From Source to Sea

by Honey and the Sting

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1.
02:19
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2.
03:37
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3.
04:39
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4.
05:36
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5.
04:56
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6.
04:29
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7.
05:47
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8.
05:34
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9.
04:55
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about

We would like to dedicate this to Bonnie Bieder, whose vibrancy and love of the arts shimmers in every note and flows through time like a river.

credits

released 25 September 2012
All songs written by Honey and the Sting

Honey and the Sting is:
Jess Best
Melanie Hsu
Sam Long
Howe Pearson
Gemma Smith

Engineered and produced at Jersville Studio in Woodstock, NY by Jared Paul
Mixed at Headgear in Brooklyn, NY by Jared Paul
Mastered by Peter Humphreys at Masterworks Recording in Willow Grove, PA
Album Art by Anna Mckinsey

FOR BOOKING AND INFO: honeyandthesting at gmail dot com

tags

tags: alternative connecticut environmental fleet foxes folk rock gemma smith harmonies howe pearson jess best mel hsu river sam long wesleyan Middletown

license

Some rights reserved. Please refer to individual track pages for license info.

feeds

feeds for this album, this artist
Track Name: The Source
ABOUT:

Imagine you are sitting at the top of the Connecticut River at the source lakes in New Hampshire. Wash away all your expectations. Listen with an open mind and an open heart.

LYRICS:

I washed all my things in the river
Watched them float on down, down the river
Thaw out in the sun - snow and ice melt
From source to the sea - flow with freshet

Wash away with the spring
all the honey and the sting
Wash away wash me clean

Water runs free and clear
Wash away obstacles-fears
Wash away to the sea
Track Name: Disjecta
ABOUT:

"Disjecta” comes from the name of an artist collective in Portland, Oregon. The name means the unfinished pieces of art. This song explores the river not as a constant entity, but a canvas that is continually unfinished.

FACT:
The ancient glacial lake "Hitchcock" retreated 15,000 years ago and started the Connecticut River.

LYRICS:

Tributaries
carve a path to the mouth
Come together
like the geese do flowing south

Oh, oh Disjecta - unfinished and flawed
Ah Disjecta - the river is, the river was

Ancient Lake
are you proud of the progress your river has made?
You retreated
Set in motion eleven thousand years of performance art.

Unfinished and Flawed
Ah Disjecta - the river is, the river was
Track Name: Paradise Valley
ABOUT:

The Connecticut river is New England's longest river and its tributaries and main flow are complicated by hundreds of dams. Dams are put in place to redirect the flow of the river for human purposes. This song is about the two separate personalities of the river: the beautiful and ever-giving and the treacherous and vengeful. It leaves the listener with hope for a compromise between the people and the river.

LYRICS:

Take what you want from me
I bring it willingly
The paradise valley

Take what you want from me
Soil and food for free
The mammals skin for hire
Whatever you desire

Waves crash on the shore
And spill over the lip of the bank
As the flood drains swell to the brink
I surround the city streets
Drown the food you were gonna eat
Take away your first born son
Watch him float away

So you'll have to hold me down
Could you just hold me down
build the levees higher

I will remove these bounds
You’ll have to hold me down
Build these levees higher
As dams cut off desire

Waves crash on the shore
And spill over the lip of the bank
As the flood drains swell to the brink
I surround the city streets
Drown the food you were gonna eat
Take away your first born son
Watch him float away


So you’ll have to let me out
Could you just let me out?

(Let me out)
Let me breathe with the freshet
(Let me out)

What is this all about?
We have to slow it down

(Let me out)
Let me flow with the freshet
(Let me out)


Waves crash on the shores
The spring will come with the floods,
The warmth, and the early buds
In the past I lay out on the land
Stretched my legs felt my chest expand
If we could flow together someday
Then we will float away
Track Name: Mary Rowlandson
ABOUT:

The next song “Mary Rowlandson” uses words from "The Sovereignty and Goodness of God: Being a Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration" of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson. It was so terrifying what she went through and this song attempts to express her fears and her experience in a song. As you listen imagine you're in the woods in 1675 and you are witnessing a Native American raid.

Fact:
Mary Rowlandson was saved by her husband when he paid King Phillip for her safe return.

LYRICS:

Oh! the wonderfull power of God that mine eyes have seen,
Now when others are sleeping mine eyes are weeping.
I have seen the extreme vanity of this World :
One hour I have been in health, and wealth, But the next hour in sickness and wounds.

For my poor children and I in 1675 were stole away
From our home in Lancaster by Indian raiders.
I was shot and my babe was done the same as I,
Their weapons; they were glittering and I felt myself trembling with fear.

So with my spirit and my child
I descend
on foot to fend
for the time into the wilderness.

Refrain thy voice from weeping,
And thine eyes from tears,
For thy work shall be rewarded,
And they shall come again
From the land of the Enemy

Thus nine dayes I went
With my moaning wounded child, until she passed away
She’s buried on the hill (her little body resting still)
In some unnamed forest.

Whither I go,
I go mourning all the day long.
But God sent me blessing – it’s a torn and tattered bible
And it teaches me lessons.

So with my spirit and my child
I descend
on foot to fend
for the time into the wilderness.

Refrain thy voice from weeping,
And thine eyes from tears,
For thy work shall be rewarded,
And they shall come again
From the land of the Enemy
Track Name: Song For Middletown
ABOUT:

Song for Middletown is a goodbye to the city and the people who we've met over 4 years at Wesleyan Univerisity. It summarizes the transient experience of a Wesleyan student. We have found home in Middletown and as we search for new homes across the country and the world, we know we will always be welcome.

LYRICS:

He was a wide-eyed captain making rounds on boxes of tobacco
She owned a little diner serving sailors cups of Sunday coffee
They lived on river paychecks building makeshift homes along the coastline
Leaving their widows pacing in the window waiting for their letters

Saying find me home
Find me home

I am a student spending the time to feel the tides in the river
Gathering leaves, balconies, and strings in my canopy of colors
I made a beautiful mess on top of a sandbox built from slave bones
But all eggshell towers are made to crumble

And they all came finding hallowed ground here
She said hold on to your quiet river cause the trains will be here soon
And he melted down the anchors after empty cargo turned to boxcars
And she boarded up the diner after Sundays never came

We live through passing engines in a Middletown along the highway
Reading the sailor’s stories from a bookshelf cut off from the river
They used to tie the lines on the moorings and walk across the mainstreet
To find their brothers resting every sunset on Indian Hill

And they will find me home
Find me home

There were echoes of ______
There were ghosts on the _____
Track Name: RT 9
ABOUT:

RT 9 is a road that was built in in the lat 60's that connects I-91 to I-95. Unfortunately, the road runs right along the river and makes it difficult to access for Middletown residents. The song is about development over time and the decline of anadramous fishes (fish that migrate between salt water and fresh water). It parallels the story of love that fades over time and the constant hope of its eventual return.

LYRICS:

This road follows the river
like I have followed you
up against the edge
opening into
the white-capped confused confluence swirling inside.

This road it is a cavern
I drive down to your mouth.
Your mouth ends in an ocean
And a bridge that we built out
Of secrets no one knows - only you.
Will salmon find their homes when they return?

The shad run up the river
up near Holyoke.
The people try with ladders
to fix what they have broke.
Every year less have come back upstream.
Will the salmon find their homes if they return?
Track Name: The Oxbow
ABOUT:

As the river bends towards its source it sheds unnecessary pieces that don't contribute to the flow anymore. An oxbow lake is a part of the river that is no longer in use. The oxbow in North Hampton, MA is the inspiration for this song. Its a kind of break up song between the river and the oxbow.

LYRICS:

When I meet with you again, my love, I trust my heart to decide
But this wilderness of conifers draws my banks towards the other side
And since the time we broke apart I've grown calm and deep and I've grown wide
Cause I'm the oxbow 'n you're the river its a 150 years since we aligned

Now my U-shaped bend
Is cut off from your current
You dug me out and I just don't know why

At first it was broken back holding birch logs that float down from your source
Now my mind is full of lovers holding their hands, kissing in the sun, in paddle boats
Their laughter is a wicked trick, their happiness makes me sick
But, when I meet with you again my love, our waters will rage and fight and curse.

Now my U-shaped bend
Is cut off from your current
You dug me out and I just don't know why
Track Name: Mercury
ABOUT:

The song Mercury was made with help from Professor Johan Varekamp at Wesleyan University. The song is about the work he is doing in Wethersfield Cove in Hartford, Connecticut. Using core samples, he found that there is a mercury deposit in the cove. He found that the mercury came from a company called HELCO (Hartford Electric Light Company) that, in the early part of the twentieth century, tried to use a technology that used mercury as the fluid for a steam power plant. The company had to use tons and tons of mercury and there were leaks and possible spills. This song relates the failed and dangerous technology to modern events like the atomic bomb and references to nuclear technology and the Fukushima disaster.

LYRICS:

Water will speak in whispered tones
It carves its words with dripping stones
Syllables are bent and slow

toxic noxious chemicals
are trapped beneath the silty cove
for energy and warmer homes

where does it go

Mercury

Written in mud beneath the lake
they sowed their wealth with their mistakes
innovation laid to waste

split the atom turn to dust
The earth still bears the memory of
the {silver shining} future lost

Was it not enough?

Mercury

For how long?
Track Name: The Mouth
ABOUT:

A triumphant song for the end of a long journey.

LYRICS:

I washed all my things in the river
Watched them float on down, down the river
Thaw out in the sun - snow and ice melt
From source to the sea - flow with freshet

Wash away with the spring
all the honey and the sting
Wash away wash me clean

Water runs free and clear
Wash away obstacles-fears
Wash away to the sea