I Inside the Old Year Dying Album Lyrics by PJ Harvey

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Prayer at the Gate

As childhood died the old year
Made The Soldier reappear
The ash embowered night and day
As at the gate, she prayed
Wyman, am I worthy?
Speak your wordle to me

And drisk shrouded in its cloak
Holway, river, brook and oak
All souls under Orlam's reign
Made passage for the born again

So look behind, look before
Life knocking at death's door
And teake to your dark-haired Lord
Forever bleeding with The Word
So look before, look behind
Life and death all intertwined
And teake to your dark-haired Lord
Forever bleeding with The Word

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Autumn Term

Ash trees, gave the keys
Yet none will set me free
Woody nightshade, drooped her beads
An' bade, come feed on these

Look behind yourself, red-eyed
'Gainst the wilder-mist, tell me what you find

Ha-ah, ha-ah
Ha-ah, ha-ah

I ascend, three steps to hell
The school bus heaves up the hill
The sloey spears on Witches Mead
Cussed, cussed, come lean on these

Look behind yourself, red-eyed
'Gainst the wilder-mist, tell me what you find
Look behind yourself, red-eyed
'Gainst the wilder-mist, tell me what you find

Ha-ah, ha-ah
Ha-ah, ha-ah
Ha

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Lwonesome Tonight

Hark the greening of the earth
Curled ferns yet to uncurl
Hark the zingen of the birds
Gurrel yearns yet to ungurrel

Beech and aller, woak and birch
Biddle, bull-head, squirrel's drey
Willow, aspen, elder, larch
Soldier-King on Maundy day

In er satchel, Pepsi fizz
Peanut-and-banana sandwiches
For this man her shepherd is
Parts her bready, her bready lips

Are you Elvis? Are you God?
Jesus sent to win my trust?
"Love Me Tender," are his words
As I've loved you, so you must

Thrice she draws her lips to kiss
Mouthing for his mouth in vain
Thrice her lonesome kisses miss
"My love, will you come back again?"

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Seem an I

Bedraggled angels blethered
Across Eleven Acres
As belling from the boneyard
Rangled 'round the orchard

Her fingernails a-ripped
From hauling clay-filled fists
Out of the river's edges
For pots with happy voices

Consumed with twanketen
Only eased by scratching
Wisp-words slim as thistles
Or sickly chicken whistles

Seem an I a childhood
Of quartere'il and wormwood
Of not-friends running nowhere
Of vog a-veiling elsewhere

Till in the vaulted barn
Queer-lit by dummet zun
She knew herself a vessel
Fit for a different wordle

Where footsteps must be lone
And barefoot upon stones
The northwind's ever-host
Giving edges to the ghosts

Seem an I a childhood
Of quartere'il and wormwood
Of not-friends running nowhere
Of vog a-veiling elsewhere
Of mother's voice not calling
Of corrugated iron
Of devil's birds and whiskey
Of chilver hogs and fleecy

And nuts I could not reapy
And nuts I could not reapy

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The Nether-edge

March 'ull sarch, Eäpril 'ull try
Mäy 'ull tell if you'll live or die
March 'ull sarch, Eäpril 'ull try
Mäy 'ull tell if you'll live or die

Buds a-break and milchi seeps
Heady in the meadows
Chalky children on the steep
Baskets full of shadows
Gapmouth spins a rattle song
The air's an upturned ocean
Swift's an axe hurled in the gloam
Splits the Riddle open

Now it looks, it almost zounds
Wordle zircles wider
With the silence upside down
Horse atop the rider

Quaterevil takes a wife
Chilver meets her maker
As the grindstone turns the knife
O'er Eleven Acres

Femboys in the forest find
Figs of foul freedom
Where the old you left behind
Valls through nether-Eden
Femboys in the forest find
Figs of foul freedom
Where the old you left behind
Valls through nether-Eden

So some must watch, while some must sleep
So runs the wordle's way
A not-girl zwealed at the stake
A-births the end of May

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I Inside the Old Year Dying

Zun's a feeble lamp
O'er leery land
Stares a' chat in code
Lark a meagre note

Drush repeats 'enself
Over Underwhelem
Croopied in the reames
Shepherd gurrel weaves

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All Souls

A carnival, a flesh farewell
Hiessens rising from the, from the dead
"Wyman-Elvis," calls our gurrel
And counts the ash to where, to where he bled

One, two, three, four
Five, six, seven, eight

At the first, a crimson mist
At the second, sleeplessness
At the third, a broken tryst
At the fourth, a lwonesomeness

Gawly, the sweethearts leaves
The soldier's tears
The Riddle river grieves
Wyman-Elvis disappears

Only in a scrid of flesh
Hooked upon the hart's-tongue fern
Only by her own gooseflesh
Knows she somewhen he'll return

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A Child's Question, August

Starling swarms will soon be lorn
Rooks tell stories 'cross the corn
Goocoo soon will 'es leave make
Swifts abandon autumn's ache

What says dunnick, drush or dove?
"Love Me Tender"? Tender love?

Hear the grinding wheel-bird grieve
Grief unknits my ravelled sleeve
Death of zummer, death of play
Waxing night and dwindling day

Help me dunnick, drush and dove
"Love Me Tender", tender love

Help me dunnick, drush and dove
"Love Me Tender", tender love
Help me dunnick, drush and dove
"Love Me Tender", tender love

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I Inside the Old I Dying

The beech buds wait, the aish buds wait
The frogs and twoads in lagwood holes
Hedgehogs in their leafy ditch
All waiting for His kingdom

The eth waits, the dead brakes
That host the holly's bloody beads
They are His crown of thorns
He will rise again

Oh Wyman, Oh Wyman
Unray I
Unray I for en
Oh Wyman, Oh Wyman
Unray I
Unray I for en

Slip from my childhood skin
I zing, I'm zinging through the forest
I hover in the holway
Laugh into the leaves

Oh Wyman, Oh Wyman
Unray I
Unray I for en
Oh Wyman, Oh Wyman
Unray I
Unray I for en

I laugh in leaves and merge to meesh
Just a charm in the woak
With the chalky children
Of evermore

The chalky children of evermore
The chalky children of evermore
The chalky children of evermore
The chalky children of evermore
The chalky children of evermore
The chalky children of evermore
The chalky children of evermore
The chalky children of evermore
The chalky children of evermore
The chalky children of evermore

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August

Tree-tears vall
Wordle-wide
All of us
Cross o'er t'other side

'Vore I leave
Someone please
Love me tender
Beneath the trees

Love me tender
Love me sweet
All memories will fade

Lorn of leaf
Twiddicks sigh
Child and season mortify

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A Child's Question, July

Hail the hedge as it grows
Ask the hedge all it knows

Hail the hedge as it grows
Ask the hedge all it knows

Tell me who has licked the twoad?
What is hidden 'neath the road?
Tell me quick as I was born
Whivering like a downy horn

Hail the hedge as it grows
Ask the hedge all it knows

Hail the hedge as it grows
Ask the hedge all it knows

Who's inneath The Ooser-Rod?
Horny devil? Goaty God?
What is God in ethly guise?
One or mampus giant eyes?
One or mampus giant eyes?

Will the sweven's golden keys
Hanging in the aishy trees
Open gawly geates to death
Who hoards 'es answers in the eth?
Who hoards 'es answers

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A Noiseless Noise

Absence
Absence
Absence

Cold moon comes down curdling
Curdling
Through reddenin' leaves that
Are falling
Falling, falling, reddenin'

Know you every tear in these woods
Know you every place of good and not good

Sleep and wake and bellyache
Each path unhealed and stumpied

Charkened embers, the end of summer
Reeve the river's tongue of silver

Come away, love
Come away, love
Come away, love, and leave your wandering

Just a noiseless noise
Just a gawly girl
Just a bogus boy

Trape the fields of feasen
To a chammer of not-sleeping

Go home now, love
Go home now, love, leave your wandering