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Three Circles & A Speaker

by Steve Leaf

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    Steve Leaf & The Ex Pats first full length, 'Three Circles & A Speaker' on trusty old vinyl!

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    Compact Disc of Steve Leaf & The Ex Pats' first full length 'Three Circles & A Speaker'

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1.
Luiz made a wager with Mr. Ortiz That there was land beyond the farthest of far And heʼd welcome the toil just to bring back the soil Under the light of a bright southern star A star only seen by those men who seemed To worry about what was on board To never think or even dream of a continent lost And to step out onto a new shore Luiz gathered his crew and frost turned to dew He set out from the Gibraltar Straits And they heard the din of the wildest of winds Which sent straight around the African cape The constellations which guided navigation All changed as they headed down The weather grew grim and chances seemed slim Of return if the ship ran aground But morale made a rise and the crew steadied its eyes On what they thought was dry land But it turned out that it was just a broken mast Of a ship with a similar plan So with beleaguered minds and running out of time They made one last dash east A white squall came and it started to rain Now in the belly of a beast They looked to the north and then to the south But the haze prevented the sight Of a desert filled land cascades, and sand A place they couldʼve spent the night Little had he known, a lack of clouds wouldʼve shown The captainʼs destination Oh how proud, heʼd tell the story out loud Less a miscalculation
2.
I was raised From the day That they said Stay in bed Don’t go out at night You’ll be ok If you pray Read this all Read this all It will save your life And I believed all this Until my family fell apart Then I lost my grip I said this is all supposed When I call it fiction It causes friction This will sell I can tell I will feed on your faith And when I do My address to Please send cash Now so fast I will get paid You are a sinner In the hands of angry god And he’s pissed off He’s going to piss on us And when your checks clear You’ll know I am wasn’t so right And you won’t find me He didn’t keep you so safe at night
3.
I have been around And never seen it come down Oh a great deluge And we're painted on the news But the storms close in I knew this place would soon Tear through all the room Clouds loom, and false or true Ah ooh, we are the smoke and the plume Oh and God willing And that creek donʼt rise Itʼll be slim pickings If I make it to the other side Now a flood knocks on my door
4.
Parallax 03:55
From where I sit I am not ready But as they move I can see theyʼre treading I am a planet And my eyes are closed Listening to static Of all the radios Theyʼve been struggling for years To place a decent call Because theyʼre putting up walls When objects move against a plane Called parallax But recognizing the slight Makes it hard to detect Now I will die Several light years away Back in time And across several galaxies
5.
Oh see I couldnʼt be Much closer to meeting my own enemies And now Iʼm stuck in the middle of the road Now I am trying to revive My career cause I think I just might have to lie Iʼll try to keep the stats from getting into the know Now the man at the top today Is sending me a message- keep the facts at bay Iʼve got to keep this from getting into the view The big man said one sixty eight Million souls are surviving in the Soviet States But you see I counted one sixty two Now I just want to leave I just want to let my tea (Steep) Steeper now, skyline of Moscow Appears to be a prison now which surrounds Me as I wait for him to react He gladly looks up and I see Iʼm bewildered by the whispers when they talk about me And I feel the need to go back Now I just want to leave I just need to find (my keys) My keys to the house I forgot They have so I dust my kalashnikov Will be with me when I sleep The street was renamed Lyalin And weʼve been there since my brother bought his first violin In September, so shine the trees Thirty eight, on a Wednesday night I returned home early but something didnʼt feel right I decided to stay in instead Now SHH! Theyʼre here, its us v. them But there were so many of ʻem that I canʼt pretend To know which one shot me in the head Now I just want to leave
6.
Sharks 05:55
I was meant to meet you at the river To baptize myself in a pitch of fever The gas in my tank had reached empty A run at a pace which I canʼt keep The sun cracks through the trees Like a neighbor trying to catch a peak I will bury my burden tonight I will leave it here out of sight There are sharks along the freeway Theyʼre asking about me I can see their fins want me to pay For the sins I didnʼt foresee Now the tiniest piece of gas Was ignited under an overpass Iʼm stranded with the chum Climbing ladders without rungs Now what I shouldʼve done wouldʼve been easy Packed my bag and I wouldʼve been leaving Prefer to beholden to nothing I reckon But now the sharks do beckon
7.
Oslo 03:43
8.
Anastasia little darling Out the window what do you see Well a crowd of thousands To tear down our hairastocracy Please little girl up the stairs All the way upstairs to your bed Wipe out all the Bolshevik thoughts Theyʼve branded into your head My body freezes While my blood will boil A miracle worker walks away From a family he once toiled And no one will remember me For a nation I once grew Soon all this be over Gone in your head The people under your hands Were your shifting sands Soon all this be over Gone in your head Lighting flash bullets fly And now you are dead.
9.
How fast are we traveling? How much longer do we have go? I look down at my red pendant. And I ponder what I already know No, I wonʼt get to see her Or what was the sparkle in my eye On path are a few meteors Cause of penalties, I canʼt pay the fines And now I am a prisoner I couldnʼt compensate the tax man But what will happen to Eleanor While Iʼm away in a tin can Everyone loves a gamble No one like a backup disk On Earth Iʼs bound to ramble Recently, Iʼve been resigned to this And I pray that the holy space station They need to come make the rounds Theyʼll discover resources for the nation Branded brave and a hero for the bucks and the pounds Everyone loves a gamble No one like a backup disk On Earth Iʼs bound to ramble Recently, Iʼve been resigned to this With toggles and knobs and cosmonauts And out portals with spectacular views But April came and the feds made a claim So Iʼm up here to pay back my dues

credits

released June 17, 2014

Steve Leaf- Vocals, Guitars
Nick Young- Bass
Dan Haefs- Keyboards, Drums, Percussion
Ryan Anderson- Guitar (tracks 6,7,9)

Recorded during the summer of 2013.

Tracks 1-5 recorded at Double Phelix Studio, Kalamazoo, Michigan
Engineered by Andy Catlin, Ben Lau, and Nick Young
Mixed by Corey Schreppel

Tracks 6-9 recorded at Experimental Sound Studio, Chicago, Illinois
Engineered and mixed by Alex Inglizian

All tracks mastered by Alex Hug in Somerville, Massachusetts

Artwork by Greg Oberle

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Steve Leaf Grand Rapids, Michigan

There is a quiet confidence to the music of Steve Leaf. He has been writing songs for fifteen years now. Some songs about love, some songs about love lost, and others about everything else to cover all the bases. Steve hails from Michigan and cut his teeth in the singer/songwriter scene of Chicago which is to say he usually tries to sneak a Wilco cover into his set. ... more

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