Get all 26 Jeni Hankins releases available on Bandcamp and save 20%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of String Unraveller Demo May 2021, The American Dream (Harlis and Freda), Voice Memo Demo, I'm Letting Go of You – Kitchen Single, The Wondarium: Songs For Kids, A Body is a Delicate House, I Fell Into the Fire, The Loneliest Snowman, I Fell Into The Fire – Limited Edition Handprinted, and 18 more.
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A Body is a Delicate House
A body is a delicate house
for your everlasting soul.
Spirit is a slippery thing
for your everlasting soul.
Soul everlasting,
it’ll be the last thing
when you pack your body away
in your portmanteau
for the big I don’t know
on the eve of Judgement Day.
The earth-ship is a wandering star
for your everlasting soul.
Heaven gonna be the gathering place
for your everlasting soul.
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2. |
Old Hat On
03:14
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Old Hat On
I went to the meeting
with my old coat on,
came home with a new coat on.
Don’t you see?
Glory be.
Don’t you see that
my worry’s all gone?
I went to the meeting
with my old hat on,
came home with a new hat on.
I went to the meeting
with my old shoes on,
came home with a new pair on.
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3. |
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Goodnight, Tazewell Beauty Queen
Goodnight, Tazewell Beauty Queen,
we pray you won’t go far.
You won’t need a diamond tiara
to shine among the stars.
Say you’ll trade your Chevy
for a glittering comet’s tail.
Ride the celestial rodeo
with meteors in your hair.
All the boys are lining up in Heaven
beside the photo booth
to have their picture taken
with the girl in the red shoes.
Come on, give us a smile
before we turn the page
of you dressed like Cleopatra
just before she left the stage.
Goodnight, Tazewell Beauty Queen.
Say you’ll tell us a story
about your one true love –
how you wrote you names that time
in your sweat and blood.
How you survived it all, girl,
no matter what life threw at you
you just kept on riding
like you were taught to do.
Goodnight, Tazewell Beauty Queen,
you dealt us the perfect hand.
We’ll keep the ace you left behind
until we meet again.
Forever adored.
Forever our star.
We always look to you
to tell us who we are.
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4. |
Pretty Back Then
04:05
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Pretty Back Then
for the girl I was and the girls I knew
I was pretty back then, but you never told me.
When we’d sit in your car, did you even hold me?
I could have been a movie star
in a parade on a rag-top car.
I was pretty back then, but you never told me.
I was smart back then, but you never said so.
Just another teenage girl, easy come and easy go.
I won the science fair,
finished the test with time to spare.
I was smart back then, but you never said so
I had so much love –
love you couldn’t see.
I hope someone loves you now,
but I’m glad it ain’t me.
It ain’t me, it ain’t me.
No, it won’t be me.
I could fly back then, but you didn’t know it.
I had wings all that time, but I didn’t show it.
There’s someone who sees me now –
sees my wings even when I’m down
I could fly back then, but you didn’t know it.
I wrote you a letter. I’ll never send it.
No words I can say will ever mend it.
Are you in jail? Are you dead?
do you have a family now instead?
No matter how, you can’t defend it.
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5. |
Your Yellow Bike
05:12
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Your Yellow Bike
for Greg Hankins on 24 July 2020
Do you swim amongst the eels
all their mysteries revealed –
their new initiate
in the deep Sargasso Sea?
Keeping counsel in the weeds,
Atlantis down the street.
A well-deserved rest
with the fish that you loved best.
Are you with your old friend Dave?
With Jesus breaking bread?
Picking John the Baptist’s mind
‘bout the tablets left behind?
All religions now refined
into a greater truth.
The joy of the now –
the eternal kissing booth.
If I had your yellow bike,
I’d ride it everywhere
singing Bob Dylan songs.
We wouldn’t care.
We’d be loud and we’d be free.
You on a trip with me.
You’re on this trip with me
just like you said you’d be.
Just like you said you’d be.
Are you out among the stars
where Mawmaw knows you are
looking down with a grin,
camera-shy again.
I have a picture of you
in the gap in my front tooth.
You’re the fox who came to tea –
the busy bumble bee.
You know you’re everywhere –
a pilgrim on the move,
a dragonfly’s wing,
grit in my daily groove,
the spine of my book,
the squint in my eye.
You shed your skin,
but you never said goodbye.
Those old rags and bones
were a temporary thing.
You wear a mantle of stardust
in a house beneath the sea.
There’ll be loaves,
there’ll be fishes,
the answer in your hands.
You’ll tell it all to me
when I reach the promised land.
Let’s play an old familiar song
with a well-worn melody
about a famous meeting
in Heaven’s Jubilee.
You’ll play your old banjo,
I’ll play your old guitar.
We’ll sing it all together,
so we know just where we are.
I saw you in the moon –
overalls and baseball cap
with a rooster at your heels,
a parade of dogs and cats.
You were spreading the good news,
you were gathering the peas,
you were growing this new tune
just to send it out to me.
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6. |
Water and Sand
04:21
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Water and Sand
They say water is harder than sand,
if you need a place to land.
If you’re going down in flames,
you choose sand to land that plane.
They say love is tougher than steel,
if you’re deciding on how you feel.
If you tempt love into your home,
the mettle you test will be your own.
What if I’m not the one?
Not the one to sing our song?
I‘ll be water when you want sand,
when you need a place to land.
I’ve got the fire, if you’ve got the steel.
I’ve got love, if yours is real.
Come on, baby, won’t you take my hand?
Let’s see where this love will land.
When you look you might see a rose –
pretty smile and pretty clothes.
You look closer and you’ll be finding
a heart as tough as diamonds.
I’m not looking for a perfect love.
Just show me what you’re made of.
And I’ll give you all that I am,
be it water or be it sand.
They say everything that glitters
is not gold.
Sometimes, it’s a trick of the light,
or so I’m told.
Just when you think you’ve caught her,
that girl has turned to water.
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7. |
Weather Girl
04:48
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Weather Girl
I’m sorry for the storm, my darling.
These days the weather changes fast.
One day we walk in the sunlight,
but then the clouds come rolling past.
I wish the sky was full of flowers
and it only rained at night.
When we woke up from our dreaming,
there’d be no word for fight.
You seed the clouds with your silence.
I seed the clouds with my words.
The weather girl, she stands speechless.
What her map tells is absurd.
The currents move in vicious circles
and the tides swell all confused.
Where she told love, there is sorrow.
Where she told joy, there’s the blues.
Tell me we can change the weather –
build a boat to sail those blues.
We’d be safe inside our cabin.
Pin our hopes on the shipping news.
Can you build our boat, my darling?
If you do, I’ll be your mate.
We’ll make her fast together
and hope will be her name.
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8. |
Does It Matter?
03:32
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Does It Matter?
Are you crying for spilt milk
as it seeps across the floor?
Have you slipped out of the saddle,
need to get back on the horse?
Let the cat out of the bag
so all the birds have scattered?
Does it matter?
Did you mean to ask the question?
Did you want to know for certain?
Promise to bring flowers,
find out why she’s hurting,
but you still passed on the stairs,
walked under the ladder.
Does it matter?
Accidents will happen
however hard we try,
but it’s how we made our bed,
so it’s where we’ll have to lie.
Tried to make things better
only made them sadder
does it matter
Did you mean to write that letter,
set your bridge on fire?
Took off on the high road
that turned into a high wire
reflected in a mirror
with all the pieces shattered.
Does it matter?
Did I have some presentiment
of back luck coming true?
I know it was no accident
loving you.
You held your rabbit’s foot
and you rolled a lucky seven.
Backed the winning horse,
begged to be forgiven,
but you’ll never win her back
with all the charms you gathered.
Does it matter?
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9. |
Notes From Long Ago
03:49
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Notes From Long Ago
I found some letters that you wrote me when
you covered them with stars and hearts.
And I can see that you loved me back then –
never knew that we would part.
We were kids and we didn’t know how
to let our dreaming grow.
And I don’t think that I’ll read them now –
these notes from long ago.
We took that trip back when we were broke –
saw the sunset on the sea.
I moved away – guess I abandoned hope –
and you stopped looking for me.
Weaving in and out,
swings and roundabouts –
there’s no coming round for us.
No compass and no stars,
wandering in the dark
until the day we both gave up.
I hear you’ve got kids of your own
living somewhere on a farm,
Well, I never did settle down.
Guess it’s done me no harm.
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10. |
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The Queen of the Pearly Gate Lounge
for Cousin Corky Mullins
The smoking section has opened in Heaven
and there’s a new girl at the bar –
a drink in her hand
in the arms of her man,
the Channel 34 weather girl star.
She’s brought high glamour to Heaven
and she’ll stay ’til the barman calls time.
Then she’ll hail a warm cloud,
slip softly out –
she was never that good at goodbyes.
Know your emergency exits.
Turbulence is expected.
Oh, drinks all around,
the redhead’s in town –
the Queen of the Pearly Gate Lounge.
Streets of gold could use some re-paving.
The curtains in Heaven have faded.
She’ll stay for a while –
lend us her style
while the pearly gates get some updating.
She’s got her Mercedes Benz at the ready
now she’s crossed to the other side.
Her party is waiting.
No more hesitating.
She gets in her car and she drives.
Keep the aisles all clear in Heaven.
Get ready for thunder and smoke.
Take crash positions
for Eternity missions.
The redhead is headed for Home.
Yes, our hearts have been hijacked to Heaven.
Negotiations have all broken down.
Lord, please hear our prayer,
send the girl with red hair –
send the Queen of the Pearly Gate Lounge.
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11. |
Silver Darling
05:05
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He fetched up from inky sea.
He did not stir, he did not breath.
All unravelled, strangled on sand,
swept to Hull from a foreign land.
A silver darling, but human-sized
with human hands and human eyes.
And I will knit him and knit him kind.
Think a herring girl with a man all mine.
Knit him in salt, knit him in wind.
And I’ll keep watch ’til he live again.
I’m going over, my heart’s not free.
My silver darling, will he love me?
I flashed my needles in knit and purl.
I spun him up neatly in wool.
I swerved and danced and clicked my pins.
I swarved and stitched for my fisherman.
Row and furrow, garden to keep,
hailstones, diamonds,
and fine cat’s teeth,
rope and ladder, hit and miss,
all knit to win this darling’s kiss.
And as he slept under my hap,
a weaving watch all night I kept.
Knit by knit, purl by purl,
I charmed my darling back to this world.
I gave him stockings and a gansey fine –
to the nearest ell, made to his size.
He donned this raiment well like a king.
Now, I’m his girl, he my silver darling.
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12. |
We'll Meet That Day
03:34
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We’ll Meet That Day
I remember the day we said goodbye.
I never thought you’d go.
I guess I hoped you’d live forever
just cause I wished it so.
You always told me
no body could hold me –
the spirit is where reside, deep inside me.
So, that’s where I’ll seek you
and I still believe
we’ll meet that day in the sky.
You used to sing ‘bout that lonesome valley –
the one that we walk all alone.
But I’ll always have a true companion
in the wisdom I learned in our home.
I climbed the path up to our mountain,
brought flowers to your grave.
I knew you spoke in the trees around me.
You’d rolled the stone away.
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Jeni Hankins London, UK
Jeni Hankins grew up in the coalfields of Appalachian in Southwest Virginia among a family of miners, moonshiners, and
journalists. Her writing pulls the grit, gumption, and keen sense of observation out of that heritage like drawing water from her grandmother’s well.
In every song, Jeni’s “true sense of place shines through – old as the hills, but brand new at the same time.”
... more
Jeni Hankins recommends:
For me, this is the best of folk music, what it's all meant to be. After years of listening to Rebecca & Ken, I still get shivers up my spine when I hear them together.
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