Get all 11 Rev Simpkins releases available on Bandcamp and save 20%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Apple, Pissabed Prophet, Saltings, For Every Number (EP), Poor Child for Thee: 4 Songs for Christmastide, Big Sea, Advent (Single), Sing Your Life EP, and 3 more.
1. |
Advent (Whispered Light)
04:42
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In a hard-lit room
Bleached and sterilized
News of suspect cells
Worms through baffled eyes
Oh, won’t you come again, Lord
Under creaking boughs
Down a sodden lane
‘midst the broken black
He recites a name
Oh, won’t you come again, Lord
Darkness calls to dark
Deep embraces deep
Wisdom’s voice stands dumb
Empty places speak low
Oh, won’t you come again, Lord
Witness whispered light
Creep from winter’s night
Seeps across the plain
It’s time to turn again
Oh, won’t you come again, Lord
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2. |
Big Sea
03:25
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Give me life, give me life, give me life, abundantly
Bring all your breakers, all your swells
And batter me, roll in big sea
Come on and take a piece of me
Give me life, give me life, give me life, abundantly
Oh, Lord, don’t leave me sickening here
Crash down on me, roll in big sea
Come on and take a piece of me
Give me life, give me life, give me life, abundantly
“Break, blow, burn and make me new”
Come ravish me, roll in big sea
Come on and take a piece of me
Let me kiss, let me fight
Let me bleed and let me bite
Let me taste and smell and feel and see
Let me praise, let me bless
Let me preach,
Let me confess the hopes and doubts that press on me
Let me sing, let me write
Let me hold her in the night
Let me tease my kids and get their tea
Lord, give me life
So come on and take a piece of me
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3. |
Creeksailor
03:33
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Creeksailor, won’t you carry me over please?
Show me the stars’ bold certainties
Speak of the breezes, the tides, the sands
Oh, still my shaking tiller hand
There’s no depth that she fears
She knows the problems come when the shallows appear
We set out sharp on some mercury morn
We rode the silver and we grieved the dawn
We skimmed the mud flats, caught the curlew’s call,
felt the freighter’s rotten ribs, and poked the dead barge’s pall
There’s no depth that we fear
We know the problems come when the shallows appear
Well, if you fix your eyes on those lights above
And ignore the shingle’s slide, the movement of mud,
Then the lap of the marsh, oh, the suck of the tide,
the mystery of the mist will draw you down inside
But there’s no depth you need fear
Just know the problems come when the shallows appear
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4. |
Pelican
05:24
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Pelican feeds the hungry and needy
I kneel before her
My throat like an open grave
Food cannot fill me
Water dilutes me
Nothing contents me
Pelican, pity me
She tears her breast, her children to refresh
By her I am blessed, led to life from living death
Though death entreats me
Her life flows sweetly
Given so freely
Given in flesh & blood
She tears her breast, her children to refresh
By her I am blessed, led to life from living death
Pelican feeds me
Loves me completely
Though I’m unworthy
She gives so graciously
She tears her breast, her children to refresh
By her I am blessed, led to life from living death
She crowns the whole earth, the heavens and seas
The Pelican tears her breast for me
She’s queen of what was and what is to be
The Pelican tears her breast for me
She gives of herself in infinity
The Pelican tears her breast for me
She’s compassion and love, she’s strength and glory
The Pelican tears her breast for me
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5. |
Psalm
04:34
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If I climb up to the heavens
If I make my bed in the grave
If I take the wings of the morning
Till I reach the end of the seas
If I cry out, “surely the darkness shall suffocate me”
You show me the night is bright as the day
When I fall and when I’m rising
You search out all of my ways
All my thoughts you know completely
All the words my tongue tries to say
You press in before and behind me
Oh, where can I go to hide from your face?
In the womb you knit me together
You wove my frame in the depths of the earth
All my tunes form part of your music
In your book are writ all of my days
I grasp for your thoughts, but they’re more than the deserts’ sand
And when I come to the end, you’re still with me
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6. |
Asleep in the Stern
04:08
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Our songs are raised to shrieks above the waves
We curse the gales which blow us to our graves
None for you
None for me
There’s no mercy in this sea
No hope, no fight, no faith, and no respite
We bid the storm rock us into night
None for you
None for me
There’s no mercy in this sea
And in that moment everything seems lost
Love has no virtue, selfishness no cost
None for you
None for me
There’s no mercy in this sea
Yet asleep in the stern
There is mercy flowing free
Now he awakes
Now he rebukes the sea
Cries, “Peace. Be Still!” and all the billows cease
None for you
None for me
There’s no mercy in this sea
Yet asleep in the stern
There is mercy flowing free
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7. |
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My sweet love Rose faithfully chose to be burned in the fire
All for the Word loved, read and heard in the tongue of her fathers
Meekly suffered the candle’s pain
Martyred praying in Mary’s flames
How was my love less than enough to cause sorrow in parting?
What Love is this? What God of bliss would turn lovers to martyrs?
Anger, wedded to sorrow deep, holds me,
while you in white robes sleep, or so I am told
Cold candlelight fights with the night on the page of my Bible
I search to find the heart & mind of my Rose
Given glorious liberty
Freedom I would lose readily to hold my Rose
I am poured out like the waters, O Lord,
And through my ribs flows the wax of my heart
I am poured out like water, O Lord
I cry for thee, my Rose, my Rose
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8. |
Holy Innocents' Day
02:19
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Still the night
Silent the snowbound lane
Firelight freezes in broken panes
Stories are told again
Summoning joy and pain and love
Comes the dawn
Empty the morning sky
Croak the song, “redemption is drawing nigh!”
Tell out that ancient tale
How all the mothers wailed for their babes
Soon the noon
Brings the cold sun to bear
Showing up, revealing and laying bare
Innocents suffering now
Hear how the mothers wail for their babes
On Holy innocents’ Day
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9. |
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I am a stranger here below
And what I am it’s hard to know
I am so vile, so prone to sin
I fear that I’m not born again
When I experience call to mind
My understanding seems so blind
All feeling sense seems to be gone
Which makes me think that I am wrong
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10. |
Hands
06:25
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I have glimpsed it beside a grave
As the earth falls from my hand
I have heard it in a mourner’s wail
I don’t pretend I understand
I have seen it in a baby’s gaze
Pouring water from my hand
I perceive it in the tracing of a cross
I don’t pretend I understand
How
Love is strong as death
But who am I to deny either?
I have felt it standing among friends
As the bread breaks in my hand
I have known it in the Word I love so well
I don’t pretend I understand
How
Love is strong as death
But who am I to deny either?
It’s spoken plainly in a dying breath
grasped in the touching of two hands
It fills your sorrows, it fills your joys
But don’t pretend you understand
How
Love is strong as death
But who am I to deny either?
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11. |
Welsh Jane
04:10
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Under a half harvest moon
Hung in blood test maroon
We ride out singing old Dylan tunes
Dim drive down slim dog-leg lanes
To Shingle Street again
I’m so happy to be sat with Welsh Jane
Though North Sea gales have no sympathy
They make me feel so alive
Tumbling out from the car
into a night full of stars
Ships’ lanterns flicker faint from afar
Smoke blends with salt in the air
The wind’s blast ruffles our hair
We squint for a horizon that’s not there
Though North Sea gales have no sympathy
They make me feel so alive
Oh, endure with me
Come hope with me, Welsh Jane
Come, be known as you know me
Great love grows patiently
Swells rock the bells in the buoys
Chimes join the clamour and noise
Of that big sea’s familiar voice
Waves spit out stones at the shore
Then gulp them back once more
To be cherished in some deep briny store
Though North Sea gales have no sympathy
I couldn’t feel more alive
Oh, endure with me
Come hope with me, Welsh Jane
Come, be known as you know me
Great love grows patiently…
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12. |
Out of the Depths
05:15
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When you find all the words you should pray quite absurd
And the hope you once preached is eluding you
When you sing from your heart of the depth of the dark
And the psalms you recall speak of faithlessness
“Out of the depths I cry to you!”
When the heat of life’s sun scorches all you’ve begun
And old certainties fade with the morning mist
Do not fear, do not scare, make this doubt your true prayer
And you’ll find that your words join the Son of Man’s
“Out of the depths I cry to you!”
From the cross he cried out with those words of your doubt
And he cries with you now in your loneliness
So learn suffering’s place in the darkness of Grace
Let that absence draw faith from your restless heart
“Out of the depths I cry to you!”
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13. |
Sing Your Life
03:25
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Sing your life like it’s a song
Sing it tender, sing it strong
Weep with others as they weep
Oh, sing of truth when talk is cheap
And when you can, sing joyfully
Let your melody run free
Oh, sing your life like it’s a song
When the world’s all din and noise
Keep some music in your voice
If you’re hated or provoked
Then sing with passion,
Sing in hope that if you share a melody
You might make friends of enemies
Oh, sing your life it’s a song
Sing your life like it’s a song
And as that tune rolls on and on
The more honestly you sing
You’ll find that others soon join in
And as your melodies entwine
May your harmony be fine
Oh, sing your life it’s a song
While breath remains within me
I shall not keep from singing
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Rev Simpkins UK
Notorious sinner-songwriter, folk symphonist & Anglican priest.
The Rev’s unique psychedelic gospel and gritty folk owes as
much to the Old Testament, & the dark folk tales & barren landscapes of Essex & Suffolk, as it does to his musical heroes Bert Jansch, Captain Beefheart & the Kinks. He comes from a long line of priests whose fiery performances characterise his own style.
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