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A flock of jackdaws carrying various tools (string, screwdriver, boltcutters, lump hammer, pliers, etc.) is silhouetted against a painted sunset with a brooding cloudy sky. The title and artist are written in hand-drawn lettering at the top and bottom, respectively.
A flock of jackdaws carrying various tools (string, screwdriver, boltcutters, lump hammer, pliers, etc.) is silhouetted against a painted sunset with a brooding cloudy sky. The title and artist are written in hand-drawn lettering at the top and bottom, respectively.

4. Jackdaw

Helen Bell
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Jackdaw
3:54

Jackdaw

Helen Bell

lyrics

Coalface jackdaw on my chimney
What do you know?
Where will you go
As we keep hacking and burning?
No capacity for why
Nowhere left to fly
Would you drop out of the sky
All blackening and turning?

And the earth is riven
But the rivets are forgiven
In the name of disposable days
Do you pick the quickthorn berries from the dust
And ache for us to end our ways?
But feathers can't fight diggers
Nowhere left to fly
So here you stay and all the air turns grey

Coalface jackdaw on my chimney
How can it be
That we can’t see?
It’s not so hard to stop, is it?
On command of just a few
The system shackles all we do
Each day; it mines the people
We stay helplessly complicit

And the earth is riven
But the rivets are forgiven
In the name of disposable days
Do you pick the quickthorn berries from the dust
And ache for us to end our ways?
How many feathers would it take to fight a digger?
Is this the way we’ll stay
As all the air turns grey?

credits

from Five Thousand Feathers, released October 4, 2024
Helen Bell: vocals, piano
Xenogon: drums, five-string electric guitar, bass guitar
Words and music by Helen Bell; arranged by Helen Bell and Xenogon

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