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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Mad Tom Of Bedlam Lyrics

Jolie Holland

For to see Mad Tom of Bedlam,
Ten thousand miles I've travelled
Mad Maudlin goes on dirty toes
For to save her shoes from grave

Still I sing bonney boys, Bonney mad boys
Bedlam boys are bonney
For they all go bare, and they live by the air
And they want no drink nor money

I went down to Satan's Kitchen
For to get me food one morning
And there I got souls piping hot
All on the spit a-turning

Still I sing bonney boys, Bonney mad boys
Bedlam boys are bonney
For they all go bare, and they live by the air
And they want no drink nor money

The spirits white as lightening
Did on my travels guide me
The sun did shake and the moon would quake
Whenever they espied me

Still I sing bonney boys, Bonney mad boys
Bedlam boys are bonney
For they all go bare, and they live by the air
And they want no drink nor money

My staff has murdered giants
And my bag a long knife carries
For the mince pies from children's thighs,
And feed them to the faeries

Still I sing bonney boys, Bonney mad boys
Bedlam boys are bonney
For they all go bare, and they live by the air
And they want no drink nor money

Tonight I'll gonna murdering
The man in the moon to a powder
His staff I'll break and his dog I'll shake
And there'll howl no demon louder

Still I sing bonney boys, Bonney mad boys
Bedlam boys are bonney
For they all go bare, and they live by the air
And they want no drink nor money

To see Mad Tom of Bedlam,
Ten thousand miles I've travelled.
Mad Maudlin goes on dirty toes,
For to save her shoes from gravel

Still I sing bonney boys, Bonney mad boys
Bedlam boys are bonney
For they all go bare, and they live by the air
And they want no drink nor money