Get all 5 Heather Styka releases available on Bandcamp and save 30%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of North, The Bittersweet Tapes, While This Planet Spins Beneath Our Feet, Lifeboats for Atlantis, and Travel and Teacups.
1. |
Cities of the North
03:16
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I thought I'd find you in the cities of the north / Where summer brings amnesia to our weathered bones / You don't have to love a place for you to call it home, but I think I did / Well, I went to the Grand Canyon this spring / This whole year was built on bucket lists and reckonings / I ate in Paris, drank in New Orleans, cried in Wyoming // CHORUS: Sure, I miss someone but it’s unclear / Which particular someone is worth my tears / Either way I’m headed back to the cities of the north // Where we end up is one third intent / One third whether or not all our money’s all spent / One third falling in love or trying to begin again, depending on the season / I could end up on a front porch on a swing / Trade in my grand lonely adventures for a house and a ring / And I might be happy if the crickets liked the songs I sing // CHORUS // If I could quit asking why / The how and where and when might finally align // I’m not so sure about pursuing happiness / I’d rather chase down those moments that I’m at my best / Cause no matter how low I get, they can’t take that from me // CHORUS //
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2. |
Correlation
04:10
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How is it going / I’m doing okay / Well, let's put it this way / If life is a study between / Breaking even and breaking apart / I’ve collected all of the data I need / And now I'm looking for the correlation / Measure my days in parking violations / I just pay and pay and pay // CHORUS: We wanna make it better / But we're not sure how / We take one step forward / There's no looking back now // I played the tourist, I went to find / The place where the Declaration of Independence was signed / Oh, what a beautiful thing that we have the right to get it wrong half of the time / And we overcompensate the course correction / Can't agree upon a general direction / But time moves forward anyway // CHORUS // I’ve seen California, I got there by car / In motels at night I dreamed of snakebites and oxen and carts / Now I just fill up the tank, oh it's the easiest thing to run away / The consequence of leaving home is we find new ones / Spread so thin we're everywhere and nowhere at once / Until our atoms drift away // CHORUS // What a time to be alive / We got baggage; now we know what's inside / And we gotta carry it, we gotta carry it / We can't carry it alone // CHORUS //
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3. |
O'Hare
04:09
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Driving down the highway past O'Hare / Planes stretch across the sky like half a dozen stars of Bethlehem / Hard to pinpoint why I'm feeling like the world's about to end / Some folks wanna build a wall, some folks are gunning men down / There's no sense to it all but sure that's obvious by now / While the ghosts of our worst selves hang around / Haunting corridors of binary code // CHORUS: If I could hear that song one more time (x3) / This would all make sense to me // All the neon storefront psychics are being replaced / By artisan tacos and yoga studios / Same difference I guess / Never got my fortune read there anyhow / We slipped under the fence, cemetery in the snow / Kissed on a stone bench, souls resting in peace below / Still haven't learned the difference between love and letting go / So I'm just casting new actors for the part of my new hope // CHORUS // Some days I'm left speechless by beauty of the world / Some days I'm left speechless by the cruelty of the world / And in often between I don't know what to say / So I drove from Lake Shore to the runway at midnight / Mumbling prayers to no one in particular / Keep singing the same song / Till we finally get the notes right / I look to you to lead me home / O holding pattern plane lights // CHORUS //
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4. |
Michigan or Minnesota
03:27
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5. |
Please Be Kind
03:58
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6. |
Chelsea Motor Inn
03:14
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I'm still putting miles on / Keep saying I will slow down / But if the engines running there's no reason to stay / Went to meet him at the Wild Rose / No surprise he didn't show / Good riddance, babe I was already headed on my way // CHORUS: I’ve never been to the Chelsea Motor Inn / But I've got a postcard stamped, addressed to you with nothing to say / I’m not quitting yet, I'm still in love with the sunset / I don't want tomorrow to look just like yesterday // There's no rhyme or reason in the lonely season / And man it seems like this one's gonna stick around all year / The fortune teller told me / there's someone who's gonna hold me / But wherever he is now, he better get it in gear // CHORUS // I'm watching old movies, technicolor dances / Improbable romances / I wouldn't believe in love at first sight / If I hadn't met you that night / And I'd be better off // Good Lord I'm sick of dating / with everybody waiting / for someone to call 'em back and then they just disappear / Take me or leave me, honey it ain't gonna grieve me / But give me the courtesy of making it clear // CHORUS //
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7. |
Platform Shoes
04:57
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8. |
Ordinary Blues
03:31
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9. |
Rollercoasters
05:09
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10. |
Mockingbird Song
05:16
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I spend my days driving which is something like sailing / In that weather’s just something ahead to pass through / Some horizons are golden, some are lightning and thunder / Either forecast delivers me farther from you / I fill at a gas station where they sell machetes / And various switchblades, if you’ve got a need / Have I only made it far as Indiana / Counting bible verse billboards until Tennessee // CHORUS: I’m moving on, I’m moving / Start it again, that mockingbird song / All morning long, she’s got a new tune // I bought begonias from somewhere in Nashville / To make up for those potted plants that I’ve killed / Daisies in vases give so much less heartache / We don’t cry when they die, we expect that they will / You don’t expect much of me, I follow through / I’ve learned to expect even less out of you / Forgiveness, the one noble thing that we do / And I suppose that counts for something // CHORUS // I’m staying at Ben’s house with a screen door and porch light / I’ve often wondered what else could I need / With the wind blowing through open windows and curtains / With the ceiling fan turning and good books to read / How easy it is to love something we can’t have / Or something we only can keep for so long / Foxhole pin-up, photo in a locket / I’ve worn of the edges of our favorite songs // CHORUS //
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11. |
Sideways Glance
03:48
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I remember feeling so hopeful about him / We were gonna take on the whole world / Every night was torture without him / But it was worth it cause I'd always be his girl / Then I left him or he left me / A parade of interchangeable he's / Healed my scars so they could give me fresh ones / Each time there's a little less to hurt / Build tolerance to the dust and dirt / Till I'm immune to every flirt in the kingdom // CHORUS: My heart still jumps at a sideways glance, a hand upon my waist / I’ve been starved for love so long that when I get a taste / Feels just like the first time, except I don't believe / In the stories my heart tells me // A decade now since we were first together / Ran off to Seattle in the spring / I was just a schoolgirl chasing after / The quickest way to forever and a ring / We played house and he would fix the toilet / I baked pies and I'd make the bed / We both hated doing dishes and the laundry / And he'd make me cry until my eyes were red // CHORUS // Now I'm not hardened yet, maybe I should be / Lord knows I've had enough pressure and heat / I still love as easy now as when you knew me / Wide eyes and wallet open to the thieves / I’m not jaded yet, still blood and bone / There's no good way to turn a heart to stone / But I’ve put in my time trying to change / The difference is subtle, I still love causing trouble / But those sweet words of love just come out strange // CHORUS //
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12. |
Love Harder
04:33
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New York in November, we were all a little fragile / Arming ourselves against the apocalypse with Leonard Cohen songs / I went down to Coney Island trying to chase down Woody Guthrie / Ask if this land's still my land too // CHORUS: Every shot, every word that is fired / There's no way to make it okay / Oh let me love harder, love harder / Love harder than the hate // The more I awake the more it feels like a dream / Playing guitar in a hotel bed / Weather channel and the news, any channel that you choose / It's more storms, more storms ahead // CHORUS // Now I love this country, I've been through every state / Blue and red we all wanna make it great / But in the whole expanse of history / What good ever came from hate // I saw a choir of refugees singing this little light of mine / I know there's work to do, we can't just sing the dark away / But it's a place to start, and I need a place to start / To love harder than the hate // CHORUS //
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Heather Styka Chicago, Illinois
Though rooted in folk and Americana, Chicago singer-songwriter Heather Styka's songs are as fresh as they are memorable, chronicling the human cycles of despair and redemption, and analyzing the importance of places and relationships. Touring nationwide and having received airplay globally, Styka is a familiar face in the Chicago music scene, at venues including Schubas and the Old Town School. ... more
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