Scary Stories (To Tell When You're Dark)

by Half/Time

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about

Around the time I was born my parents moved into a small house in Parawera, the land we were living on was only a short ways from the border of Ōrākau. Mum said that as a baby I used to stare into empty corners of the house, point at something or someone, then cry. We didn't live in that house very long.

This song is my attempt at writing from the perspective of those ancestors that could have been dwelling in that house.

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Photo by Chris Davis Photography

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lyrics

Come find us
Out where the industrial waste meets rural religious real-estate
In every home, between every floorboard
And in every silence
You will find us there
Our voices distant and the words sound different
But still, some make it through

Come find us
Out beneath the tide
Te Rerenga Wairua where the spirits need not hide
Out past Te Ika-A-Maui, towards the waiting arms of Hawaiki
between each heaving breath of Te Parata
You will find us there

Te kore, te pō, te ao mārama, te ao wairua
Around and then back again

Though our bones are in these walls
Our homes are not our homes anymore

A dead tongue writhes no more
Except when it does
It wakes each time that we speak
That we sing
That we call
Yes, we’re in the cracks, we’re in the halls, in the corners, of your eyes
And we’ll see you there, we’ll see you there, we’ll see you there

And though our bones are in these walls
Our homes are not our homes anymore
Though our bones are in these walls
Our homes are not our homes anymore

credits

released November 18, 2022
words and noise: Wairehu Grant

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about

Half/Time Hamilton, New Zealand

Half/Time began as a te ao Māori centred post-punk solo project during the cosmic hellscape
that was 2020. In early 2023 it evolved into a three-piece band featuring Wairehu Grant (Ngāti Maniapoto) on guitar, Ciara Bernstein on drums and Cee (Te Rarawa, Ngāti Kahu ki Whangaroa) on bass. ... more

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