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.
1. |
The Robin & the Banjo
03:36
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The Robin & the Banjo
by Jeni Hankins & Billy Kemp © 2010
There hung a banjo
alone on a wall —
hung there for years
making no sound at all —
‘til along came a robin
in the window to sing.
And oh how that banjo did ring.
She sang, “I’ve been flying
in a nearby wood,
where the air is clear
and the water is good,
the pines so sturdy
and their needles so green.”
And oh how that banjo did ring.
He said, “I travelled with the hobo and rode the steel rails
and I joined that hobo
on many wild tales.
Now that old hobo
is naught but a dream.”
And oh how that banjo did ring.
One day the old house
with the banjo fell down,
and the robin, she cried
when she heard the sound.
She sang a tune
so sad and true
of a hobo and a banjo
and the rambles they knew.
And in the rubble
she heard the strings.
And oh how that banjo did ring.
She took the strings
and the ebony pegs,
she took the bridge
and the old broken head,
all to her nest
where together they sing.
And oh how that banjo did ring.
And oh how that banjo does ring.
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2. |
Picnic in the Sky
04:06
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Picnic in the Sky
by Jeni Hankins & Billy Kemp © 2013
I pulled up the milkweed, hid ‘neath the willow tree
from the church bell and the mystery
‘cause I did not understand
Christ Jesus’ victory and how that he loved me –
the tears and the tongues, the power in the blood.
Frozen dinners were a special treat,
listening to radio obituaries,
Great grandma hoed the yellow squash.
We listened while the women talked
and the voice said, “These are the Days of Our Lives.”
I wondered did they go to the picnic in the sky,
while I braided sister’s hair, watched the biscuits rise.
Oh, do this in remembrance of me.
The men washed their faces, removing the traces
of the local mining industry –
years of working underground
to get at the low seam, to pick out the old dream
of a house and some land, a heavenly reward.
The miner now a memory, in the same place as little me,
fussing with my dolly and singing
the old rugged cross,
listening to the women speak of patchwork and recipes –
the power in the blood, the power in the blood.
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3. |
Reckoning Day
05:32
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Reckoning Day
by Jeni Hankins & Billy Kemp © 2005, 2013
There are some things ain’t worth rescuing —
some ships you watch go down,
while you stand there on the shore
holding fast to the new love you’ve found.
There’ll be a love, catches you unaware.
Some angel will come your way,
and you’ll take her into your heart,
though you know there will be a reckoning day.
There are some things ain’t nothing but trouble —
some prisons you build yourself
brick by brick with your misfortunes,
‘til some angel pulls you from hell.
Look out for love, halos and feathers,
your wishes, the things that you pray,
‘cause your dreams just might come true,
and you know there will be a reckoning day.
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4. |
The Mystery of You & Me
03:31
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The Mystery of You & Me
by Jeni Hankins & Billy Kemp © 2006, 2013
How can we say we’re meant to be
and then doubt that we should be in it?
How can we say we’ve waited so long
and then end it before we begin it?
So many nights we’ve lain awake
hoping it was only the weather,
wondering if our troubled hearts
thought we should have known better.
If we could find the compass and map
to show us the heavenly key,
we could unlock the mystery of love –
the mystery of you and me . . .
the mystery of you and me.
How can we wait for a sign to come
and then doubt if we even saw it?
How can we hold love by the hand
and then wonder what we should call it?
So many stars have called our names,
but how many moons have fooled us?
You would have thought the spark we made
was fire enough to school us.
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5. |
Good
04:19
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Good
by Jeni Hankins & Billy Kemp © 2013
The miner goes to work in the dark,
and the preacher talks in the air.
The fiddler bends the air with his bow,
while the dancer flies everywhere.
Pawpaw dug for coal underground,
and Mawmaw tilled the sun.
At night she’d do that ole flatfoot
to Pawpaw’s banjo song.
And he played us a tune
from the old country,
and the hills, they rang with our song.
God said it was good,
and we knew that it was good.
Mama worked down at Sears Roebuck,
and she wore those red high-heeled shoes.
At night she’d show us the ole flatfoot
after teaching Bible School.
Hardshell Baptists, they don’t dance,
‘cause it tempts the devil so.
But Mawmaw slides on her light bare feet,
sayin’ “Play that ole banjo.”
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6. |
McHenry Street
04:53
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McHenry Street
by Jeni Hankins & Billy Kemp © 2005, 2013
Down on McHenry Street the sidewalk glitters
with broken glass bottles and household litter.
Houses are vacant, burned out and shuttered,
and weeds grow knee high in the cracks of the gutter.
While the sign on the trash can says to believe,
and the sign on the fire house seems to agree —
Believe in Jesus, Believe in Baltimore,
Believe in something you ain’t never seen before.
Kids make guns and flags, pickins from scraps of trash,
or sit on their front stoops just kicking at the glass.
They sail down the alley in a box spring canoe,
while grandma in the kitchen prays, “Lord, what we gonna do?”
There ain’t no promise it’s gonna get right
with a city-watch camera and a flashing blue light,
‘cause down on McHenry Street the sidewalk glitters
with broken glass bottles and household litter.
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7. |
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The Days of the Blue Tattoo
by Jeni Hankins & Billy Kemp © 2013
I sit in a house with windows of glass,
and wear a lady’s dress.
I never speak of my blue tattoo,
and no one dares to ask,
but whenever I stand at the looking glass,
I see your mark on me.
I remember my skirt of willow bark,
having nothing but grass to eat.
I remember the days of the blue tattoo,
when you chose to make me your own.
I remember the ways of the blue tattoo.
One day you sent me back home, sent me back home.
I remember how you pitied me,
and fed me from your hand.
Now I sit at a table of mahogany
with my belly full of sand.
When the soldiers came to our heathen camp
and found my white face there,
they gave you a horse in trade for me –
your little pioneer.
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8. |
The Old Hotel
04:00
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The Old Hotel
by Jeni Hankins & Billy Kemp © 2005
I’ve got a gun and a fifty dollar bill,
and if there’s a way, then I’ll find the will.
Think I’ll go down and stay at the old hotel
and lay on the bed we knew so well.
If I had known your love would land me here,
I’d do it again just to feel you so near.
Think I’ll go down and stay at the old hotel
and stare at the walls we knew so well.
Well, you say it ain’t right to lead a double life,
but that’s not what you said when you kissed me that night.
Think I’ll go down to the place we knew back when
and pretend that you’re coming to meet me again.
Well, I’m leaving tonight. That don’t make it alright.
All the words that you said, they don’t make it alright.
I’ve got a gun and a fifty dollar bill,
and if there’s a way, then I’ll find the will.
If there’s a way, then I’ll find the will.
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9. |
Are You Meant for Me?
03:31
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Are You Meant for Me?
by Jeni Hankins & Billy Kemp © 2007
Are you meant for me? Are we meant to be?
Could I begin to trace the answer in your face?
Am I in your dreams, among other themes,
like the fire and the flood and signs not understood?
Am I in your veins? These questions still remain.
How deep do we run? Or have we just begun?
Am I meant for you? Am I just someone new?
Are you only passing through the way that lovers do?
Are you meant for me? Are we meant to be?
Will you break my heart? Won’t you break my heart?
Am I in your veins? These questions still remain.
How deep do we run? Or have we just begun?
Are you meant for me? Are we meant to be?
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10. |
The Mill Hurries On
05:26
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The Mill Hurries On
by Jeni Hankins © 2012
Oh, the cotton flew around us like an alien snow.
Having no way to melt, in our lungs it did go,
and there made its home, like an unwelcome guest,
‘til it grew and it grew so we could not take breath.
There are trees in the country that give fruit for free –
not belonging to you or belonging to me.
No free thing can grow in a cotton mill town,
so to work we must go, child, let us go down.
The machines, they did roar. They made my head ache,
but I could not take rest nor make a mistake.
For the wages I earned, though meager alone,
when put with my family’s, preserved our dear home.
Way down in my dreams lived a devil well dressed.
He counted his money with his foot on my chest.
I knew that my fever told a story well known.
I am no longer and the mill hurries on.
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11. |
Made as New
04:03
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Made as New
by Jeni Hankins & Billy Kemp © 2013
for Kim Sherman in honor of her grandmother, Dalvie, and in honor of my Mawmaws
I will be made as new,
I will leave this world I knew,
I will go to a far off land
to be made new by God's hand.
Scales will fall from my eyes,
burdens lifted, wrongs made right.
No more wandering, no more night,
but streets of gold, mansions bright.
This house of clay will fall to dust.
This earthly shell will turn to rust.
Oh, Heaven's mantle waits for us.
No more hunger, no more thirst.
When you gather round the tomb,
weep no more. We will meet soon
in a far off land, in the master's room,
Washed in the blood, made as new.
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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.”
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