/
  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $1 USD  or more

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    With touring an impossibility during lockdown, Jeni brimmed with songs. "A Body is A Delicate House" is her studio album from the lockdown period – first released as a hand-pressed CD in fall of 2021. After a successful limited pressing, she had the album remastered by Martin Stansbury of Cacophony Cottage Studios and factory pressed in 2022.

    In this release and in her other lockdown release "I Fell Into the Fire," she returns to Jewell Ridge for stories as well as finding inspiration in the life of her late music mentor, Norman Cross.

    The physical CD comes with a 46-page booklet complete with essays, liner notes, lyrics, and collages made by Jeni by hand.

    From the conclusion to Jeni's liner notes:

    "Every little thing I’ve done in my terrestrial life has pointed me toward this calling – to watch and note, to report back, to listen for broadcasts from the spirit and from those who have crossed to the other side. My delicate house has an antenna which is always switched on for particular messages. This has always been my way. It’s just how I was made in the same way that I always woosh into a chair without calculating the risk, in the same way that I have one squinty eye like Dad, like Grandaddy, the newspaper men, the reporters.

    These songs are my reading and translation of what I’ve heard in the recent worldwide news from the firmament and the spirit. Bless those who whisper these messages and the celestial currents that carry them.

    There’ll be loaves, there’ll be fishes
    – the answer in your hands.
    And you’ll tell it all to me
    when you reach the promise land.
    Amen, Dad. Amen."

    Includes unlimited streaming of A Body is a Delicate House via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ... more
    ships out within 3 days

      $20 USD or more 

     

  • Full Digital Discography

    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. , and , .

    Purchasable with gift card

      $181.68 USD or more (20% OFF)

     

about

I wrote this song for my late music mentor, Norman Cross. He was a ceilidh musician and legendary instrument repairman from Hull. In Norman's case, a "meeting" was a folk club and the new hat, coat, and shoes were gifts from his wife who cared for him as he coped with Parkinson's and dementia.

I have Norman’s banjo hanging on my wall. I wrote a song about ice cream with it and twelve other songs about Norman and counting.

lyrics

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.

credits

from A Body is a Delicate House, released December 13, 2022
Words by Jeni Hankins, Lulu Wall Music, BMI. Music by Jeni Hankins and Alfred John Hickling.

Jeni Hankins – Vocal & Rhythm Guitar
Alfred John Hickling – Harmony vocal & all other instruments
except
Craig Eastman – fiddle
Rebecca Hall – harmony vocal
Ken Anderson – harmony vocal

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

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

contact / help

Contact Jeni Hankins

Streaming and
Download help

Shipping and returns

Redeem code

Report this track or account

Jeni Hankins recommends:

If you like Jeni Hankins, you may also like: