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Looking For Horses

by Kesia Nagata

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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    8 panels of original photos and tiny lyrics to squint at. Perfect for listening in cars made before 2016, but definitely not in your Tesla! Put it in your skip-protected boom box, classic discman, or use it as a frisbee!

    Includes unlimited streaming of Looking For Horses via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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1.
When will I begin again to see it all as it's always been; to open wide to everything; to open my dry mouth & sing? Oh this life is heavy, Lord, by the pen or by the sword. I've hid my head underneath my wing & closed my heart to everything. Now nothing burns & nothing breaks, but I pray the gods my soul to take & throw it back into the fray & illuminate, & illuminate, & illuminate. Someday we'll begin again to hold it all with love, my friend; to open wide to everything; to open our dry mouths & sing.
2.
Bicycle 04:09
You are a bicycle, I am a road & I've got everything you want, or so you're told - I've got time. You've got wheels & handlebars and I've got miles of asphalt. Promise me the moon, I'll take it - & a grain of salt. When we crash we will intertwine. I've got a pain in my side, & a hunger for you. I've got a burn in my mind. Let's find some wood & nails & build us a boat - we'll stick our fingers in the holes & pray we're gonna float - I think we're gonna be fine. Just get me out the city, get me to the sea. We'll sail first thing in the morning, that boat & you & me, trailing our toes in the deep blue brine. I've got a pain in my side, & a hunger for you. I've got a burn in my mind. Well you can be Bonnie if I can be Clyde & we'll hold up, we'll shoot up, gonna go for a ride. This is the life for me, a life of crime! 'Course, nothing lasts forever, can't live so long, so high. The Texas posse chase us down & now we gonna die, oh - all roughed up in the dirt & grime. I've got a pain in my side, & a hunger for you. I've got a burn in my mind. Candle light or moon light; fire or fluorescent, shouldn't really matter 'cause tonight we're incandescent - finger down your spine. I've got designs.
3.
Let me watch you one more time lay across this bed of mine. The curve of your copper spine fills my heart, it moves my mind, as I go up the mountain; as I go out the door. So long, my love! I wore these shoes down to the skin of their teeth, looking for horses. I'll be back one summer day, exactly when now, I can't say. So you'd best forget my name, babe; I don't think I'll be the same when I come out of the mountains, when I come out the hills. When I come out of the mountains, when I come out the hills. So long, my love! I wore these shoes down to the skin of their teeth, looking for horses.
4.
Something big is burning; yeah a wildfire is certainly alight, & we get all the smoke here, deadly quiet & those dull gray skies. In my grandfather's jeans & a button down I'm coming down the mossy bank. Let that cool clear water bring me all the way down. I'm working for a lady, she's tall & she doesn't wear shoes. When she gets that nineteen eighties feeling, she knows just what to do: beneath an evergreen of particular height she lays her belly bare - she lets that warm earth waiting bring her all the way down. No thousand words; no picture, no melody heard. How could anybody know? The push of your lips, our hair in our eyes, the flight of the cow bird. I'll find you when I'm done for the day, I'll come out to the range with a curious heart and my pockets dripping grain. Where the river runs over the brigadier road we could ride until we lose our way, & let that cold hard freedom bring us all the way down. Like birds might, like lovers might - I find God in you every day; we pray with our bones & our feet in smoky silence, as the sun burns white.
5.
Que Linda 03:19
Amongst the whistles & cat calls, the gaudiness, the heat & all the traffic, & the smell of septic, you stood there like a statuette, a tiny smile, a cigarette beside you like a small candle burning. You said, “Hola chiquita, como te llamas? Te quiero, te amo, que rico, que linda.” I felt my heart inside my chest, like a dog behind a fence: it was leaning, it was trying to reach you. As you spoke I turned away to hide my tears but heard you say, "No tiene pena. You can cry if you’re happy. Hola chiquita, como te llamas? Te quiero, te amo, que rico, que linda.” I remember I took off my shoes to feel the red earth, to walk with you in the afternoon, in the rain & the thunder. In the calle in the night, you danced with me & your eyes were bright & laughing, & so full of wonder. You said, "Hola chiquita, como te llamas? Te quiero, te amo, que rico, que linda."
6.
It's too warm inside this room. Baby, you know how I like it cold. Boy, you look just like the moon shining down on me. We got something moving, we got something right. We got something moving. It's too still inside this house. Baby, you know how I like it just a little bit wilder. Is it cool to kiss you on the mouth? I guess it doesn't really matter. We got something moving, we got something right. We got something moving.
7.
I know we're all looking for meaning, but I remember well what the pine tree said to me on your mother's land in the Similkameen when we were eighteen (or maybe nineteen), full of big ideas & desperate profundity: It said, "stop trying to be here," & it showed me the wind. My brother stood so still while we threw anything we could find. He said he knew he could be killed by any one man's hand or furious will. He was afraid but he stayed at the foot of the hill; he was raw, you could see he was humble. We climbed an old abandoned mine and sat on the highest wall. I know you struggled in your skin, finding God in surprising places. You were full right to the brim, & spilling over with all you imagined. In the grass we could lie shoulder to chin, or hunt for the remnants of a town that had been burned to the valley ground so long ago. We walked the ridge with secrets & fervour, with an air gun & a hatchet. We knew we were not made for murder but we dreamed of a world without order where a boy could learn in the tracks of his father, & sleep in the trees, & live through the winter. We shot at soda cans & alder & ran down the hill. I don't know what we were seeking, but I know we never found it. I remember well the pine tree on your mother's land in the Similkameen, when we were kids & the world was ending, & the wind blew & made us all dizzy. It said, "you have every right to be here, child - don't you know?"
8.
Firing Line 03:30
When they took you from your homeland; when they cut you down; when the devil broke the silence, did you hope that you'd been found? Who has taught you all this wanting? Who has left you so without? Where's the hole now in your middle? Shall I fill it up with salt? In your darkest hour, when it comes your time, how’re you gonna hold your head in the firing line? You would barter all the mountains, you would trade away the sea. You would sell your mother's body for a taste of something sweet. In my arms now when I hold you & whisper softly in your ear, though you tell me you are sleeping, I know that you can hear my simple song of sorrow; my offering of peace. Let me take you to the water, let me wash your weary feet. In your darkest hour, when it comes your time, how’re you gonna hold your head in the firing line?
9.
Wayback 05:52
I'm lost in the wayback, where they found Brian's body, where Alanna was pulled from the ice by her brother, where boys die from jumping too far and then breaking their bones, their hearts, their mothers' lives. I'm so full of sorrow & patience & terror - it just hurts so much brighter from here. I can take off my clothing to swim in the water. The cold burns my body, I'm holding my daughter - she's shaking & growing so tall in the summer. We swim in the morning shade. How will we survive in these turbulent times? I'm wild beyond my years. But I've walked through valleys with you and the horses, where Moses struck stone with his staff to find water, where bolder men choke on their own desires & never know what it means to be free. But you are a teacher, an ember, a beacon, & there's something of you in my eyes. I'm lost in the wayback, where Brian went searching, where the earth gave way & the snow fell like thunder, where boys are still jumping with courage & abandon & know what it means to be free. I'm so full of wonder & patience & terror - It just hurts so much brighter from here.
10.
I'll wait here, you go to work, & when you're home we can see which way the wind blows. We can walk through Belleville at sundown, check the view & feel like heroes. Or meet your friends & drink too much, watch the sky grow dark as it's lit up by the city, dance all night, sleep on the couch, find our way back home through pigeon shit on Sunday. Being here with you is like keeping my eyes open in the salty wind on the prow of a fast boat; staying wide awake letting worlds end, hearts break, staggering through mine fields with the radio on. This city makes me crazy, it's a midden heap of old bones & harsh opinions (oh the money and the shame), & the pulsing airless metro that burns under these streets like so many ravaged arteries & veins. Ancient monuments to a terrifying god; you fought a bar fight beneath a glowing cathedral. All the altitudes & angles, gilded angels' tombs, heads rolling, panties flashing in the dense and sweaty brawl. Being here with you is like keeping my eyes open in the salty wind on the prow of a fast boat; staying wide awake letting worlds end, hearts break, staggering through mine fields with the radio on. "Courage," you roar, "throw yourself in, follow through & finish what you start. The same laws of physics apply here, the same molecules compose us even thousands of miles away, even naked in the dark." Being here with you is like watching helpless as you break your back lifting Moloch to the sky; staying wide awake as my world breaks over and over and over and we're all gonna die! But when we dance you are light as cigarette smoke & seagulls & suddenly I know: freedom & grief are two sides of the same coin; the getting low, the letting go. You kids got something sweeter and more sacred than you could know in these cobblestone streets. But if this is it, if this is the place to be, then why do you dream of the cold, wild sea? Being here with you is like keeping my eyes open in the salty wind on the prow of a fast boat; staying wide awake letting worlds end, hearts break, staggering through mine fields with the radio on.
11.
Leylines 03:02
Had a feeling that I'd find you here. I was waiting, anyhow, for you. Oh how sudden, oh how slowly, like a boat come in from the deep and honest blue. So we climb up anything that will hold us. I feel it all, all the ley lines running through. Oh how careful, oh how reckless. I am rapt & lying quiet next to you. Freight train rolling, we're up above holding on for a wild and precious life. How I thought I knew the darkness! Now we're standing here fierce and full of light.
12.
Your endless body under mine - when we move, we move in time & flow like water o'er everything. You say, "Come, lay beneath my wings." My feet are aching, my body worn. All my wanting to you I've sworn. When I tire, & when I sing, tell me, "Come, lay beneath my wings." Oh run through me, & let me shine. I am in your hands, now come through mine. When I stray or lose my way tell me, "Come, lay beneath my wings."

credits

released December 28, 2017

All songs written and performed by Kesia Nagata
(c) 2017 Kesia Nagata

All songs recorded and mixed by Sonniquinn Sounds

Second guitar, mandolin & backup vocals by Elijah Larsen

Mandolin by Dylan Ferris

Mastered by Don Grossinger

2017 Caramal Productions.

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Kesia Nagata Hazelton, British Columbia

Kesia is a BC-based singer-songwriter who sings about trees, death, horses, and the unbearable enormousness of existence, among other important things.

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