Flyleaf

The Belton, TX-based heavy rock quintet Flyleaf formed in 2000 when frontwoman Lacey Mosley tried out a string of the dark, hard-edged songs she consistently wrote as a brooding teen on drummer James Culpepper. After a brief period of playing together, they recruited guitarists Sameer Bhattacharya and Jared Hartmann, members of a local outfit that had recently called it quits. In 2002, bassist Pat Seals joined, and the band, initially known as Passerby, was born.

The road to Flyleaf's 2005 self-titled debut on Octone Records was dotted with more green lights than red: the band played wherever it was invited around its home state at first, gradually building the kind of fan base that allowed it to open for acts such as Bowling for Soup, Fishbone, and Riddlin' Kids. By 2003, with word of Mosley's arsenic-laced lyrics and blow-torch-style delivery spreading through Texas and beyond, Flyleaf earned a spot at the annual South by Southwest music conference. A contract from Octone was rushed to the signing stages by 2004.

An EP, issued in early 2005 and also called Flyleaf, benefited from the un-obscure production team of Rick Parasher (Pearl Jam, Blind Melon) and Brad Cook (Foo Fighters, Queens of the Stone Age). Key tracks such as the roiling "Cassie" and the emo-tinged "Breathe Today," both of which appear on the full-length, furthered Flyleaf's reputation, as did raging live shows alongside Saliva, Breaking Benjamin, 3 Doors Down, and Staind.

For the fall 2005 release, producer Howard Benson (My Chemical Romance, Papa Roach, the All-American Rejects) joined Flyleaf in Los Angeles. A batch of 20 songs was winnowed to 12, with Mosley's searing vocals and Bhattacharya's and Hartmann's storming guitars offsetting each other to effect a sound by turns morose, compassionate, hope-swollen, and bitter.

The moodiness befits Mosley's background: as one of six siblings in a single-parent household, the confessional songwriter spent her childhood moving from apartment to apartment whenever the bills went unpaid. She openly acknowledges an early addiction to drugs and alcohol that fueled bouts of depression. As of the release of Flyleaf's full-length, the band was committed to sobriety. ~ Tammy La Gorce, All Music Guide

Again

It's okay
To breathe as deep as you play
Your future with me is safe
You sing with my heart when you pray

Here you are down at my feet again
Handing it all back to me again
Right where I want you to be again
I love you
Please see and believe again

I love that you're never satisfied
With face value wisdom and happy lies
You take what they say and go back and cry
You're so close to me that you nearly died

Here you are down at my feet again
Handing it all back to me again
Right where I want you to be again
I love you
Please see and believe again

They don't have to understand you
Be still
Wait and know I understand you
Be still
Be still
Here you are down at my feet again
Handing it all back to me again
Right where I want you to be again
I love you! I love you! I love you!

Here you are down at my feet
Handing it all back to me
Right where I want you to be again
I love you
Please see and believe again

All Around Me - Flyleaf

"All Around Me"

My hands are searching for you
My arms are outstretched towards you
I feel you on my fingertips
My tongue dances behind my lips for you

This fire rising through my being
Burning I'm not used to seeing you

I'm alive, I'm alive

I can feel you all around me
Thickening the air I'm breathing
Holding on to what I'm feeling
Savoring this heart that's healing

My hands float up above me
And you whisper you love me
And I begin to fade
Into our secret place

The music makes me sway
The angels singing say we are alone with you
I am alone and they are too with you

I'm alive, I'm alive

I can feel you all around me
Thickening the air I'm breathing
Holding on to what I'm feeling
Savoring this heart that's healing

And so I cry
The light is white
And I see you

I'm alive, I'm alive, I'm alive

I can feel you all around me
Thickening the air I'm breathing
Holding on to what I'm feeling
Savoring this heart that's healing

Take my hand
I give it to you
Now you own me
All I am
You said you would never leave me
I believe you
I believe

I can feel you all around me
Thickening the air I'm breathing
Holding on to what I'm feeling
Savoring this heart that's healed

Breathe Today

You try your hardest to perfect your explanations...
You lie until they've run out of questions
You can only move as fast as whose in front of you
And if you assume just like them, what good will it do?
So find out for yourself, so your ignorance stop bleeding through.
Only one thing
Big enough to fill the void that's inside of you
It's just a breath away.
You can breathe today.
Breathe today.
So many, Lies swarming, Around You, You're suffocating
The emtpy, Space in you,
Steals your breath you're suffocating
Logic forces me to believe in this
And I have longed to see
And I can only say
What I see and heard
And only you can choose
And every choice you make
Will effect you
Suit your own self
You can breath today
Breathe today.
So many, Lies swarming, Around You, You're suffocating
The emtpy, Space in you,
Steals your breath you're suffocating
Big enough to fill the void that's inside of you,
It's just a breath away,
So many, Lies swarming, Around You, You're suffocating
The emtpy, Space in you,
Steals your breath you're suffocating
You can breath today,
Breathe today

Broken Wings

Thank you for being such a friend to me
Oh I pray a friend for life,
And have I ever told you how much you mean to me?
Oh you're everything to me
Thinking all the time how to tell you what I feel,
Contemplating phrases....I'm gazing at eternity,
I am floating in serenity...

And I am so lost for words
And I am so overwhelmed

Please don't leave just yet
Can you stay a moment please
We can dance together
We can dance forever

Under your stars tonight
We'll live and breathe this dream

So close your eyes, but don't dream too deep
And please pass me some memories
And when I fall you're underneath
1000 broken hearts, carried by 1000 broken wings

I'm So Sick

I will break, into your thoughts
With what's written on my heart
I will break...

You broke into my thoughts
This invasion makes me feel
Worthless, hopeless, sick
I'm so sick

If you want more of this
We can push out, sell out, die out,
So you'll shut up and stay sleeping
With my screaming in your itching ears

I'm so sick,
Infected with where I live
Let me live without this
Empty bliss, selfishness
let me live...

Hear it
I'm screaming it
You're heeding to it now

You broke into my thoughts
This invasion makes me feel
Worthless, hopeless, sick
I'm so sick

I'm so sick,
Infected with where I live
Let me live without this
Empty bliss, selfishness
Let me live...

I reveal
What you steal from
All of us,
We take it back...
We take it back

You broke into my thoughts
This invasion makes me feel
Worthless, Hopeless, sick
I'm so sick

But I heal
With this story, always working, constant purpose
But I heal...
I won't compromise and I heal

Ocean Waves

So many wasted days
Come and go like ocean waves
Hit like a freight train
And now I can't get off my face

How could I have been so polite
To simply let them die
Who am I to spread my fingers
After you have filled my hands
Watching the moments slip through like desert sand

Respect her ignorance
Just in case she takes offense
The darkness that's killing her
Well that is just not my concern

How could I have been so polite
To simply let them die
Who am I to spread my fingers
After you have filled my hands
Watching the moments slip through like desert sand

You're not guaranteed tomorrow
You're not guaranteed tomorrow

How could I have been so polite
To simply let them die
Who am I to spread my fingers
After you have filled my hands
Watching the moments slip through like desert sand

Whispering Fingertips

Contemplating you is like a dream
I never want to wake up from what I finally see
Perfect circles turn in orbit
Following a perfect path from your perfect hand

When I look into your eyes
It's a world I can't believe
I can see my destiny
To be like you

Whispering fingertips
Leave your fingerprints
All over everything

Contemplating you is like a dream
I never want to wake up from what I finally see
Perfect circles turn in orbit
Following a perfect path from your perfect hand

Whispering fingertips
Leave your fingerprints
All over everything

When I look into your eyes
It's a world I can't believe
I can see my destiny
To be like you

Whispering fingertips
Leave your fingerprints
All over everything