The Jewel Collections

by Kay Clarity

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batai Immersive waves of images brought on by eloquent verse- even at that young tender age life kept up its haunting beat passing me like eons reflecting upon the surface of the rushing river always asking me ‘where do you fit? I am with you but only right here, right now, star lights in the sparkles creep into my memories of tales of a ten year old. Kay's 'minds-capes' become the landscape and paths on where our journeys take afoot in where ever. Favorite track: Forever.
doublewands
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doublewands She tunes the whispers and sounds so that even they play a trick to your ears. Favorite track: Forever.
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about

If you're looking for an album with staying power, you've stumbled upon the right singer-songwriter.

Kay Clarity is a lover of beauty and stories and believes in the power of art to heal, comfort, challenge, and grow. Her work comes from a place of thoughtfulness and excellence and a lifetime of honing her craft, and her influences include Tracy Chapman, Sarah McLachlan, Jewel, Beth Nielsen Chapman, Alanis Morissette, Matthew Good, The Civil Wars, Penny & Sparrow, Brooke Fraser, Bruce Cockburn, and many other "greats" of the singer-songwriter and alternative/rock genres.

Formerly connected with high-level industry executives throughout the UK and LA--including a Grammy-winning writer--but choosing to step out independently, Kay eschews mere trends in favour of the classic storytelling and melodic focus of the singer-songwriter tradition. Hailing from the same hometown as Joni Mitchell, her style is warm and personal, yet often also stumbles into the self-coined category of "poetic impressionism"--where the impression of the words communicates deeply and mysteriously to the truth of the human heart and intuition, respecting and challenging the intelligence of the listener.

Vocally, her voice is in a category of its own, begging similarities with Sarah McLachlan, Jewel, Joni Mitchell, Brooke Fraser, and Joy Williams, but managing its own distinct, clear, and recognizable quality. In simplest terms, it is a classically pretty voice, universally appreciated--but it also reveals a dramatic range and stylistic capacity, fluctuating from Celtic sounds and mild jazz influences, to Americana and blues; from delicate and gentle, to strong and assertive where needed. Thus, her voice is an effective means of communicating the various spread of themes explored in her writing.

Kay is also one of the few to explicitly combine recorded poetry on her album as tracks of their own, especially as an emphatic nod to the value of excellence in poetic lyrics. While risky, she succeeds in seamlessly incorporating this aspect of her artistic life into both her performances and this album, much to the surprise and delight of her listeners.

What you find here is artistic richness and maturity--a woman entering her zenith as a writer, musician, person, and performer. In a world of noise, her quiet and elegant poise and approach to her work is noteworthy and commendable.

Enjoy this poetic-folk solo act as your soundtrack--captivating vocals, lyrics, and melodies with simple but elegant production, making for an enduring work of beauty and art.

credits

released November 13, 2017

All songs written, performed, and produce by Kay Clarity. Additional backing vocals on "Weary" by Danielle Baillargeon.

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Track Name: Heart for You
When you're down and out and the flames are licking
When you're lost inside those won't-heal-wounds
When fear and fury are your default
There'll be a heart for you

When the road's too long and you can't keep trucking
When you've used up the last of your cool
When all your failures threaten justice
There'll be a heart for you
There'll be a heart for you

So sit tight now
You are not alone
Sit tight
You will be alright

When it's all gone black and you can't see colour
When the closed doors can't conceal your blue
When you've wandered far from heaven's refuge
There'll be a heart for you
There'll be a heart for you

So sit tight now
You are not alone
Sit tight
You will be alright

When it's everything you never wanted
When you've finally got nothing left to prove
When you see you're frail just like a human
There'll be a heart for you

Copyright 2017.
Track Name: Keep Me Close
I have never seen such light before
I have never known such warmth
I have always fought to find my home
Never thought it'd find me first

You have given me what I had lost
Through the carelessness of them
All their broken deeds and lying love
You have built me back again

[interlude]

If I walk alone again tonight
I don't know where I will go
Where these streets will wind, what feet will find
If I'll lose me in the cold

So keep me close
At your side
Never go
I'll be fine

In the morning I will wake from sleep
As the colours cover me
No more black and white upon my skin
No more ice inside my bones

Copyright 2017.
Track Name: Quiet Love Heals
Quiet love heals
Many still-buried violences
Pours in, just so, steady,
Awakening the silences,
Slowly, slowly caressing
The fine, thin, delicate places of skin--
The darknesses that hide
Within the pitied spaces

A vibrancy and lustre
In the grey wake of death--
The joyful repair,
The innocent, inquisitive eyes
Of a beloved.

Copyright 2017.
Track Name: Weary
Rest your weary eyes
Don't look outside
Just for now
You can hide

Let the rain come down
Just hear its sound
You'll be alright
You will be soon

Uncertain though you've been
You'll find your way, of this I'm sure
Unbending as it's been, you'll find a home

Through the broken leaves
And scattered trees
There is a pull
To set you free

And when you're ready, dear
And shed your fear
You'll find yourself
And heaven here

Uncertain though you've been
You'll find your way, of this I'm sure
Unbending as it's been you'll find a home

But in this deep
Just keep your sleep
Rest a while
In weary dreams

Uncertain though you've been
You'll find your way, of this I'm sure
Unbending as it's been you'll find a home

Uncertain though you've been
You'll find your way, of this I'm sure
Unbending as it's been you'll find a home

Unbending as it's been you'll find a home

Copyright 2017.
Track Name: Winter Lullaby
Winter's long, my dear
The snows just pile and pile
Winter's long, my dear
So sleep and sleep a while

A warm, little cottage in the wide, stretching white
Holds a babe and a mother in the thickness of night
Mama holds her little one safe
And every night she sings

Winter's long, my dear
The snows just pile and pile
Winter's long, my dear
So sleep and sleep a while

The sun creeps up at half past eight
And won't stay long past four
At the close of each, short, solemn day
She holds her babe and sings

Winter's long, my dear
The snows just pile and pile
Winter's long, my dear
So sleep and sleep a while

The night wind whistles days gone by
Long-covered in the snows
All else, so still, waits patiently
For spring, while mama sings

Winter's long, my dear
The snows just pile and pile
Winter's long, my dear
So sleep and sleep a while

Winter's long, my dear
The snows just pile and pile
Winter's long, my dear
So sleep and sleep a while

Copyright 2017.
Track Name: Harvest
I'd write up a song
For the jewels I collect,
But my pen is empty
And my heart's in my neck.

I'd laugh out a tune
To the odes of spring;
I could write with a crayon
Be a wandering thing.

But my pearls are ash;
My emeralds, dry;
The onyx, melting;
All the amber, shy.

The colours are fading,
pastel and opaque:
Harvest, come quickly;
Harvest, awake.

The glitters of prism,
The shadows of light
The thinness of dreams
The waking of night

These echoes of morning
Are my heart's dry repose
This listening, listening
For the blossoming rose.

But we hold till the knuckles
Are white from the strain
From the depths of our ashes
We hope for the rain

But the colours are fading,
Pastel and opaque:
Harvest, come quickly;
Harvest, awake.

Copyright 2017.
Track Name: San Pedro Sula
The devil lives in San Pedro, they say
I saw him in a dream
He wore cuffed jeans and a slick '22
And jet black Oakleys

Now they're headed for the border, the Promised Land
The drugs are gonna pay
The great north calls to you
The U S of A

There's gold in the hills
But blood on our shoes
We forgot about God
And the soul of truth

Cast the devil out, Jesus
Cast the devil out
Cast the devil out, Jesus
Cast the devil out

The hills will keep on shining just like they do
In the burnt summer sun
But where the light shines, the darkness shows
San Pedro's blood

There's gold in the hills
But blood on our shoes
We forgot about God
And the soul of truth

Cast the devil out, Jesus
Cast the devil out
Cast the devil out, Jesus
Cast the devil out

Sula, Sula, dream in gold
Don't bother waking up
Don't hope to grow old
Heaven has the streets you crave
And if you don't die today
And you walk straight and brave
You might just make it some day

There's gold in the hills
But blood on our shoes
We forgot about God
And the soul of truth

Cast the devil out, Jesus
Cast the devil out
Cast the devil out, Jesus
Cast the devil out

Copyright 2017.
Track Name: I Am a Lover
I am a lover, waiting on the rocks
Waiting for my love to call my name
I am a lover, waiting on the shore
Waiting for my baby's lovely face

I don't know how it got to this
Or why it's taking so long
All I know's I crumble when he's gone

I am a lover, waiting for his precious, warm embrace
I am a lover, hanging on the edge
Watching for him sailing through the bay

I don't know how it got to this
Or why it's taking so long
All I know's I crumble when he's gone

My love will come home to me
I feel him send his heart across the sea
My love will come home to me

I am a lover, faithful to the end
And no one know my baby like I do
He is a fighter and I know he'll make it through
He'll make it back and marry me soon

I don't know how it got to this
Or why it's taking so long
All I know's I crumble when he's gone

My love will come home to me
My love will come home to me
I feel him send his heart across the sea
My love will come home to me

I am a lover, and I know what it is to cry
But I know much more what it is to keep the faith
There is no other, and I know he's coming home
And I know that he will soon call me by name

My love will come home to me
My love will come home to me
I feel him send his heart across the sea
My love will come home to me

Copyright 2017.
Track Name: Always Bleed
I heard once or twice
Real love's giving up your life
I heard once or twice
It's not worth much without a fight

Love tells a strange tale
Be strong when you're hollow-frail
Shoes worn and eyes pale
Wonder-lost and sorrow-stale

Does love always bleed?
Does it always pierce our hands and feet?
Does love always bleed?
Drown us in its scarlet seas?

These hands do not part waves
And this tongue does not talk brave
Choking on the grey
Tripping onto come what may

Does love always bleed?
Does it always pierce our hands and feet?
Does love always bleed?
Drown us in its dark, red deep?

Paper-thin and cold
Firm in place just like a stone
Grounded in the gold
Of losing all there is to hold

Does love always bleed?
Does it always pierce our hands and feet?
Does love always bleed?
Drown us in its scarlet seas?

I heard once or twice
Real love's giving up your life
I heard once or twice
It's not worth much without a fight

Copyright 2017.
Track Name: The World Creaks with Sadness
The world creaks with sadness The world creaks with sadness
Like an old, lonely house
Left on a side road outside of
The town that is going ghost,
Dust blowing through the chambers,
Whispering an echoed song
Of something meaningful, sweet,
But fallen to disrepair.

It heaves with the wind,
Sighs in the shadows,
And the ghosts take up their residence
With their memories,
With their awakenings and wanderings,
Their sleeps and silver songs:
It fills with it, with them,
Fills up with fire and frolicking,
Fills with the dances of dark and moon dust,
With the lilt of the lilies and lilacs,
Given with grave laughter,
With the skip of the sky,
Gazed at with eyes of eternity—

Fills with freckled frowns,
And porcelain platitudes,
And with the trying of a child
To draw out from the dredges
Of a heat-hardened man in shadows
A quart or so of lifeblood
To no avail.

It fills with it all,
With the hunger of the helpless ones
And the cold steel of those
Who never knew to ask for love,
With the men distracted from the call
To clean the muddied inside
With the women furiously washing,
Scouring the white, bright edges,
While a hollow child looks on
And waits.

Fills, fills—brims:
And there is the dreaded, hapless moan
Of the corridors,
A haunted, sad song,
Leaning one way,
And the next,
Leaning,
And leaning again
Sighing and sagging,
Bending, breaking, broken
Under the weight of it all,
Cracking under an avalanche of history
(slow but inevitable),
Poured mercilessly through the leaking rafters
Like the flooding fingers of rain
In a summer storm
Seeking through the attic
Like an alive thing,
Like a dead thing,
Awakened, weary, wordless.

And the current cascades
Cresting over the peeling window pane
In weary waves of salted silence,
In bounteous waters of bewilderment,
In rain unrisen,
A river of madness and hysteria,
sorrow and euphoria, dashed heavy hope:
heaves, heaves, and floods
Continuous and uncontained,
Thick and drenched, black deep
Like the breathing ocean—
—covering the face of the earth,
Which creaks with sadness
Like an old and lonely house.

Copyright 2017.
Track Name: Only Ever You
We spoke like lovers with the years long gone
Every word between was like the flicker of a song
Oh, I loved you then and oh, I love you now

Only just a moment did you take to win my trust
But I cut myself away like the way I knew I must
Oh, I loved you then and oh, I love you now
Oh, I loved you then and oh, I love you now

This heart was tried and true
With only ever you
The memory black and blue
But sweet because of you
I know still what I knew
That only ever you
Would ever only be
Only ever you

I know that love is often letting go
But how do you release the blood from in your bones?
Oh, I loved you then and oh, I love you now
Oh, I loved you then and oh, I love you now

{Chorus}
So this is how it feels
To love without reserve
This is how it feels
To love

{Chorus}

Oh, I loved you then and oh, I love you now
Oh, I loved you then and oh, I love you now
Oh, I loved you then and oh, I love you now

Copyright 2017.
Track Name: Forever
You were once a child
Caught in the wildflowers
Hoping on a dream

I remember you
Full of all the blue skies
Running through the streets

Oh, can I keep you like that
Forever, forever?
Don’t let time have the last laugh
Go back to forever

Able-bodied man
Does your heart stand stoic,
Beating just to breathe?

You were young once
Just life-drunk sober
Always saw honey in the bees

{Chorus}

It’s a fight, it’s fight to finally find yourself
It’s a fight, I know it is
It’s a fight, but I will fight by your side forever
Forever

{Chorus}

Copyright 2017.
Track Name: Sonnet One
Do not to love bolt shut the doors of you—
The dark inside will soon grow into death.
Don’t listen to the crop of lies that grew
As worlds in bitter sadness robbed your breath.

Do not give way to all Deception’s ploys
To lock you in yourself without a key,
To throw you into barren, ugly noise—
Your loveless, silent, brooding misery.

Do not forget the summer days you know
Though buried in the wailing, winter nights;
Do not forget the dawn in all its glow;
Recall with hope the warmest, home-lit lights.

Yes! Find your fight again—do not be bossed!
For darkness isn’t winning; it has lost.

Copyright 2017.
Track Name: Please Don't Ever Leave Me
Please don’t ever leave me
‘Cause I cannot walk alone
Please don’t ever leave me
‘Cause I cannot walk alone
My heart will be a stone again
My heart will be a stone
So please don’t ever leave me
‘Cause I cannot walk alone

I’ll say it quiet but I’ll say it clear
It’s been a long, long road for me
With many thorns, not many roses
And I’m broken as can be

{Chorus}

There’s much to say but far too much
So I’ll keep it simple here
I’ve broken down and I’ve barely built
And I’m crippled by my fear

But if you can see through the years
Of my muddy, messy tries
I promise I will give to you
All the hidden good inside

{Chorus}

Love cannot be just for saints
It seeks the ones who bleed
And I am one among the small
Who will always suffer need

{Chorus}

Copyright 2017.

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