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The Only Thing To Do

from With The Dawn by Bella Hardy

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    "Nothing short of a masterpiece" - The Sunday Times

    Bella Hardy's seventh solo album With The Dawn – her first since being named BBC Radio 2 Folk Singer Of The Year in 2014– isn't just the latest collection of songs from this prolific and ingenious artist. The album is an account of one year of her life. Where previously Bella has adapted and explored traditional ballads and fables to tell her contemporary folk tales, the stories that inspired these songs are her own experiences: good and bad, happy or sad.

    With The Dawn is a more intimate and reflective album than before. Working with producer Ben Seal, the arrangements are more instinctive, more reactive, as befits the mind-set that informed the lyrics. Vivid brass gives way to lonesome piano; choral voices peal; banjos emerge out of beats and blips. Elements of the initial demos, sometimes recorded into a phone as the thoughts occurred, have been kept giving With The Dawn its striking immediacy.

    These are songs written on the road, full of that sense of displacement, longing and contemplation that all itinerant musicians know. On With The Dawn, Bella Hardy's soaring kite-like voice is married to lyrics that poetically question everything she's seen and done up till now; letting go of expectations, both other people's and her own. But with closing lullaby And We Begin there's a light at the end... or rather the beginning. Only one song didn't spring directly from Bella's year of touring and tumult. Jolly Good Luck To The Girl That Loves A Soldier was commissioned by Songs For The Voiceless, a project which gathered the country's best folk artists to sing some of the lesser known stories of World War I.

    The resulting album was one of many bold paths Bella Hardy's career has taken in recent years. From collaborating with Martin Simpson, John Smith and others on the hugely acclaimed Elizabethan Sessions, to a joint tour with Edinburgh miserablist Blue Rose Code, and an international songwriter exchange with Canada's Cara Luft who also guests on this album.

    Includes unlimited streaming of With The Dawn via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.     ... more
    ships out within 3 days

      £10 GBP or more 

     

  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    "Nothing short of a masterpiece" - The Sunday Times

    Bella Hardy's seventh solo album With The Dawn – her first since being named BBC Radio 2 Folk Singer Of The Year in 2014– isn't just the latest collection of songs from this prolific and ingenious artist. The album is an account of one year of her life. Where previously Bella has adapted and explored traditional ballads and fables to tell her contemporary folk tales, the stories that inspired these songs are her own experiences: good and bad, happy or sad.

    With The Dawn is a more intimate and reflective album than before. Working with producer Ben Seal, the arrangements are more instinctive, more reactive, as befits the mind-set that informed the lyrics. Vivid brass gives way to lonesome piano; choral voices peal; banjos emerge out of beats and blips. Elements of the initial demos, sometimes recorded into a phone as the thoughts occurred, have been kept giving With The Dawn its striking immediacy.

    These are songs written on the road, full of that sense of displacement, longing and contemplation that all itinerant musicians know. On With The Dawn, Bella Hardy's soaring kite-like voice is married to lyrics that poetically question everything she's seen and done up till now; letting go of expectations, both other people's and her own. But with closing lullaby And We Begin there's a light at the end... or rather the beginning. Only one song didn't spring directly from Bella's year of touring and tumult. Jolly Good Luck To The Girl That Loves A Soldier was commissioned by Songs For The Voiceless, a project which gathered the country's best folk artists to sing some of the lesser known stories of World War I.

    The resulting album was one of many bold paths Bella Hardy's career has taken in recent years. From collaborating with Martin Simpson, John Smith and others on the hugely acclaimed Elizabethan Sessions, to a joint tour with Edinburgh miserablist Blue Rose Code, and an international songwriter exchange with Canada's Cara Luft who also guests on this album.

    Includes unlimited streaming of With The Dawn via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.     ... more
    ships out within 3 days

      £12 GBP or more 

     

  • Full Digital Discography

    15
    releases

    Get all 15 Bella Hardy releases available on Bandcamp and save 25%.

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Love Songs, Among These Stars (Black Lives Matter) (Single), Postcards & Pocketbooks: The Best of Bella Hardy, Colorado (single), The Same Mistakes (single), Hey Sammy, Eternal Spring, With The Dawn, and 7 more. , and , .

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lyrics

The Only Thing To Do
(Bella Hardy)

I've been travelling, I've been thinking I've been flying, driving, training I've been reading, I've been gazing
I can't see what I've been faking I'm too tired and I'm fading projecting and forsaking
I've been drinking wine I've been singing all the time Scared myself half blind with the shadows in my mind I've been running running running I've been trying to make you rhyme But you won't stand still
So should I hide a broken heart? Or let the world tear me apart again? They say the gods will have their way Well surely if that's true, the only thing to do is love

I've asked the tall trees, and the coldest seas I've asked the hot dust dragged from short grass by the summer breeze
All the new sounds felt like old sounds Felt like kisses in a whisper in a rain of silver birch leaves
I've been drinking wine I've been playing all the time Danced with strangers on the run Danced with the shadows in my mind I've been writing writing writing different men in every line But they won't stand still
So should I hide a broken heart? Or let the world tear me apart again? They say the gods will have their way Well surely if that's true, the only thing to do is
hide a broken heart And let the world tear me apart again They say each dog will have it's day Well surely if that's true, the only thing to do is love

So I'm sending my love back where your days are ending and mine are just beginning I'm sending my love back to the city Sending my love back to the hills Sending my love home

There's nothing keeping me on track except the tree upon my back except the skyline in my heart With every word so neatly placed with every demon found and faced should ever lesson be unlearnt?

Or should I hide a broken heart? And let the world tear me apart again? They say the gods will have their way Well surely if that's true, the only thing to do is
hide a broken heart And let the world tear me apart again They say each dog will have it's day Well surely if that's true, the only thing to do is love

credits

from With The Dawn, released April 1, 2016

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Bella Hardy UK

“Brit folk's finest” Mojo Magazine • “Enduringly seductive” The Telegraph • “A fine, no-nonsense interpreter of traditional music and an excellent songwriter” The Guardian • “An aura of sophisti-cation that will win over listeners who never set foot in a folk club” The Sunday Times • “…a shining star in the folk scene’s firmament” fRoots Magazine • “A triumph of folk art-pop” Songlines Magazine ... more

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