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. |
Back Then
04:12
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2. |
Sweet & Toxic
02:41
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3. |
If the Gun's Not Loaded
03:41
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4. |
The Hoot Owl
03:22
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5. |
Hardbitten
03:54
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6. |
The Dominecker Hen
04:17
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The Dominecker Hen
© Jeni Hankins 2005
Sister was gone three days before the law gave up their search.
Mother and I set out ourselves though we were dressed for church.
We took Old Rufus Tanner’s boat ‘cause he’s too dead to want it.
Mother pointed her finger upstream where the way was foggy and haunted.
We made our way up the river deep and mother watched ‘cross the bow.
I manned the oars and feared to think I had no sister now.
Mother’s back was straight and narrow in her calico dress.
She hardly blinked her eyes that morn for fear what she might miss.
Mother called poor sister’s name and bowed her weary head.
In her lap sat our good laying hen, its comb was bloody red.
How sister loved that speckled bird which mother brought for hope.
Mother held that bird so tight for sister loved it so.
Pointing her finger through the fog, mother went all white.
Sister’s clothes lay on the bank. Oh, what a dreadful sight.
The laying hen let out a crow. The blood in my veins went cold.
Mother broke that poor bird’s neck for death its cry foretold.
Sister’s clothes were laid out fine, only her body was missing.
Her long sleeves crossed upon her chest and the toes of her black boots kissing.
The dominecker lay in the boat. The blood flowed from its beak.
Mother laid down on the mossy bank and fell in a stoney sleep.
There I closed my mother’s eyes and folded sister’s dress.
I said goodbye with these few words in my Sunday best.
I have no family in this world, no mother or sister now.
I hate to think the awful things that heaven will allow.
Sisters drowned or disappeared, mothers turned to stone,
orphans homeless and condemned to walk this world alone.
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7. |
Coronation Day
05:06
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8. |
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9. |
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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