Free MP3 download: Kick Up The Leaves

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Driven by such haste and random mania, because she was ill, too ill to spend the day with Wendy it seemed. So, she came to ‘work’ with ‘Daddy’, and, using an old digital camera, this is what we made. The camera records sixty-second at a time, which is just about her attention span. The song, if I remember rightly, was written during the winter months at her mother’s house. It was recorded days later, quite painlessly, thoughtlessly and I’ve never played it since. The overdubs were added immediately afterward, and will likely never be reconsidered. At the time, I had been suffering a bout of insomnia. Nothing serious, nothing harmful, just the golden light of Old Roads street lamps casting stark light across her mother’s bedroom and all that slept within it, all but me. Between midnight and 3am, every night, I would hear her footsteps from down the hall, padding hurriedly toward her mothers bed, and I would watch her creepy crawl under the covers, wrapping it around until there was no room left for me, which was fine, because it meant I didn’t have to persecute myself with notions of sleep anymore. When the day arrived I would try, at times, to discipline her, by teaching her right from wrong, but all the while fearful that she if learnt too much, the very spirit that drives her tantrums, her certain madness, her most precious part, might calm and cool off. Between the both of us there are mixed messages always. As my eyes glare over and voice draws in, deep and directed with precision, my lips twitch because a great big smile sits beneath the scornful expression painted over my face. I have always known she can see this, so, the elephant mask has come in handy. The mask itself was acquired from Wendy’s House and I am grateful to her that I was not prosecuted, or even asked to return my latest disguise. As for the title of this song, it is a phrase I had never come across before, until one night whilst I wandered her mother’s apartment like a ghost, an article from a magazine recently torn out and stuck to the wall in the kitchen caught my attention. It offered some advice – 20 ways to keep healthy and happy during the winter. ‘Kick Up The Leaves’ was the 13^th piece of advice – it encouraged me to go outside, walk, get some fresh air. Eventually I took that advice (Scare Crows), but for now, as we get set for the release of the new EP, you can have this little treasure on me.