Get all 13 Nick Harper releases available on Bandcamp and save 35%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Tempus Fugitive, Phantastes, Lies! Lies! Lies!, Smithereens, Harperspace, Instrumental, Treasure Island, Miracles For Beginners, and 5 more.
1. |
Welcome
02:51
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Welcome to Harperspace
It’s a place we can make
With our hearts and our brains
It’s our own landscape
I’m so glad that you’re here too
I’ve been waiting here for you
In this place we have made
It’s our own landscape
There’ll be kisses in the trees
Many lost histories
The other world is far away
This is where I plan to stay
I’m so glad that you’re here too
I’ve been waiting here for you
Every time you want to play
I’ll be here
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2. |
The History Of The Kiss
03:19
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This is the history of the kiss
That unravelled all the mysteries to tell a tale of simple bliss
And I could never have known or guessed my loneliness could end quite like this
When she kissed me the rest was history
Deep dark boy
Alone in the world in search of joy
Waiting for life-long love to exist
Until the day I die
From the day of the kiss
Teen spirit’s dreams; all the awakenings
To adolescent desolation
With the one and only chance of my salvation
By landing every heavy hope on her lips
On the day of the kiss
Well the closer we became
The weight hung heavier on my claim
Until a softly focused ghostly ballet
When the moment was held in frozen frames
And my loneliness was blown away
On the day of the kiss
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3. |
Mama's Boy
04:51
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When the darkness of the beginning was upon the face of the deep
In the loving arms of my mother I slept protected in the depths of our dreams
We’d lie side by side
Mama’s boy and the beatified
Oh but how are children to know of all the love they need
Let alone the joy they give as you watch them sleep?
But the time came one day
To put all those childish things away
And get out there boy and discover someone other in whose arms I could stay
And lie side by side
Where I’d vow I would abide for all time
But how was I to know that all those echoes of love would keep on rolling back to me?
Yes it’s true I guess I’m a mama’s boy
Call me a mama’s boy
Say what you like
How it was is how it is Mama’s boy
Say what you like
Love you Mum
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4. |
A Mote Of Light
06:47
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The sky pulls on a hooded cloak just as I leave home
Through Mirkwood’s nightmare Thousand Oaks I sing aloud alone
No moon and no stars
And in the midst of The Joke the deep darkness swathes the soul
Demon trees make demon sounds until, a faint glimmer, the first glimpse of her town
Difficult to make out in the inky Autumn air, but it’s there
Unless my eyes are playing tricks
No it’s there
A mote of light A spright aglow
A mote of light Just enough to give me hope
Well if I didn’t know I wouldn’t know, that what I saw were the fairground rides aglow
But I, too far to plainly see that incandescent cavalry’s
Slashing sabres whirling blades from the switchback sleighs and the cage
That had not yet quite sliced night’s canopy,
But that’s what it was,
It was a long walk
And I still had some way to go
And all I could really see was:
A mote of light A spright aglow
A mote of light Just enough to give me hope
Well at last I’m down into town. I move through the fair
Thinking yeah pigs will fly if I see her there
I’m into the fray and frenzy of the electric air
Where the sweet smack of the smell of the hot sugar floss
Fuses with the trodden on hot dogs dropped from the top of the Ferris Wheel’s drop
When it jolts and stops to load up the chairs
So yeah pigs do fly as I suddenly see her in an Elvis mirror
You know the ones you can win for firing rubbery frogs into buckets with rubber mallets
She sees me
And the lights shine soft, the music stops, and the rest of the scene fades away to night
But in the corner of her eye, deep down in her smile
I see a tiny something, something I recognise and it’s just for me and it means everything
A mote of light A spright aglow
A mote of light Just enough to give me hope
Just enough to get me home
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5. |
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Out of the window through the leaves of the cherry tree
Where all those birds used to fly
There’s a light back down that road out there just for me
I must leave this place for the last time
Shadow’s curse begone!
That dons the dark shroud the day long
In a never ending game of peekaboo
You think it’s gone, then it comes for you
I will overcome
Make love and light and laughter my friend
Oh we let this world make so much suffering
It beggars belief the things we’ve been believing in
Back down that road out there just for me there is a light
And I must leave this world for the first time
Shadow’s curse begone!
That dons the dark shroud the day long
In a never ending game of peekaboo
You think it’s gone, then it comes for you
I will overcome
Make love and light and laughter my friend
Love and light and laughter my friend
As the horn fills the forest
The shadow disappears
As I sound out the chorus
The way ahead is clear
As the horn fills the forest
I’m free of all the fear
Secret chords in the chorus
Will draw The Marble Lady near
And the kiss ..
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6. |
The Staging Post
04:00
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They say a pot of Roman gold was found at one end of that rainbow
Between this world and the next
Where the one-eyed Magpie watches me walk by again
All the way from the life-giver river in the West
To the white horse by the white house
Both standing there in the rain
On the corner of Choppingknife Lane
Shelter!
With my friends at either end of that rainbow
Pure, real gold
They opened the door and they took me in
Just when I needed it the most
At the staging post
Other dreams came in from the blue
And fairly hid the kiss from view
Six string salutations ran imagination through
My spirit stretched out as it rested
Safe at the halfway house
But my soul was always looking out for you
Shelter! I stumbled in
The bone-weary spaced-out lovelorn ghost
And I never forgot the kindness I got
Just when I needed it the most
At the staging post
From here I can see the beginning and on and beyond
Where I live now is where I lived then
Distance, time, nothing’s really gone
Nothing’s really gone, I’m still here
Shelter! Shelter! Shelter! My friends
Shelter! When you need it the most
At the staging post
There but for the grace of the kiss go I
And you know I am but one of many spirits here
Resting from the road
So come on, come on, come on, join the host
At the staging post
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7. |
Phantastes
04:58
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One night, on what started out as a little a trip from the Staging Post
I go through the looking glass to see
(Sweet liberty was lying in the grass absolutely free you see)
Subconsciously I’m searching for any trace of this elusive kiss
And just when I’m thinking I should give the whole thing a miss
I come across the ruins of a Marble Hall where the inside is the outside as much as the outside is
There a beautiful statue glows in the Nighttime abyss
By then I had kicked open a good few doors of perception
And now this Marble Lady became my obsession
Deep down in her smile
The Marble Lady comes alive
Then she is gone, gone from the pedestal
The figures fly from the frieze
Phantastes
I see her form disappear into the darkness
So I strike a match and it lights up the whole sky
The box is gone in a flash (of course) and was she ever nearby?
Deep Space Cadet with quicksilver emotion
Boldly going to earn an astral promotion
I measure up a universe unseen
With super-imposed geometric grids of purple and green
Everything’s dilated, even time itself in the ripples of the Pool of Soon
Where the statue comes toward me in a reflection .. of the days to come
Deep down in her smile
The Marble Lady comes alive
Then she is gone, gone from the pedestal
The figures fly from the frieze
Phantastes
I follow her into the trees
“Have you seen her?” I ask
But the trees look at me like I’m crazy
So I embrace the very earth to feel her vibrations maybe,
But I get attacked by a gang of green flourescent emmets
And through the living nettle stings I ask the trees again,
“Did she go by this way?”
Because deep down in her smile
The Marble Lady came alive
And now she is gone, gone from the pedestal
Her figure flew from the frieze
Phantastes
“Excuse me. Sorry. Did you see a .. marble lady .. go by this way? .. No. OK.
I guess it’s back to the lab.”
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8. |
The Love Machine
04:42
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I have all the chemicals working together
I have studied all the mad professors of old
Though my previous experiments were failures
I’m much closer to success than anyone knows
By my calculations we are go!
I made myself a love machine
Pure imagination keeps the whole reaction growing
Though impurities have a way of getting back in
The obsession keeps the elemental music flowing
But I sometimes smash it all up and start again
And though I give this dream all I’ve got to give to keep it going
I’ll never know what it was that stopped me giving in
But in the end without me even really knowing
The experiment’s conclusion stirred within
Behold! The creature lives!
I’ve made myself a love machine
And you can check my workings out in every equation
Follow the formula falling into place
From the flash of the genesis all through to the solution
You don’t need to be a scientist to follow the trace
It’s all written plain as day across my face
I have made my self a love machine
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9. |
The Moment Came
04:10
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Well we all want a dream we can live by
Building one up doesn’t seem so insane
One for us all, the master, the dame
One for the boy who lives down the lane
Building and building and building
All alone in a little house out of the way
The little sculptor working on feet of clay
That little boy’s moment came
And he reached out with both hands
That little boy thought he was pretty brave
Thought he was brave just like a man
He grew up with all those poets
He took it all so seriously
He was mad back then, he was mad back then
And there’s way too much pain, way too much suffering
Just for one poor little world
He thought he could put a few things to rights with it
That little boy’s moment came
And he reached out with both hands
That little boy thought he was so damned brave
Thought he was brave just like a man
On the steps in the flagstone churchyard
Two flutes in his hand that he had to fill to play
The sun was shining after the rain
It was the day after midsummer’s day
They looked down on all the people in town
She turned to him, but never said what she was going to say
He wasn’t going to let the chance get away
That little boy’s moment came
And he reached out with both hands
That little boy well he was pretty brave
Yeah he was brave
That little boy’s moment came
And he reached out with both hands
Finally ..
He kissed her and the little boy was gone
And there he stood
Just like .. like a man
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10. |
Echoes Of Love
03:51
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Ever since I was a little boy
I felt echoes
Way before I knew the source from whence they came
And I followed them along
Beguiled by their song
Guided by the gentle force that they became
And no time I had was ever better spent
Not one minute would I take back again
For when I followed the echoes of love
They led me to the source of my happiness
And all along I knew I’d never be
An oh so clever man
I could never understand
Why was not everyone the same as me?
I thought I saw life through others’ eyes
In the end I realised
The way I feel is not how everybody sees
But no time I had was ever better spent
Not one minute would I take back again
For when I followed the echoes of love
They led me to the source of my happiness
If you could talk to the little child
Who still lives inside of you
What is it they would say?
Have you lost your way?
Do you still seek the source of the echoes that play?
And no time you have would be better spent
Not one minute would you take back again
No time I had was ever better spent
Not one second would I take back again
For when I followed the echoes of love
They led me to the source of my happiness:
You
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Nick Harper England, UK
TEMPUS FUGITIVE
The new album.
It's about time.
Slabs of sonic beauty from Nick and Tchad Blake groove through the portals to meet the immortals ..
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