The Water's Edge

by Luke Ritchie

The Water's Edge Cover Art
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about

Label: Angel Falls Records

credits

released 05 December 2011
Credits

Tommy Antonio – Vocals, Double & Electric Bass, Piano
Thomas Barber – Cor Anglais
Andrew Dunn – Slide & Electric Guitar
Nia Lynn – Vocals
Nico Muhly – Piano & Harmonium
Karl Penney – Drums
Luke Ritchie – Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Piano, Fender Rhodes & Guitalele
Paul Savage – Vibraphone

All songs produced, mixed and recorded by Paul Savage* at Chem 19 Studios
Songs and lyrics written by Luke Ritchie†
Arrangements composed by Nico Muhly°
Mastered by David Mitson

Sketch by James Decent
Design by Leo Warner @ 59

www.lukeritchie.co.uk

* Cover it up recorded and produced by Ant Whiting for TripTik Management. Mixed by Paul Savage. Double bass by David Mannington. Drums by Simon Lea. Piano by Andy Nunn.

† Shanty written by Andrew Dunn & Luke Ritchie.


° Arrangements on Lighthouse, Words, Northern Lights, Looking Glass and Northern Lights recorded at Greenhouse Studios in Iceland.

Violin: Una Sveinbjarnardóttir, Helga Þóra Björgvinsdóttir, Andrzej Kleina, Zbigniew Dubik. Viola: Þórunn Ósk Marinósdóttir, Guðrún Hrund Harðardóttir. Cello: Sigurdur Gunnarsson, Margrét Árnadóttir

Recording engineer: Sturla Mio Þórisson
Studio assistants: Paul Evans & Jeremy Vachet
Studio manager: Sturla Mio Þórisson

tags

tags: 59 productions chem 19 nico muhly singer-songwriter acoustic blues folk rock London

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about

Luke Ritchie has just completed the recording of his debut album The Water's Edge, produced by Paul Savage (Mogwai, Arab ... more Strap, Franz Ferdinand).

Set for release in late summer 2011, the album also features arrangements by Nico Muhly.

He also plays with several artists including Hannah Peel, as well as being a member of The Golden Retrievers. less

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For help with downloads, click here.

For all other inquiries, including help with merch, click here.

Track Name: The Lighthouse
The Lighthouse

Calling out
over my home town,
it draws them in, draws them in,
the ones they never found.
A lighthouse
sleeps in fits,
watching all from sky to sea,
and all the life that hangs between.

Won’t you take me to the island
and the bay that I love,
take me deep into the weave and
take me straight to the heart.
Because I want to tell you there,
I want to tell you myself,
and you know I love you more
than even life itself.
But I’m holding something here –
and I fear for us both –
in the shape of a letter
that could tear us apart,
and I need you here
I need you here now.

And late at night
they wonder what they did
to see their boys grow up and run away.
They’re watching with a gaze that never breaks.
They miss the years that simply slip away.
The lighthouse sees all this,
watching all from sky to sea,
and all the life that hangs between.

Won’t you take me to the island
and the bay that I love,
take me deep into the weave and
take me straight to the heart.
Because I want to tell you there,
I want to tell you myself,
and you know I love you more
than even life itself.
But I’m holding something here –
and I fear for us both –
in the shape of a letter
that could tear us apart,
and I need you here, need you here.

The light that cuts through everything,
the light that always stays clean,
the light that brings you back to me.
Track Name: Shanty
Shanty

Storm-front coming from the southern coast,
leaves its mark upon the land,
heads on up towards the eastern shore,
she bares her teeth to show a smile.
Sudden how it gets so dark in this town,
twenty minutes since the day.
Holding out to think of something brighter here
that I can tell your Dad back home.

Send a prayer to my own,
to my hope.
Seek her out,
keep her safe,
in my love.
Lord, please, keep her sound now.

But I’m restless, so I head out for the door,
I find I’m drawn towards the church.
I start to hear the trees, they’re roaring up ahead,
crowd the light out like a curse.
Calling me back to those brave November souls
that I can’t defy, I can’t forget.
Think I’d love you more if you were strong and wrong,
than if you were weak and right?

Send a prayer to my own,
to my hope.
Seek her out,
keep her safe,
in my love.
Lord, please, keep her sound now.

Sea pulls like a longing,
floods everything else from my mind.
Home calls like a warning – a note in the night – ,
catch in my heart.

Hope you’re safe,
Hope you’re sound,
Hope you’re safe,
Hope you’re sound.
Track Name: Off Your Guard
Off Your Guard

In the spring sunlight
you can see for miles,
but not a sign to tell
where the summer lies.

Funny how life catches you
off your guard.

You can talk all night,
set the room alight,
but it won’t change a thing
if you don’t let her in.

Funny how love caught you
off your guard.

Take a breath and steel yourself
for a year you won’t forget,
I’ll be there at your left hand
because the two are better than one.
Track Name: Cover it up
Cover it up

Cut down by the way that you talk,
you take a room in your hands by your own.
I catch it in the way that you walk
and the way that you slip out the door.
To think you’re not sure of yourself,
to think you’ve got a doubt in your mind,
cover it up with a smile,
cover it up,
like a fault they’ll never find.

Summer comes slow and bright,
the evening comes warm and low.
Months have never seemed so long,
the days have never seemed so slow.
Remember that you used to have faith,
remember that you used to believe,
conjure it up with a smile,
conjure it up,
like a fault they’ll never find.

It takes time to believe, you know,
you’ll find a lover of your own,
and I take pride in your ways, you know,
you’ve got a style that’s all your own,
and it takes time to believe, you know
you’ll find a lover of your own,
and it won’t let you down.

You can fall back
on the path that keeps you safe,
settle down
to a life you can’t quite fake,
shrink away
from the fruit you want to taste,
dare to grow
just in case you start to change
into someone they’ll never love

Cos I’m alone tonight
with fears that pull me down.
It all surrounds me now,
all the fear and the doubt.
But you’re the centre point,
A perfect bead of light,
won’t you shine for me,
won’t you shine for me?
Track Name: Words
Words

I dreamt she died,
the hills glowed red for her,
clinging to the sun.
It seemed so real and bright.
We gathered up on littered streets,
held arm in arm,
clinging to the light.

But in her arms I woke.
She conjured up the world
with the words that she spoke.

Someone summon up the night,
and tear down the sun
from this sober sight,
because I can’t reach for you now,
I can’t change the fate,
you took it in your own hands.
But in the woods you broke,
you silenced every word
of love that we’d spoken.

I can’t find the words to make it alright,
I can’t see the sense, I cannot reconcile
the man that I knew with the thoughts that you had,
given up tonight.

We gather up in the summer heat,
so awkward and so smart,
right now it’s hard to feel proud.
You left your mark in the summer sky,
the long journey home,
always at arms length.

And with the words you’d spoken
You’d conjured up the world,
With the words that you spoke.

I can’t find the words to make it alright,
I can’t see the sense, I cannot reconcile
The man that I knew with the thoughts that you had,
given up tonight.
Track Name: Butterfly
Butterfly

I caught it with both hands,
my little butterfly,
I took it on a whim,
it caught me by surprise,
to find it on my path,
my sullen march to work,
I held it in my grasp,
like a flame so thin,
a flame that never burns.

I held it to my chest,
and smuggled it back home.
It shivered at my palm,
the thought of what awaits.
A sample on a board,
a piercing through the chest,
a steady hand to prise,
arms out-stretched and then firmly pinned,
pressed to the wood all waxed and stiff.

Sometimes I fear I can’t handle this,
the pace and scale of remorselessness.
Even the kids here would tear its wings,
rip out her colours all paper thin.
These are the things, you can’t shrink from this,
weep for the stalk of a fallen leaf.
Take what I can and then leave the rest,
Holding it tight in one gripped fist.

I let her in my home,
let her find her way.
It’s here that we’ll forget
only for today,
Just within these walls,
she’ll never see it all.
She’s fading in my arms
with a breath so faint,
a voice that never spoke.
Track Name: Northern Lights
Northern Lights

And in the moment I was so alive and so awake,
and every sound and every note would chase my thoughts away.
Within the night I sense a will I know I'll never break,
as I gaze beyond the window where the morning waits.

The Northern Lights are calling me,
to the rhythm of the sea,
the Northern Lights are calling.

But the solitude of sleeplessness can be beautiful.
Never silent, never still beneath my window-sill.
There's a roar beneath the streets, beneath the city lights,
great machines careering home amidst the heat into the night.

But in the night I keep forgetting
all the love, the good that you send me.
All of the things we made,
all they could take away.

Catch a light and take a pull upon the lungs so tight,
till you squeeze away the thoughts that fill your empty frame.
Hang the phone upon the hook, cos out of mind is out of sight,
Put a finger to the flame, slender shape chalk white.
Track Name: Lonely Second
Lonely Second

It takes a lonely second,
but in a moment it is done.
Leave her crying by the bus stop,
then just make your way back.
And as you’re almost faithless,
as you’re almost home,
see those fears rise up again,
same old fears rise up again.

Don’t throw your love away,
it’s not your fault .
There are things you believe in,
that you can’t let go.
Because it’s there that they catch you,
it’s there that you fail,
and I can’t bear to lose you
to the hours, days and weeks.

I count the times you’ve almost been here,
I count the times you almost left.
I wonder when you found your future
turned from a promise to a threat.
But if you only knew, boy, just how free you are
to turn from ash and rise again,
to turn from ash and rise again.

Funny, look who’s talking,
I watch the weeks slip past like days.
But I won’t wait to be saved, no –
the light you find, you find within.
The world is what you make of it,
the world is what you make of it,
the world is what you make of it.

Don’t throw your love away,
it’s not your fault ,
you can’t make her happy,
you’ve just got to let go.
Cos if you only knew, boy, how free you are
to turn from ash and rise again,
turn from ash and rise again.
Track Name: Looking Glass
Looking Glass

Slipping in and out of sleep,
I take my eyes from your ghostly face,
from the light of the mobile phone,
nightly dives that we take alone.

Steep up the shores until
the waters ebb up by the lower lids.
Darker movements scare me,
beneath the water’s edge.

And as I sink beneath my wave,
there’s nothing to confess or feign.

Above a city left in ruins,
my vision starts to shake.
My lover’s lost to memory,
I’ll see her when I wake.

And as I glance across her neck,
the hurried pace of her feather breath,
the pain across her face,
a vision of her home ablaze.
Track Name: Right then and there
Right then and there

Slipped out of bed
as my love slept
so silently.
On my way out,
right then and there,
I took a knife
and cut my hair.

As I got dressed,
soon I felt
as though I could see
through every cloud.
Right then and there
I saw my life
as through a lens.

And though I wept
for what I’d shed
so violently
I had no doubt.
Right then and there
I drew a line,
right then and there.
Track Name: Song to Sundays
Song to Sundays

This is my song to Sunday mornings,
where Son and Heir find skin,
and as I contemplate the ceiling
and the mysteries therein.
There’s something vast in your eyes,
it keeps me small and listless,
here’s to my darling fair,
here’s to my darling.

Find myself so calm and yet
so unclear…

I wring the tap dry of water –
my little hill-side source –
and then I’ll down a flooded river
in knotted loops and folds.
But then I’ll simply lie stranded,
like some bloated corpse,
until you rise me up,
till I’m alive again.

Find myself so calm and yet
so unclear…

I keep the mustard curtains
from when this house was young.
But to me they still shine golden,
from one look,
from one look from the sun.

Take my arms, I feel unrest
no more.
Carry me up and away,
our own sum,
our own sum,
our own sum
our ownsome.