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A Killer's Dream

by Rachel Brooke

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1.
Have It All 00:38
Now I know what makes the world spin around Now I know, Now I know And I know that you want it all Have it all, Have it all
2.
She’s like a fox in a hen house. The meanest you’ll find She’s like a fox in a hen house. The meanest you’ll find She sneaks in at night And she takes what’s mine There ain’t a devil in my heart. Because I ain’t a man There ain’t a devil in my heart. Because I ain’t a man But there’s been one in my kitchen And she’s been cooking with my pots and pans She’s like that snake in the backyard. Sly as can be She’s like that snake in the backyard. Sly as can be But she don’t know I seen her Hiding in my apple tree Everywhere I go, they say “she’s got your man” She might think she’s got him, but she can’t love him like I can She’s like that fox in a hen house. She gets what she can take But if she comes around tonight, I’ll be waiting with my .38
3.
Now come to me baby when the sun goes down Knock on my door three times, when no one’s around My days are long, and ever-so lonely But in the evening’s when I want you only The window’s open now, so come on right in I’ve been waiting since a quarter to ten They way you move now, its making me shudder Because no one loves me like my late night lover I heard you creeping in my garden last week I tried and tried but couldn’t get no sleep The wind was blowing something sweet in the air The scent of something that I want you to share Because you’re my late night lover One by one the stars come out in the sky That’s when I lock my doors and turn down the lights And each and every night I let my hair down Just the way you like it, incase you’re coming around Now the moon’s shining bright behind my windows of lace But I’ll keep waiting until I see your face Come on baby, we’ve got lots to uncover Because no one loves me better than my late night lover My clock’s ticking fast, it’s almost half past three That time of night when everything is a dream But then I hear you softly whisper my name Now come closer and I’ll whisper the same Because you’re my late night lover And I’m your late night lover Come be my late night lover I’ll be your late night lover
4.
Every night about this time, I go to sleep to keep from crying Every night about this time, I go to sleep to keep from crying Because my baby, he’s always running around Oh can’t you see, what’s wrong with me? I try, and I try, but I’m not satisfied Oh can’t you see what’s wrong with me? I’m afraid, I’m gonna have to let my baby be Love is a thing that money can’t buy If you don’t have no one to love you, you might as well go off and die Oh can’t you see what you’ve done to me? Yes I’m afraid, I’m gonna have to let my baby be
5.
Tell me baby, what’s wrong with me? Tell me baby, what’s wrong with me? I’ve been living in a prison. A prison made by me Now don’t you come knocking. Knocking at my door No don’t you come knocking. Because I won’t come along Because I know if someone’s knocking, there must be something wrong All I do all day long, I sit here and cry All night long, I’m just laying there and crying Only reason I’m still living-I’m too afraid to die See, I don’t know where I’m going and I’ve given up on how No I don’t know which way I’m going, and I’ve given up on how Seems like I want to get to heaven, but I just ain’t ready to go now Tell me baby, what’s wrong with me? Tell me baby, what’s wrong with me? I’ve been living in a prison. Life sentence to misery
6.
Many years ago, I had a love So pretty, so true, but ever so young Each night we'd meet 'neath the twin oak tree And dream of a life that was never to be It seems only days since I last held her near But my mind is much older, and my memory unclear And though I've seemed to forgotten the reason we've part To this very day, she still owns my heart I wonder, I wonder, if he's thinking of me All those years ago, how it all used to be Our love, true it was, I could never forget But each day since our parting, I've spent in regret Would he still love me, now I'm withered and gray? My daylight grows dim, and short are the days May I be young and fair, in the dreams dreamt by him But I'm just an old faded memory of what could have been Her Love, like a flower that clings to the vine Her love, how it lingers upon my old mind Oh the nights that I've spent 'neath that twin oak tree Just hoping she'd be there, just waiting for me I'd give my own life just to see her once more But I know in my heart, I won't be waiting for long For my mind, it grows darker than each day before and my heart, though its beating, has nothing to beat for If only my life could have lasted forever Oh the things I'd have done, Darling, we'd be together But time that is given, is cruel and deceiving For my body has weakened, and beauty is fleeting Faster and faster, so go the days As I cling to a life that is slipping away And with my last breath, unto death may I stare I'll remember the life that we never shared
7.
I hold in my hand, an echo of voice brought on the wings of a bird Like a ruby filled vase, and a basket with lace The most beautiful sound you have heard My body, it aches of a far memory of someone I might have known And there’s a hole in the wall too small to see through But I’m sure it’s a picture of home Sometimes I’m standing on a mountaintop. I’m nowhere but I’m not lost But sometimes I’m just hanging with a heart that’s just breaking My arms outstretched on a cross But something keeps pulling, a lost letter of love In a cabin where a fire used to be There’s a woman who’s calling, with a voice of fair warning Her crooked hand points only at me Ashes to Ashes, mothers turn to ashes Daughter soon follows in death But before leaving earth, a daughter gives birth; a gift to me and she says “You hold in your hand an echo of voice, brought on the wings of a bird And like a bird who only sings for what every morning brings, the most beautiful sound I have heard”
8.
There's a big black bird, high up in the pines She’s been watching me every night. Been watching every time She’s seen my creeping, my secret keeping While you've been sound asleep And she's the only one that knows what I’ve been doing Or I'd be six feet deep I walk on down to the river, I wait upon the bank I fancy nothing but my secret loving, and how your heart would break But then he pulls me near, I know just why I'm here Forbidden love is but a dream But in the dark I see, I see big eyes of green She just won't let me be! Everywhere I go, I see her following me Raps at my window, waits at the gate I see her in my dreams Just the other night, while my mainline was out Me and my lover, for just one hour, we made the lights go out I know I've been so wrong, but wrong it feels so right And like a drunk I'll drink my fill Give me that reckless love, our old-time careless love A lying heart is such a thrill I hear the sound of wings! Her darkness falls upon me Into her depths I’ll sink To guilt and misery And like a bird I'll sing
9.
Only For You 02:55
My heart, it feels so heavy And my tongue is tied with ivy I’ve been so lonesome, so blue, but only for you I know I shouldn’t be crying But if I stopped, my heart would be lying Because I’m so lonesome, so blue, but only for you For too long, I’ve been longing for you And been wondering if you’ve been longing too And I’ve been trying-crying all night long To tell my heart you’re not really gone But my heart, it’s crushed red velvet And it knows, I don’t gotta tell it That I’m so lonesome, so blue, but only for you My heart, it feels so heavy And my tongue is tied with ivy I’m so lonesome, so blue, but only for you I’ve been so lonesome, so blue, but only for you
10.
I had a dream last night, a black rat in my bed I had a dream last night, a black rat in my bed Now you’re gonna tell me what that means now, baby Or I’m gonna tell you instead Well I’ll sleep here tonight, but tomorrow I’ll be gone I’ll sleep here tonight, but tomorrow I’ll be gone You see, this bed that I’ve been lying in It just don’t fit me no more I saw a rattlesnake this morning, walking just like me I saw a rattlesnake this morning, talking just like me And it said “I ain’t scared of nothing-I’m only scared of me” From under rocks and things, they all go east. From under rocks and stones and dirt and bones, they all go east And they’ve been calling my name They say that’s where I aught to be So I’m gonna light a fire, and burn this place down I’m gonna light a big red fire, and burn it down to the ground Just because I’ve been living here Don’t mean that’s where I’m bound
11.
He’s a hit man, she’s a queen He’s a hit man, she’s a killers dream Here I go again, one more time I dug another big black hole where I cried and I cried It’s taken me all my life but now I realize I am nothing but a killers dream-In a killers mind I got no sympathy for all the things that you said Because you’ve been lying and lying, and now I know where I stand Yeah you’re a killer, you always find a way And you can call me your queen, but I know I’m only prey I guess it aint hard to see what you see in me Now I know that everything I got-it’s what a killer needs My baby told me long ago, but I just couldn’t believe We’re all living in a killers world, and we can never be free You got me spinning, spinning ‘round and ‘round Because everything that I knew, it just came tumbling down Yeah you’re a hit man, and you’ve always been that way But don’t you call me your queen because I know I’m only prey Here I go again, one more time I dug another big black hole where I cried and I cried It’s taken me all my life but now I realize I am nothing but a killers dream-In a killers mind And we’re all living in a killers world-in a killers mind

about

www.rachelbrookemusic.com

Incendiary young country singer and songwriter Rachel Brooke channels the darkest nights of American Southern music, pulling forth influences from raw, early country singing to Chicago blues greats, vintage New Orleans jass bands to old animated cartoons, all tied together in the framework of her old-fashioned melodies. It takes a peculiar vision to be able to unite these many different sounds, but Brooke’s pulled off the most difficult task: she’s created a new sound from a pastiche of old music without sounding derivative. Instead her music sounds incredibly fresh, sepia-toned perhaps with the vision of our distant past, but as rough-edged and hand-honed as the best of today’s roots music. She’s quite the paradox: a young songwriter who perfectly embodies the music of the American South, but who lives in the wilds of Northern Michigan. An artist who grew up with parents in a bluegrass band, but who spent her teen years raging away in an all-girl punk band. A shy, soft-spoken introvert whose wall-shaking voice has earned her a place at cutting-edge roots music festivals like Muddy Roots. An icon of underground country music who covers jazz greats like Fats Domino on her new record. But when you sing this well and play like hell, who do you have to answer to anyways?

On her new album, A Killer’s Dream, Rachel Brooke proves she has the chops to be named “the Queen of Underground Country Music” by tastemaker blog Saving Country Music. Playing with a full band for the first time, Brooke cut the whole album live on analog 2” tape. In fact, they didn’t even turn on a computer until the mastering began. Each track was nailed down in a few takes, and it’s thanks to the ultra-tight backing band Viva Le Vox (feat. Joe Buck Yourself) that the music sounds so polished. The songs from the album are remarkably cohesive for having so many influences. “Fox in a Hen House” and “Late Night Lover” drip with the electric sass of the best Bessie Smith and Mae West songs, “OId Faded Memory” (a sweet duet with Lonesome Wyatt of disturbed country outfit Those Poor Batards) yodels along like a sentimental Jimmie Rodgers number, “A Killer’s Dream” has the kind of rockabilly backbeat that would make Wanda Jackson proud, and “The Black Bird” sounds like it could have rolled out an old Betty Boop Halloween cartoon. The folk revivalists used to search for this kind of raw, haunting music in old 78s, but Rachel Brooke has tapped into these old eerie sounds and creates new music from their dusty pasts.
Rachel Brooke’s American Gothic roots music is the perfect paradox: it sounds like it could have been made a century ago, but it’s music that could only have been made today.

credits

released December 4, 2012

Rachel Brooke: Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Tympani, Xylophone, Vibraphone, Concert Bass Drum, Sleigh Bells, Temple Blocks
Bill Chase: Upright Bass, Drums (10,11), Tambourine
Tony Bones: Electric Guitar (2,3,4,7,8,9)
Antoine Dukes: Drums (2,3,4,7,8,9), Saw
Nick Carnes: Electric guitar (10,11), Slide Guitar
Dave Tatrow: Trumpet
Jonah Powell: Fiddle
Lonesome Wyatt: Vocals (6)
Savannah Buist: Backing Vocals (11)
Betty Ponder: Backing Vocals (11)

All music and lyrics written by Rachel Brooke except “Every Night About This Time”, (by Antoine “Fats” Domino, Dave Bartholomew, EMI UNART Catalog INC)
All songs analog recorded, mixed and mastered by Andy Van Guilder, Halohorn Productions, Traverse City MI
Produced by Rachel Brooke and Andy Van Guilder
Photography by Jess Varda, Hocus Focus Portraits
Artwork and Design by Strange Fortune Design Company

© and ℗ 2012 by Rachel Brooke (BMI) All Rights Reserved
Unauthorized duplication is a violation of applicable laws.
Made in the USA

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