Music & Lyrics: M.L. Hammond

lights in the windows
snow in the street
kids on the ice rink
the cop on the beat
coming back home to find
nothing has changed
and yet everything’s different now,
isn’t it strange

something is moving
something is gone
the clock hands have stopped
but the ticking goes on
I lie in the darkness
and yet at the seams
of the night it’s as though
something flickers and gleams

I dreamed I was a prisoner
I dreamed of a wall
I tried to fly over
and started to fall
I awoke and reached out
just as though you were there
oh this distance
just doesn’t seem fair

didn’t I tell you
didn’t I just
when water meets iron
it’s iron that rusts
oh I was the strong one
right up till the end
when your tenderness broke me
and healed me again

now who do you think
I’m crying for
now that I’ve finally
unlocked the door
oh I’ve got no regrets
but I see there’s a price
’cause I can’t stand alone anymore

lights in the windows
stars in the sky
the moment was there
but the moment slipped by
yet something stays with me
it stays and it stays
though there’s four thousand miles
aren’t there four thousand ways
or at least one or two
you know one of these days
I’m gonna find my way back to you

Music & Lyrics: M.L. Hammond

well it’s snowin’ again and what can I say
it’s been another one of them nowhere days
and oh I’d like to blame it all on the weather
there’s an old black cat out in the snow
black cat he don’t know where to go
and I can’t say I’m doing any better

and the popcorn man across the street
he’s standing there watching his popcorn freeze
and all his shiny candy apples crackin’
but he’s not like me no he don’t complain
he just keeps at it in the snow and rain
stampin’ his feet by his rickety painted wagon

don’t you know, my friend Stephen
that the blues without a name
they’re the worst of all
I’ve looked for reasons and there’s either
a thousand or there’s none at all
hey will you be there if I call

now I know there’s a lesson in the popcorn man
with his turned-up collar and his raw red hands
but somehow it doesn’t offer much consolation
well if only life was like the radio
then me and the black cat out in the snow
we’d waste no time tuning in to some other station

oh are you listening to me, Stephen
can I come and stay with you until winter’s end
I know we’ll never be lovers
like we were back then again
but right now I’d settle for a good friend

well it’s snowin’ again and what can I say
it’s been another one of them nowhere days
and still I couldn’t tell you what it is I’m lacking
(all I know is) once upon the sunshine shone
but now the popcorn days are gone
and all those candy apple dreams are cracking

thinking ’bout Stephen and the black cat
and the popcorn man and me

Music: Marie-Lynn Hammond   Lyrics: Marie-Thérèse Hammond

être libre et partir comme un oiseau volage
sans connaître jamais ni son nom ni son âge
être libre et partir, ignorer le retour
et raconter au vent son cœur et son amour

être libre et sentir une nouvelle vie
battre son aile au vent sans frayeur, sans envie
être libre et voler vers un pays lointain
et fixer pour toujours un éternel matin

être libre en son cœur sans crainte qu’on le brise
exprimer un désir pour qu’il se réalise
comme le bel oiseau, tendre son aile et fuir*
être libre à jamais et ne jamais mourir

Translation:
to be free and to take flight like a bird on the wing
without ever knowing your own name or age
to be free and take flight, with no thought of returning
and to tell the wind the secrets of your heart and love

to be free and feel a new life
beating your wings on the wind without fear or longing
to be free and fly toward a far-away country
your gaze fixed forever on an eternal morning

to be free in your heart, without fear of getting it broken
to merely express a wish in order to have it come true
like the beautiful bird, to stretch out your wings and take flight*
to be free forever, and never to die

* Fuir is one of those wonderful French words that carries many nuances of meaning and for which there is no exact English equivalent. Depending on context it can mean “to escape,” “to flee,” “to take flight,” “to glide by swiftly,” or a combination of any or all of these. I think my mother intended something in between “take flight” and “escape.”–MLH

Music: Doug Bowes Lyrics: Marie-Lynn Hammond

something is happening to me
I think that it’s kinda strange
gave the beggar man a quarter
you know he offered to give me some change
he could tell I was in a bad way
I had only one thing left to do
and it’s leaving

well I can’t say that people are mean now
there was one man who was almost kind
he tried to help me cross a busy street
it seems that he thought I was blind
well I guess I was for a while babe
oh but now I know my mind
it’s all for leaving, leaving

leaving ain’t so hard to do
when you’ve nothing to leave behind
when your easy days are gone
it’s easy to move on

oh I went to bed Thursday morning
got up it was Saturday night
though I dreamt of you in colour
when I woke up you were black and white
well there ain’t too much that’s left for me
and what’s left just doesn’t feel right
so I’m leaving, leaving

Music & Lyrics: Graeme Card; used by permission

where did the breeze blow from
makes you dance around
where’d the devil come from
makes me wanna paint the town
a ship can go down in the ocean
but as far as I can see
nobody loves you like I do but me

never have no troubles
we always get along
may have to ask you for a loan sometime,
but that ain’t wrong
when you and me get into a huddle,
no man can intervene
nobody loves you like I do but me

nobody loves you like I do but me
nobody rolls around like you roll around with me
I give you the moon and I say
no man need fade away
nobody loves you like I do but me

my man is like an owl,
he’s a creature of the night
he blend with the scenery, in the daytime,
he’s on to the light
he sit like a spook in a tree
and he hoot and howl for you
nobody loves you like I do but me

Music: Jacqueline L. Hammond   Lyrics: Marie-Lynn Hammond

seven white pebbles
some rose-speckled shells
they were sleeping in my pockets
when we last exchanged farewells
oh the things we keep, the things we throw away
somewhere on the west coast
on a long stretch of beach
I called you and I called
but you were moving out of reach
oh the times we hear, the times we turn away

and I’m sorry for whatever came between
sorry for the love that might have been
but for the timing

perhaps if we’d met later
or else sometime before
if only I had loved you less
if you had loved me more
oh the things we learn, the things we learn too late

one star in the twilight
soon there’ll be more
but I don’t think I’ll try wishing
don’t feel as lucky as I did before

all the strange and empty spaces
I’ve since travelled on my own
with a handful of seashells
a pocketful of stones
oh the things we keep, the things we throw away
oh the things we feel, the things we never say

Music & Lyrics: M.L. Hammond

I thought I would see you at least one more time
if only just to kiss you goodbye
oh but last night in all the confusion
you vanished like some kind of illusion
and I think I know why

whenever somebody gets too near
you lose your nerve and disappear
how can I tell that’s the reason
well I’ve been pulling that same old trick for years
masters of the great escape are we
Houdini and you and me

I looked for you in vain up and down the halls
I hoped we would cross on the stairs
when I gave up and finally opened your door
I saw ropes and scarves on the floor
but you weren’t there

and just when I thought I’d found
a reason for holding my ground
life has to play a little joke
like making me go and pick
someone whose favourite trick
seems to be vanishing up in smoke

oh, I’m feeling like Alice with the Cheshire cat
you’re fading away as I stare
blink my eyes and you’re gone now
but your smile hangs on and on in the empty air

magicians of the future will all agree
there was Houdini and you and me

Music & Lyrics: M.L. Hammond

he sits in front of the radar screen
watching the signal, watching the planes
go pulsing across, leaving their tracks of light
there’s a buddy on the line now from Byron Bay
he’s probably lonely but he’d never say
he’s just looking for some kind of comfort
in this twenty-four hour night

they call it defending the country
he calls it saving up money
don’t quite know what he’s saving for
but as soon as he’s got just a little bit more
he’ll be going outside for good

but look out that you don’t get caught now
’cause some find their way back but some do not
you gotta watch for the warning signs
on the Distant Early Warning Line

oh he hasn’t seen a woman in five or six months
not since that night down in Cambridge Bay
she took him by surprise but
oh lord it was all right
well it’s not the getting laid
that you miss so much
it’s just someone to hold you,
someone to touch you
ah what he’d give to be held now
in this black and frozen night

well there’s always the telephone
but what’s the use, he’d still be alone
he tries to focus on the screen, only to find
that girl is moving like a track of light
across his mind, leaving him blind

chorus

and on leave he heads for the west coast
to the rolling blue Pacific
he lets the waves crash over his body
under a burning summer sky
but at night he dreams of silence
and a vast and frozen ocean
stretching white to the horizon
and he don’t know why

and he’s scared that he might be caught now
’cause some find their way back but some do not
they say dreams are a warning sign
on the Distant Early Warning Line
you gotta watch for the warning signs
on the Distant Early Warning Line

Music & Lyrics: M.L. Hammond

this is a song for you
though perhaps some others will hear
this is a song for you
when you can’t be near

now I don’t want to play the poet
or the clever clown
just want to take hold of these feelings
and pin them down

’cause maybe it’s just a mirage that I’m seeing
some maverick gleam
a trick of the way the light falls in a dream

oh I’ve never seen eyes like yours
brown in a circle of blue
like the sky ’round the earth
when the sun comes shining through

and when you turn those eyes to me
well I hardly know what to do
I see the sky ’round the earth
I see me in a circle of you

but maybe it’s just a mirage that I’m seeing
some maverick gleam
a trick of the way the light falls in a dream

well you know that I’m hard to live with
sometimes I’m downright mean
but you make me feel I could love you
love you like you’ve never seen

and I thought it was just a mirage, oh
some maverick gleam
a trick of the way the light falls in a dream

but I think finally this time
I can trust the view
see how the light holds steady
when it’s coming from you

so this is a song for you
though perhaps some others will hear
this is a song for you
when you can’t be near

Music: Doug Bowes,   Lyrics: M.L. Hammond

there’s a cat on the steps
and I sure could use a lesson from her
she got sly yellow eyes
she got three-coloured crazy-quilt fur
she slinks and creeps, she leaps and she teases
but whatever she does, she does just as she pleases
ooh she’s the calico cat

when she’s feeling lazy,
she just stretches out in the sun
oh but when she’s feeling crazy
she got all the local dogs on the run
she’s lean and mean, she’s a backyard queen
and she looks out for number one
and nobody can break her heart

on those hot summer nights
all the toms come ’round to woo her
but she turns up her nose
’cause they don’t mean a damn thing to her
well she’ll pick them over when she’s in the mood
but when she’s not, look out,
she ain’t afraid to be rude
ooh she’s the calico cat

when she’s feeling lazy… etc.