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Joy and Better Days

by Hip Hatchet

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1.
I'll be leaving my modest hills leaving you behind for a city press your head into my arm your mouth is young but your heart is strong You look beautiful in your black dress with your golden arms falling down like your tress look at my face as you close the door and step over the dirty clothes on the floor With eyes like summer and hands so tame she said that every good song mentions rain Break my chest with your American charm the stories of your mother and the family farm I know my breath is dark and wet won't you come by all my friends have left We've been drinking and laughing hard telling all the stories of our calloused palms Don't look so scared with my hands in your hair the darkness that they've known has gone away Pull back the shade and look outside the rain isn't warm like your hand in mine. I am looking forward to turning cold My orange rusted orange neck turning gold. the way you wear your smile is to sweet to be dark until you decide to come back to me
2.
Small Demons 04:24
The warmth of Oklahoma rested there in her sleeping eyes The barrel of her body breathing next to mine Another man's apartment penetrated by the sun Greeting us with morning as the day begun Inspire me with joy and thoughts of better days you tell me i look silly when i hang my head that way The friend who I left back on top of the hill Was dealing with the weight of the green mountains holding still With crystals in his eyes he held his guitar light He said the burden of a good man is never doing anything right My fingers are small demons and your hair is honest and bright If i meet you in the middle, do you think that you'd spend the night Have you had your heart broke in your young life Said the small frame of a man, who's words blocked out the light With my mother sitting next to me I said sure, I guess Looking over lake champlain, i felt the water in my chest But the joy a young girl showed me made me feel refreshed For once i felt i could, live a life without regrets Even as i left her back as i went out west The blonde boulders of her shoulders will stay with me until my death the warmth of Oklahoma rested there in her sleepy eyes the barrel of her body breathing next to mine what you want with me, i cannot decide But i know that comfort visits when you're laying by my side
3.
Drinking with my arms with my head upon your floor severed from my body to greet you in the morning. I know better than to greet you on a screen right when i wake up and when i go to sleep The mornings sing a song drenched in heat and wine they sing of all the roads i ride and the way i waste my time all my muscles hurt and all my body aches like a child's hands in dirt i crave a simple place If i was a child looking down your shirt resting both my hands there upon your skirt youth was wasted on my heart I feel it to this day in the way i walk and in the way i say close the blinds you know how i hate the sun the way that it shines on the morning undone Honey when you laugh do you sing it loud or does it rumble through your skin and end up in the ground. Now that you've spent your time across the sea do i ever cross your mind do you think of me.
4.
A man with a twist off bottle of wine asked me for a corkscrew I said man, take your time do what you gotta do a larger man, well he bummed a smoke and said you must be local I moved here three weeks ago but i know a thing or two selfless in a new city thinking I'll give myself away 'till I'm empty like the women who fill a void and I avoid next evening The large man's friend with shinning head said that he came looking for some Last night was seattle and tonight well it's gonna be rough go upstairs to the bar that i can barely afford these days i've been bleeding months of humble chores Selfless in a new city thinking I'll give myself away until my friends have had their fill and let their knees dig in my back till my chest is dead and still Man i met at the Bye and Bye had his ears stretched open wide he saved me from being alone for an hour's time A little later in the night I said I probably shouldn't drive but oh man, I've been feeling alone and a car wreck sounds all right selfless in a new city thinking I'll give myself away until my shoulders touch my toes And i look down and both my hands are gray and old so i can say that oh, i gave it all
5.
Leaving Home ain't pleasant the road can be cold and cruel when all that you've learned is present in these familiar rooms and I have been feeling distant from the friends i've learned to love i crave the comfort of transition and a car covered in rust Your eyes are facing down your feet are planted firmly in the ground you're thinking about how she left you standing there in your mother's house and you're waiting for the fall and nothing that you do will help at all the cold will settle in both your hands will crack and your eyes will sting. what's unknown is beautiful when what we live ain't new but the warmth of other women just ain't as warm as you sing me a reprise that i know as well as home delivered with the guilty comfort of drinking all alone I have a friend, a brother with a vision of the west we'll trade the coasts together and leave its for the best My feet are moving now away from the place where she taught me how to love her with my mouth and drive myself into the ground I'm waiting for the fall nothing that i do will help at all the cold will settle in both my hands will crack and my eyes will sting
6.
the green that i knew was never so bright the trees and the leaves breathing light. Home is a place where i feel away from everyone i know and every place i stay I ain't never know love untill i went away up into the hills that i left today. the mountains and the snow kept me cold and slow i kept another's heat and i kissed another's glow Listen to the songs, that i'll always know throw thunder road on the radio Singin' of the state that I call my home cadillacs and heartbreak, pretty girls who know of everything i've done and all the songs i've sung why my chest is bruised and why my head is hung I ain't got a path and I ain't got a plan, but darling won't you let me be your misdirected man. turn the music up so my mind can breath put down your drink and turn up your sleeves your arms are red from the golden sun beating on your back like a soldier's drum the place that I love is no longer my home the boys that I drink with are exhausted and grown the place where i was born I cannot call my own my heels are hooves and my eyes are stone
7.
The Blues is happy music said an aging man of gray you recognize the sadness so you can sing with birds again chase a dream with both your hands stuck to the wheel like glue hold your head up high despite the lies fading friends told you is this what the blues is in a strange town on your own watching as your hardened hands look softer than of those other fools around you who've been doing this twice as long and go to work each morning and sing those happy songs the dying car that you drove so far in your brand new boots took you to a place thats true but far from the ones you love Now that its been over a year does your heart feel relieved to know that love has limits and rules and that flesh is not to be believed
8.
surrender your gaze to the wooden glow hardened and alive desperate and kind crave your mother's comfort as i hold your breast near mine with bourbon on my sigh my fading hands will glide up your desperate body that is held above the floor by the place i lay my head my neck and weary core the silver trees we walk beneath have lost their simple worth as they watch us talk and stumble anticipate and curse Turn your house into a cage so i can think of her speak to other women and sink into the earth --- You are not my second pair of hands the morning will arrive with its fury and demands Let our vulgar warmth confide in simple lust breathe between our teeth and the fire in our lungs --- Sit below the earth with my brother in disgust as a column of light descends and dances with the dust Sitting on the floor that is covered in our filth watching as the walls melt separate and tilt They have seen me at my worst and staring at the sky begging for your body and hoping for your time And I apologize for the way i spoke to you the drink pulls my cheeks upwards there's not much i can do.
9.
Dark Dancer 03:58
South Carolina girl, Here I come I'm coming up from Georgia where I seen the sun for the first time in weeks, oh it gave me life I left my heart up north but it felt all right Oh my dear you look so bright dancing in barely any light Your mouth reminds me of my hills back home and your eyes ain't like nothing that I've ever known. Her calming breath upon my brow cooled my sweat and eased my pain I left her back but don't know how I'll hold her again if i can So I hit the road with some men whom I entrust as my closest friends drinking and dancing in the dusk Living fast and loving rough Oh my dear you look so bright dancing in barely any light Your mouth reminds me of the hills back home and your eyes ain't like nothing that I've ever known. The hills don't live all alone you see I brought them right along with me In my dirty hands they do reside strange and warm, side by side
10.
Florida Palm 05:27
Darling I find you careless Hiding underneath a table Hugging four legs that ain't your parents' your cheeks against the floor I could give you both of my arms press your breasts into my palms And i could give you all of the calm and shade of a florida palm I have been looking for simple forms of understanding how mountains were torn down and cities were built if life would be different without all of the guilt that coastal lovers have learned when they realize that sand can burn the arches in your feet and the land locked air you breathe I could give you both of my arms press your breasts into my palms And i could give you all of the calm and shade of a florida palm Winter came as heavy Snow on New Jersey I will shovel your walkway If you make me something hot to drink I wear my coat like a heavy skin to keep my true form hidden the snow it seems to be boiling when for you i play the part of a man
11.
smile, smile with your eyes, only if your mouth is occupied And hold, both your arms up high tell the swelling clouds that they can cry Simple, Simple little things that other's do to make us sing there's antlers on the wall of a brand new place to fall Breathe, Breathe in the rain let the water wash away the burden that you've gained No, No i don't know much about the ones i've held and touched My, my Fading memory always seems to get the best of me It's all right to smile every once in a while if you take the weight of others and bear it like a child
12.
The Poor ships that we sailed in those seas of sheets harbored in the passing safety of each others teeth white like lies that couldn't hurt clasping on my back don't forget me when you leave but don't let me hold you back - But how could i forget your hair thats grown longer since you left i smell it still in the cotton waves of other women's beds the bodies i borrow for a night have never felt less right reminders of you as they glide into slumber by my side - Her face fits fine in the cinder of my hateful dirty palms I used to wash my hands at night before I'd sing you songs when i sing for strangers my voice is weak and young i think of your house out in the woods and the words that you forced from your lungs

about

Gravitation Records

credits

released April 10, 2012

Philippe Bronchtein - Lyrics, Vocals, Guitar, Piano, Organ, Woodwinds, Banjo, Accordion,
Alex Lewis - Guitar
Charlie Freundlich - Double Bass
Jake Nussbaum - Drums

Recorded and Mixed by Tim Shrout
Mastered by Gus Elg
Album Art by Markel Uriu

Recorded at The Map Room in April 2011

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Hip Hatchet Nashville, Tennessee

With a voice that can meander from a whispering purr to a hardened howl, Hip Hatchet lusters the poetics of travel. Threading bold and unique guitar picking patterns with the strings of experience Hip Hatchet, the songwriting moniker of Philippe Bronchtein, is the beautiful resolution of a life lived in motion. ... more

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