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Becoming

by Gil Hockman

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    Your very own, super special, physical copy of my album Becoming.

    [Note: CD orders in South Africa will only be able to be fulfilled from the middle of January 2018]

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  • Full Digital Discography

    Get all 7 Gil Hockman releases available on Bandcamp and save 25%.

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Baby Shoes, Something In The Way, Becoming, Dolorous, All The Things, Baby Shoes (Single), and Too Early In The Journey. , and , .

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1.
The Days of our Lives The times of our lives Like the tales of a stranger The sign of the times Is a dog in the manger The makeup we’ll bring The songs that we’ll sing The days of our lives The days of a stranger The times we recall Are the lines we remember The strain of our lives Is a long, distant thunder And to take what it brings Is to tie and to link To lines that remain To the dreams and the hunger The days of are lives Are the tales of a stranger The sign of the times Is a dog in the manger The makeup we’ll bring The songs we will sing The days of our lives The days of a stranger
2.
Untitled 02:36
Untitled You take a little walk you As deeper that it goes the farther to the sea You take a little walk you know Sometime you’ve got to pick it up before you let it go A grain is an awful load A truth in an empty show A flame has a strength no stronger than a tree The sky is the limit, sometimes you’ve got to let it be So it goes Along the winds are sown The careful dreams As stones overturned Turned away Place to hide Knees to pray Trading on an open code Betting ‘til the cards are shown Sailing on a wind that’s hard enough to see Straining to concile the strings of mortality So it goes Along the winds are sown The careful dreams As stones overturned Turned away Place to hide Kneels to pray
3.
Monday 7 September She comes home under a daydream She comes home under wishing well She comes home under grey cloud She comes home under a ringing bell He comes home over a bicycle He comes home over a carousel He comes home over a lost cause He comes home over one last hill It’s so simple See what the day brings It’s so simple It’s so simple Time flows like a daydream Time flows like a sleeping cell Cells divide like a feeling Dreams divide like an iron weld She takes the hand of a stranger He takes the lead from a country girl She sets her stall out in the courtyard He lays his head on the warm ground Where you are And I’m always there with you And I’m always by your side Like the weather waiting by your door
4.
Talking to a Man I met a man one day out on the street who said he he'd dreamed he'd been lost in a forest of trees and then woken up cold on a hard stone floor with holes in his hands and scars on his knees and two thousand years of history in his head but with no explanation for what‘s been done or been said Just a feeling as empty as an old abandoned building on a winter shore And as we stood there on that city street With the cars rushing by but no one else to meet and just the company of birds who kept their distance up on the barbed wire fence He was pulling in air like a baby being born but the air here is heavy with the promises drawn from billboards above and poisoned rivers below so the words came out like a bells last toll, and he said There are so many mines and factories But still so many people on their knees And so many people without a job And so many who work too hard And then there are those who plunder the earth With hearts as black as the shadow of a funeral hearse And so many saviors that come too late And so many that come but just make things worse And I said, Man if you are going to talk to me you might as well come back and sit down at my place He said man if I could I would tell you about all the things that I've wanted to do in my life but if only I still knew just what they all were in the first place He said man if I could I would take you to where I was born but I'm just so afraid I've been gone for so long that we'd get there and in the end I'd just feel out of place And he said man do you know that there are children being born who will never understand their place in the world but who'll still always long for a place to call home and some sort of heaven to aspire to. And if there is something to believe in it's certainly not anything you can see and if man is the image god then he’s nothing but the product of his own imagination, And if you go on from that then it must be true that nothing that you can ever say or do will ever mean anything to anyone anymore when everyone you know here is gone. I said, what can I say other than that you might as well come back and sit down at my place. I said man if you are going to talk to me then you might as well come back and sit down at my place
5.
Somewhere Else There are times when I’m afraid The decisions that I’ve made Tell me right or wrong And I weak or strong Turn left or right Do I run or fight Will I sink or swim This position that I’m in A lot of people they’re all the same Want to be hard but they’re tame Lots to say but no real plans For fame fortune or true romance There’s always something else to blame The world turning, a little wind or rain Dreams chained to a pole in the ground They’d rather sit than take the long walk round And I know the pain A soul crying when it’s got no aim The dark nights bearing down Days spent grinning like a circus clown Skin wearing thin Walls closing in Thinking about what might have been So maybe you just want to pay the rent Or steal money like the president Could be it’s a plane in the clouds Or a cage fighting career now But the rules are all the same You don’t work and you don’t get paid A little effort it knows no bounds When the breaks start coming around For all the barrels life can send Jumping makes more sense when it’s your life you’re in And not on some other monkeys train Where you take his hits just to play his game So even when I cry for help Lost and lonely and upon the shelf The dream I’m living in is where I find myself And I’d rather be here than be somewhere else
6.
Top of the Hill In the morning you shout Here is the way to the top of the hill And in the evening you doubt And in the water it sprouts tender fruit And then comes the drought Dead vines piercing the walls of your heart And all our problems are the same We only wish that they were different So we’d have someone to blame And all the books upon our shelves Are nothing but the way we like to see ourselves
7.
Rope_ankle 03:09
rope_ankle How many times will it take Before I can lose myself again And how many walls must I break 'Til I can feel myself again Will the winds of change ever come The open road ever run Where the only notes that I’m singing Will be the tone of a phone call ringing There’s a prodigal son At the bottom of a well He’s reaching up for heaven But his feet are balancing on hell Tie the rope to my ankle, baby Because I’m going down And if I don’t make it back Drop the rope and come on down
8.
Coming In 03:30
Coming In It’s the wonder I felt Not the same as before When I relied on the news And the things that you told me All the sounds, old and new It’s the place in the night where I’d go And the same way you said How to use all the magic in the air I dunno, it’s the way That you told me to believe In the things The things that you know I can’t believe in So I'll be coming in on the sidewalk on the 12th page but in first place It's not a time stamp in the parlance of the finance or the last calls I'm a hope train with a hunger and don't need a CV or a television set I'm a hard rain from the dashboard with a six string and a seventh chord on the eight day on the nine ball on the 42nd number on the 13th floor Are you picking up? Are you receiving? On the internet On the ham set I know my way to the frequency and I can handle any latency I'm not a hothead with his shoestrings in a prison cell of existence it's not a first date steady heart rate or spinning plate or a cellphone battery discharge mischarge low charge no charge In your car turn hard and then you see me in the mirror on your windscreen I’m not a smoke screen Just a steady stream Just a human being
9.
Dreaming 04:08
10.
Scheming 05:02
Scheming It’s the same every time I just want some of everything And I’ve got nothing left to show But a bit of self control It’s same every time I can think of everything But I’ve got no place left to go But sink into the show All the time It’s just a matter of time Just a matter of time Oh the time It’s just a matter of time Just a matter of time It’s the same every night I just drink up everything And I’ve got nothing left to show But a risk to call my own It’s same every time I can think of everything And I’ve got no place left to go But sink into the show All the time It’s just a matter of time Just a matter of time Oh It’s just a matter of time Just a matter of time

about

Written, recorded, performed and programmed by Gil Hockman (that’s me!) mostly in the spare bedroom of my apartment in Johannesburg. What didn’t get done there was finished off in a makeshift vocal booth in the corner of Esther’s bedroom in Berlin. Julian Repdath (julianredpath.com) sings on Monday 7 September (he also came up with the additional lyrics and melody). Nathan Redpath and Stephen Timm are in there too on the tambourine, shaker and little cymbal. Mixed by Nolan Chiat (nolan@c-r-e-a-t-e.com). Mastered by Troy Glessner (spectrestudio.com). Cover and CD photographs by Dorit Hockman & Vanessa Chong (the bat, dorithockman@gmail.com) and Marc Shoul (the face, marcshoul.com). Additional design by Alex ‘bestie’ Adler (alexandrapearl.com).

For their love and support, never-ending thanks to my wonderful wife Esther, my parents, my sisters, my family, my friends. Nothing is possible without you. To all the awesome people and places I have encoutered over the past few years: thank you for being out there and for opening your doors to me. I hope to see you all again soon! Extra thanks goes out to Nolan for helping bring this to life and to Julien Fernanadez at Five Roses Press for replying to my first email and all the ones after that.

This album was proudly crowd-funded on Indiegogo and could not have been made without those who dug deep into their pockets. For this I am deeply, deeply grateful. In particular, the following excpetional human beings deserve a special mention (in order of appearance): Shira Hockman, Jon Savage, Sam Davis, Dorit Hockman, Phil Alves, Maurice & Meria Hockman, Joel and Zee Bergman, Caroline Leisegang, Leanne Rencken, Dennis Grzenia, Jono Hall, Maya and Sam Shewitz, Cat Pritchard, Steven Pillemer, Darryl Bernstein, David Nejjar, Trevor Calverly, Ruth Scott, Fran Wensley, Len & Natasha van Heerden. You are all among the finest of our species.

Finally, thank you to you for opening this up and, hopefully, taking a listen. I hope you like what you hear. If you do (or even if you don’t) feel free to drop me a mail at gilhockman@gmail.com or come find me at www.gilhockman.com or on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter or Bandcamp or SoundCloud or whatever else I have signed up for.

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released November 10, 2017

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Gil Hockman Berlin, Germany

Gil Hockman is a DIY folk/indie musician.

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