In The Lights

by James Parry

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1.
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2.
05:14
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3.
04:03
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4.
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5.
03:54
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6.
04:25
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7.
03:37
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8.
03:01
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9.
04:23
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credits

released August 19, 2016

In the Lights was recorded in Australia and Indonesia in 2013 and 2014

James Parry wrote and produced songs, sang and played guitars, keyboards, organs and piano
Jordan Marson produced songs, sang and played bass guitar and percussion
Peter Luscombe played drums and percussion
Jade McInally sang
Annaliese de Groot played viola
Joe Nuttall sang

Songs were recorded and engineered by Adam Calaitzis at Toyland Studios in Northcote, Victoria; Simon Cotter at Head Gap Studios in Thornbury, Victoria; Jake Long at Red Planet Studios in North Hobart, Tasmania; James Parry at Villa Kakuktua, Canggu, Bali; Jordan Marson and James Parry at Emma and Jordy’s house in West Hobart, Tasmania and at mum and dad’s house in Sandford, Tasmania

Simon Cotter mixed the album at Head Gap Studios in Thornbury, Victoria

Adam Dempsey mastered the album at Deluxe Mastering in Brunswick, Victoria

James Parry, Sophie Buttery and Thomas Hyland directed the artwork, James Parry took the original photographs, Phillippa Steele designed and produced the artwork

Thank you also to Allison Parry, Chelsea King, Claire Jansen, Clare Hyland, David Campbell, Eleanor Robb, Elly King, Emma Marson, Gaby When, Jade McInally, Jennifer Jordan, Joe Nuttall, Jonathon McCarthy, Jordan Marson, Kadek Antini Rai, Kate Vincent, Liam Webb, Matthew Dobson, Michael Parker, Patrick Hatch, Peter Luscombe, Phillippa Steele, Sophie Buttery, Stephen Parry, Tegan Wallis, Thomas Hyland, and Wesley Saunders

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James Parry Melbourne, Australia

James Parry lives in Melbourne, Australia and writes independent pop songs.

Originally from Tasmania, James has performed at premier Tasmanian festivals including Falls, Taste of Tasmania, Party in the Paddock and Cygnet Folk Festival and supported such quality Australian acts as Alex Lloyd and The Gin Club. ... more

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Track Name: Young Emotions
She’ll bite her lip
He’ll take his eyes from the road
They’ll count in silence
To the end of a row of houses
A sharp turn, then a hill
Some dollars worth of petrol

At the horizon waits a prize for them both
Oh how their chins will rise and stretch out from their throats
It’s a potion, it’s a cure
For their young emotions
For the immature

A quiet click, they miss as they pass
Reversible, to all unfolding just beyond their grasp

He throws the car into corners
Far from town in the foothills of the mountain
Where crimes make little sense
Beyond the final neighbour’s fence

He’ll quench her thirst for affection
He’ll be her first though a distant expression
Hides a pinch of shame
It’s not enough to pull the reins

Home alone, Veronica knows not where he goes
But it’s the eighties, she’s no mobile phone

In isolation feelings decay, but they all know within a pride of lions
There’s no escaping the unspeakable shame

And there it is on his face
They tried to hide it away
A boy with his father’s name
She did the honourable thing
And took the bastard kid in

There it is on his face
Twenty years and it doesn’t change
They never know if it’s obvious
She said she wanted to go
But there it is on his face
Track Name: Emerson Rush
Footsteps and sun on the porch
Quick down the driveway with his medical books
Low in the window, Veronica Rush
She’s not his mother but she brought him up

She sits in the front with her Agatha Christie
Twelve ancient labours in these murder mysteries
Of four grown children, they’re all still at home
But this one has her feeling alone
And it’s only in some fantasy that they might change his name

Her eyes fade when they all say, ‘He’s something else, he is’
The hedge at his side, no break in his stride
Why does he need none of her praise?

She watches till he’s over the crest beyond the corner
Might he look back to her for once in his life
Always up from falling in the blink of an eye
She rarely saw him cry, now he’s leader of the Lions

And the gardeners keep her lawn so nice
They wave him goodbye
Like he’s one of their tribe
Without a clue of her sacrifice

And she’s trying to read
But her eyes always lift
From the pages to the wall
To the clock making hours small
As the morning drains of its gold

In the clubrooms tonight
When the ladies arrive
In their strapless, tiny dresses
Why is he broad and bright?
And his brothers all skinny and slight?

If the team gets a win
They’ll be worshipping him
Like a half-caste God of men
And she’ll wear a slapped on pride
Cause at home she’s rolling her eyes

For Emerson Rush of the Lions
You all better hush, he’s arrived
Captain Rush of the Pride

I pull a face just to say his name
Track Name: Every Weekend
Everyone I know does the same thing every weekend
The men down Lockhart Road living lies in their suits and ties
They make like it’s more than a game
Tales of glory
Peering out on the grass with their minds in the past, now
Get me out of here
I was in need of the feeling of that gold
But I couldn’t shake it my father mightn’t make it alone

‘Holly, how you’ve grown’ from his friends, then it’s on my own
A corner of the room with a view that they hardly use
A break in the grandstand, through, tiny towers
Glinting like the brass on the rims of the old man’s glasses
Get me out of here
Free of the distance of the harbour how it glows
Somehow it's pulled in the sun through a gap in the clouds

I pace the oval slow through the crowd
I’ll try and dodge the girls, they’re talking boys
I turn to an odd surprise, oh my
Where the cars blow horns as the football flies there’s one I recognise
She’s got her hair up but I can’t mistake those eyes
Seems like she she’s hanging around more than I realised
Track Name: Pleading Amelia
To the Lions, they’re bowing tonight
To heads and shoulders drifting in strobe light
A silhouette stretches her neck
Yells into a hero’s ear

I’m just a face at the edge of a maze
The edges make it fire in the middle
A strange dance, they’re waving their hands
Leaning to some towering men
I see they like you, one by the bar
You’ve had her eye all night
And it’s just like when your father first caught mine

They’re jumping high, drunk and shaking their thighs
The air is thick, it begs me to leave
His figure dancing just a few feet away
But if he looked at me he just wouldn’t see
I’m just an outline with a drink in her hand
And the rum don’t have the kick it had

My boy, in the lights
I came to find
My boy, in the lights
I need more time

Every weekend, I’m in the car
I park and honk the horn from the sideline
The weekly riot, it’s a delicate mess
Hardly changed since I was amongst it
I never had then, I didn’t know enough,
I’d only do you wrong
Went to sort myself in the city, boy
But the city took so long
And the cold breeze on the ferry, boy
Got heavy in my lungs

Sonny’s stomping, he’s still going strong
But taxis gather up in a line
Staring back toward the club for a while
I shouldn’t drive back to the city tonight
Up the hill to Vincent’s window in strides
Tap until he flicks on the light
I’m out of line but he’s seen me crying
I’m out of line but he’s awfully kind
Another week gone by
I need a little more time
Track Name: Leave You Alone
High heels, dropped on the floor
Amelia, drunk at your door
You admire, sometimes
How she’s young for forty-five

Her fingers were drumming on your window pane
You were dragged from a dream
Her voice is real now, so it seems

You were lying awake there weren’t you, boy?
So she says, her head against the wall
A smirk and a lazy eye
Can barely stand to see her at your door
She’s like a ghost on alcohol
Drifting south, to linger about
But you’re not in love anymore

For the girl, so she claims
The one she was supposed to help you raise
It’s so late, but you’re only a man deep within your veins
Yeah, she knows Holly’s grown
Seventeen and hardly home

Now you’re lying all naked on your bed
She’s an ear pressed against your chest
And you’re still afraid of it
Soon she’s gone, Holly’s going too
Off on a harbour boat
Or mountain road
But always trying
To leave you alone

You were lying awake there, weren’t you boy?
I thought you said she shouldn’t come no more
And you were ashamed of it
You couldn’t stand to see her at your door
She’s like a ghost on alcohol
Drifting down a lonely mountain road
Haunting her bastard boy
Who has no clue
At least you knew
She left you alone
Track Name: Old Man Down
Rising from the highway
A ripple in the foggy air
It’s barely there

Your car will pass
Just like the others
Puffing like a cigarette
You’ll pay it no attention yet

Well you might
Go beyond there
Don’t you turn
Don’t become one of them

Here on the inside
I can tell you
I want to turn your arm
Down to the water
Feel so heavy
Don’t let your old man drown

Further west
They bridged the river
Now everyone just screams across
Off to see some city block

So what you think
You’ll find?
A lover in a city park?
A job inside a skyscraper?

Sit on my rooftop
Face the mountain
Let your legs hang down
Murmuring traffic
Warming voices
Echo in Nelson Town
Don’t let your old man down

Here on the inside
You can feel it
It never drags you down
Not like holes underneath those
Golden towers
I never left this town
Don’t let your old man down
Track Name: Body Art
Oh, these men look funny
Faces on the grey, stuck down
White, their limbs trail out
The taste of blood in their mouths

Lions on the wet tile floor
Hard on the sore, pale hips
Steam trails linger still
It's as if he found them like that
That's what it feels like

Blows and blows
And did he know the dog in him?
His closed fist, clapping on their cheeks and chins
Their sin he spied, it struck an ugly chord inside
That fire in their eyes
A fire they should hide

Sonny tilts his head to the side
He follows the crooked lines
To their heads, they’re two of a kind
With swollen, dirty coloured eyes

His knuckles barely carry a mark
While the pride’s at the bar getting drunk
And his wounded friends won’t talk
Without revealing more than they’d ever want

Blows and blows, the looks he knows were meant for him
In hallways, and round the clubrooms, Saturday
He and Will, they’d shared a girl in summertime
Was there a fire inside?
A fire he should hide

Both these men look funny
Naked where they lay, struck down
Is that himself? He can’t figure out
Is that some blood in his mouth?
Track Name: Siblings
Hold on, sit tight
Hard under your thighs
Cold aluminium
Rows on the sideline

You’re alone across
Darkness and air
Hung so heavy on
The ground that holds it there

You wait
That space
Distant doorway
Will his dark shape soon appear?

Hold on, he denies it
Hold on to your tongue
He’s heard all the rumours, hon
Yes, he’s her son

Skirt back, hung between
The benches, he stares
‘You’re a groupie girl
Who’s trying to get an in’

But you press
‘That’s incest
Though yes, I’m gorgeous’
Emerson
Off again
To catch his team
Track Name: Mountain Road
Screaming away from Nelson today
The old man set me up
He used me and he wasted my time
Still, the city stretched without a hitch
And I was in a feeling so divine

From the golden towers
To the back of my mind
A shiver down my spine
At the sight of the city tonight
A photograph is not the same
You can’t just freeze this feeling in a frame

And the window is clear now
My hands on the wheel
Concentrating still on nothing but how this all feels
The glowing bulbs, the humming wheels
Sometimes a scummy world
But I’ve sure got the mind to let it off

A moment free of moments passed
Time has failed a simple task
For this second moves much slower than the last
In southern city lights I’ve found
I want for nothing here and now
And I allow myself to forego all I’m owed
On the mountain road

There’s a pang from within as I’m picturing him
Worried on the roof with his head down
‘She's only a girl’
Well I’m five foot nine and twenty-one
You taught me how to shoot a gun
And I climbed up the mountain on my own

For eighteen months, you won
You talked me down and kept me home
Convinced me that I’d end up like my mum
The city changed your friends
But you’re the one ignoring them
Your actions speak completely for themselves

So I must now abandon
So I must now abandon
So I must now abandon understanding everything you were

A moment free of moments passed
Time has failed a simple task
For this second moves much slower than the last
In southern city lights I’ve found
I want for nothing here and now
And I allow myself to forego all I’m owed
On the mountain road