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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Periphery Waltz Lyrics

Jolie Holland

When the supreme authorities of our culture
Tell us to get down on our knees
And beg for salvation from some divinity
Is it any wonder there are people
Begging on the street for salvation from poverty

Well, it's no surprise to me
It's no surprise to me

I left my home in the church
I left my home in the suburbs to wander
Now I did it all for my dreams
And the star that I followed fell from the periphery
And the street lights
Slipping down my windshield fell like falling stars

Down a dark country road
I first left my home when I was seventeen
And I paid my respects to my fellow rejects
But I tended to wander alone
Like I was listening to the words of a song
Whispered soft and low

Well it's kind of like dancing
It's kind of like losing your mind
And I've often considered
The impractibility of my life
And the moon behind the clouds is ill-defined

Well I got lost so many times
But I could not be consigned
To a fate of obsolescence and decline
So I'll take the chance again
And the Mockingbird is my friend
When he sings a song in the warm midnight wind
So I'll follow my old tune
And I'll wish you good morning