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. |
Long Spring
03:55
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Long Spring
It was the longest of springs and the latest of summers / Lilac and honeysuckle clinging to the branch fragrant through the rain / Until late roses came / Airplanes in the sky were small white birds gliding steadily / I watched the paint peel from the front porch / I thought of you momentarily, somewhat warily // CHORUS: I live on the north side of the West End these days / I am so sorry my heart is happy while you are one thousand miles away / You said you hoped the ocean would fill me with all of the joy you couldn’t bring / and I’m sorry you’re right, I’m sorry I’m gone / It’s been a long spring // I was a series of tempests when I lived beside you / You held on tight while I raged and rained and finally blew away / Oh I couldn’t have stayed / Now I hear the train rumble past in the early morning / I leave my window open, a breeze smells of the storm / from the night before, soft and settled once more // CHORUS // How many years did I believe / There had to be something wrong with me / Pulling away from all that I thought I’d ever need / You came too soon, love wasn’t enough / To fill in the cracks, to smooth out the rough / That much is on me, it’s my puzzle to solve / I had to leave you to find me // I have the fullest of hearts, always brimming over / I watch the tides, I let my thoughts wash over me like waves upon stone when I am alone / For all that you could give me, you couldn’t give this: / The feeling I can stand out in the storm all on my own / and still feel I’m home
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2. |
Careful With My Heart
02:57
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Careful With My Heart
I'm a brave aviator in the stories that I write / A fearless lion tamer, daring it all every night / And there's nothing I won't tell, when I'm behind my guitar / But when I'm standing beside you I am careful with my heart // I have driven through the storm with my hands firm on the wheel / I’ve not been too proud to knock on doors or beg for a meal / I’m a whole hearted chance taker, not afraid to fall apart / But when I'm standing beside you I am careful with my heart // You can call me brave with the risks I take / You can me honest with the music I make / You can call me a fool, but there's one way I am smart / When I'm standing beside you, I am careful with my heart // I have slain dragons, but none wearing your clothes / With all your good intentions, all your disarming prose / So I grasp these chords like a talisman to protect me from love's start / When I'm standing beside you I am careful with my heart // You can call me a fool, but there's one way I am smart / When I'm standing beside you, I am careful with my heart
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3. |
Emily
03:02
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Emily
Emily, I do believe you're doing everything right / Take as long as you like / Call me if you need to walk by someone's side tonight / We’re all just walking each other home / While this planet spins beneath our feet // Emily, sometimes it seems the horizon's so far / But its never more / Than a handful of miles from wherever we are / We’re all just walking each other home / While this planet spins beneath our feet // Emily, don't hitch your wagon to an undeserving star / You’ve waited so long, saving your secrets inside a mason jar / I know that you know you are more than enough but if you ever need a reminder / Let this song repeat until you believe / We’re all just walking each other home / While this planet spins beneath our feet
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4. |
Caspian Sea
03:37
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Caspian Sea
These days we are imaginary beings / The only ghosts who exist are ourselves / Pinching our skin to feel the flesh that reminds us / We are solid and alive and well / I wonder if each generation invents a new emotion / As previous emotions melt away / Our minds adapting to the contours of a changing coastline / New words for new ideas that we say // I’ve seen a photograph taken in Russia in 1904 / The grass was crisp and green as if I saw it from my window / A girl wore a blue dress to the floor / Surely she had never known how it feels to want / So much that we don’t need / And I have never known how it feels to live / A whole life beside the Caspian Sea // The steeple on the hill, the crackle in the pan / They reassure though we don’t quite know why / I look into the window, back at your reflection / Hoping to meet your eyes / All who are beautiful are only so because / They remind us of someone or something that we know / Your hand in your pocket, irises and oceans / A tree illuminated from below // And I am just a shadow / Of a shadow of something you could love / A country you once knew / These days we are imaginary beings / And we all have something to prove / These days we are imaginary beings / Stumbling through the tangible, without a clue
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5. |
Like It's 1945
02:06
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Like It's 1945
I want you to love me like it’s 1945 / Stars are mirrorball reflections on a satin curtain sky / And we’ll wind up the phonograph and waltz all through the night / Oh I want you to love me like it’s 1945 // I want you to love me like we just won the war / Like we’ve both been to hell and back to here on our home shores / Now we’ll never be apart, we had enough of that before / Oh I want you to love me like we just won the war // I want you to love me like I never have doubt / Like I knew you were the one for me since you asked me out / It’d be a matter of time until we take that vow / Oh I want you to love me like I never have doubt // I want you to love me like love will never end / Like we knew it at first sight, like we never pretend / Like when Fred and Ginger danced on air and every rift would mend / Oh I want you to love me like love will never end // I want you to love me like it’s 1945 / To keep willful naiveté, if only for a night / And we will play the part, we’ll believe it if we try / Oh I want you to love me like it’s 1945 / I want you to love me like it’s 1945
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6. |
Birch Log
03:04
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Birch Log
Days are getting shorter / Cicadas getting loud / Apples getting riper / Hanging heavy on the bough / Nights are getting colder / Gather wood left from the storm / Stack it tall and tidy / One day it'll keep me warm // CHORUS: Put on the birch log, put on the pine / I’m saving the ash and the oak for another fire / that will burn slow through the night // Morning’s getting darker / Feed the coals till they ignite / Give them air and timber / Pine gold, birch white / You won't be here to tend it / And neither will I / So let’s burn it hot and quick now / For the thrill of the light // CHORUS // One of these days, lord, I will keep a steady burn / Keep a steady burn // My boots are getting restless / Stove is getting cold / I’ll make it back this way / After the leaves turn gold / If you're not ready to hold me / By the first snowfall / You won't get another chance / To hold me at all // CHORUS //
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7. |
Limbs
05:17
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Limbs
On my birthday the air smelled like it does each year / Breeze crisp as an apple, acorns crunching under tires / And even when it rains it smells dry like dust and leaves / Oh I am leaving now / And every year I feel more bittersweet than I can bear / And no amount of songs or coffee, books or tea can remedy / That everything that once was mine / No longer belongs to me / On the park bench an old man sits / With round-toed shoes like that Paul Simon song / His eyes a mirror of my own / Questioning where did the time go // There’s a picture of me propped up on a chair in the yard / When I was no more then four and dressed in dress-up clothes / Pretending to be a ballerina / Not all that much has changed / Cause I’m still trying to be someone other than I am / The sailor or the farmer or the poet with the tweed slacks / The avant garde artist with the apartment / On the wrong side of the the tracks / 19 wasn’t long ago, drunk with love, coming home / Restless and alone / And everyone I looked up to when / I hoped to grow up like my friends / I’m older now than they were then // Everyone my age seems about as lost as me / My generation from the land of make believe / Convinced we’re all unique and we'll find / Our own way but we’re all moving back home / Or trying to feed children of our own / Oh I was born in a cradle sitting on dead leaves / Red and brown unveiled from beneath the fading green / What if when we wither too / Our real form is uncovered, our colors become true / If that's the case, bake me a cake / So I can blow the candles out / And wish away my doubts and carve away / Each coming year, remove the restlessness and fear / Until all that remains in my bare limbs is change
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8. |
Diversey Harbor
03:44
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Diversey Harbor
I’m sitting by the lights of Diversey Harbor / Red and green they’re glowing, helping guide ships in / But I have fixed my sights on the ones that are leaving / Dreaming of the places my new life could begin // CHORUS: Chicago, you’ve made a liar out of me / Always saying that I’m leaving, but here I am walking your streets / There’s a million places I could be, and I might like them better / But sometimes I think this city’s all that’s holding me together // Winter ends and ran comes down / Soon the days are hot as ever / John is headed to New York, Sarah’s moving south / We are going to the East Coast and the West Coast and Australia / You are calling us back home, you are calling us now // CHORUS // I hear siren songs of somewhere, where the grass is greener / And if I steer my ship onto the rocky shore / Your towers, like a lighthouse, will beckon me home / The City of Big Shoulders’ open arms will guide my oars // CHORUS //
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9. |
Love in the Multiverse
03:32
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Love in the Multiverse
I am capable of patience but I don’t waste time on it / Cause if all space and time is happening this moment, I’d admit / That I’m already leaving, or I’ve already left, or I’m already home again // CHORUS: The future you is having dinner somewhere with the future me / And we laugh about the suckers who say things are meant to be / There was a multitude of outcomes and there always had been / I had always loved you somewhere or somewhen // The versions where I never met you, sometimes I wonder about those / If that outcome makes you happier than this one, I suppose / Or if I’d left at any other point in our timeline / Would you be my phantom limb, with memories that are not mine // CHORUS // What happens from here, which version we’re in I can’t say / But this is not the ending where I decide to stay / Cause my future self is sending a message back to me / Her happiness depending on me to leave // Maybe I come back and find you, maybe we love for many years // Maybe you meet another woman and I’m left alone in tears / Each hypothetical story is good as any that I know / And the only path to take is to bravely go // There were a multitude of outcomes and there always had been / I had always loved you somewhere or somewhen // I am capable of patience but I don’t waste time on it / Cause if all space and time is happening this moment, I’d admit / That I’m already leaving, or I’ve already left, or I’m already home again
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10. |
Brooklyn
03:22
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Brooklyn
Birds brought in a morning, it was humming with the breeze / A Utopian day, all hot and cold at once / My friend’s in the kitchen making coffee for me / And through the blinds shine horizontal lines of sun / Now the pleasure of a morning with coffee in my hand / Is nothing compared to the company of friends / All those friends were strangers once, although not for long / They took me in like family and told me I belonged // CHORUS: Let the morning rise over Brooklyn / Oh how the sunrise changes everywhere I go / But the kindness of strangers knows no one location / It follows my footsteps and follows me home // A passing stranger told me that I was made of beauty / He spoke without expectation or pretenses or plans / And after he had gone I kept the smile that he left with me / Now I’m passing it onward as often as I can / It’s nothing short of astounding how many I have met / From Edmonton, Alberta all down to Lafayette / Who feel like I have known them for a lifetime or more / They fill me up with hope each time that I pass through their door // CHORUS // Oh as long as these seeds of love / Are scattered on my fertile heart / I guess I’ll expand the garden / But cultivation is an art / It’s not hard to grow forget-me-nots / To hold and to fade / But I’m growing an orchard / To bear fruit and shelter and shade // So walk along beside me, tell the secrets that you keep / And I will also give you a glimpse inside of me / ‘Cause the mission of my soul and why I ramble as I do / Is to shine this beacon into the heart of you // CHORUS //
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11. |
With the Moon
03:03
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With the Moon
I saw that you were looking for a little light / So I shone my warmth on you / Oh I tried to be your sunshine / But all along you were in love with the moon // She comes and she goes, when she returns, she’s still cold / But none of that matters to you / Oh I tried to be your sunshine / But all along you were in love with the moon // The anxious sun burns too hot / Tries too hard, moves too fast / My burning heart glows so bright / You can see it shine right through my chest / There’s no mystery shrouding me / Could you love what you see and what you get // Was every laugh and every smile / Misplaced, wasted on you / Cause I tried to be your sunshine / But all along you were in love with the moon / Yes I tried to be your sunshine / But all along you were in love with the moon
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12. |
These Northern Skies
03:29
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These Northern Skies
Here among the thistle and Queen Anne’s Lace / Here among the sun setting through the apple tree / You are pine boughs and cotton and iron / You are an oil wick burning steadily / I came here for a change / Hoping these northern skies would align for me / I’m waiting for a change / Until these northern skies align // Here among the lupine and chicory / Here among the sugar maples starting to turn / You asked me how long I intended to stay / There is so much yet that I need to learn / I came here for a change / Hoping these northern skies would align for me / I’m waiting for a change / Until these northern skies align // I ask myself is it enough to feel the warmth of the sun on my skin / After all my best laid plans, I just want to learn to breathe out and breathe in // Here among the spruce trees pointing into the sky / Here among the Milky Way spread across the night / I’m driving down the gravel till I am out of sight / To the darkest field where the constellations shine clear and bright // I came here for a change / Hoping these northern skies would align for me / I’m waiting for a change / Until these northern skies align
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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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