Just as with her lauded 2003 basement-tapes, Catalpa and Escondida, Holland writes with a soft focus and a sharp edge (and sometimes vice-versa). Holland’s sepia-toned song noir and billowy voice are in rare form as she weaves ethereal tales at a crossroads where haunting meets joyful—hers is a voice from the heavens singing stories of the underworld. The songs rise and fall like heavy eyelids and convey the peace of a place between asleep and awake. Sounds from past and present-tense waltz together to a never-ending melody that flickers between folk, jazz, blues and pop as Holland’s characters and situations play on surrealistic celluloid.
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Alley Flowers Lyrics

Jolie Holland

Some people say you got a psychadelic presense
Shinin in the park with a bioluminescense
Down these city streets I see you comin'
From afar and I know

In this world ain't nobody's
Got the shine like you
Got to shine in this world
Ain't nobody's got the shine
Like you got to shine
In this world

Nobody sings like Mary Sue Bell
Nobody prays like Willie MacTell
Nobody walks a mile in my stolen shoes like I do

In this world ain't nobody's
Got the shine like you
Got to shine in this world
Ain't nobody's got the shine
Like you got to shine
In this world

I still miss my lonesome lover
And I cain't find no single other
To take his empty place in my heart of hearts
I told him

In this world ain't nobody's
Got the shine like you
Got to shine in this world
Ain't nobody's got the shine
Like you got to shine
In this world

The ghost of Shakespeare's on the street
Corderoy hat layin at his feet
Howlin in the harp these dirty city blues fallin hard

In this world ain't nobody's
Got the shine like you
Got to shine in this world
Ain't nobody's got the shine
Like you got to shine
In this world

Zora Neale Hurston told her story
And they kicked her out of new york city
Just like jesus christ in gallilee like I said

In this world ain't nobody's
Got the shine like you
Got to shine in this world
Ain't nobody's got the shine
Like you got to shine
In this world

Some people say I got a psychadelic presense
Shinin' in the park with a bioluminescense
Down these city streets I see you comin'
From afar, and I know
Ain't nobody's got the shine
Like you got to shine in this world
Ain't nobody's got the shine
Like you got to shine in this world.