then? 
Is this what you had in mind? 
Did you buy your own ticket or were you just strapped to the ride? If I sent you a postcard, who would send out the reply? If I tried to stand by you, would I be taken aside? Remember the long lazy Saturday mornings Glued to cartoons on TV Riding your bike down Ontario street To pick up a cone of ice cream Remember the wheels of your little red bike And the bricks of the big Stratford hall Now you're lost by the window of some private jet And the streets are so awfully small Is this what you dreamed, then? A
Is this what you had in mind? Did you buy your own ticket or were you just strapped to the ride? If I sent you a postcard, who would send back the reply? If I tried to stand by you, would I be taken aside?
2.
Another snow day Pale and glowing white behind the blinds You wake slowly A night of powder weighing on your time Just be sleepy now Wrap up warm and put your shoulder to Forget your dreams, now Doesn't matter what you're holding to If you wanted to hate it Well you'd love it just the same Thought you wanted to make it Another snow day wasted away It's all so quiet So forget the things you left outside They'll all locked away In the high and mighty winter mind And in a month or two we'll be Wasting away on wave after wave of sunny days And there'll be time, all right Yeah there'll be time Another snow day
3.
Hello again, white paper Please don't think I didn't try I ditched my friends, I cast a light I almost got it down last night But now I'm washed-up in the morning With the storm gone from the air And I just can't seem to care Nah I just can't seem to care And hello again, my darling heard you dream aloud last night Was it the stomping in the stable Or the knowledge of your navel kept you anxiously uplooking Like a baby in a kitchen Tell me what you're thinking And I'll tell you where to look I love you there, my pretty So I'll tie you in my sheets Can't take these winter nights alone I've never been too good with phones Always looking for some party With our hearts of clubs and diamonds Always memorising lines For better playing of the part And I love you there, white lie You keep the cheap requests away You never wait to count to ten You never back down, make amends Oh though I love your snowy whiteness now I'll wrap myself in red and paint my deadbeat face Up like a saint and dance all night Sayonara, stationery hate to keep you waiting there I banged my head against the wall I moaned in bars and toilet stalls But like a ladder in a basement I'm useless and I'm high And I'm too stiff and cold to climb I'm too stiff and cold to try Guess I'll see you, sleeping beauty I know you'll always be on call But me I'll stick to sunset races And I'll visit lots of places Keep a finger on the trigger Never figure in the cost Cos while we're only ever lost It makes the world seem pretty big
4.
There we're smoking on the pavement There's the lights above the door There we're passing round the bottle Sitting by an empty furniture store Here's to ever after endings Here's to castles on your hill Here's to maybe never nowhere I'm gonna give you your sweet mystery pill I could take you for a fool all right I might not be a gentleman, I'm far too tight I could tell you there'd be sunshine and rainbows all night And you'd believe me I think you might believe me and it scares me There's the weak and clumsy stairway There's the writing on the wall Must be something we've forgotten Between the bottle and the handicapped stall But I don't mean to be careless Really I can be all right It's just I really can't be arsed To make the effort tonight But come blank and bleary sunday
 We'll be sitting face to face By the kitchen table Either at your or my place I could take you for a fool all right I might not be a gentleman, I'm far too tight I could tell you there'd be sunshine and rainbows all night And you'd believe me I think you might believe me and it scares me
5.
I wanted your teeth in my shoulder so I turned out the lights and I left you to smoulder With your lips in a sweat and the rips in your tights I told you don't let the bedbugs bite But you slid out of your fig-leaf sunglasses And pouring out smoke you tied me up to the mast And you laughed like a child, in your cloak, in your haze With your hair piled over my face And then you bound me and gagged me With your wildfire thighs And dragged me into your dreams Of teeming centipede skies Your nitroglycerine smile
 In the merry-go glow There's no place for me here Christ, it's all gonna blow Oh well I took a picture of you yesterday But there's not much left to say now the light's flooding through And you're lazy with a head full of dew With your feet trying to worm from the sheets Lying thinly exposed in the thermostat heat And there are clouds, there are signs in the Saturday mist And I can't help noticing the lines on your wrists But on the street there's the time And the red in my eyes Where we size up the day And we say our goodbyes You laid your gaze on the light And your soul in my phone And when the man turned white You made the crossing alone You must be out of your mind if you think I can help you You must be out of your mind if you think I can stay Oh, the sunlight has skewed the perspective If you let me lead you on You will lead me away
6.
You led me to your carrousel You took me for a ride And still I span away from you I didn't even try So now I'm going home again The old and easy count to ten Call me in the morning If you really wanna talk But oh, if you need me again Please don't need me when I'm sleeping And oh, if you want me again Please don't want me when I'm needing A million different colours Looking over from the bridge The tiny lamplights hanging on Like magnets on a fridge But something somehow disappeared While we were on the bus I'm sure that it could happen to The very best of us But oh, if you need me again Please don't need me when I'm sleeping And oh, if you want me again Please don't want me when I'm needing We've flown apart so many times But still we're drifting back To some centre of our gravity Some rhythm on our track But I don't need an answer now I only need a reason To take me such a long way out In such a lonely season And oh, if you need me again Please don't need me when I'm sleeping And oh, if you want me again Please don't want me when I'm needing
7.
Just another day on the gravy train Sitting by the window Looking at the warm rain Lots of easy ways to feel the same Keep you waiting in the distance So I can't hear you call my name I ran out of breath in another race Signed away the day job And I got myself a suitcase But I caught up to me in another place Lucky by the sunset Just time was all it takes But don't you know that I'll still Keep my eyes peeled wide in the stream of cars & pesticide Keep your fingers tied To hold you on the other side As another day pretends to go forever more Like a bright light in a hall of mirrors Blinding out the door Just another day on the gravy train See you when the dreams come Left you when the sun came Just another dawn in the pouring rain Looking at the curtains wearing off the sleep-stains But don't you know that I'll still Keep my eyes peeled wide in the stream of cars & pesticide Keep your fingers tied To hold you on the other side As another day pretends to go forever more Like a bright light in a hall of mirrors Blinding out the door
8.
There it is, your castle in the clouds And here the rain is coming down It's coming down on New York City And there you are, you're dancing at the party Like a shard of the mosaic Just another part of town Clear as day, it's clear that nothing comes With all this rolling round the sun We're rolling round in no direction And there you are, you're calling for the bottle Such an easy stream to drift on Such a simple way to run You're like a book trapped on a shelf You're like a picture of yourself You snap and then step back And then you wait and wait and wait Cause you've got it figured out And if you wait it's sure to come to you some day There it comes, the cab you waited for I see you laughing by the door The door you closed, it was so simple And then another turn of lights and glimpsing Some suggestion of the ocean Some reflection of the shore How you cried, you cried the whole way home The stream of green, the traffic flow I see your eyes fixed on the distance And there you go, I never saw you leave Some funny trick of summer morning Some old curtain for the show Cause you tower only when you bell The flash in which you see yourself You snap and then turn back And then you run and run and run Cause you've got it figured out And if you run you might still get to be someone Someone else, someone outside of the photographs Someone else, someone deeper than an easy laugh Someone else, someone really just like you But someone else that all this never happened to
9.
You say to dream You say the builder's in the skyline And the flywheel's in the steam So all the while I listen and I wait For something to say Easy to fly The mechanics of emotion Just an ocean passing by Easier still to settle down and stare At a screen somewhere Still it's true a single turn could make the difference And in the meantime I'll just watch the sun go down Behind some passing cloud And once again I'll save it for tomorrow Another turn to turn it all around I try to find The way to some existence Needing nothing more than time But somehow I just tend to find my way To more of the same Still it's true a single turn could make the difference And in the meantime I'll just watch the sun go down Behind some passing cloud And once again I'll save it for tomorrow Another turn to turn it all around Hell I don't wanna be the lighthouse to Your dark and stormy bay I'd rather be an ice cream To your endless summer day Let's forget about the weather We'll just rough it out together Won't need sunscreen or umbrellas If we're going the right way Yeah it's true a single turn could make the difference And in the meantime I'll just watch the sun go down Behind some passing cloud And once again I'll save it for tomorrow Another turn to turn it all around
10.
Morning Come 04:49
I dreamed myself awakened in an old, unknowing place smoke and incense in my hair and charcoal on my face I ate of bread and drank of wine slept on a bed of wood I did away with everything I ever understood I then awoke to find myself as always in a room a heat unseasoned pressing from my curtains in the gloom my bulb was white, my walls were bare my ceiling cracked and mean I knew at once my only place was back inside that dream yet sixteen hours I was awake sixteen hours I worked my eyes I lowered to the ground laid down my search for words I ate when I was hungry I drank when I was dry I made myself to stay awake until my time of night yet morning come I woke in sweat unmoving, run aground the sun shone pale and yet I saw no light nor heard a sound I lay there still for hours more begging for release at last I rose, I quit my door and threw away my keys I don't know how much time has passed since I last had a home I pity those who must remain encased in brick and stone I never knew that dream again but I can still recall the meanness of my ceiling and the whiteness of my walls

about

I wrote these songs over the course of my first year and a half in New York, after a long period of wandering. New York has been... Well, I'll leave out the full story for now. It's out there, anyway. All flows here, as do the songs - they've all come about as a natural consequence of life in this city. Maybe you know me from my days in Europe or Africa - but these songs come from somewhere else. They come from a big place of bright lights and long shadows. One song leads into the next. If a song poses a question, you can expect an answer. Listen to them on a rainy day, or on a train, or a long drive, or a quiet night shift.

There were a number of ways I could've done this album, but I chose to keep it quite raw and understated, sounding much the same way as my live acoustic performances. No need to pretend to be anywhere other than I am right now - the songs speak for themselves. Aside from a few banjo and harmony overdubs the whole thing was recorded live and mixed & mastered in my bedroom in Brooklyn, and all the little creaks and background noises are part of the fun.

Thank you as always!

Robert.

credits

released September 20, 2014

Music by Robert Leslie. Artwork by Marsha Shnayder.

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