Clogs ~ The Sundown Song EP

The Sundown Song EP

Released on February 4, 2013
HWY-031
Digital


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Featured Collaborators

Padma Newsome

Padma Newsome

Padma Newsome


Songs

  1. A Hobson's Choice
  2. The World Loves Me
  3. The Sundown Song

Notes



Since 2000, Clogs have plotted a unique course between outsider art and the avant-garde, composed music and popular song. The Sundown Song EP presents Clogs at their most intimate. Mostly the work of founder Padma Newsome in singer-songwriter and choral director mode, it finds him creating and singing songs depicting his life and thoughts from his current home base, Mallacoota, one of the most isolated towns in the Australian state of Victoria. The EP presents three songs about mortality and bittersweet endings, gently backed by the Mallacoota Community Choir. From the album art to the thematic material, it offers a coda to Clogs' much beloved 2010 songcycle The Creatures in the Garden of Lady Walton, and marks an ending of what Clogs once were.

This is not to say Clogs are over. They have already outlasted, influenced and impressed a who's who of modern music. Clogs co-headlined the very last performance of post-rock godfathers Rachel's in New York. When The National emerged as the late bloomer favorite of the Brooklyn indie scene, it was Newsome's arrangements and playing that helped now-classic albums Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers, Alligator and Boxer stand out. When The Books began performing their folk-classical constructions live, Clogs were there as their crack backing band. And last year, when minimalist composer Steve Reich celebrated his 70th birthday, Clogs were invited to take part in the concert celebration assembled by London's prestigious Barbican Centre. Not surprisingly we've heard Clogs praised by a heterogeneous mix of artists ranging from Antony and Grizzly Bear, to Sufjan Stevens and Laurie Anderson, to the younger composers who founded New Amsterdam Records.

Clogs continue to stand as an inspiration to and primary influence on today's increasingly boundaryless 'new music' world.

Song information:

The Sundown Song
(Dedicated to Naomi Gordon, with Inspiration from Carson Robison and Ian Hobson)

Lyrics and Music by Padma Newsome
Padma Newsome - Baritone Ukulele, Strings, Vocals
Bass Guitar - John Grunden
The Mallacoota Community Choir - Leonie Daws, Pam Bobbin, Chris Craig, Sally Ann Watt, Yolande Oakley, Anna Kim, Sue Morrison, Gail Rands, Julie Picket-Heaps, Joycelyn Grunden, June Kinsella, Maz Bruce, Susannah Keebler. Thanks to Ian Hobson.

The sun comes up and the sun goes down.
The hands on the clock keep going round and round.

Time has come, and the shadow's gone.
Time to move, time to move on,
But I'd rather stay here.

Time to move, time to move on.
The people come and the people go,
But I'd rather stay here with you.

A Hobson's Choice
(Dedicated to Peter Gahan)

Lyrics and Music by Padma Newsome
Padma Newsome, Baritone Ukulele, Keys, Strings, Vocals
Susannah Keebler, Vocals

Sitting on a porch,
looking at a Pademelon
Talking 'bout Ian, talking to Pete about life and things.

Sitting on a balcony
watch the Pademelon
Looks like a rabbit to me,
Peter said he'd had a lot of life
'til now

Linda came in looking mean as a mouse,
and then cracked a smile as we looked so alike
as we spoke about things and the life and plans.

She gave me this leaf from a neighbor Ian,
I'm going to give it to Ian, from Ian to Ian,
he made a Hobson's choice, as anyone would.

Learning about the mountain top
how the sea came and ate the crown of the hill,
long before the great red cedars left the valley floor.

High on the old volcano crest,
the last of the red cedars stand alone,
where the tree callers called aloud at the pretty-pretty flowers below,

Told me 'bout the way the birds cry at night, it's a war in the last light
crying aloud for-for the right to rest, and the right to close their eyes.

Told me bout the way they bent the corrugated iron in the rifle pit,
dug deep in a sandy hole, rifle cocked with their elbows high.

He cut off his hair, came down to his thighs,
in a piggy piggy tail fore going to war.
He went for his wife, but she never came back.

Christopher, St Mary, Emily and family, came to the party,
Winifred sang a song , or would have done, if anybody'd asked her to.
She said, it's not my party, It's Uncle John's, it was yours to begin with,
I'm watching on, I made a Hobson's choice, as anyone would.

Proud at the table, Uncle John, a one-eyed ghost,
shares his food, grown from the ground of a long-long man, from a long-long time ago.

I drove to the hills, and sat with Peter,
we talked about leaves, and our neighbors Ians,
sharing the undone veggie patch and plans for the great great plans,

The World Loves Me
(dedicated to Brent McLoed)

Lyrics and Music by Padma Newsome
Padma Newsome, Baritone Ukulele, Vocals, Whistling

I love the world,
and it loves me
that's the way it ought to be

I love the birds I love the trees
and they love me, or so it seems.

rain, rain, wash away,
bring it all back again

I love the birds, I love to sing,
I love the trees whatever they bring
I love you and you love me,
isn?t that the way it should be be,

all the birds, and all the trees,
all the fishes in the sea,
all the people, animals too,
they love me, or so it seems,

rain, rain, wash away,
bring it all back again.

I love the song, I love my friends
what they say, and what they are
just comes right through
when the song is true,

it's nice to know you love me too,

rain, rain, wash away
bring it all back again.
wind, wind, blow away,
bring it all back again
sun, sun bake away

I love the world,
and it loves me
that's the way it ought to be

I love the birds I love the trees
and they love me, or so it seems.

sun, sun, bake away.