Album Notes

Headed for a career as an English professor in the mid 1960’s, John Lyle was ‘broadsided’ by Bob Dylan and The Beatles. His degree went out the window, and so did he, playing in a series of bands and then performing on Canadian network television and radio as a solo act. He was also signed to two record labels during this era, but realized that because of his highly sensitive nature he was not cut out for the performing life.

John returned to his home in the Vancouver area, and devoted himself to his family, supporting them with a career that may have been more dangerous than the perfomance stage. He became a postman. John Lyle’s wonderful body of work is evidence of a life lived on the streets and in the home, filled with all the love and loss and joy and despair that are part and parcel of being alive. The songs are vital, not written to imitate a commercial trend or to fulfil a contract, but to reflect the intensity of experience and to remain sane.

Feedback -

'John's songs are amazing!' Frazee Ford (The Be Good Tanyas),

'We love John Lyle. We listen to him all the time.' The Sumner Brothers,

'There's lots of nice stuff on there!' Paul Rodgers (Bad Company; Free; Queen),

‘Magnificent!’ The late Robert Altman’s word for John Lyle’s music,

'John Lyle will take you gently to your safe place, and then sneak up on you with a song as uncompromisingly ferocious as a grizzly in a maternity ward.’ Dennis Albo, in his reality novel ‘One Bullet Left,’

'Wonderful, odd genius...I hate to think what they'd find if they opened up his head'-American comedian Heywood Banks,

'Super, passionate stuff!' Mark Smith

Lyrics for 'Beauty Looks Away' -

SOMEONE’S CALLING

Someone’s calling through the wind and the rain
Someone’s calling out again and again

Who am I
Who am I

Someone’s calling, I can hear the refrain

Beat the drum slowly, we are mourning a friend
Beat the drum slowly and then beat it again

Someone’s calling, see the root of the tree
Someone’s calling, you have always been free

Who am I
Who am I

Someone’s calling, I can hear the refrain

Beat the drum slowly, we are mourning a friend
Beat the drum slowly and then beat it again

Someone’s calling, come away from this land
Someone’s calling, be as quick as you can

STRAIGHT ON DOWN THE LINE

A sentimental wishing well where the bubbles never stop
However many feet I fall, I feel I’m at the top

Refrain:
You’re in the groove, straight on down straight on down the line

Standing at the pony rail with puddles in your hands
Dreaming of the monkey faces you can’t understand

Guess you better wait a while til the glue begins to set
Honey, what a joke it is to be caught outside the net

Many times I see your name but it falls beneath my teeth
I know I gotta go again and paint my hidden grief

Still you cannot feel your fists beating at the rain
Jumping in the humble few who chew their tongues again

Maybe now the crystal falls deep inside the track
Shatter all the needle balls you treasured for a map

Pretty penny found today a voice beside the wood
Stolen dreams to mark the day you did but what you could

Sleepin’ in the bed beside the one who knows me too
Laughing in his letters for the wave was not to you

The shepherd’s heart is broken now, he’s drowning in his fears
The matron saint of duty has confounded him with tears

You better get it together, get it together, get it together
You better get it together, get it together

COUNTRY HARVEST TIME

When the apple is ripe it will fall
There’s nothin’ will stop it at all
Who’s afraid of yesterday
At Country Harvest Time

Silent Light’s sightless sight
Sees no one inside
Monkey talk’s in the dock
At Country Harvest Time

When the wind blows your name from my lips
And my finger finds no need to grip
Now and here all doubts are cleared
At Country Harvest Time

Silent Light’s sightless sight
Sees no one inside
Monkey talk’s in the dock
At Country Harvest Time

You think you’ve the ghost of a chance
To change the steps of the dance
Armageddon with a smile
At Country Harvest Time

ALL THAT BINDS

The mind is deep and quiet
Seeing all that binds
But it’s just a pale reflection
Of what I cannot find

All these thoughts and feelings
Happen over there
On the battleground of sight and sound
Where nothing’s ever fair

Living in the moment
Seeing all that binds
Leaving all the torment
Many moons behind
Really wanting nothing
Letting go what comes
Abandoning this hunted thing
That’s always on the run