Small Circle of Light

Ramona Silver

Download

Small Circle of Light

Album download

Please choose a price: $ USD ($0.00 or more)

Please choose a price:

Out of stock Download

A unique blend of melodic pop/rock guitar and moody keyboard balladry, rich with harmonic vocal textures.

Ramona Silver’s 6th release, Small Circle of Light, taps a range of musical influences from the 1970s-80s: Til Tuesday to The Carpenters; Harry Nilsson to Nanci Griffith; Brian Wilson to Queen. The blend of these, however, comes out distinctly

A unique blend of melodic pop/rock guitar and moody keyboard balladry, rich with harmonic vocal textures.

Ramona Silver’s 6th release, Small Circle of Light, taps a range of musical influences from the 1970s-80s: Til Tuesday to The Carpenters; Harry Nilsson to Nanci Griffith; Brian Wilson to Queen. The blend of these, however, comes out distinctly Silver’s, 2011. Trading off between guitars and keyboards, Silver's new batch of songs go beyond her trend of eclectic pop/rock with a new maturity of sounds and poignant lyrics.

Silver’s trademark Les Paul guitar keeps its rightful edgy place in her lineup of sonic colors, as in the eerie opener, “Hero,” and the triumphant pop of “Idiot’s Delight.” While these two songs differ in writing styles, both are closet rockers the listener must wade into to fully experience. Hero's slow groove buildup of guitar/bass/drums mixes with an atmospheric carousel organ halfway through, and the lyrics follow suit. Though at the start she directs her pining towards a male figure hero, the lyric moves outward to show a bigger frustration -- the longing too long for life’s fulfillment. Easier to read is “Idiot’s Delight,” a straight-ahead, hooky rock gem displaying vivid snapshots of a worn-out domestic argument, with a bite (“There’s a silence in the kitchen, never heard eggs fry so loud”).

The acoustic guitar-based “State of Being Grey” and “Salt of the Sea” offer space for glimpsing rhythm loops, Wurly sounds, kid gang vocals, and even a passing train. While “State…” reflects fearfully on growing old in different relationships (in this case, with a lover, a mother, and the Earth), “Salt...” is a happier resignation that each day is a gift just to be alive (“I’m a lucky me to be free, I’m a lucky lung just to breathe”).

The CD turns toward a lament on the two piano-based songs, “Big Fat Lie” and “Small Circle of Light,” in which darker vocals and harmonic bass lines float over a subdued parlor piano. Though likely a typical set up for brooding young-love lyrics, Silver instead speaks to the conflicts facing older hearts. In Big Fat Lie, she wants “out” before a relationship even begins (“There’s a better place to be then wasting away on pretty dreams”), and in the title track, “Small Circle of Light” Silver weighs years of a messy but still committed relationship (“I know we weren’t always truthful 60 years of life, and these are pills we have to take to help us sleep at night”). The latter song closes the CD with a slow, swirling buildup of voices and instruments, rippling echoes on the final word "light," only to end with a long fade of discordant piano notes. It's a blurry light, but a light nonetheless.

Read more…
0:00/???
  1. 1
    Your price

    Salt of the Sea

    Please choose a price: $ USD ($0.00 or more)

    Please choose a price:

    Out of stock Download
    0:00/3:22
  2. 2
    Hero 3:40
    0:00/3:40

SMALL CIRCLE OF LIGHT: TRACKLIST, CREDITS & LYRICS

TRACKLIST

  1. Hero
  2. State of Being Grey
  3. Salt of the Sea
  4. Idiot's Delight
  5. Dropped E
  6. Big Fat Lie
  7. Small Circle of Light

CREDITS

RS: vocals, guitar, organ, piano, melodica

Guitar: Thomas Juliano

Bass: Kimon Kirk

Drums: John Sands

Bass on Idiot's Delight and Dropped E: Jim Haggerty

Guitar on Big Fat Lie: Free Hallas

Salt of the Sea trumpet: Corbin Smith

Salt of the Sea gang vocals: the Hallas family

Small Circle of Light additional vocals: Dan Hallas

Recording and Mastering Engineer: Dan Hallas, Roslindale, MA

Mixed by Brian Charles, Zippah Recording, Boston, MA

Assistant Engineer: Annie Hoffman

Salt of the Sea mixed by Dan Hallas

CD Art Design by Matthew Nutter

CD Art Coach Road photo by Erica Pelaccia

CD Art RS photo by Liz Linder

All songs Ramona Silver, copyright 2011 Tootsie Music, ASCAP

 

LYRICS

1. HERO

I’ve got a hero from far away

He’s gonna come for me any day

And take me and make me for good

Shape me the woman I should

 

May be an Indian with long brown hair 

A proud swaggering sailor, I just don’t care

As long as he tells me the truth

Gives me the keys to my youth

 

Hero you’re breaking my will 

Bleeding me, holding me still

When you gonna stop beating round the clock and own me?

I’d like to believe that you will

 

When I’m emoting and call to him

That’s when he hears me and reels me in

Then I can settle me down

Put back my feet on the ground

But when I’m lonely and on my own

Desperately wandering so far from home

That’s when he sends me a bird

And little by little unravels my every word

 

Hero you’re breaking my will

Bleeding me, holding me still

When you gonna stop beating round the clock and own me?

I’d like to believe that you will

When you gonna stop beating round the clock and own me?

Yes I do believe that you will

 

 2. STATE OF BEING GREY

I have a love, he has me, too

We often don’t know what to do

We waste our time on incidents

Until the sky comes all unglued

 

And it’s a state of being grey that I’m afraid of

 

I have a mom and she has me

It’s taken years to grow the seed

As steps grow frail and hearing fades

I long to pull us to the shade

 

And it’s a state of being grey that I’m afraid of

Yeah it’s a lonely blank of page that we must stand upon

When in the middle of our lives

Whether to dream or let it die

And it’s a state of being grey that I’m afraid of

State of being grey

 

I have an earth on which I lean

I often disrespect her needs

As waters flood and fires rage

We manufacture her disease

 

And it’s a state of being grey that we’re afraid of

Though it’s so lonely out in space still we can’t get enough

When in the middle of our lives

Whether to breathe or let her die

And it’s a state of being grey that we’re afraid of

Oh and I’m afraid of, afraid of

 

3. SALT OF THE SEA

Map on the ceiling I get the feeling

That you’ll never tell me where to go

Cause there’s so much water between what I’m after

And I never really learned to float

 

But I’m a lucky me to be free

I’m a lucky lung just to breathe

I’m a lucky soul to smell the salt

 

Have you seen Beaufort or Bering or Chuckchi

Where the water’s always blue with ice?

Walrus and whales and their spiritual tales

 

I hear the fishermen they treat you nice 

Hot is the water of Java and Banda 

As it boils on the sands of time

Inside them fishes lay all of my wishes

I could swim off to the other side

  

But I’m a lucky me to be free

I’m a lucky lung just to breathe

I’m a lucky soul to smell the salt of your sea

Weeeeee, I smell the salt of your sea

 

I’m a lucky me to be free

I’m a lucky lung just to breathe

I’m a lucky soul to smell the salt of your

I’m a lucky hip with a swing

I’m a lucky eye to be seeing

I’m a lucky soul to smell the salt of your

I’m a lucky hair sometimes clean

I’m a lucky thumb, never green 

I’m a lucky soul to smell the salt of your sea

Weeeeee, I smell the salt of your sea

 

4. IDIOT’S DELIGHT

I’ve been lovin you so long now

Aint it time I got it right 

All these moments we lose honey

Every time we fight

 

I can feel half of me leaving

When you’re walking out that door

And the half that stays home tells me

I’m a fool once more

 

There’s no option to live this way

When we could make it right

Not a moment too soon to say 

I’m an idiot’s delight

 

There’s a silence in the kitchen

Never heard eggs fry so loud

Cook above all the tension

Hovering like a cloud

There is laughter in the hallway

And I wish that it was mine

Only gloominess hangs on me like a vacancy sign

 

There’s no option to live this way

When we could make it right

Not a moment too soon to say 

I’m an idiot’s delight

 

I’ve been lovin you so long now

Aint it time I got it right

All these moments we lose honey

Every time we fight

So hang it up tonight with   with me your I.D.

  

5. DROPPED E (Instrumental)

 

6. BIG FAT LIE

You make my heart ache, mostly for me

Some things I can’t take, should never be

 

Please send a love for him

Would be easier on a friend

These unsure eyes need a ride

Take his time away from me

Then the grip will finally ease

And sure to die, this big fat lie

 

I know I’m whistling Dixie again

It covers my heart of hearts as you round the bend

 

Please send a love for him

One to woo and drag him in

His big bold eyes need a prize

There’s a better place to be

Then wasting away on pretty dreams that only lie

 

Tell me a sad story

One to mask the pain of glory

So I don’t feel so lonely in my shame

If this be a true allusion

Bound to make a big intrusion

I know my boundaries but not my name

 

History whispers “Deeds I have done.”

Years of a drugged out heart, withdrawal’s begun.

 

Please send a love for him

Would be easier on a friend

These unsure eyes need a ride

Take his time away from me

Then the grip will finally ease

And sure to die, this big fat lie.

 

More than a big intrusion

Got myself a bad infusion

I know my boundaries

God bless those boundaries

I know my boundaries but not my name.

 

7. SMALL CIRCLE OF LIGHT 

From where I sit, the water’s flooding in my shoes

The skies rain down a heavy blues around my mind

It seems each day I’m always washing dirty things

But still the guilt it clings to all that’s left behind

 

From where I stand, the birds are always calling names

They rule the roof and weathervanes right next to owls

And every spring they lay their eggs as God intends

Only to fall to cracked cement on my bullseye

 

I know we were only young for 20 years of life

But dreams I had with you I meant until the end of time

And as for me, did I succeed?

 

From where I lay, the clouds are all about a man

and a woman held his hand when they were young

They met in fields when barns were newly red and brown

Before they leaned sad windows down to say goodbye

 

I know we were working hard at 40 years of life

And verses we would read to help us love each other right

But as for me, did I succeed?

Tell me please.

 

I know we weren’t always truthful 60 years of life

And these are pills we have to take to help us sleep at night

And I know someone promised us we’d see eternal life

But “come as you are” is where I’d like to stay with you tonight

But as for me, I need reprieve

Put my mind at ease

Help me, please, make a small circle of light.