Lovely Dark - Golden Bough

AN OFFERING

(Instrumental)

GOLDEN BOUGH

Let me show you how the world begins

The changing of the guard

The sound of the wind and rushes

Listen

The songbird singing out of tune tonight

Cannot find a sweet refrain

The hymn of the old life fading away

May they call us home

We are gone, so gone

The first light of a golden dawn

Brings our new pantheon

Deep inside I search for the answer

Will it show upon my face

We’re not meant for this place

We sit at a table with all we’ve loved

And deep within each eye

Distorted visions of every joy and pain

May they call us home

We are gone, so gone

The first light of a golden dawn

Will be reflected on and on

Will I go alone

When I leave these empty bones

At the place where the water ends

Will I see you all again?

HORSESHOES

Can’t refuse

It sunk its teeth straight into you

And everything went cold, it went dark when the venom went right into your veins

These colors they don’t shine no more

Bled white like a frozen shore

How can I help you now as you try to unlearn

And take back all the beauty you forfeited only to be

Safe

A myth is a thing that never was

And yet always will be

The fabric we tore so long ago

I told you the plan, and strand after strand

We will weave it again

Feel the pull of the tide in our sleep

We dream and dream

And I can help, I can help

You’re not all alone

You and me, we’re the Holy Grail

Hang horsehoes

Pour salt to circle you

Find a way to heal, but sometimes the best way is just to lie back

Feel the rise and fall of breaths

Feel the weight bearing down on us

It’s alright to simply be a mess

And to learn that we’re longing for something we lost just to be

Safe

A myth is a thing that always was

And yet never will be

It’s time that we learned the words again

We’ll spread through the ground with roots running deep

Through this barren land

Feel the pull of the tide in our sleep

We dream and dream

And I can help, I can help

You’re not all alone

You and me, we’re the Holy Grail

HUNGRY GHOSTS

What’s it like to live

To see your dreams defaced

To watch the world your father built

Be laid to waste

The refuge that you seek

With every grasping hand

Your fingers close around nothing

But air again

You thought we had it down

You thought we had a plan

No, No,

Behold the Acts of Man

You can call it hope

But I see only fear

I’ll be standing when all hope has disappeared

The empire that you built

A fortress made of sand

Behold the Acts of Man

You thought we had it down

You thought we had a plan

Behold the Acts of Man

You thought we had it down

You thought we had a plan

Behold the Acts of Man

MINOTAUR

Like a fly in the amber

I’m ripping of my wings to be free

The struggle doesn’t matter

It’s all beauty and pain and disease

Like a fly in the amber

I’m staring at eternity

The struggle doesn’t matter

But the struggle is everything, the struggle is everything

I came for the creature

I came to find a maze in me

I will track it into darkness

And I’ll drag it to where the sun meets the sea

Oh, I’ve lost the way

I went too far and my gold thread ran out

You can’t stay where you stand

I spent the night by the light of what would burn

Golden ash is all that’s left

Deep inside how he pulls that line dreaming that it will lead him down to be

Where it’s just the minotaur and me

Hold on and keep hauling, hauling until we’re standing face to face

And we’re tangled in the thread like we’re lost in the spiderweb

I am not yours

And this is my American labyrinth

With gold-coin eyes

Searching for a reflection of God

But you can touch it with your hands

The fur and sand

Oooh, What can be asked of the thing that I am

All I’ve done
I’ll make a new vessel

Carve it out bit by bit with my own horns

Deep inside how he pulls that line dreaming that it will lead him down to be

Where it’s just the minotaur and me

Hold on and keep hauling, hauling until we’re standing face to face

And we’re tangled in the thread like we’re lost in the spiderweb

I have a name that’s never been called out before by anyone

I’m the smoke of an evergreen lit by the midnight sun

I’ve got two minds, I’ve got two hearts

I am love and what love becomes

I am held in amber staring out at eternity

In the fields

The tulips aflame like red silk

The walls of the maze will be swallowed by the ground

And the mountain is whole again, my name will be told again

The air grows fresher

And there’s a filament of light

A slow unravel of gold

And I’m given the gift of sight

GREEN

Oooh

What do you know about me

Am I devourer

Will you eat from my hand

Oooh

Come and find me

At the very heart of the wood

In the shifting expanse

Green, spreading

Ooh

Make your offering

Hold me now as I waste away

Hold me now as I feed

Green spreading leaves

Cover me all over in green

Hold me now

In the holy shimmer of awe

Our bodies borrowed from other lives

That we hold inside

Does anyone still remember

Does a part of you still remember

The way it looked through animal eyes

Drinking in sunlight

Everything covered in green

Oooh

Come back to me

You who were stripped from me

Like the limb from a tree

Green spreading leaves

Cover me all over in green

MESSENGER

In the summer’s heat they give you rosewater

In winter, a rabbit coat

At night, you’d sit next to a roaring fire

And sing into the bones of creation

But they will bind your hands

THen they will bind your feet

And write their intentions down

And stick them right between your teeth

Stitch feathers on your ankle bones

And let you burn up as their go-between

And they wanted a messenger

Someone burning with their light

How they wanted a messenger

With their message curled inside

At times, you swore you feel it

Perhaps you only dreamed it

At dawn, you’d wearily rise

Sometimes be running on

Sometimes be stumbling on

Not knowing what it was

Not able to put it down

But you know it gets so heavy now

And they wanted a messenger

Someone burning with their light

How they wanted a messenger

With their message curled inside

And they wove you to their fever dream

Find a home in their menagerie

Make you scream until you can’t breathe

And they wanted a messenger

You were on their messenger

INVOCATION OF PAN

The land wants a word with me

It tells me go tonight and go alone

Go by ivy, oak, and ash

Where the scenery answers back

Observing me through its compound eyes

And ancient roots that outlast the floods

A song of mud and buzzing flies

Calling me to run

To ground

Anchor myself to all of these breathing lights

The sound of synapses firing

Mysterious spirals rotating wild

These woods never give up their dead

In the bowels of earth

There’s a ritual unfolding

The fiddler calls the tune

The night is imploding

Let me be the one who

Who keeps the fire he’s holding

To ground

Anchor myself to all of these breathing lights

The sound of synapses firing

Mysterious spirals rotating wild

These woods never give up their dead

To carve a new path

You’ll get cut up in the woods

The forest shifts around you

A chain reaction of leaves and lungs

To love you like an animal

And what you have become

The trickster is the messenger and the message is the trick

Just a sleight of hand, a murmur from the lis

How a tree towers like a broken piece of an ancient god

It is a fearful thing to fall in the hands of a living god and

And we fall

Give up their dead

TALIESIN

At times it seems

we’re living in different dreams

Why does it feel like I’m always

Hunting you in my sleep

Slide into my shadow

How deep does my darkness go

Your body beneath me now

Is more than my limbs can hold

And I become an animal

The power I call to me

It sings inside every being

And I cry out

For all that you’ve taken from me

Flesh and blood will never be enough

To hold the hate, the pain, the grief, the love

I am still breathing

Coming and leaving

You lit the fire

You breathe life into the embers

Now on my wings I rise

Will ash still upon my feathers

The force that consumes

And brings everything into bloom

Made you a part of me

Tethered us at the root

And I become an animal

The power I call to me

It sings inside every being

And I cry out

For all that you’ve taken from me

Flesh and blood will never be enough

To hold the hate, the pain, the grief, the love

I am still breathing

Coming and leaving

I am still breathing

Coming and leaving

NOR LOCH

My sister’s scream brought mother racing

I tried my best not to breathe

Oh Anna

The air’s too still, your fever is breaking

Casting the poison out your pores

Then the visions came

Red hair bound up too tightly

Hollow wood and the wondrous cold

Sleep deep knowing that to be innocent is to drown

Won’t you help us

We can’t sit idly be

We cannot abide

We’ll call and follow

A million other lights

Waiting for the night

The whip it rose

Her skin it soured

I cursed and begged for relief

Oh Anna

The smoke it rose

Her beauty flowered

So wild out there on the streets

Then the curses came

No hand rose up so slightly

No one would push away the coals

Sleep deep knowing that to be innocent is to drown

Won’t you help us

We can’t sit idly be

We cannot abide

We’ll call and follow

A million other lights

Waiting for the night

SAME SPIRIT HOME

Call to the ones you love

Helpers shall take many forms

Animal, element, saint or stone

We’re all singing the same spirit home

(Smoke hole crowded with synthetic stars)

We are holy with hope

(Lost our place in the map of the stars and we call it real)

We all hold a song in our throats

(We heal from the roots and the scars)

That one day this will all be enough

Please let this all be enough

One by one she cuts the threads

And then she strings the loom

And then i’m alone with the sea and the sky

Waiting for the rain the drought has denied

Everyone has a heartache that they drag

Everyone has a mistake they forgave

We’ve been sick with sour longings

(Call to the ones you love)

Driving out our fears

(Helpers shall take many forms)

We’ve been tested on the anvil, blow for blow

For years and years and years

Dancing up reservoirs

Burning up at the core

One by one she cuts the threads

And then she strings the loom

And then i’m alone with the sea and the sky

Waiting for the rain the drought has denied

Everyone has a heartache they drag

Everyone has a mistake they forgave

So much light, we can’t see the stars

But we call it real

Lost our place in this map of the stars

But we call it real

We heal from the roots and the scars

But we call it real

And we call it real

Lovely Dark is:

Sonia Even: Vocals
Travis Even: Guitar, synths, programming, vocals Ben Johnston: Drums, aux. percussion, vocals Maxwell Becker: Drums, aux. percussion Conrad Mach: Guitar. vocals
Brian Lake: Bass

With:
Jason Obergfoll: Extra guitar on Messenger, Golden Bough, Green, and Minotaur
Riley Skinner: Vocals on "Same Spirit Home"

Music by Lovely Dark
(Messenger was co-written with Jason Obergfoll)
Produced by Travis Even and Ben Johnston
Recorded by Travis Even, Ben Johnston, and Jason Oberafoll
Lvrics by Sonia and Travis Even
Artwork by Travis Even
Mixed & Mastered by Magnus Lindberg
(C) & (P) 2025 Lovely Dark - Heavy Nettle Music
All Rights Reserved.