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.
last.fm page

Similar Artists

Faded Coat Of Blue Lyrics

Jolie Holland

My brave lad sleeps in his faded coat of blue
In a lonely silent grave lies the heart that beat so true
He sank faint and hungry among the famish'd brave
And they laid him sad and lonely within his nameless grave

He cried, ";Give me water and just a little crumb
And my mother she will bless you in all the years to come
Oh! tell my sweet sister, so gentle, good and true
That I'll meet her up in heaven, in my faded coat of blue."

No more the bugle calls the weary one
Rest, noble spirit in thy grave unknown
I'll find you and know you among the good and true
When a robe of white is giving for the faded coat of blue

Long, long years have vanished, and though he comes no more
Yet my heart will startling beat with each footfall at my door
I gaze over the hill where he waved a last adieu
But no gallant lad I see, in his faded coat of blue

No more the bugle calls the weary one
Rest, noble spirit in thy grave unknown
I'll find you and know you among the good and true
When a robe of white is giving for the faded coat of blue