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Brice Randall Bickford

by Brice Randall Bickford

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1.
Kindling 03:44
Well I used to have something in me That needed only to be put out I was young and lit There was no end to what I was Told to take in Cold In sick bedclothes and the winter sun I woke up once A handful of eras had passed As time obliged with speed Extinguishing All my grand assumptions about The kind of man I should be The kind of man I should be by now Out on the back deck steps I sat with my narrowness Chimney smoke in the air A memory of Kate one Halloween With her fake fangs out Baiting rich undergraduates I loved to laugh at disorder Until I owned my voice It was hard enough to not forget Every year seeing clearer Derailed my dream Of saying something new Eventually All of my actions have struck me: They were not much They were not much more than me Kindling
2.
At the end of the night Still listing by the light of a screen You are cursoring Through the week You work at your capacity To take on more than you want From the civil service You make a living on Never giving to yourself a bit Of space in your own narrative This is always how I find you Long dark hair pulled back In your bedroom shoes And I can see how lazy I become When you’re focusing your strength On nothing but how much You get done You summon my lazy demons All my demons With your endless list And I have to look at them And I remember every woman I have loved Used to work like this
3.
4.
Danville 04:47
She led me through her family property We had blankets over the damp Earth and leaves and protection The simplest searching In that slender window when it was true From where I was looking I was new She gave me a first Trying to resemble what I thought I wanted As we lay to look through A treetop with blue sky beyond it Looking through branches And I could find nothing added or subtracted Like any kid in how I was molded So easy by the blind Worship of authenticity I soured the moment She started to seem unconvincing As my home One day she could only repeat things I was missing But she gave me a first Trying to resemble what I thought I wanted And I left to look through A city skyline and beyond it Looking through branches Until I could find nothing added or subtracted
5.
He left Almost everything of his To make it easier On the boy And your nerves that he held Against you for so long Seemed to burst out And fill the house With a new unease You could not trust a child Of fourteen With a key Once you held the power To let him in On the fact of the other women All the news he didn't need you To give him Living on Your own was so completely unknown You showed in swindlers To the ancient den with all its gold Curtains yellowing Helpless on the couch A paunchy younger man by your side The boy stuck in his bed You whispered into every night And then one day Your ex-husband called To say you made the last decision For him and for once All you could do was declare Yes You will never forget You are not the sole author Of your affairs
6.
Worrying for your parents as they leave You never shed their old world Sanctity You tell me how you’ve been Carrying on all the upkeep In being wed to me I brush aside the sudden Awareness of who’s in the passenger seat When I first met you I was coming down With something You took me in, nurse for a time Dusk eyed And you were never as strong again Now nothing I say gives you consolation When your voice breaks down There is no more painful sound And I guess it’s true Fuck all that I do Can show you were what I thought about So we fold Into our covers And the dark beside one another To talk until we agree We don’t see anything Approaching We are constantly overturning sides I watch us wind Up at the same place every time Folding Into our covers And the dark beside one another To talk until we agree We don’t see anything approaching Clarity
7.
Songstress 03:33
Sailing back Home over the wet roads I keep my eyes on the current It has a tough approach I never learn The songstress is just Working to advance her means None of us can say we’re not Looking for another way To be seen Driving and listening to her Explain how she has always wanted To be known I only want to take her home and take off Her clothes Because when you were The one thing that I was Counting on too much You said if I left I would come back Doubtless To my old habits Nodding through the words Of another lackluster Songstress
8.
Alexandra, when you were about To give up Becoming a nurse To yet another man And you saw it was singing Was your calling Did your figure ever get Out of the way Of the power you held in Your throat With English pallor, ivory dress Watching an audience Wait and medicate You walked out into the gels Giving away only some Of what you were about Because every time they tagged you You knew you were out Of overtures now You lay at the bottom of the stairs With glass in your hair Drink in your clothes With a daughter six months old Relieved of thoughts That you had never caught on To the answer To the masses To rails you leaned upon You would wait to be found And this was your victory Sleeping until your husband turned Off the breathing machine
9.
The careless limb Of some kid Dancing the way they did Back then Caught her as she turned To the song Seventeen and her blood Was all she saw That could not be still Remade The sound of her name While the room was running Down her face She walked out on her own Driving home A broken nose Kids in their cars Driving around In circles checking out The one place in town She hung on The outskirts and thought too much Of her view Of everything coming down Like one set free On bail When she got to her house And could still feel the room Full of eyes Robbing her Of her outsider’s insight And life was waiting And the drag of being this age Was even up against the hem You were still a cliché No matter what came out of your mouth
10.
You can never let up Paying attention If you expect to go on feeling So you could not be any less Surprised how poorly You recall the way back And forth You used to swing Too proud to settle on anything So you always fell For the hardest working woman you knew Thinking somehow she could steady you Yes it was a burden to have to live So figurative Shifting the weight of your body From that lover to this With the feeling that you missed You can never catch yourself Up anyhow Without paying Attention to the way you are not You are not staggering now

about

It’s been a decade since Brice Randall Bickford began performing under the name “The Strugglers”. In this time, he has released five albums, toured the world, and earned a reputation as a master of subtle, narrative songwriting. Bickford's dense, poetic lyrics imbue his compositions with an enduring vitality, rewarding the listener with additional layers of meaning upon each successive listen. Now 32, he has cast off “The Strugglers” moniker and recorded his most focused and nuanced full length to date. Collaborating closely with acclaimed producer Scott Solter (The Mountain Goats, Spoon, John Vanderslice), Bickford created a lush and detailed sonic landscape for his painstakingly crafted lines to inhabit. The bare-bones Americana sound of The Strugglers is traded for the crisp, studio driven production style of late 70’s pop-folk, heightening the emotion and coloring the mood of each composition.

One might expect the transition to “solo artist” to find Bickford turning further inward, pursuing more confessional writing. While he now acknowledges his project as the work of a solitary songwriter, Bickford has instead chosen to broaden the focus, examining the external world and the thoughts and experiences of characters other than himself—particularly women. But these are not relationship songs. Rather they are portraits of female personae on a direct, post-romantic level. The arrangement of the compositions also represent Bickford's most outward and collaborative process yet, with band members and Solter given free reign to help build a world for each song. Members of St. Vincent, Megafaun and Mount Moriah also guest.

credits

released June 14, 2011

Produced by Scott Solter

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about

Brice Randall Bickford North Carolina

Contact at thestrugglers@gmail.com. Now operating under the name Scivic Rivers.

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