Get all 25 t.k. bollinger releases available on Bandcamp and save 25%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Imperfect Spaces, Pts. 1 through 3, Ordinary Beginnings, Ordinary Endings, Ordinary Graces, Ordinary Despair, Ordinary Failings, Orinary Loses, Ordinary Inconvenience, and 17 more.
1. |
My Shadow's Loving Arms
03:54
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When I’m happy I miss my shadow
But when I’m sad she reaches forth her loving hand
So that I’m wrapped up so tightly that I feel like I have died.
Sometimes I wonder if life would be
Any easier if I was free of her
Loving arms or would I feel like I have died?
What would I be, if I could see
Only the light inside?
I know it’s no sin to want to be happy.
If you’re buying dreams you need to be wary.
Not lose touch with what’s real
Or crave too much the feel of your shadow’s
loving arms.
I guess we all swing both dark and light make up everything.
You can make a stand but each fevered brow needs a soft cool hand
That’s why each time I fall back into her loving arms.
Till I recoil and I once more fall back into her loving arms.
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2. |
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There’s a time to feel blessed and a time to feel numb
But I’m not trying to impress you
when I say I feel something’s wrong.
I toss and turn and I wake in fright
Foolish concerns keep me awake each night
I’d confess but even God can’t see
Half the worries I’m dragging with me
You were saying that worry’s praying for what you don’t want
How can I get it right? I’ve done it all my life
It’s hard to thrive when it’s fear or flight.
I keep saying, I’m not praying but making good on what life’s shown me.
I know it sounds perverse, the darkness gets in first
When we’re sinking and it’s time to leave.
Yes I have a small problem with authority.
But I’ve also stopped hoping that there’s more than what’s in front of me.
Well I’ve pissed them all off again.
I can’t really say that I’ve missed them
when they greet me like a blow torch flame.
That’s how I know I was right to keep myself awake each night
I know there’s more sometimes it’s hard to see
Past these failing I’m dragging with me.
You keep saying the dark is preying so I can’t get what I want.
Takes all my hope away so I should start to pray
If I’m to get some reward from life.
But I keep saying, it seems we’re praying on things we’re afraid to do.
I shouldn’t be surprised there’s no more alibis
Fears come knocking and it’s time to move.
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3. |
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There’s a time to feel blessed and a time to feel numb
But I’m not trying to impress you
when I say I feel something’s wrong.
I toss and turn and I wake in fright
Foolish concerns keep me awake each night
I’d confess but even God can’t see
Half the worries I’m dragging with me
You were saying that worry’s praying for what you don’t want
How can I get it right? I’ve done it all my life
It’s hard to thrive when it’s fear or flight.
I keep saying, I’m not praying but making good on what life’s shown me.
I know it sounds perverse, the darkness gets in first
When we’re sinking and it’s time to leave.
Yes I have a small problem with authority.
But I’ve also stopped hoping that there’s more than what’s in front of me.
Well I’ve pissed them all off again.
I can’t really say that I’ve missed them
when they greet me like a blow torch flame.
That’s how I know I was right to keep myself awake each night
I know there’s more sometimes it’s hard to see
Past these failing I’m dragging with me.
You keep saying the dark is preying so I can’t get what I want.
Takes all my hope away so I should start to pray
If I’m to get some reward from life.
But I keep saying, it seems we’re praying on things we’re afraid to do.
I shouldn’t be surprised there’s no more alibis
Fears come knocking and it’s time to move.
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4. |
The Bridge You Burnt
02:53
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I am what’s coming
the little hope left when you turn
and start marching home
From the bridge you burnt
I am the groan
the hiss that rose
in disappointment
the little compromise you learn
when you return from the bridge you burnt
Fortune loves you best
When your heart knows no rest
It brought you here to build
But you chose to break its will
And made those bridges burn
I am the summoning
the shit that’s coming down on you
You can’t refuse
Now your bridge is burnt
I plant the seeds
I am the weeds
that bring the rightening
Returning all that’s over thrown
The grass that’s grown
On the bridge you burnt.
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5. |
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Your inner child is screaming again.
So loud and long you neglect the one
You have bourn and need to tend.
We all fall down
But we must get up again.
Get off the phone
And hold her.
Hold her.
Her heart is breaking.
Some say they’re born this way.
But most of us get fucked up along the way.
Trust can be stunted and killed
And leave a hole that can never be filled
We may become pure creatures of pain
If our hearts get broken again and again
They took half a lifetime to mend.
But when the screaming starts those childhood scars
They open right up again.
I don’t blame you but you need to care my friend.
Because if you don’t who’ll hold her?
Hold her?
When her heart is breaking?
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6. |
What My Devils Know
04:19
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One moment I drink hope
The next I’m choking on despair
My Life’s an oscillation
A search for finding reasons to care
And while I know
Some look to higher powers
Others call on selfish needs
That’s how we spend the hours
The devil you know is likely to show if another gets to know you
One moment love is king
The next the heat of hate’s my thing
In this world of disparate moods
The core I claim it often moves.
That’s how I know
If your seeking perfect meaning
Logic it won’t get you far
Unless there’s room for feeling
The devil you know who’s likely to show if another gets to know you
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7. |
Leaving Me Empty
03:56
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We Celebrate
The ease of connection like it’s our natural state
Praise the external play down the inside
“How ya going, enjoying the ride?’
I feel soiled by the choice in my life
This deal still leaves me empty inside.
We’re told we’re born with free will
You can go where you want to choose the blue or red pill
How many are offered? How many perceive
what’s fact and what’s only belief?
Each time you witness the devil in the man
It’s harder to see the human again
Where nothing’s eternal and nothing is pure
Decay and corruption’s inevitable
I see how brilliant the outside does shine
I feel like something is rotting inside
Freedom’s the message, how to get it’s unclear
While everyone’s called not all choose to hear
Too many sounds clashing and crowding our ears
Trading on our comfort and fears.
I feel like something is dying inside
This deal is leaving me empty.
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8. |
To Lose The Darkness
05:06
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Was there ever a pure day
Filled with wonder and empty of shame
When desire embraced us all
And we didn’t shun its call.
Received wonder forked its tale
Hollow thunder has taken its place
Desire disgraced us all
And now the outside overwhelms
And no one can tell me if the journey’s ended.
They only try and sell me ideals patched and mended.
It’s like they say you run to the light after you die
To give away the solitude and quiet.
To lose the darkness is to lose your life.
You once told me I had my chance
The steps you showed me but I wouldn’t dance
I let the quiet embrace me
That’s how I found the way to flee
But now they’re closing in hungry and distracted
Trying to take from me the silence I’ve extracted.
It’s like they say you run to the light after you die
To give away the solitude and quiet.
To lose the darkness is to lose your life.
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9. |
The White Man's Game
04:58
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Some day
You might get the best of me
Until that time all your arses are mine
Don’t be surprised that you don’t get much sympathy.
If you’re keen to play
Remember this is my game.
Some say
You can change your destiny
But in these times where so much is entwined
Don’t be surprised if you don’t get to live that dream
You were keen to play.
Remember this is my game.
My way,
Is the way of equality.
You will find when all the answers combine
The game won’t work without the quirks of mortality
You’re still keen to play?
I treat you all just the same.
Don’t like the things you see?
You can depend life’s plotting your end
So friend come and dance with me
I’ll wake the fear inside you.
My name
Is no matter of secrecy
In the end I help you clean up my friend.
Spend your payout, your final redundancy.
Even if you still want to play
No one gets a choice
At the end of this game
I will silence your voice.
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10. |
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I can’t help but feel
A delicious and deranged revulsion
To the cogs and wheels
That are building up more
Sex starved and money hungry spawn
It’s painful to see
An extinction event in slow motion
But that’s the deal
When you keep breeding more
Sex starved and power hungry spawn.
This is where my darkest fears are leading me
On a barge, mere debris cast into the sea
A floating mass of petrified dependency
Sunbaked we ride upon the tide to be broken down, broken down.
No land in sight, we wake in fright we’re broken down, broken down
On wind and wave or flesh is splayed we’re broken down, broken down
The seabirds prize our jellied eyes we’re broken down, broken down
Our flesh transformed, as fish reborn we’re broken down, broken down
Broken down
Let me share with you all the shit I’ve found.
Let’s bask for a moment, in life’s weary glow
Then end up laughing, understanding that we’ll never know
This life we rent
May be priceless or not worth a cent,
Until we come to know
The lightness that comes from letting go.
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11. |
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There are no final winners or losers.
Just random recipients of life’s bruises
We must all go along making up our own song
and meaning.
There is no pause, no escape button, one exit clause.
No control Z, just this endless loop running in your head.
Why? Why, why, why,
Will no answer come? And all you can do is
laugh or cry.
Sometimes the mews of purveyors of truth are intriguing.
Sometimes their promises weigh my sweet tolerance down.
Don’t hasten your light unto me.
Wrap me in doubt, let me be
Free from the weight of this straight jacket of certainty.
So this is the season the end of doubt, the ascent of reason?
The over abundance of how.
The gimme shimmy we must all dance now
Scream, “Mine! Mine, mine, mine!”
Till the final cry when all you can do is
Say goodbye?
Bye bye. Bye Bye.
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t.k. bollinger Melbourne, Australia
Shunning fashion and genre, master tunesmith, t.k. bollinger's songs are relatable because they examine what each of us confront in our day-to-day existence. Expressed with both sympathy and eloquence, his songs are celebrations of the joys and trials that life presents to each of us regardless of who or what we are – the universal ordinary concerns of a diverse and disparate humanity. ... more
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