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Idle Hands

by Ian Fisher

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    On a technical level, this is a 180 gram vinyl record including a large poster, lyrics, and a download code. On an artistic level, this is "A wildly diverse album. Politically conscious & globally minded. A world traveler's perspective on American folk-rock." - Rolling Stone

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1.
Tables Turn 03:31
someone to share with someone to care for someone whose there for you when you don’t know what you’re here for is that too much to ask? too much to need? am I too much for you like it’s starting to seem? how the tables turn how the tables turn just a month ago you were saying the same words now I’m on my knees I got time to beg and plead and I’m begging you please please please please learning to compromise learning patience made it almost thirty years without ever really waiting there are many things I put you through now all of the chickens are coming back home to roost how the tables turn how the tables turn just a year ago I was watching you burn every bridge back to the one you love now I’m the one who you’re running from
2.
Idle Hands 03:24
idle hands doing the devil’s work and I’ve been twiddling my thumbs thinking of doing wrong idle hands are gonna keep me clean gonna wash me of my sins with new sins idle hands doing the devil’s work and I’ve been waiting outside your door so long I’ve been moving earth to get down to hell to find some work to do cause without you I’ve gotta give the devil his due when you’re all alone so long you can’t tell the difference between right and wrong you can’t hardly listen to a song about a dawn when all you see are sunsets and the shadows hanging on
3.
Icarus 04:22
somewhere there’s gotta be someone holding out a line that can pull me in from the reckless abandon of flying too close to the sun playing icarus somewhere there’s gotta be someway for me to finally give in and let myself love someone else again she’d say “come down you've been up in the clouds flying around try to figure out what’s up what’s down there’s no shame in changing the game moving pieces that you play around till you hit the ground now get lost cause that’s the only way to get found”
4.
Bed Downtown 03:32
I woke up in a bed downtown two girls stretched out before my eyes it’s in my head well I’m in my head but I’m doing alright never thought I could be an evil man it took twenty seven years for me to understand that everyone’s got a good side everyone’s got a dark side we could lie and say it never happened we could lie and say it never happened but lying wouldn’t make it right lying wouldn’t make it right no, lying wouldn’t make it right closer we got we only got colder put the time between the time made me know I was older than when I had someone when I had someone to hold but maybe that’s just it while I reach with fists open only to close I was a lover what the hell does that make me now? we could lie and say it never happened we could lie and say it never happened but lying wouldn’t make it right lying wouldn’t make it right no, lying wouldn’t make it right we could lie and say it never happened we could lie pretend it never happened but lying wouldn’t make it right lying wouldn’t make it right no, lying wouldn’t make it right
5.
there’s a way you let me know you wanna stay or you wanna go you don’t say yes or no and yesterday ain’t no rule for today or tomorrow my eyes have seen the glory of you walking through the door different than the way you came before changing up your stories depending who their for I saw you through each one a little more a little more there’s a place I wanna go at the end of the day at the end of the road just you just you and me where you can be anybody that you wanna be with me my eyes have seen the glory of you walking through the door different than the way you came before changing up your stories depending who their for I saw you through each one a little more a little more
6.
of all the things that I could do wrong hurting you would be the last one I’d want so I’m a fool for ever leading you on making you think that right now I could give you more than I have got making you think that right now I could give you more than I have the letter that you wrote me I have thrown away left me wondering just what I wanted to say I can’t lie to you and you know that I can’t stay it makes me think that all I do is take love and give back pain it makes me think that all I do is take love as I get older I get skeptical and cynical about meeting someone falling in love and then falling out ain’t it natural for a man to start to doubt that something will ever last when nothing ever has of all the things that I could do wrong hurting you would be the last one
7.
on the road to Jordan where I lost my way I’d have gave anything to have anything I’d have gave anything to have anything out there on this endless highway lost from the start looking for a place to stop and not just to depart moaning how the road was such a lonesome place to be when you pulled up there beside me driving fast well just as fast as me racing for a place that neither one of us could see lying on the horn trying to make a pass it was all squealing tires and broken glass on the road to Jordan where I lost my way I’d have gave anything to have anything I’d have gave anything to have anything when I came back to I could not believe my eyes lying on the road and you were stretched out there beside feeling half dead, feeling good enough to be alive checking your pulse hoping that you would be alright opened up your eyes and took a long old look at me saw in me something that I guess I had failed to see took me by the hand slowly helped me up and that’s when we found the place that we could start to stop and it rained down honey like it would rain down rain when I gave everything to have everything I gave everything to have everything on the road to road to Jordan where I found my way I gave everything to have everything I gave everything to have everything
8.
girl, if I could buy you I would buy you so bad use you for a month and take you back to the shop you’re from and get my money back cause I can not afford you and that’s why I want you so bad thing, for a moment I forgot you were there it’s getting harder to pretend like I care but the harder I try the more I am becoming aware that if this curtain were drawn all you’d find is despair who owns you? who - who - who owns - you? who owns? sex is just another way of sealing a deal an hour of your labor I steal and if it helps you sleep then fuck it we can call it real but what difference does it make if it’s only skin that we feel? I have got a hole I’ve been trying to fill as if you couldn’t tell how I learned it from the best fulfillment is to buy and to sell so I pawned off god but I could never shake the hell
9.
Long Line 03:35
looking like Betty Page when I look back oh how it faded so fast I bet I’m not the first to think that and I bet you won’t be the last in a long line - in a long line of strangers I have met in a long line - in a long line of lovers I’ll forget felling like a Hemingway when I read it the honesty in the weakness of words I wrote and repeated to make me try to believe it but don’t we all lie? don’t we all try to be better than we are? don’t we all break? don’t we all scar? in a long line - in a long line running from my door in a long line - in a long line that I’ve been down before in a long line - in a long line of poses I have struck in a long line - in a long line of fights I’ve given up
10.
did we move too fast? did we move too slow? looking back on all our yesterdays I don’t know if tomorrow will come or if it won’t if we’ll sink or if we’ll float and who would be there to know if we all go up in smoke like the dream I had with your long black hair storming all around me in the hot dry air your tears in dust making paths so clear they lead me into acting like I had no fear of the fate I knew that we’d both soon meet looking back on all our yesterdays it seems to me that the truth was there the whole damned time we just didn’t wanna recognize the elephant standing in the room the lid we’d push over our own tomb we watched the sun slowly fade away and I held you like an anchor through the clouds and waves I kissed you hard whispered in your ear that I loved you but I know you couldn’t hear over wind and rain and planes and bombs forgive me love for I’ve done wrong to think we’d live forever young but the truth and consequence caught up to us a generation caught in the crossfire and shot but thinking we’re not falling

about

Should you just leave if you want to arrive someday? Ian Fisher has been asking this question since the day he left his rural Missouri farm for Europe. Ten years have passed since then, but never has the musician stayed in one place for more than a month. Vienna, Berlin, New York, Munich, Nashville… All just stations on an endless path.

So it begins as a folk troubadour. In search of an identity as a expatriate, Country Music became more and more a part of his musical security blanket, but eventually the limits of the genre couldn’t hold him anymore. In his own words, “I know now that borders, both musical and national, are only in your mind.” With his new album Idle Hands, this American born and European raised world-citizen opens the barriers and confidently establishes himself as a modern songwriter with a classic touch.

Ian Fisher was schooled by his father’s record collection in the songwriting of the 1970’s, when diversity of style was the epitome of discipline and underneath each well written line was a well played groove. Bill Withers, Fleetwood Mac, and Jackson Browne are names that come to mind when listening to the warm composition and delivery of Idle Hands. This album, however, does not only look to the past for inspiration. Without the influence of modern groups like Timber Timbre, Jason Isbell, and Andy Shauf, this production’s contemporary sound would not have been possible.

The songs were recorded in a small East Berlin studio tucked between old Soviet apartment blocs. Fresh off of a month long tour through Italy, Fisher and his band (Andreas Laudwein / bass, Ryan Thomas Carpenter / keys, & Hanno Stick / drums) tracked their parts live together in one room. You can hear that they had plenty of time to get to know each other and the songs. How no individual musician leads. How all that truly leads is the song itself. The string arrangements of Cornelius Borgolte and the pedal steel guitar of Ollie Samland make the sound complete. On top of it all, the timeless voice of the Danish singer Ida Wenøe dances from intimate accompaniments to soulful choirs. This mixture makes for an album that sounds immediate, varied, and lively at its core with delicate details surrounding it on all sides.

The complexity hidden in the simplicity of the lyrics is what gives these songs their real depth. Fisher says, “Since I don’t like to preach and at the same time am aware that everything can be interpreted in a political context, I like to blur the lines between what is personal and what is social in my lyrics.” Heartbreak finds its mirror in world events. With double-meanings and room for interpretation, Idle Hands is filled with plenty of food for thought.

They say that idle hands do the devil’s work, so of course the theme of being left behind and to your own devices recurs throughout the album. Fisher poetically compares the destructive complacency of losing a lover to the middle class’ angst as it gets left behind by an economic system that doesn’t need it anymore. Whether you are a coal miner in West Virginia, living off of social security in Eastern Europe, or a traveling songwriter, no one wants to feel useless. With Idle Hands, Ian Fisher reminds us of how we make ourselves useful by creating our own challenges to overcome.

credits

released August 31, 2018

Ian Fisher - vocals / guitar / producer
Andreas Laudwein - bass / assistant engineer / co-producer
Ryan Thomas Carpenter - keys / backing vocals
Ben Majchrzak - co-producer
Hanno Stick - drums
Ida Wenøe - backing vocals
Ollie Samland - pedal steel guitar
Cornelius Borgolte - string & horn arrangements / keys / co-producer
Henning Nierstenhöfer - trombone
Maria Hafner - violin
Andreas Hith - violin
Tobias Weber - viola
Benedikt Feiten - cello
Jonas David - assistant engineer
Alexander Zahel - assistant engineer
Rene Mühlberger - co-producer on “Tables Turn”

Mixed at Native Sound Recording in St. Louis, Missouri, by Ben Majchrzak
Recorded at Wolvesinsound Studio in Berlin, Germany, by Antonio Passacantilli
Mastered at Jettison Studios by Daniel Mehrmann

Album Art by Jörn Kaspuhl
Photos by David Johnson

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Ian Fisher Vienna, Austria

A modern songwriter born in rural America and living in Europe, making what Rolling Stone calls "Half Americana & Half Abbey Road-Worthy Pop".

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