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Presenting The Hollow Hearts Carnival

by Step Right Up!

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1.
Is It Real? 01:45
Come one and all, and welcome to our humble sideshow stage! You’ll be amazed, you’ll be unsettled, but most of all you’ll be entertained. Here are no plaster-coated mermaids, no mere taxidermied frauds! For a pittance you can tell your children's children that you saw the Hollow Hearts! Within our ten-in-one are nightmares that you’ve never dreamed before, but if these oddities don't stir you, there is plenty else in store. We have a fire-eater better than the best you've ever seen. We have a knife thrower, an acrobat, and more you won't believe. Come, step inside! "Is it real?", I hear some of you exclaim — incredulous, but hopeful all the same. Within these canvas walls, you’ll see, the answers lie. How can you doubt? Is it not right before your eyes?
2.
“These woods are empty,” say the trees, “except for old, little we. Standing tall, we keep our feet beneath the loamy ground to eat and spread our arms to catch the sun.” “Shelter me, oh, shelter me!” cries the frightened child as he runs. “Me?” asks the willow, old Salicaceae, “There’s scarcely room beneath my boughs for one.” As tears slip down from eyes unblessed by father’s love, save for the lash, or mother’s joy, since she soon passed, “Quick, shed some bark!”, calls brother Ash, “the stripling’s tears will salt the grass.” “Shelter me, oh, shelter me!” cries the frightened child as he runs. “Me?” asks the willow, old Salicaceae, “There’s scarcely room beneath my boughs for one.”
3.
The season scarcely started, there was call for labor setting up the carnival. Two days out of secondary found me first in line and waiting with the other green help, for a grizzled veteran of three-score looking down his crooked nose at this year’s offerings. I bluffed my way inside, loquaciousness alone earning a post inside the ten-in-one, where I was shortly stunned By the fire-eater’s daughter, practicing her father’s deadly livelihood. She wraps her lips around the flame, a seraph dancing on the stage, and I am all undone. Oh, Jennilee! To hear you speak my name, I’d sever ties to kith and kin. I am yours alone. We’ll take to the open road, this show my only home. They called me roustabout and forty-miler. They bet I’d disappear once out of sight of town, but when the wagons made the jump, I swear I never looked back once. My eyes were fixed on you. I make my scratch inventing lectures. I am the favorite inside talker for the sideshow crowd. So why does that silver tongue abandon me, my oratory talents nowhere to be found, whenever you’re around? Oh, lovely fire-eater’s daughter, practicing your father’s deadly livelihood… You wrap your lips around the flame, a seraph dancing on the stage, and I am all undone. Sweet Jennilee, to kiss that burning mouth I would forget my very name. I am yours alone. We’ll take to the open road, this show my only home.
4.
My folly killed our families. Watch them fall so gently down. Your father fought so valiant and now he's with his wife below the ground. No angel flies above us. No, I fear, dear, we're perdition bound. So set your boots to walking. No, they'll not know us in another town. Awaken in an alley, our senses roused by rancid scents. We wipe the red from our hands, and lift a paper from a local stand. Our eyes dissect the pages to find word of our baleful work, but the full-page advertisement seizes both of our attention first. Collect all you can carry, we'll catch the wagons before dawn. Our ghosts will chase us 'cross the country, but before they catch up we'll be gone. The loaf of bread inside your satchel, the pair of knives inside of mine, keep company with books we borrowed from a town too distant to return. Collect all you can carry, we'll catch the wagons before dawn. Our ghosts will chase us 'cross the country, but before they catch up we'll be gone.
5.
You cradled your wounded pride like a bird with a broken wing. Pulled me aside. You said, “I’m honest, go ahead… I swear the game’s not gaffed.” I smiled to say I saw right through the act. As nightfall cleared the lot of lights and sounds — the midway dark with looming shapes, trash blowing on the ground — you put your arm around me and you led me safely home. Outside my door you said, “You know, I don’t have to go…” And now your eyes say that the summer’s coming down. I can read the wagons’ movement in the way you hold me now. The lure of other towns is settled deep into your bones. If I can’t be enough for you, then go. If I can’t be enough for you, then go. The spring stretched long and long, the air still sharp with cold. As the grass grew ‘twixt the wheels, I gave in to hope. Clandestinely we met, and fool that I was, I never dreamed that all your reticence to speak might say something. And now your eyes say that the summer’s coming down. I can read the wagons’ movement in the way you hold me now. The lure of other towns has settled deep into your bones. If I can’t be enough for you, then go. If I can’t be enough for you, then go. If we can’t be enough for you…
6.
I stepped inside the tent a pauper with my hat in hand. Prospects are few and far between for one who's made like me. So for a season I chose to bury deep my pride, but what grew where it was planted was the seedling of a better life. However low his standing, you can't keep a good man down. I may have started in the sideshow, but now I own it, boot to crown. I once was far beneath your notice but I will make a name you won't forget.
7.
Burn The Lot 03:57
There is a man outside the gates holding a sign that reads, “God’s judgment is at hand.” His voice is ragged with his shouts. “This carnival, this den of sin will leave you damned!” I know the lines of that man’s face nearly better than my own. I hear that self-same voice restored almost to youth, though it was never truly young. When we tear down here, burn the lot. Rig the games, take what you want. Fear not we’ll be remembered, we’re never coming back to this one. When I left I swore not to return. This town is not my home. If they brand me as an outcast, I’ll wear it as a badge of pride. He used to shout, “Boy, you are less than half a man! In fact, you are no man at all. You are a freak, you and your sister, a waste of my wages and an insult to the Lord.” My deformities were held the cause for every trouble in our home. He laid his proclivity for drink (and our mother’s for her ether) at my door. On the morning that my sister disappeared, my father shouted for his gin. I brought the bottle from the cellar, mixed in with my mother’s medicine. As his breathing slowed, I deftly went to work with knife and ink. Before I left, I murmured to his sleeping face, “Now you’re as much a freak as me.”
8.
Another weary fourteen hours spent scouring this ragged patch of so-called town, and no end in sight. I told the boys, “Call it a night,” and hit the pub. Two dozen years upon the force have taught me how to read a man better than most. The man at the bar had a story of his own, and an itch to tell. “A round for the room,” I said, “and put it on my tab.” (We’d been a fortnight here in town, and the barman recognized my badge.) I tipped my glass — all seemingly offhand — at the gentleman. He said, “I thank you for the drink, and beg your pardon for my meager company. I can’t say as I have very much to say, at least not of late.” I smiled to put him at his ease. Explained my own presence in town indifferently, “I’m on the trail of a pair of vicious fiends who absconded east.” “I’ve heard the tale,” he said. “The press does love it so. They say they vanished hide and hair and left their families in the ground.” I swallowed back my bitter pride and allowed that it was true. “But come now, that’s not what’s on your mind.” He said that I was more than right. “Good constable, you cannot know how sorely I’ve been wronged by my own flesh and blood. My vile and most ungrateful son ran away to join the carnival last month. His path went cold in the forest by my home. Now I am all alone.” And at that moment Providence displayed its hand. The answer so unknowingly delivered by this wretched man. I scarce remember my good-byes, I was in the street so fast. I threw wide the hostel doors and shouted up my men. “We’ll need provisions for the road, and all the horses you can get. I know where our quarry may have gone. We’ve a carnival to catch.”
9.
I awakened from my bedroll on the ground to peer between the spokes, the fire dying down. The leaping shadows scattered, and one shade left behind. In the dust, a crumpled form before my eyes. And to my shame, I prayed for someone else's grief. That the loved one dying slowly belonged to anyone but me. The blade the brigands left behind had done its work; you were given no last words. But I can hear you still. You are the murmur of the cornstalks as they brush against our wheels. The looming clouds on the horizon, the flap of canvas in the wind. You are the blankets wrapped around me as I sleep beneath the boards. You've never left this place and so neither will I, my only love. I was a girl when we met beneath the Top, a fledgling acrobat, and her newfound confidante. The fortune teller's smile was sad that night, she claimed she saw in us a sorrow much too great, and an even greater love. We must have had a final kiss, had we but known, but at the time it would have seemed to us just one more time. Your light snuffed out over a coin-purse and a coffer with little more than earnings from a single night. There was no priest, no pastor on our wedding day. We stopped the caravan at sunset on a hill above the plains. Old Samson heard our vows from atop the bally-stage, and his little Jennilee spread flowers in our wake.
10.
These woods are empty, save for me and two horses long since gone to seed. Old master Ambrose sent me out to see them fed, but as it happens, they’ll not see our camp again. The lawman caught me unawares. With a smile that never reached his eyes, he said, ”What brings a lad of so few years to this little-traveled road? Might you belong to a certain nearby carnival?” I tried in vain to steal away; I barreled right into his men. Each grabbed an arm. Their captain said, “You’re that Tom Cutler’s boy, I’d bet, were I a betting man.” And I thought, “Well, that’s a wager that you’d win… But a family is more than common blood. It is an oath, it is a promise kept. And me, I have no father but the show. You will not take from me the only home I have.” “I have other cares than truancy,” he said. “In fact, I could still set you free, if you could single out for me the newest of your band. I have good reason to suspect you've hired some hands.” I must admit this gave me pause — I’d sooner perish than return — but then the guards relaxed their hold. I broke free and fled into the woods. A family is more than common blood. It is an oath, it is a promise kept. And me, I have no father but the show. You will not take from me the only home I have.
11.
The boy burst through the wagons as the gaffers raised the stage, shouting up hell about some constable or eight. Given his history, I took it for a tall tale, like as not, but soon his trembling made the lot man hesitate. "Leave the canvas up," said Eli, "but load the other cargo in. We'll come back for all the trappings when it's clear." Meanwhile, my thoughts had turned to Jennilee, out walking in the woods. If there were any more decrees, they missed my ears. "I will not chance you being left behind, my dear." I reached the clearing as the caravan was starting to decamp. Our newfound knife-thrower was practicing his craft, while Nell and Jennilee took turns playing the target for his act. The latter pierced my heart with a greeting and a laugh. Then through the trees appeared the sergeant and his band. The men shuffle their feet and mop their brows. Stare at the painted signboards of the Hollow Hearts. The women peering through the fences scowl, restless and waiting for a show that never starts. The policemen drew their pistols, with their leader at the fore. He said, "What luck! Our villains welcome us themselves!" Quick as a breath, the target-girl drew a revolver of her own. Her vicious stranger's eyes held nothing of our Nell. Amid the standoff, the lawman cast about for help. “You there, don't aid these fugitives,” he said. “Son, you owe nothing to this company of sin." Still I stood fixed between my comrades and the law. The copper roared, "Do you know who your showmates are? I found Collins' doxy — she was in the family way. Your master Briggs and what he did to his poor father's ruined face. The murdered families left in yonder couple's wake... You've joined a pack of devils, boy, make no mistake." Off to the side, nearly forgotten, Jack made ready with his knives. The throw he made put all his past displays to shame. The detective's search concluded, buried there among the leaves. I reached for Jennilee just as the gunshot rang, but as for who was first to fall, I couldn't say.

about

A concept record about a traveling carnival in the early 1900s and the various iniquities of its crew, among whom reside a rake, a widow, a dwarf, a runaway child, and two teenage murderers with a lawman on their trail.

credits

released July 15, 2016

Matt LeFevers: vocals, acoustic and electric guitars, banjo, mandolin, lap dulcimer, keyboards, percussion.
John Neal Molina: bass guitars, vocals.
Zoey LeFevers: drum kit, fiddle, ocarina.
Jackie LeFevers: vocals, didjeridu, flute.

Accordion on "Is It Real?" and "The End Pt. 2" performed by Dimitri Sydorov.
Trumpet on "Summer's Coming Down" performed by Ted Guy.

All lyrics written by Matt LeFevers and John Neal Molina.
All music written by Step Right Up!
Copyright 2011-2016. All rights reserved.

Recorded 2015-2016 at The Mercury Room (Chandler, AZ). Produced and engineered by Matt LeFevers. Mastered by David Levy.

Band photography by Jake Hartin.

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Step Right Up! Chandler, Arizona

The story of an 1800s traveling carnival and the wreckage left in its wake.

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