Get all 7 G!ve (Give) releases available on Bandcamp and save 20%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Of the Bird, Flying (NEW), Te Promettre un Printemps (2022 single), Les Vagues Abondent EP (2012), Acoustics EP (2011), White EP (2010), Moments (2008), and Without Expectations (2003).
1. |
Passage
03:48
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Passage
I saw you only once,
A ring-tailed harridan,
Web footed,
With a Garbo hat
Pulled down around your ears.
You wore broad, blue
Eye make-up,
Forty years ahead of its time,
And a man's striped blue suit,
With tight bandeau,
That set off the dropped opal
Hanging
From one of your pierced ears.
Your left hip
Brushed me in passing,
And I fell in love with you
Forever,
And when you said 'Excuse me, sir’,
I would have followed you
To the utmost ends of the world,
But I was eight years old
And I was late for lunch at home.
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2. |
Love Bottled
04:18
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Love Bottled
Love bottled gets throttled,
Love wrapped won’t adapt.
Love weighed is afraid,
Love planned is too bland.
Chorus :
Love aided gets jaded,
Love bragged will be snagged.
Love blamed will be maimed,
Love well fed falls down dead.
Love watched will be botched,
Love pledged will be hedged.
The rings that you tossed
To encircle my heart,
And to capture it,
Were too small.
You had the direction,
The distance, the art,
The affection,
The wherewithal,
But the rings that fate gave you,
Right from the start,
Were a trick, love:
The rings were too small.
Chorus :
Love aided gets jaded,
Love bragged will be snagged.
Love blamed will be maimed,
Love well fed falls down dead.
Love that grants has a chance,
And love freed may succeed.
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3. |
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The Face That Smiled (Strange)
I shall not soon forget the face that smiled
So lovely on me, in the hall last night,
For I saw there the radiance of a child,
Commingled with maturity’s delight.
I shall not soon forget the kiss exchanged,
The happiness of our embracing eyes,
The wonders of a secret trust arranged;
We did not dream that love could thus surprise.
Strange, is it not, how love will find the place,
The time, and even the two for an embrace?
There in the semi-dark your heart let slip
Love’s gleaming from your eyes, and so, unplanned,
All of my life’s love, all my life’s dream
All of my life’s love, I laid upon your lip,
All my life’s dream, I pressed into your hand.
Strange, is it not, how love will find the place,
The time, and even the two for an embrace?
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4. |
Of the Bird Flying
03:12
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Of the Bird, Flying
When life has limitation,
Like a tied wing,
In exultation
I can still sing,
Not of the cord, tying,
But of the bird, flying.
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5. |
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For Marilyn M. and Judy G.
For Marilyn M. and Judy G.,
I have tears to shed each night,
For steps undanced, for songs unsung,
And kisses lost to light.
For the earth that shone in two pairs of eyes,
Till we killed their will to fight.
We had to burn Joan of Arc in the fire
Before her spirit fled,
And we led Marie A. through Paris streets,
Ere that beauty lowered her head,
But Marilyn M. and Judy G.,
Took a bottle of pills into bed.
Now beauty is strength, and beauty is truth,
And beauty is hard to find,
And beauty locks itself in a room
When the eyes of the world go blind,
And beauty departs on a further search,
Leaving empty vials behind.
For Marilyn M. and Judy G.,
I have tears to shed each night,
For steps undanced, and songs unsung,
And kisses lost to light.
For the heaven that shone in two pairs of eyes,
And the what might have been, if it might!
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6. |
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I Sing to the Child in Man
I sing to the child in man,
Who lives by a simple creed,
I sing to the child in man,
Whose only law is ‘I need.’
I sing to the child in man,
With his urgent hunger and thirst,
I sing to the child in man,
Whose song begins ‘Me first.’
I sing to the child in man,
Who dares to be time’s traitor,
I sing to the child in man,
Who never trades ‘now’ for ‘later.’
I sing to the child in man,
Who breathes life with every breath,
I sing to the child in man,
Whose only lie is Death.
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7. |
Journey
02:56
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Journey
I, who have strewn a thousand songs about,
And dripped idyllic lyrics from my pen,
Haphazard rhymes that I forgot again,
Like dreams we sleep to dream, and wake to doubt,
I, who have captured beauty with my tongue,
And pressed perfection into idle phrases,
Am left to stand as one alone who gazes
Into the depths from which he climbed, when young.
The paths youth scaled with clamor now are stilled,
The vale he left no longer seems so black,
He stands here in the place his spirit willed,
But, oh, his heart is telling him, go back.
The mountain’s peak predicts the long climb’s ending,
There must be, must be, beauty in descending.
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8. |
Song of the Troubadour
03:28
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Song of the Troubadour
Many a dream I have danced into dust,
Many a song I have spun into air,
Laughed at love as a poet must,
And broken the buds of all flowers rare.
But the days were yellow, the nights were green,
And blue and red the hours between,
And all the wonders of time I knew,
As I sang beneath the skies to you,
Telling…Telling…Telling…Telling
Love true.
The steps of the dancer were blurred in the sands,
The song of the singer was drowned in the sea,
And of the love that slipped through my hands,
Little remained but the memory.
But the days were yellow, the nights were green,
And blue and red the hours between,
And as the wonders of time slipped by,
I sang beneath the starlit sky,
Telling…Telling…Telling…Telling
Love true.
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9. |
High Flyer
03:39
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High Flyer
A veteran of flights
These days am I,
Who afraid of heights,
Have learned to fly.
And fancy free
Through waves I skim,
Who afraid of sea,
Have learned to swim.
In similar fashion,
As hawk turned dove,
Who afraid of passion,
Have learned to love.
I take the breath,
Affirmative,
And afraid of death,
I learn to live.
I learned to fly, I learned to live, I learned to love
Turned into a dove
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G!ve (Give) Montréal, Québec
G!VE (Give) is a Montreal band founded in 2000 by singer-songwriter Caroline St-Louis and guitarist-producer Stephan
Ritch.
Le groupe Montréalais G!VE (Give) est un collectif créé par Caroline St-Louis (chanteuse -compositrice) et Stephan Ritch (guitariste - réalisateur) en 2000.
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