A lovely gatefold digifile CD, with a disturbingly red vampyric outer cover and a soothing blue lacustrine gatefold. We've chosen this format as it minimises use of plastic in the packaging, while still giving a bloody lovely product!
Includes unlimited streaming of Geneva's Shore
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
ships out within 2 days
Purchasable with gift card
£9.50GBP
about
Claire Clairmont was Mary Shelley's stepsister.
She accompanied Mary and Percy Shelley on their European elopement, but she was definitely the "lemon" of this strange ménage a trois. She tried to sneak her way into Percy Shelley's affections....
... but having (probably) failed, she threw herself into the arms of George Gordon Byron. Byron left England shortly after, headed for Geneva's Shore: the Shelleys and the pregnant Claire followed, to continue her pursuit of Byron. In January 1817, a daughter was born, whom Claire named Alba (a feminine form of Byron's pet name, Albee, or L.B.?). There ensued a nasty custody battle which Byron, the father, won (as was customary at that time). Having gained Alba, Byron decided he really couldn't be doing with a child - he renamed her Allegra and put her in the care of a convent in Ravenna. Alba died there a few years later.
An older and wiser Claire disappeared to Russia, to work as a governess.
lyrics
In Clairmont’s face, a power like light doth lie
Byron’s damned bitch – with dark and damning eye.
Alas torn heart can bleed but not forget;
Attract and yet repulse – fierce and beautiful comet
Alba. Alba Come home. My commodore. My comet’s halo.
Alba. Alba. Come quick from Italy
In an unmarked grave be laid low.
Alba, my commodore. My comet’s halo.
Allegra, Byron’s daughter, we tend to forget she had a mother.
Her name was once Alba – a wholly other child.
She would have been loved and cherished – never sent
To die alone in a Ravenna Capuchin convent.
Alba. Alba Come home. My commodore. My comet’s halo.
Alba. Alba. Come quick from Italy
For I feel Russia’s winter calling me
Alba, my commodore. My comet’s halo.
And she’d scramble yet 400 miles,
And walk 400 more likewise,
To plague Lord Byron’s gilted door;
To accuse and unphilosophise.
What shall poor Cordelia do? But wait
And love and hold her tongue and brew such hate
As would buffet down the years. An eternal font
Of retribution from the Little Fiend, Claire Clairmont.
The circumstances of first glances
Or a favoured handshake can change the landscape
To be totally fair, when I first noticed her there,
I was more aware of the stare than the clothes and the hair
‘Cos when she smiles, it’s with the eyes
And if she sighs the twinkle dies and shrinks inside;
But life is never that easy as a lesson to teach me
Love is ever so greedy, plus quite clever and sneaky;
But the view is dependent on the place you stand
And the day in hand it never goes the way you planned.
And it’s somewhat unfitting for such a humble beginning,
I was never sold on the notion of a stolen emotion.
The stylish kids in the riot acquired our kicks on the quiet,
If we’d the tickets to buy it, never too chicken to try it:
The first to listen, the last to leave
The plans and schemes we hatched and weaved to catch the breeze.
So, if you want to try, there’s no worse you can do and
If you’re nursing the blues, I’ll be the first in the queue.
No more a rovin’ blindly into the dark –
Let’s rewind to the start and find the kindness of the heart.
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