Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton is an indie rock solo project of Emily Hai… Read Full Bio ↴Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton is an indie rock solo project of Emily Haines (born January 1974 in New Delhi, India). She is the vocalist, keyboardist and co-songwriter of the Canadian band Metric and a member of the group Broken Social Scene. The music released as Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton could be described as intimate and mellow, featuring piano-driven tracks with string and horn arrangements.
On 26 September 2006, Haines released the album Knives Don't Have Your Back on Last Gang Records. The album was written and recorded in Los Angeles, Montreal, Toronto, and New York over the previous four years, and features contributors including Sparklehorse's Scott Minor, Broken Social Scene's Justin Peroff, Stars' Evan Cranley, and Metric's Jimmy Shaw.
Though it took Haines four years to complete the album, the singer says she'd been plotting this for years. "When I was a little kid," she said in a statement, "I would creep downstairs to the piano and write rudimentary songs about imaginary places. I'm told the first song I ever wrote was a love song to a cranberry tree. I always used the mute pedal. I hated the idea of anybody hearing me.
"Everywhere I've lived while working with Metric, I've written songs on the piano and played them for no one," she continued. "On the advice of a friend, I decided I'd better start recording them before they were forgotten."
Among those songs are a track that was written while Haines was studying electroacoustics in Montreal while some were recorded in Toronto, Canada in the winter of 2002, shortly after the death of Haines' father.
Official site: http://www.emilyhaines.com
On 26 September 2006, Haines released the album Knives Don't Have Your Back on Last Gang Records. The album was written and recorded in Los Angeles, Montreal, Toronto, and New York over the previous four years, and features contributors including Sparklehorse's Scott Minor, Broken Social Scene's Justin Peroff, Stars' Evan Cranley, and Metric's Jimmy Shaw.
Though it took Haines four years to complete the album, the singer says she'd been plotting this for years. "When I was a little kid," she said in a statement, "I would creep downstairs to the piano and write rudimentary songs about imaginary places. I'm told the first song I ever wrote was a love song to a cranberry tree. I always used the mute pedal. I hated the idea of anybody hearing me.
"Everywhere I've lived while working with Metric, I've written songs on the piano and played them for no one," she continued. "On the advice of a friend, I decided I'd better start recording them before they were forgotten."
Among those songs are a track that was written while Haines was studying electroacoustics in Montreal while some were recorded in Toronto, Canada in the winter of 2002, shortly after the death of Haines' father.
Official site: http://www.emilyhaines.com
Choir of the Mind
Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton Lyrics
If I could go back, if I could reach that feeling again
If I could go back, if I could reach that feeling again
I would not have let shit-talkers stop me
Failures whispers sad how hard she tries
Advance retreat, accept defeat so softly
Shrink inside to see through your camera's eyes
The greatness she has dreamed her acts have missed
Her labour, her passion, her pain
A rapture and pang, her glory and her curse;
And yet she cannot choose but labours on;
Her mighty heart forbids her to desist
(Her failure lives, her failure lives!)
For as long as the world lasts her failure lives
Astonishing and foiling Reason's gaze
A folly and a beauty unspeakable
A superb madness of the will to live
A superb madness of the will to live
(A superb madness of the will to live)
This is her being's law, its sole resource;
Though satisfaction never comes
(Never comes, never comes, never comes)
Her hungry will to lavish everywhere
Her many-imaged fictions of the Self
And thousand fashions of one Reality
(One reality, one reality, one reality, one reality)
Escape from the moment's prison of littleness
(She shuts eternity into an hour)
Almost
(almost)
She nears what never can be attained;
(So softly)
She shuts eternity into an hour
She serves no aim
But labours driven by a nameless Will
Her secret and impossible task
She serves no aim
But labours driven by a nameless Will
(So softly)
She follows her sublime irrational plan
Invents devices of her magic art
But even now she knows not what she has done
For all is wrought beneath a baffling mask
A semblance other than its hidden truth
The unfinished creation of a changing soul
In a body changing with the inhabitant
(So softly)
The unfinished creation of a changing soul
(The unfinished creation of a changing soul)
In a body changing with the inhabitant
(In a body changing with the inhabitant)
Insignificant her means, infinite her work
(Work, work , work, work, work)
On a great field of shapeless consciousness
A strange enthusiasm has moved her heart;
She hungers for heights, passions for the supreme
Hunts for the perfect word, the perfect shape
Leaps to the summit light
(Summit light, summit light, summit light)
And woos his large-eyed wandering thoughts to dwell
In figures of her million-impulsed Force
Woos his large-eyed wandering thoughts to dwell
In figures of her million-impulsed Force
Her million-impulsed Force
(So softly)
Her million-impulsed Force
That's it
(So softly)
Her million-impulsed Force
(So softly)
If I could go back, if I could reach that feeling again
I would not have let shit-talkers stop me
Failures whispers sad how hard she tries
Advance retreat, accept defeat so softly
Shrink inside to see through your camera's eyes
The greatness she has dreamed her acts have missed
Her labour, her passion, her pain
And yet she cannot choose but labours on;
Her mighty heart forbids her to desist
(Her failure lives, her failure lives!)
For as long as the world lasts her failure lives
Astonishing and foiling Reason's gaze
A folly and a beauty unspeakable
A superb madness of the will to live
A superb madness of the will to live
(A superb madness of the will to live)
This is her being's law, its sole resource;
Though satisfaction never comes
(Never comes, never comes, never comes)
Her hungry will to lavish everywhere
Her many-imaged fictions of the Self
And thousand fashions of one Reality
(One reality, one reality, one reality, one reality)
Escape from the moment's prison of littleness
(She shuts eternity into an hour)
Almost
(almost)
She nears what never can be attained;
(So softly)
She shuts eternity into an hour
She serves no aim
But labours driven by a nameless Will
Her secret and impossible task
She serves no aim
But labours driven by a nameless Will
(So softly)
She follows her sublime irrational plan
Invents devices of her magic art
But even now she knows not what she has done
For all is wrought beneath a baffling mask
A semblance other than its hidden truth
The unfinished creation of a changing soul
In a body changing with the inhabitant
(So softly)
The unfinished creation of a changing soul
(The unfinished creation of a changing soul)
In a body changing with the inhabitant
(In a body changing with the inhabitant)
Insignificant her means, infinite her work
(Work, work , work, work, work)
On a great field of shapeless consciousness
A strange enthusiasm has moved her heart;
She hungers for heights, passions for the supreme
Hunts for the perfect word, the perfect shape
Leaps to the summit light
(Summit light, summit light, summit light)
And woos his large-eyed wandering thoughts to dwell
In figures of her million-impulsed Force
Woos his large-eyed wandering thoughts to dwell
In figures of her million-impulsed Force
Her million-impulsed Force
(So softly)
Her million-impulsed Force
That's it
(So softly)
Her million-impulsed Force
(So softly)
Lyrics © BMG RIGHTS MANAGEMENT US, LLC
Written by: Emily Haines
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
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C V
This is real performance art.
I haven't seen a live show with so much soul since the likes of Amy Winehouse. Raw and emotional, Emily reaches into a cynical creativity abstracting what I'm guessing is her life. And I relate to it, in a way that I feel most music doesn't touch on. There is a level of meta awkward & clumsy self awareness present in the narration juxtaposition to the music. A human honesty at it's sincerely self perceived best.
Just watch it and you'll see what I mean. The live performance brings to life something different than what you could hear on Spotify or Apple Music. It's simplistic in nature, shedding an exposing light on issues personal to her. The camera work and direction does justice to the meaning. Even the set design I felt was realistic for the emphasis of the meaning.
Maybe I'm not the best judge. I'll be the first to admit that. Culture is a mysterious creature to me. Post-modernism kind of ruins objectivity. This isn't that though, and that's why I enjoy it so much. But I stand by what I said:
This is real performance art.
Naomi
I cannot...Omygoodness...
Emily has already grabbed me, told me to scream, that I was still alive, to sing, scream, "Help I'm Alive!"
She reminded me that, "the world won't let me go," and quite literally and linguistically I could go through at least 5 songs' lyrics from Fantasies through Formentara... and shyt...I must do this quietly alone, and not now...
another time...
2009-2022...almost every lyric...every live and acoustic performance, along with 6x seeing Metric live.
And the last 1.5 yr of my quasi-so-called tragic life, I swear, I am living that true, "Shakespearean Tragedy," my 2nd dad told/asked me that America couldn't handle. I am now literally in this rhetorical statement/question...
Okay...coming back....but in a few days...Im too broken, too blown away...ug. N.
bea
The vulnerability, intimacy and rawness of this performance is what makes it so exceptional. It’s so difficult to put your soul out on display. But when you do and it resonates with a few people, I think that’s what makes it worth it.
Licia Music
SO UNDERRATED! Are you kidding me? Such a uniquely finessed performance so perfect and beautifully put together. So inspiring and eye opening.
stefan schmidson
Well said! Like the pure essence of art´, love´, hope and hopelessness. Almost like the pure essence of being human.
C V
This is real performance art.
I haven't seen a live show with so much soul since the likes of Amy Winehouse. Raw and emotional, Emily reaches into a cynical creativity abstracting what I'm guessing is her life. And I relate to it, in a way that I feel most music doesn't touch on. There is a level of meta awkward & clumsy self awareness present in the narration juxtaposition to the music. A human honesty at it's sincerely self perceived best.
Just watch it and you'll see what I mean. The live performance brings to life something different than what you could hear on Spotify or Apple Music. It's simplistic in nature, shedding an exposing light on issues personal to her. The camera work and direction does justice to the meaning. Even the set design I felt was realistic for the emphasis of the meaning.
Maybe I'm not the best judge. I'll be the first to admit that. Culture is a mysterious creature to me. Post-modernism kind of ruins objectivity. This isn't that though, and that's why I enjoy it so much. But I stand by what I said:
This is real performance art.
Ricardo Mestre
It is, and I am so grateful that it's available here.
now_im_here 36
I've cried listening to this album. Its just so good.
Nicholas Graveline
I feel you. An amazing album
Ian Roberts
listening to the album now - absolutely amazing Emily is a genius.
DEL MONTE PAUL
listening to the CD or the LP ? Because the LP is supposed to be poor quality vinyl. I personally own the CD even though I'm a vinyl nerd.
Lydia Morgan
A wonderful depiction of shadow work, making the wounds you hide visible and the darkness conscious.