Lyrics Database

Fish lyrics

Hotel Hobbies

Hotel hobbies padding dawns hollow corridors
Bell boys checking out the hookers in the bar
Slug-like fingers trace the star-spangled clouds of cocaine on the mirror
The short straw took its bow

The tell tale tocking of the last cigarette
Marking time in the packet as the whisky sweat
Lies like discarded armour on an unmade bed
And a familiar craving is crawling in his head

And the only sign of life is the ticking of the pen
Introducing characters to memories like old friends
Frantic as a cardiograph scratching out the lines
A fever of confession a catalogue of crime in happy hour
Do you cry in happy hour, do you hide in happy hour,
The pilgrimage to happy hour

New shadows tugging at the corner of his eye
Jostling for attention as the sunlight flares
Through a curtains tear, shuffling its beams
As if in nervous anticipation of another day

Album : Clutching At Straws

Warm Wet Circles

On promenades where drunks propose to lonely arcade mannequins
Where ceremonies pause at the jeweller’s shop display
Feigning casual silence in strained romantic interludes
Till they commit themselves to the muted journey home
And the pool player rests on another cue
Last nights hero picking up his dues
A honeymoon gambled on a ricochet
She’s staring at the brochures at the holidays
Chalking up a name in your hometown
Standing all your mates to another round
Laughing at the world till the barman wipes away
The warm wet circles

I saw teenage girls like gaudy moths a classroom’s shabby butterflies
Flirt in the glow of stranded telephone boxes
Planning white lace weddings from smeared hearts
And token proclamations, rolled from stolen lipsticks
Across the razored webs of glass
Sharing cigarettes with experience with her giggling
Jealous confidantes, she faithfully traces his name
With quick bitten fingers
Through the tears of condensation that’ll cry through the night
As the glancing headlights of the last bus kiss adolescence goodbye

In a warm wet circle
Like a mother’s kiss on your first broken heart, a warm wet circle
Like a bullethole in central park, a warm wet circle
And i’ll always surrender to the warm wet circles

She nervously undressed in the dancing beams of the fidra lighthouse
Giving it all away before it’s too late
She’ll let a lover’s tongue move in a warm wet circle
Giving it all away and showing no shame
She’ll take a mother’s kiss on her first broken heart
A warm wet circle, she’ll realise that she plays her part in a warm wet circle

Album : Clutching At Straws

That Time Of The Night

At that time of the night when streetlights throw crosses
Through window frames, paranoia roams where the shadows reign
Oh, at that time of the night
At that time of the night your senses tangled in some new perfume
Criticism triggers of a loaded room. at that time of the night

So if you ask me how do i feel inside
I could honestly tell you we’ve been taken on a very long ride
And if my owners let me have some free time some day
With all good intention i would probably run away
Clutching the short straw

At that time of the night when questions rally in an open mind
Summon all your answers with an ice cube chime
At that time of the night.

At that time of the night
Pretend you’re off the hook with the telephone
Your confidence wounded in a free fire zone,
Oh, at that time of the night

So if you ask me where do i go from here,
My next destination isn’t even really that clear.
So if you join me and get on your knees and pray,
I’ll show you salvation we’ll take the alternative way
Clutching the short straw

If i had enough money i’d buy a round for that boy over there
A companion in my madness in the mirror the one with the silvery hair.
And if some kind soul could please pick up my tab
And while they’re at it if they could pick up my broken heart….

Album : Clutching At Straws

Going Under

Is it wrong to talk to myself even when there’s nobody else?
I’m just checking out that i’m not gone under the water
Thrown on the beach like a seal ready for slaughter
Can’t you understand that the way things were planned
It never worked out so i just went crazy
I took to the drink, like something says "it’s maybe"

I ain’t got no excuse and that’s really the news
Got nothing else to say, that it’s my way, it’s always my way
I seem to be running away so often
I’ll try anything once and that’s the way we should be
But it’s always the same getting caught up again in a habit,
A habit i just can’t shake off
The way it always turned out
Can you understand it’s the way i choose to be
Everything seems so easy this way but i’m going under fast,
Slipping away, am i so crazy?

Album : Clutching At Straws

Just For The Record

Many’s the time i’ve been thinking about changing my ways
But when it gets right down to it it’s the same drunken haze
I’m serving a sentence to write life’s sentences
It’s only when i’m out of it i make sense of this

Just for the record i’m gonna put it down, down
Just for the record i’m gonna change my life around

Just a revolutionary with a pseudonym
Just a bar-room dancer on my final fling
Just another writer paying off my dues
Just finding inspiration, well that’s my excuse

Just for the record i’m gonna put it down, down
Just for the record i’m gonna change my life around
Just another empty gesture with an empty glass
Just another comic actor behind a tragic mask,

But i’ve got no discipline, got no self control
Just a little less painful here when my back’s against the wall

It’s too late, i found, it’s too far, i’m in two minds
Both of them are out of it at the bar

When you say i got a problem that’s a certainty
But i can put it all right down to eccentricity
It’s just for the record it’s just a passing phase
Just for the record i can stop any day

Album : Clutching At Straws

White Russian

Where do we go from here?

They’re boarding up the synagogues, uzis on a street corner
You can’t take a photograph of uzis on a street corner
The dj resigned today, they wouldn’t let him have his say
A surface scratched where the needles play, uzis on a street corner

Where do we go from here?

Terror on the rue de st. denis, murder on the periphery
Someone else in someone else’s pocket, christ knows i don’t know how to stop it
Lay poppies at the cenotaph, the cynics can’t afford to laugh,
I heard in on the telegraph there’s uzis on a street corner

Where do we go from here?

The more i see the more i hear the more i find the fewer answers
I close my mind, i shut it out but you know its getting harder
To calm me down, to reason out, to come to terms with what it’s all about
I’m uptight, can’t sleep at night, i can’t pretend everything’s alright.
My ideals my sanity, they seem to be deserting me
But to stand up and fight i know we have six million reasons.

They’re burning down the synagogues, uzis on a street corner
The heralds of the holocaust, uzis on a street corner
The silence never louder than now, how quickly we forgot our vows,
This resurrection we can’t allow, the uzis on a street corner.

Where do we go from here, where do we go from here?

We buy fresh bagels from the corner store
Where swastikas are spat from aerosols
I sit in the bar sipping iced white russians
Trying to score but nobody’s pushing
And everyone looks at everyone’s faces
Searching for signs and praying for traces
Of a conscience in residence,
Are we sitting on a barbed wire fence, racing the clouds home
Racing the clouds home

We place our faith in human rights
In the paper wars that tie the redtape tight
I know that i would rather be out of this conspiracy

In the gulags and internment camps
Frozen faces in nameless ranks
I know that they would rather be
Standing here besides me chasing the clouds home

You can shut your eyes, you can hide away
It’s gonna come back another day

Racing the clouds home, are we racing the clouds home?
Racing the clouds home

Album : Clutching At Straws

Incommunicado

I’d be really pleased to meet you if only i could remember your name
But i got problems with my memory ever since i got a winner in the fame game
I’m a citizen of legoland travellin’ incommunicado
And i don’t give a damn for the fleet street afficionados

But i don’t want to be the backpage interview
I don’t want launderette anonymity
I want my handprints in the concrete on sunset boulevard
A dummy in tussauds you’ll see. incommunicado

I’m a marquee veteran, a multi-media bonafide celebrity
I’ve got an allergy to perrier, daylight and responsibility
I’m a rootin-tootin cowboy, a peter pan with street credibility
Always making the point with the dawn patrol fraternity

Sometimes it seems like i’ve been here before
When i hear opportunity kicking in my door
Call it synchronicity call it déja vu
I just put my faith in destiny - it’s the way that i choose

But i don’t want to be a tin can tied to the bumper of a wedding limousine,
Or currently residing in the where-are-they-now file
A toupée on the cabaret scene
I want to do adverts for american express cards
And talk shows on prime time tv,
A villa in france
My own cocktail bar
And that’s where you’re gonna find me
Incommunicado

Sometimes it seems like i’ve been here before
When i hear opportunity kicking in my door
Call it synchronicity call it déja vu
I just put my faith in destiny it’s the way that i choose
Incommunicado
It’s the only way
Incommunicado

Album : Clutching At Straws

Torch Song

Read some kerouac and it put me on the track
To burn a little brighter now.
It was something about roman candles fizzin’ out,
Shine a little light on me now,
I found a strange fascination with a liquid fixation
Alcohol can thrill me now
It’s getting late in the game to show any pride or shame
Burn a little brighter now

Doctor says my liver looks like leaving with my lover,
Need another time out now,
Like any sort of hero turnin’ down to zero
Standing out in any crowd
Pulling seventeen with experience and dreams,
Sweating out a happy hour,
When you’re hiding twenty nine you know it ain’t a crime
To burn a little brighter now, burn a little brighter now

(spoken - doctor:) "and my advice is if you maintain this lifestyle you won’t reach thirty"
(torch:) "it’s a kind of romantic way to go really, part of the heritage.
It’s your round i’n'it?"

We burn a little brighter now
Read some kerouac and it put me on the track to burn a little brighter now
It was something about roman candles fizzin’ out,
Shine a little light on me now,
I found a strange fascination with a liquid fixation,
Alcohol thrill me now
Getting late in the game to show any pride or shame
We burn a little brighter now, burn a little brighter now

Album : Clutching At Straws

Slainte Mhath

A hand held over a candle in angst-fuelled bravado
A carbon trail scores a moist stretched palm
Trapped in the indecision of another fine menu
And you sit there and ask me to tell you the story so far
This is the story so far

Shuffling your memories dealing your doodles in margins
You scrawl out your poems across a beer-mat or two
And when you declare the point of grave creation
They turn round and ask you to tell them the story so far

This is the story so far

And you listen with a tear in your eye
To their hopes and betrayals and your only reply
Is slàinte mhath

Princes in exile raising the standard drambuie
Parading their anecdotes tired from old campaigns
Holding their own last orders commanding attention
We sit here and listen to all of the story so far

This is the story so far

Take it away, take it away, take it away, take me away

From the dreams on the barbed wire at flanders and bilston glen
From a clydesdale that rusts from the tears of it’s broken men
From the realisation that all we’ve been left behind
Is to stand like our fathers before us in the firing line
Waiting on the whistle to blow, we stand here waiting
On the whistle to blow
They promised us miracles, and the whistle still blows
Broken promises, and the whistle still blows
The whistle still blows

Album : Clutching At Straws

Sugar Mice

I was flicking through the channels on the tv
On a sunday in milwaukee in the rain
Trying to piece together conversations,
Trying to find out where to lay the blame

But when it comes right down to it there’s no use trying to pretend
For when it gets right down to it there’s no one here that’s left to blame,
Blame it on me, you can blame it on me
We’re just sugar mice in the rain

I heard sinatra calling me down through the floorboards
Where you pay a quarter for a partnership in rhyme
To the jukebox crying in the corner
While the waitress is counting out the time

For when it comes right down to it there’s no use trying to pretend
For when it gets right down to it there’s no one really left to blame,
Blame it on me, you can blame it on me
We’re just sugar mice in the rain

I know what i feel, know what i want i know what i am
Daddy took a raincheck
Cos i know what i want, know what i feel i know what i need
Daddy took a raincheck, your daddy took a raincheck
Ain’t no one in here that’s left to blame but me
Blame it on me, blame it on me

Well the toughest thing that i ever did was talk to the kids on the phone
When i heard them asking questions i knew
That you were all alone, can’t you understand that the
Government left me out of work, i just couldn’t stand the
Looks on the faces saying what a jerk

So if you want my address it’s number one
At the end of the bar
Where i sit with the broken angels clutching at straws and
Nursing the scars, blame it on me, blame it on me
Sugar mice in the rain, your daddy took a raincheck
Your daddy took a raincheck

Album : Clutching At Straws

The Last Straw

Hotel hobbies padding dawns hollow corridors
A typewriter cackles out a stream of memories
Drying out a conscience, evicting a nightmare
Opening the doors for the dreams to come home

We live out lives in private shells
Ignore out senses and fool ourselves
Into thinking that out there there’s someone else cares
Someone to answer all our prayers

Are we too far gone, are we so irresponsible
Have we lost our balls, or do we just not care
We’re terminal cases that keep talking medicine
Pretending the end isn’t quite that near
We make futile gestures, act to the cameras
With our made up faces and pr smiles
And when the angel comes down to deliver us
We’ll find out after all, we’re only men of straw

But everything is still the same
Passing the time passing out the blame
We carry on in the same old way
We’ll find out we left it too late one day
To say what we meant to say

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the water
Those problems seem to arise the ones you never really thought of
The feeling you get is similar to some sort of drowning
When you are out of your mind, out of your depth
You should have taken soundings
We’re clutching at straws, we’re clutching at straws clutching at straws

And if you ever come across us don’t give us your sympathy
You can buy us a drink and just shake our hands
And you’ll recognise by the reflections in our eyes
That deep down inside we’re all one and the same
We’re clutching at straws still drowning

Album : Clutching At Straws

Tux On

Tux on, tux on, tux on, tux on, tux on

He has eyes down at the bingo on that lucky friday night
The match was rained off saturday but the panel came in bright
And on sunday your mates were toasting you with champagne down the pub
And on monday you went to london
To pick the cheque up with your mum

You had a tux on, mmm, you had a tux on
The first time you had a tux on, lucky man

There’s a photo on the mantlepiece, when you bought your first guitar
And your girlfriend came to see you when you were the rising star
You knew your luck was holding when you filled the local hall
The first time and the last time that you thought you had control

You had a tux on, lucky man, you had a tux on
You got a tux on, tux on

Now you’re touring stadiums, you’ve let it go too far
Standing with your manager, your back to every bar
Burning all your credit cards, chopping out the pain
Crowding into toilets with a host of your new-found friends

You got a tux on, nothing’s changed, you got a tux on
Lucky man with a tux on, you’re still the same with a tux on

It was eyes down in the parlour, they prayed it wouldn’t rain
A brother pulled his cuffs down to hide the blue-black vein
He’d razored more than lines out, they found him just too late
The final performance, the main man lies in state

With a tux on, look at him now with a tux on
The last time with a tux on, take him away with a tux on

Somewhere in a tenement, in a well-thumbed magazine
Someone finds a photograph that triggers off a dream
The uniform that symbolizes the comfortable life
He’s always known his luck’s in but now he’s found the drive

He’s got a tux on, look at him now with a tux on
He’s gonna get one with a tux on, free admission with a tux on
Get it anyway with a tux on

He’s got a tux on the easy way with a tux on, tux on, tux on, tux on.

Album : Clutching At Straws

Beaujolais Day

I went to morrison’s grave at pere lachaise cemetery
The stony flowers and the matching graffiti were guiding me to the steps inside of me

And what will you do if i got down on my knees to you
What will you do if i lied to your face
Could you still hold your dreams
Could you live in your silent face

So what would you do, would you walk right through me
Would you stand in the way like the others before
Get in the way
Would you drink to me next beaujolais day

Tell me the truth, save a prayer for me
I would love to leave you but you would cry all night long
Eternal romantic, victory failed on beaujolais day

I heard a wheelchair whisper across a stale silent gymnasium
Trailing an ivy league jacket like a matador
Through the jitterbug steps of the night before

Through the chalk white chill and the tear fandango
Heading away to the inner wrangle
Do we cry for a cell
Do we need for a sell

What would you do, would you cry for me
Could you set off (?) could we go gently
Blame it away
Do you really want to head for the open door

Got to crack a bottle while you dream for me
Just an absent friend and a misery
Laying awake do we stay right there
’till beaujolais day

On beaujolais day

So what will you do, would you lie to me?
Would you sit right back in a victory
Would you play for me
Could you die for me

So what would you do, would you walk right through me
Heading away saying it’s just another victory
This is beaujolais day

Album : Clutching At Straws

Story From A Thin Wall

I heard the battle raging on the other side of the wall
Buried my head in a pillow and tried to ignore it all
Every night when i hear you i dream of breaking down your door
An avenging knight in shining armour to rescue you from it all
From the family business

When i see you in the supermarket
With sunglasses in the shade
Averting your eyes from those staring questions
How were those bruises made
It’s family business

Children clutching to your legs
They’ve got so much they want to say
But daddy’s sitting home and drunk again
So they bite their lips and pray
And daddy don’t like no strangers prying
And noses in his private affairs
And if anyone asks from the social
Well, you fell down the stairs
It’s family business

So i become an accessory
And i don’t have an alibi
To the victim lying on my doorstep
The only way i can justify
It’s family business

’cause every day it’s getting harder
Try to see, to go away
To all the people that surround you
You have to sit them down and explain
To be the writing on the wall inside
To be the pledge you call your own
And if you run into the day
You sure you know you’ll find a home
You sure you know you’ll find a home
Find a home
You sure, you sure

The traffic lights shine upon
(?) and the broken home
Everyone could be oh so far away
(?) and the white lines lead the way
Lead the way

And the writing on the wall
They’re carving out the martyrs in stone

Could’ve been the same this way
It could’ve been the same this way
Tell them it’s the same today
We could have been much younger
It could have been much longer
Into the real time
Too far
You run away today
Tomorrow
You take away the time
You took away my mind

Something to the light she said
Everyone is burning
We could have been much younger
Should have

Album : Clutching At Straws

Shadows On The Barley

Storm clouds cruising cross the blue skies
Shadows float across the fields of barley
I find myself an island in an island
I have to sort things out just my way

And all i find is my bar
To laugh to me i say
Like all you know is true
Is for ever time we know it’s mine

I saw clouds cruise floating cross the blue sky
Shadows float across the fields of barley
(?)
Everything will come out soon my way

Now i know, i see, i find
It’s the only way i ever felt, the way i do today
All i say, i play the game
I know i never could be sure of all the places that i’ve seen

Clouds cruising cross the blue skies
Shadows float across the fields of barley
Every self an island in an island
Working every problem out my way

Now i see, i feel, i know
It’s the only way that anything could sort out to the way
I say you’ll find it’s out of mind
It’s the only way i could have been
It’s the only way i stand

Clouds cruise, float upon the barley

Album : Clutching At Straws

Sunset Hill

Everything to decide
It’s time i came up with some answers before i can carry on
It’s time i made my mind up before we can go along

And i thought it was so simple
And i knew that it could be so fine
I know that the places that everything comes

Rose beds scattered across the lawn
Like the squares at waterloo
With the bayonets of thorns repelling
Small children in search of lost tennis balls
Seeing everything and giving their all

I used to be scared of heights
I used to get dizzy
I never felt safe with my feet on the ground
They said that up there the air would be clearer
They said more space and more room to breathe

Everything to the side
I knew that something would happen
It’s better off than being alive
I knew the standards decline
I knew that we had to decide
All the places, that’s all we’d ever seen
And the place that we thought about
And the road that you travel has never been seen

Rose beds scattered across the lawn
Like the squares of waterloo
With the bayonets of thorns repelling
Small children in search of lost tennis balls
Giving everything and giving it all

I used to think everything was coming up roses
But i couldn’t see the weeds that entangled my feet
I couldn’t see the trees
’cause my forest was burning
I couldn’t see the bridges for the fire in my eyes
They sold me the view from the hill
Sold me the view from the hill

They said that up there the air would be clearer
They said there’d be more space and more room to breathe
I used to be scared of heights
I used to get dizzy
They sold me the view from the hill

Album : Clutching At Straws

Tic-tac-toe

We are led by the light at the end of the tunnel
We are guided by the fires of our burning dreams
We’re inspired by our ideals and driven by conscience
To cross what the cynics perceive as naive

We the people want it straight for a change
We the people are getting tired of your games
We the people want the answers laid out on the lines
Better no more of your cheap propaganda
And stop talking tic-tac-toe

We the people fight your arms dealers wars
We the people want our futures secure
We the people want a peace staying all the way
So cut out your message
And take all your talking tic-tac-toe

Everyone needs a symbol of their own, the truth
If you don’t know of the reason
Well how can you take a stance in this way
You need to be sure
You need to return to an open door
Taking a lesson from me
Taking a lesson from me
The children that play tic-tac-toe

Album : Clutching At Straws

Voice In The Crowd

There’s something i have to tell you
Before it’s too late
There’s someone needs a timing
I could be the same
Got to listen to you clearly
Would you understand it all
Would you hold it all together
Do we run up in the bar

Everyone needs someone to listen to
If you don’t want to shine on
Could you know it all
And if someone lay before you know it could be true
A voice in the crowd

You came upon a (?)
Just an alibi
Did you have to go do it
Do you feel you want to try
But if you’d only see the reason why (?)
When someone came, someone rose, someone left

I don’t know if you could be sure
But you don’t understand
And if the days were good
You’ll never know the way we planned
And if the time is there for severancing and sentiment
A voice in the crowd
A voice in the crowd

Album : Clutching At Straws

Exile On Princes Street

I saw a blue umbrella in princes street garden
Heading out west for the lothian road
An evening news stuffed deep in the pocket
Little did i know that he had a heavy load

I found i was walking grierson’s dockyards
Where the only thing working was the foreign film crews
Making an impressive documentary
For the news, for the news
To the satellite

And all we’re left with is the black, black oil
With a sense of pride and identity
The waters left behind we shouldn’t forget
Laid low in the books of history

I saw the starlings wheel round georgian spires
They’re gathering on patrol in the skies
In the distance burns the flame of grangemouth
And the dream is lost
Everything
What it could inspire
When we take, you know there is no distance
How we’re talked about in the secret affairs
Taking our ride into the distance
To be what it was or could have been
What i should have said

And all we’re left with is the black, black oil
With a strong sense of national pride
’till we take some more steps to unity
Take it back to me
Take away
(?)

And all we’re left with is the black, black oil
With a strong sense of national pride
Calling the (ministry?) for identity
What it meant to me, what it said
What we could have had

I saw a blue umbrella in princes street garden
Heading out west for the lothian road
An evening news stuck deep in the pocket
Little did i know that he’d fall
Carrying a heavy load

And all we’re left with is the black, black oil
With a strong sense of national pride
Calling a name in the sake of unity
What it meant to me you’ll never know
You’ll never know

I see myself forced in servant exile
Turning around at another’s command
All i want to see is identity
What i could have been
What i did
Could have been

Internal exile
Internal exile

Album : Clutching At Straws

Assassing

I am the assassin, with tongue forged from eloquence
I am the assassin, providing your nemesis
On the sacrificial altar to success, my friend
Unleash a stranger from a kiss, my friend
No incantations of remorse, my friend
Unsheath the blade within the voice
My friend, my friend, my friend, my friend

I am the assassin

Who decorates the scarf with the fugi knot
Who camouflaged emotion in the thousand-yard stare
Who gouged the notches in the family tree
Who hypnotized the guilt in career rhythm trance

Assassin, assassin, assassin, assassin
(assassin, my friend.)

Listen as the syllables of slaughter cut with calm precision
Patterned frosty phrases rape your ears and sew the ice incision
Adjectives of annihilation bury the point beyond redemption
Venomous verbs of ruthless candor plagiarize assassins’ fervour
Apocalyptic alphabet casting spell, the creed of tempered diction
My friend, your friend, the assassin
A friend in need is a friend that bleeds
Let bitter silence infect the wound
I am the assassin, (your friend)
Assassin

You were a sentimental mercenary in a free-fire zone
Parading a hollywood conscience
You were a fashionable objector with a uniform fetish
Pavlovian slaver at the cash-till ring of success
A non-com observer, i assassin, the collector… defector

So you resigned yourself to failure, my friend
And i emerged the chilling stranger, my friend
To eradicate the problem, my friend
Unsheath the blade within the voice
Within the voice, within the voice
Within the voice

And what do you call assassins who accuse assassins, anyway
My friend?

Album : Fugazi

Punch And Judy

Washing machine, pinstripe dream stripped the gloss from a beauty queen
Punch and judy, judy, judy
Found our nest in the daily express, met the vicar in a holy vest
Punch and judy, punch and judy
Brought up the children, church of e, now i vegetate with a color tv
Worst ever thing that happened to me, oh for d-i-v-o-r-c-e
Oh judy

Whatever happened to pillow fights?
Whatever happened to jeans so tight? friday nights?
Whatever happened to lover’s lane?
Whatever happened to passion games? sunday walks in the pouring rain?

Punch, punch, punch and judy
Punch, punch, punch

Curling tongs, mogadons
I got a headache baby, don’t take so long
Single beds, middle age dread, losing the war in the waistlands spread
Who left the cap off the toothpaste tube, who forgot to flush the loo?
Leave your sweaty socks outside the door
Don’t walk across my polished floor.
Oh judy

Whatever happened to morning smiles?
Whatever happened to wicked wiles? permissive styles?
Whatever happened to twinkling eyes?
Whatever happened to hard fast drives? compliments on unnatural size?

Punch, punch, punch and judy
Punch, punch, punch

Propping up a bar, family car, sweating out a mortgage as a balding clerk
Punch and judy
World war three, suburbanshee, just slip her these pills and i’ll be free
No more judy, judy, judy no more

Album : Fugazi

Jigsaw

We are jigsaw pieces aligned on the perimeter edge
Interlocked through a missing piece
We are renaissance children becalmed beneath the bridge of sighs
Forever throwing firebrands at the stonework
We are siamese children related by the heart
Bleeding from the surgery of initial confrontation
Holding the word-scalpels on trembling lips

Stand straight, look me in the eye and say goodbye
Stand straight, we’ve drifted past the point of reasons why
Yesterday starts tomorrow, tomorrow starts today
The problems always seem to be
We’re picking up the pieces on the ricochet

Drowning tequila sunsets, stowaways on midnight ships
Refugees of romance plead asylum from the real
Scrambling distress signals on random frequencies
Forever repatriated on guilt-laden morning planes
We are pilots of passion sweating the flight on course
To another summit conference, another breakfast-time divorce
Screaming out a ceasefire, snowblind in an avalanche zone

Stand straight, look me in the eye and say goodbye
Stand straight, we’ve drifted past the point of reasons why
Yesterday starts tomorrow, tomorrow starts today,
The problems always seem to be
We’re picking up the pieces on the ricochet

Are we trigger happy? russian roulette in the waiting room
Empty chambers embracing the end
Puzzled visions haunt the ripples of a trevi moon
Dream coins for the fountain, or to cover your eyes
We reached ignition point from the sparks of pleasantries
Sensed the smoke advancing from horizons
You must have known that i was planning an escape

Album : Fugazi

Emerald Lies

To be the prince of possession, in the gallery of contempt
Suffering your indiscrete discretions, and you ask me to relent
As you accumulate flirtations, with the calculated calmness of the whore
I am the harlequin, with diamonded costume dripping shades of green
I am the harlequin, sense strangers violate my sanctuary, prowl my dreams

Plundering your diaries, i’ll steal your thoughts - innocence
Ravaging your letters, unearth your plots - innocence

To don the robes of torquemada, to resurrect the inquisition
And in that tortured subtle manner inflict questions
Within questions within questions
Looking in shades of green through shades of blue
I trust you trust in me to mistrust you
Through the silk-cut haze to the smeared mascara
A forty-watt sun on a courtroom drama

And the coffee stains gather till the pale kimono
Set the wedding rings dancing on the cold linoleum

And accusation’s moths that circle around the light
Char their wings in spiral senseless, suicidal flight
Pack our world within a suitcase, hot tears melt this icy palace
And dissolve a crystal swallowed by the night
Looking in shades of green through shades of blue
Looking in shades of green through shades of blue

Album : Fugazi

She Chameleon

Sheltering her ego on the edge of the floodlight’s arc
She’ll contemplate seduction, calculate the catch
When she moved her presence speared me
When she spoke her words ensnared me
Watch the lizard, watch the lizard
Watch the lizard with the crimson veil.

She crucified my heart in the depths of a satin grave
As i lay in sweating monologue i sensed the lovelight fade
Within the spiral of the cigarette
You betrayed your bedside etiquette
I saw the lizard, i saw the lizard
I touched the lizard with the crimson veil

I’ve seen a different doorway shut a million times before
Smilng she-chameleons, smiling vinyl whores

They know what they want, they sing your name and glide between the sheets
I never say no, in chemical glow we’ll let our bodies meet

Degraded and alone, raped and still forlorn
Betrayed upon a lizard’s bed.
We chameleon, we chameleon, we

Album : Fugazi

Incubus

When footlights dim in reverence to prescient passion
Forwarned my audience leaves the stage, floating ahead
Perfumed shift, within the stammering silence
The face that launched a thousand frames
Betrayed by a porcelain tear, a stained career

You’ve played this scene before, you’ve played this scene before
I, the mote in your eye,
I, the mote in your eye, a misplaced reaction, reaction

The darkroom unleashes imagination, in pornographic images
In which you will always be the star
Untouchable, unapproachable
Constant in the darkness, in the darkness
Nursing an erection, a misplaced reaction
With no flower to place before this gravestone
And the walls become enticingly newspaper thin
But that would only be developing the negative view
And you have to be exposed in voyeuristic color, the public act
Let you model your shame on the mannequin catwalk, catwalk
Let the cats walk

I’ve played, this scene before, i’ve played, this scene before
I, the mote in your eye,
I, the mote in your eye, a misplaced reaction, satisfaction

You can’t brush me under the carpet, you can’t hide me under the stairs
The custodian of your private fears, your leading actor of yesteryear
Who, as you crawled out of the alleys of obscurity
Sentenced to rejection in the morass of anonymity
You, who i directed with a lover’s will, you who i let hypnotize the lens
You who i let bathe in the spotlight’s glare
You who wiped me from your memory like a greasepaint mask
Just like a greasepaint mask

But now i’m the snake in the grass
The ghost of film reels past
The producer of your nightmare
And the performance has just begun, its just begun
Begun, its just begun

Your perimeter of courtiers jerk like celluloid puppets
As you stutter, paralyzed, with rabbit’s eyes
Searing the shadows, flooding the wings
To pluck elusive salvation from the understudy’s lips
Retrieve the soliloquy, maintain the obituary
My cue line in the last act, and you’ll wait in silent solitude
Waiting for the prompt, waiting for the prompt, waiting for the prompt.

You’ve played this scene before

Album : Fugazi

Fugazi

Vodka intimate, an affair with isolation in a blackheath cell
Extinguishing the fires in my private hell
Provoking the heartache to renew the license
Of a bleeding heart poet in a fragile capsule
Propping up the crust of the glitter conscience
Wrapped in the christening shawl of a hangover
Baptized in tears from the real

Drowning in the liquid seize on the piccadilly line, rat-race
Scuttling through the damp electric labyrinth
Caress ophelia’s hand with breaststroke ambition
The albatross courtship marrytime tradition
Sheathed with the walkman wear the halo of distortion
Aural contraceptive aborting pregnant conversation

But she turned the harpoon and it pierced my heart
She hung herself around my neck

From the time-life guardians in their conscience bubbles
Safe and dry in my sea of troubles
Nine to fives, with suitable ties
While i’m cast adrift as their sideshow, peepshow, stereo hero
Becalm, bestill, bewitch, drowning, drowning in the real

The thief of baghdad hides in islington now
Praying deportation for his sacred cow
A legacy of romance from a twilight world
The dowry of a relative mystery girl

A vietnamese flower, a dockland union
A mistress of release from a magazine’s thighs
This magdalene contracts more than favours
The feeding hands of western promise hold her by the throat

A son of the swastika of ‘45, parading a peroxide standard
Graffitti disciples conjure testaments of hatred
Aerosol wands whisper where the searchlights trim the barbed wire hedges
This is brixton chess

A knight for embankments folds his newspaper castle
A creature of habit, begs the boatman’s coin
He’ll fade with old soldiers in the grease-stained roll-call
Linger with the heartburn of good friday’s last supper

Son watches father scan obituary columns
In search of absent school friends
While his generation digests high-fibre ignorance
Cowering behind curtains and the taped up, painted windows
Decriminalized genocide, provided door-to-door belsens
Pandora’s box of holocausts
Gracefully cruising satellite-infested heavens
Waiting, the season of the button
The penultimate migration
Radioactive perfumes for the fashionably
For the terminally insane, insane

Do you realise, do you realise, do you realise
This world is totally fugazi

Where are the prophets, where are the visionaries
Where are the poets, to breach the dawn of the sentimental mercenary?

Album : Fugazi

Cinderella Search

On the rebound, fumbling all the lines
The light at the end of the bottle - alcoholic alphabet
Through the looking glass the proof in my own reflection
Five senses down and reeling on the cinderella search

On the rebound, fumbling all the lines
Decay on the vertical hold with a horizontal aim
Conversation needs translation
Three dimensions down dissolving on the cinderella search,
Cinderella search

On the rebound, fumbling all the lines
Dreaming bartenders, bourbon and saxophone,
Out of luck, out of charm, out the game of rejections in a cigarette city
Only courting the homing of direction on the cinderella search,
Cinderella search

But the samaritan of the heartbroken, heartbroken,
Swam through the nicotine seize, and we exchanged the kiss of life
Resurrection in a trance, the model, the grail, in a marquee of promises
I touched the dream, i hold the dream, i have the dream
To end the cinderella search, cinderella search, oh no more, no more

Exposing bedside manners on a work extension
Awaiting development with paranoid polaroid eyes, polaroid eyes

The footman memorised the number
But the prince still holds both the slippers
And would you leave a palace for a bed-sit
And canterbury tales, canterbury tales?

Maybe it was infatuation or the thrill of the chase
Maybe you were always beyond my reach and my heart was playing safe
But was that love in your eye i saw or the reflection of mine?
I’ll never really know for sure, you never really gave me time.
Give me time, won’t you give me that time

Welcome back to the circus
Welcome back to the circus
Welcome back to the circus

I always use the cue sheets but never the nets
Always the cue sheets but never the nets,
Never the nets, never the nets,
Nevertheless, nevertheless, nevertheless, nevertheless, nevertheless…

Album : Fugazi

Shadowplay

(dick/simmonds)

Hunched foetal in the corner of my soul
My fingernails are bleeding
From climbing up the wall
This time you really hurt me right down to the core
And i’m desperately trying to find a reason
To forgive you for it all

I saw your life as a shadowplay
In a trance i was held by the shadowplay
In the spell of the shadowplay
From celtic illumination
I see the celtic illumination
The celtic

I never realized just how far we’d gone
I turned around and all that i saw was distance
Through an anger that burned everytime
That someone mentioned your name.
I should have noticed, should have read the signs
We could have talked it out if there was a problem
It wasn’t obvious then
But then it isn’t really obvious now

I saw your life as a shadowplay
In a trance i was held by the shadowplay
In the spell of the shadowplay
From celtic illumination
I see the celtic illumination
The celtic

I could have changed i could have settled down
I could have been whatever you wanted me to be
If you gave me the chance
But it seems that it’s too late for that now
I thought i knew you thought we had it made
I’d thought it out, thought i had the answers
After all is said and done
The only thing i really know is your name.

I sit and wait for the shadowplay
Let me in into the world of the shadowplay
I’ll follow you to the shadowplay
Through celtic illumination
Give me the celtic illumination
Illumination.

(sorry about this but time is against me on this lyric and in order to get this sleeve printed in time for release you’ve only got half the lyric to ’shadowplay’. apologies to all of you who are
Cal afficionados, but if you would like a copy of the complete lyric, please send a stamped s.a.e. to the fish information service, address shown on the outer sleeve, and a copy will be sent by
N.) –fish

Album : Internal Exile

Credo

(dick/simmonds/boult/usher)

I watch the tv every night,
I stay awake by satellite,
I hope and pray the nightmares,
Stay away today.

An oily shroud on a coral reef,
A black cloud’s hanging over me.
When i hit on the remote,
The programmes stay the same.
Credo, credo, credo, credo.

An assegai slick with sweat and blood,
A shotgun barks at a rabid dog,
A shallow grave hugs a highway,
Beneath a bleaching sun.

Chorus:
Credo, credo, credo, credo,
It don’t mean nothin’; it don’t mean nothin’
It don’t mean nothin’; it don’t mean nothin’ to me.

When cancer sucks a young girl’s breast.
When a company chains a young man’s soul
When the coal dust stole
My grandad’s breath away.

(chorus)

A tattered tramp tacks a windy wynd,
To close a crowded circle a brazier’s light,
A man becomes a mountain, in the falling snow.
A mother screams and a baby cries.
The memory gone before the blood has dried.
A needle pricks the conscience,
To help it fade away.

(chorus)

The more you scream, the less you hear,
Or that’s how it used to be.
But i just can’t tell the difference
Anymore these days.
The open lips of an alter[1] boy,
A planet spins in a silent void,
The options are ever fewer
On the ground these days

(chorus)

[1] sic. is this supposed to be altar? this is how it appears on the lyric sheet.

Album : Internal Exile

Just Good Friends

(dick/usher/boult/simmonds)

There’s something i want to ask you
Before it’s too late,
It’s been on my mind since the first time we met
It scares me now more, now there’s more at stake,
It seems we’re so close yet so far away.

Could you turn me down gently would i
Be out of order,
If i declared my true feelings or do i
Act out the part,
Of the father confessor of the shoulder to cry on
We’re always so close yet so far away

Chorus: what would you do if i got down
On my knees to you
Would you hold it against me,
Would you stand in line?
What would you do if i
Opened my heart to you,
Would i be another who’s wasting his time,
Darling are we just good friends?

Do i really need to ask you
I’m sure that you know by now,
Do we just play a game where we try to pretend,
That all that’s between us is all that’s between us,
And all we can rely on is just being good friends.

(chorus)

So are we left to chance meetings,
Is that all we can depend on?
Resigned to raise glasses in anonymous cafes,
Reciting our failures as if we needed
Proof or regret,
Over what might have
And what should have been, darling, are we just good friends?

Album : Internal Exile

Favourite Stranger

(dick/usher)

Some times i feel i lost something
In gaining everything,
But i can’t put my finger on what it was,
It’s just one of those nagging feelings,
Like sitting with your back to an open door
Waiting on a favourite stranger.

I find it hard to talk about, its not easy
As you might expect
Just sitting here waiting, trying to accept
That there’s something missing,
That there’s something not quite there
And that’s why you’re sitting there.
Listening to me as i try to explain that

Chorus: you’re my favourite stranger
But don’t read between the lines,
I could say that i love you at this moment
In passing time,
But i could honestly tell you
I don’t know why i’m here,
Sharing all my problems with you
When you’ve already got your own share,
From favourite strangers.

Maybe it’s just i need an audience to
Pretend it’s all an act,
But all i gain is your confidence
And a number in a filofax
On the terms that it’s a first name
That’ll run one day in split champagne
And i’ll recollect and just accept
That you were one of my favourite strangers.

(chorus)

Sometimes i know i lost everything
In gaining something,
But i can’t put my finger on what it was
Its just one of those nagging feelings
Like sitting with your back to an open door,
Expecting favourite strangers.

Album : Internal Exile

Lucky

(dick/boult/simmonds)

He met the world as a dalkeith boy,
Raised from a shaft at monktonhall
In a well oiled cage,
That locked away his dreams,
An ‘85 veteran face from the gallery,
A ghost from the civil war in the family
He stood his ground on the picketline
’til all that he was left with
Were his father’s cough
And his mother’s eyes
That would hold a tear
For the very first time
When the government took his job away.
Now fist in hand he’ll stand in line
Declare his name and mark his time
To some the only proof that they’re alive

He could have been you
He could have been me
He could have been anybody
But he was born lucky

He made his first down payment
On a sharp italian suit
He sewed razor blades into the lapels,
See him sweating on the dance floor,
Cool dust oozing out of every pore
A hard man with a hard life,
And that’s a story that he’ll tell you
Down at easter road till his throat is raw
On a saturday, he knows the score
Till the whistle blows and,
The colours with their tempers fade away.

He could have been you
He could have been me
He could have been anybody
But he was born lucky

On the helipads at aberdeen,
Bound for platforms drilling oil rich seas,
Where the trawlers are getting fewer every year.
By the furnaces at ravenscraig,
By the padlocks holding john brown’s gates,
In the desert, in the fields of south armagh,
Where the poppies grow,
Behind the hampden roar,
Behind the drums in genoa.
On the deck that rides a south atlantic swell,
Born to figh tout of the tightest corner.
You can bet on him with the odds against you.
They’ll not put him down
No matter how they try.

Album : Internal Exile

Dear Friend

(dick/boult/simmonds)

Dear friend, it’s been a long, long while
I’ve been meaning to write you
But it was never my style
But what is these days now i’m a family man.

Do you blow sincere kisses to mistresses
Secrets in afternoons?
Do you wear your disguises, feign the surprises,
At the questions she asks when she dares to accuse?
Does your past lie under a dustsheet,
In the corner of a musty garage?
That’s where i keep mine, now i’m a family man.

Are your horses still running when
The bookies shop close?
Is the band still together, did you ever
Get on the road?
We chased the same women, we drank
The same beer.
We came as a pair when we ran around here
How are you these days, now you’re a family man?

Buy a drink for the boy in my place
At the end of the bar
Give my regards to nina, slam a tequila,
I’ll write you at christmas or i’ll send you a card,
And if you pass by you’re welcome to drop in
And see me ‘cos it’s unlikely
I’ll be round your way, ‘cos i’m happy to be,
Where i am, living life as a family man

Do you still have your leathers,
Or did you give them away?
Do you still dream of joni and sidewalk cafes?
Is your norton still running, is the old man still alive?
Do you still get to dalkeith, is your rent still as high?
But i suppose you’ve a mortgage, now you’re a family man.

Dear friend, it’s been a long, long while
I’ve been meaning to write you,
But it was never my style.
But what is these days, now i’m a family man.

Album : Internal Exile

Tongues

(dick/simmonds/usher/boult)

If you really knew how i felt,
You wouldn’t need to be here asking
Those questions,
Those irritating questions, moving in metaphors,
Speaking in tongues.

Your gunboat diplomacy,
You accuse me of heresy, of being irreverent,
My opinions irrelevant, when i smile at your smiles,
When you’re speaking in tongues.

As we move to a stalemate,
You say a contract’s a contract
& this is unnegotiable,
I question your morality, you question my reality
You’re speaking in tongues

We are speaking in tongues,
Am i deaf because i cannot comprehend?
Though i try i just cannot understand.

Your entrenched opinions,
On the border of arrogance,
Dug in against the compromise.
A position indefensible, your actions illogical
You’re speaking in tongues

You swear contradictions
Your tedious monologues, wielding authority,
Demanding subservience, demanding
I make your sense.
Demanding speaking in tongues.

(dedicated to rupert perry, md emi uk)

Album : Internal Exile

Internal Exile

(dick/boult/simmonds)

I saw a blue umbrella in princes street gardens
Heading out west for the lothian road
An evening news stuffed deep in his pocket
Wrapped up in his problems to keep away the cold
Grierson’s spirit haunts the dockyards,
Where the only men working are on
Documentary crews,
Shooting film as the lines get longer,
As the seams run out, as the oil runs dry.

Chorus: hey there laddie, internal exile!
When will you realise we’ve got to let go?
Hey there lassie, internal exile!
When will you realise we’ve got to let go?

Starlings wheeling round georgian spires,
And the fires of grangemouth burn the skies.
A lion sleeps in a tenement close,
In a country that’s tired and deaf to his roar

(chorus)

They bury a wasteland deep in the wilderness
Poison the soil and reap the harvest,
Of blind indifference, greed and apathy
Sowed way back in our history
The fish are few the harbours empty
The keels now rot on our oil slicked shores
The sheep are gone, the farms deserted
We’re out of sight and we’re out of mind.

(chorus)

Like our fathers before us,
We’ve eyes for america.
Dream of a new life on foreign shores.
But wherever we go, we’ll always know,
That the land we stand on, is never our own.

(chorus)

Album : Internal Exile

Poet’s Moon

We haven’t lyrics of this song. Please, add
these lyrics for other users. Use ‘Correct’. Thanks to you.

Album : Internal Exile

Something In The Air

(speedy/keen)

Call out the instigators because there’s something in the air,
We got to get together sooner or later because the revolutions here,
And you know it’s right and you know that it’s right.
We have got to get it together.
We have got to get it toggether now
We’re together now.

Knock up the streets and houses because there’s something in the air,
We got to get together sooner or later ‘cos the revoluttions here
And you know it’s right and you know that it’s right
We have got to get it together
We have got to get it together now

Hand out the arms and ammo
We’re gonna blast our way through here
We’ve got to get together sooner or later becaue the revolutions here
And you know it’s right and you know that it’s right
We have got to get it together
We have got to get it together now
We have got to get it together now
Now, we’re together now, the revolutions here,
It’s here, the revolutions here now.

Album : Internal Exile

Pseudo Silk Kimono

Huddled in the safety of a pseudo silk kimono
Wearing bracelets of smoke, naked of understanding
Nicotine smears, long, long dried tears, invisible tears
Safe in my own words, learning from my own words
Cruel joke, cruel joke

Huddled in the safety of a pseudo silk kimono
A morning mare rides, in the starless shutters of my eyes
The spirit of a misplaced childhood is rising to speak his mind
To this orphan of heartbreak, disillusioned and scorned
A refugee, refugee

(safe in the sanctuary, safe)

Album : Misplaced Childhood

Kayleigh

Do you remember, chalk hearts melting on a playground wall?
Do you remember, dawn escapes from moonwashed college halls?
Do you remember, cherry blossom in the market square?
Do you remember, i thought it was confetti in our hair?
By the way didn’t i break your heart?
Please excuse me, i never meant to break your heart
So sorry i never meant to break your heart
But you broke mine

Kayleigh is it too late to say i’m sorry?
And kayleigh could we get it together again?
I can’t go on pretending that it came to a natural end
Kayleigh i never thought i’d miss you
And kayleigh i hoped that we’d always stay friends
We said our love would last forever
So how did it come to this bitter end?

Do you remember, barefoot on the lawn with shooting stars?
Do you remember, loving on the floor in belsize park?
Do you remember, dancing in stilletos in the snow?
Do you remember, you never understood i had to go?
By the way, didn’t i break your heart?
Please excuse me i never meant to break your heart
So sorry, i never meant to break your heart
But you broke mine

Kayleigh, i just want to say i’m sorry
But kayleigh i’m too scared to pick up the phone
To find you’ve found another lover to patch up our broken home
Kayleigh, i’m still trying to write that love song
Kayleigh it’s more important to me now you’re gone
Maybe it’ll prove that we were right
Or it will prove that i was wrong

Alternate lyrics from westwood one in concert

Do you remember chalk hearts melting on a playground wall?
Do you remember dawn escapes from moon-washed college halls?
Do you remember dreaming on the heath till after dark?
Do you remember loving on the floor in belsize park?
By the way, didn’t i break your heart?
Please excuse me, i never meant to break your heart.
So sorry, i never meant to break your heart
But you broke mine.
Kayleigh, we could have a garden.
Kayleigh, we could, damn it, just one more time.
We could mow the lawn on sundays, we could capture suntans from the breeze.
Kayleigh we promised it forever but kayleigh the secrets held on.
We could buy the house in heaven, we could always try and take us along again.
Do you remember blocked up lines and call from montreal?
Do you remember your mother asked me never to call?
Do you remember talking in the bedroom making plans?
Do you remember you told me i should join a band?
By the way, didn’t i break your heart?
Please excuse me, i never meant to break your heart.
So sorry, i never meant to break your heart
But you broke mine.
Kayleigh, we could have a garden.
Kayleigh we could work it just one more time.
We could mow the lawn on sundays, we could capture suntans from the breeze.
Kayleigh, it never worked out this time but kayleigh, we could promise again.
The problem seems to be the secrets, you could say it came to a natural end.

Album : Misplaced Childhood

Lavender

I was walking in the park dreaming of a spark
When i heard the sprinklers whisper,
Shimmer in the haze of summer lawns.
Then i heard the children singing,
They were running through the rainbows
They were singing a song for you
Well it seemed to be a song for you,
The one i wanted to write for you, for you.

Lavenders blue, dilly dilly, lavenders green
When i am king, dilly dilly, you will be queen
A penny for your thoughts my dear,
A penny for your thoughts my dear,
I.o.u. for your love, i.o.u. for your love.

Lavenders green, dilly dilly, lavenders blue
When you love me, dilly dilly, i will love you
A penny for your thoughts my dear,
A penny for your thoughts my dear,
I.o.u. for your love, i.o.u. for your love
For your love, for your love.

Album : Misplaced Childhood

Bitter Suite

1) brief encounter

A spider wanders aimlessly within the warmth of a shadow
Not the regal creature of border caves
But the poor, misguided directionless
Familiar of some obscure scottish poet

The mist crawls from the canal
Like some primordial phantom of romance
To curl, under a cascade of neon pollen
While i sit tied to the phone like an expectant father
Your carnation will rot in a vase

2) lost weekend

A train sleeps in a siding
The driver guzzles another can of lager
To wash away the memories of a friday night down at the club

She was a wallflower at sixteen
She’ll be a wallflower at thirty four
Her mother called her beautiful
Her daddy said "a whore".

3) blue angel

The sky was bible black in lyon
When i met the magdalene
She was paralysed in a streetlight
She refused to give her name

And a ring of violet bruises
They were pinned upon her arm
Two hundred francs for sanctuary and she led me by the hand
To a room of dancing shadows where all the heartache disappears
And from the glowing tongues of candles i heard her whisper in my ear
"j’entend ton coeur"
"j’entend ton coeur"
I can hear your heart
I can hear your heart
I can hear your heart

4) misplaced rendezvous

It’s getting late for scribbling and scratching on the paper
Something’s gonna give under this pressure
The cracks are already beginning to show
It’s too late
The weekend career girl never boarded the plane
They said this could never happen again
So wrong, so wrong

This time, it’s looking like another misplaced rendezvous
This time it seems to be another misplaced rendezvous with you
The parallel of you, you

5) windswept thumb

On the outskirts of nowhere
On the ringroad to somewhere
On the verge of indecision
I’ll always take the roundabout way
Waiting on the rain
For i was born with a habit
From a sign
The habit of a windswept thumb
And the sign of the rain
Rain on me!

Album : Misplaced Childhood

Heart Of Lothian

1) wide boy

Wide boys, wide boys, wide boys
Born with hearts of lothian
Wide boys, wide boys, born with hearts of lothian
Wide boys, we were wide boys, born with hearts of lothian
These hearts of lothian

It’s six o’clock in the tower blocks
The stalagmites of culture shock, (culture shock)
And the trippers of the light fantastic, bow down, hoe-down
Spray their pheremones on this perfume uniform

And anarchy smiles in the royal mile
And they’re waiting on the sly boys, fly-boys, wideboys
Rooting, tooting cowboys, lucky little ladies at the watering holes
They’ll score the friday night goals
I was born, with a heart of lothian
With a heart of lothian

2) curtain call

And the man from the magazine
Wants another shot of you all curled up
Cos you look like an actor in a movie shot
But you’re feeling like a wino in a parking lot
How did i get here anyway?
Do we really need a playback of the show?
Cos the wideboys want to head for the watering holes
Watering holes, water-holes

Let’s go

And the man in the mirror had sad eyes

Album : Misplaced Childhood

Waterhole (expresso Bongo)

When the taxis gather in mock solemnity.
Funeral hearses court the death of virginity,
Was it paradise lost or paradise found?
Did we gain respect or were we holding ground?
You had found true love, or so you believed
And the wideboys tattooed your hearts upon their sleeves.

So when you think it’s time to go,
When you think it’s time to go,
Don’t be surprised, the heroes never show.

And the patter merchants selling false impressions,
Tipping eyes at the waitress with american expressions,
Tie angels to the bar with sweet martini’s and their charms
They’re lying on every word and every arm
They’re turning down their noses to the best lines
And the cheap wines.
And the wideboys,
They wear their lovebites for their crimes.

So when you think it’s time to go,
When you think it’s time to go,
Don’t be surprised, the heroes never show.

Album : Misplaced Childhood

Lords Of The Backstage

A love song with no validity
Pretend you never meant that much to me
Numb, a valium child, bored by meaningless collisions
A lonely stretch of headlight, diamonds trapped in black ice
A mirror cracked among the white lines.

I just wanted you to be the first one
I just wanted you to be the first one
Ashes are burning, burning
Ashes are burning, burning.

A lifestyle with no simplicities
But i’m not asking for your sympathy
Talk, we never could talk, distanced by all that was between us.
A lord of the backstage, a creature of language,
I’m so far out and i’m too far in.

I just wanted you to be the first one
I just wanted you to be the first one
Bridges are burning, burning
Bridges are burning, burning
Now, now, now, now

Album : Misplaced Childhood

Blind Curve

1) vocal under a bloodlight

Last night you said i was cold, untouchable
A lonely piece of action from another town
I just want to be free, i’m happy to be lonely
Can’t you stay away?
Just leave me alone with my thoughts.
Just a runaway, just a runaway,
I’m saving myself.

2) passing strangers

Strung out below a necklace of carnival lights
Cold moan, held on the crest of the night
I’m too tired to fight

So now we’re passing strangers, at single tables
Still trying to get over,
Still trying to write love songs for passing strangers
All those passing strangers.

And the twinkling lies, all those twinkling lies,
Sparkle with the wet ink on the paper.

3) mylo

Oh i remember toronto when mylo went down,
And we sat and cried on the phone
I never felt so alone,
He was the first of our own
Some of us go down in a blaze of obscurity
Some of us go down in a haze of publicity
The price of infamy, the edge of insanity

Another holiday inn, another temporary home,
And an interviewer threatened me with a microphone,
‘talk to me, won’t you tell me your stories.’

So i talked about conscience and i talked about pain
And he looked out the window and it started to rain
I thought maybe i’ve already gone crazy.
So i reached for a bottle and he reached for the door,
And i picked up the sleeping pills crushed on the floor
Inviting me to a casual obscenity.

4) perimeter walk

It would be incredible if we could
Retrace all the times that we lived here
All the collisions
Wasted, i’ve never been so wasted
I’ve never been this far out before

Perimeter walk.
There’s a presence here.
I feel could have been ancient,
I could have been mystical

There’s a presence,
A childhood, my childhood,
My childhood, childhood, a misplaced childhood,
My childhood, a misplaced childhood,
Give it back to me, give it back to me.
A childhood, that childhood, that childhood,
That childhood, that childhood
Oh please give it back to me.

5) threshold

I saw a war widow in a launderette,
Washing the memories from her husband’s clothes
She had medals pinned to a threadbare greatcoat
A lump in her throat with cemetery eyes

I see convoys curbcrawling west german autobahns
Trying to pick up a war
They’re going to even the score
Oh… i can’t take any more
I see black flags on factories,
Soup ladles poised on the lips of the poor
I see children with vacant stares,
Destined for rape in the alleyways
Does anybody care, i can’t take any more
Should we say goodbye? hey

I see priests, politicians
The heroes in black plastic body-bags under nations’ flags
I see children pleading with outstretched hands,
Drenched in napalm, this is no vietnam

I can’t take any more, should we say goodbye,
How can we justify?
They call us civilised…

Album : Misplaced Childhood

Childhood’s End?

And it was morning.
And i found myself mourning
For a childhood that i thought had disappeared
I looked out the window,
And i saw a magpie in the rainbow, the rain had gone
I’m not alone, i turned to the mirror,
I saw you, the child, that once loved
The child before they broke his heart,
Our heart, the heart that i believed was lost.

Hey you, surprised? more than surprised,
To find the answers to the questions,
Were always in your own eyes
Do you realize that you could’ve gone back to her?
But that would only be retraced in all the problems that you ever knew,
So untrue.
For she’s got to carry on with her life,
And you’ve got to carry on with yours

So i see it’s me, i can do anything
And i’m still the child,
’cause the only thing misplaced was direction
And i found direction
There is no childhood’s end
There is no childhood’s end
’cause you are my childhood friend
’cause you are my childhood friend
Oh lead me on.

Hey you, you’ve survived
Now you’ve arrived,
To be reborn in the shadow of the magpie
Now you realize, that you’ve got to get out of here
You’ve found the leading light of destiny,
Burning in the ashes of your memory
You want to change the world
You’d resigned yourself to die a broken rebel,
But that was looking backward
Now you’ve found the light.

You, the child that once loved,
The child before they broke his heart
Our heart, the heart that i believed was lost
So it’s me i see, i can do anything
I’m still the child
’cause the only thing misplaced was direction, and i found direction
There is no childhood’s end
There is no childhood’s end
There is no childhood’s end
I am your childhood friend
Oh.. lead me on.

Album : Misplaced Childhood

White Feather

When i hit the streets back in ‘81,
Found a heart in the gutter and a poet’s crown
I felt barbed-wire kisses and icicle tears,
Where have i been for all these years?

I saw political intrigue, political lies,
Gonna wipe those smiles of self-satisfaction from their eyes

I will wear your white feather
I will carry your white flag
I will swear i have no nation
But i’m proud to own my heart
I will wear your white feather
I will carry your white flag
I will swear i have no nation
But i’m proud to own my heart
My heart, this is my heart

We don’t need no uniforms, we have no disguise,
Divided we stand, together we’ll rise

We will wear your white feather
We will carry your white flag
We will swear we have no nations
But we’re proud to own our hearts
We will wear your white feather
We will carry your white flag
We will swear we have no nations
But we’re proud to own our hearts
These are our hearts
These are our hearts
You can’t take away our hearts
You can’t steal our hearts away

I can’t walk away
I can’t walk away
No more, no more, no more, no more…

Album : Misplaced Childhood

Lady Nina

You pick out your credit cards and check into the night
A dozen tequilas and you’re feeling alright
So you swim to the disco, out of your depth, jaded gigolo
Your lucky charms are tarnished so you leave alone
But there’s one place left to go before the taxi home
After all, you made your marks

One night you’ll play elizabeth taylor
The next night you’re marilyn monroe
Forever kissing frogs that think they’re princes
Oh lady nina, where did all the romance go?

Your little sister babysits, your husband picks you up at six
The make-up hides the bruises and the tears so they never show
’cause your beauty is the only thing you’ve ever owned
It’s the only way you’ve ever known to make your marks
You made your marks, you made your marks
We believe it’s for real

Lady nina, i’d love to take you home with me
But i love my wife and i love my family
I’ve got a good job, responsibilities
And i need to keep respect from society
I know you’ll never act with me, i know that you’re in love with me
So how do i compare to the sailors of the ships of the night?
Was i all right, did you come tonight, lady nina?
You made your marks, you made your marks

Ebony flowers pinned to a velvet cushion in a red light
And edith piaf sings a lullaby for the night
Just made your marks, just made your marks
Just made your marks, just made your marks

You made your marks

Ebony flowers pinned to a velvet cushion in a red light
And edith piaf sings a lullaby for the night
Just made your marks, just made your marks
You made your marks, and you made your marks
Just made your marks, and you made your marks
Just made your marks

Album : Misplaced Childhood

Freaks

Have you ever met a lady, screaming angst potential?
Have you ever dreamed of romance, no matter how experimental?
Have you ever felt an alien drifting back into your hometown?
Did you think you were buying safety
When you bought that piece of ground?

She said all the best freaks are here
She said all the best freaks are here, please stop staring at me
So i said all the best freaks are here
All the best freaks are here, please stop staring at me

Have you ever woke up, sweating in the middle of the night?
You search the darkness and you’re scrambling for the light
Have you ever walked down the street, heard bootsteps following you?
Don’t worry my son, you’ve got the spook squad looking after you

He said all the best freaks are here
He said all the best freaks are here, please stop staring at me
So i said all the best freaks are here
All the best freaks are here, please stop staring at me, stop staring at me

Airport terminal, patiently waiting on the last call
You feel the eyes burn the back of your head
Sign the autograph, get out of the picture, gonna have the last laugh
Feel the whispers as you head for the plane
Stop staring at me

Love and linen sheets seem so very far away
You save your pennies and you buy another day
But after all it’s only hide and seek, just another game
There’s so much fun to be had when you’re living with a name

All the best freaks are here, all the best freaks are here,
Please stop staring at me, all the best freaks are here
All the best freaks are here, please stop staring at me
Oh, stop staring at me, oh, stop staring at me

They said all the best freaks are here
All the best freaks are here, please stop staring at me
All the best freaks are here
All the best freaks are here, please stop staring at me

Album : Misplaced Childhood

Tumbledown

It’s just a matter of time a figure of speech that springs to mind throughout the day
As the minutes go by, a second thought, a moment lost, time ticks away
And everything changes, forever never lasts, no such thing as always,it’s all too soon the past.

Tumbledown, tumbledown, tumble, tumble, tumbledown.
Tumbledown, tumbledown, tumble, tumble, tumbledown.

Raingods with zippos, a tin man with a heart
An end with no beginning, a race without a start
That you’ll never win, that you cannot lose and you fall apart.

Tumbledown, tumbledown, tumble, tumble, tumbledown.
Tumbledown, tumbledown, tumble, tumble, tumbledown.

The tarot declares a motion made a finger traps an empty glass.

The needles begin to make their mark, you try to hide, you’re leaving tracks,

I dream of fire and water, dream of deserts, dream up plans,
Like mountains and castles they’re only grains of sand that

Tumbledown, tumbledown, tumble, tumble, tumbledown,
Tumbledown, tumbledown, tumble, tumble, tumbledown.

Raingods with zippos, a tin man’s bleeding heart,
An end with no beginning, a race without a start
That you’ll never win, that you cannot lose and you fall apart.

And tumbledown, tumbledown, tumble, tumble, tumbledown.
Tumbledown, tumbledown, tumble, tumble, tumbledown.

Dick, simmonds (fishy music ltd 1998)

Album : Raingods With Zippos

Mission Statement

I punched the clock in at 35, i thank the lord that i’m still alive, sometimes i find it hard to believe that my hearts still beating that i’m still on my feet,
I’m gonna give you, gonna give you a mission statement.

I’ve been in a downward spiral for a very long, long time, i’ve been stepping over dollars just to pick up a shiny dime,
The way i see it, it ain’t gonna work, i’m kissing the past goodbye,
I’m gonna give you, gonna give you a mission statement,

I got no more patience, got no more time,
I’m tired of following orders, sticking to the company line,

I want to change the world and i’m starting with myself,
A private revalation concerning everybody else,
We’re all just lonely people we’re all looking for some help,
Too busy crunching numbers and fighting for ourselves,
All it takes is kindness and a little love and care,
And this planet that we live on can be a heaven we can share, a mission statement.

The tears of hungry children are falling in the dust,
The scraps of a rich man’s table could fill their starving mouths,
While some they thirst for water others get drunk on wine,
To some their lives a prison and they’re out there doing time,
I’m gonna give you, give you a mission statement,

I got no more patience, i got no more time,
I’m tired of following orders, sticking to the company line

Dick, astley, thorn 1998. fishy music ltd., irs music, copyright control.

Album : Raingods With Zippos

Incomplete

We got 140 stations on satellite beaming on down to our home - but i’m watching you,
I’ve got half a million bills to pay, you never hear a word i say - i dream of you,

Oh i feel so incomplete, oh, oh, it seems so incomplete,
If we could only close the distance,
If we could only cross these lines,
If we could only fill the space that’s grown between us over time,

You don’t hear me anymore, you don’t touch me anymore, you don’t know me anymore.

There’s a wedding dress in a suitcase full of memories in the attic - i think of you,
Where the ghosts of summer butterflies they gather in the dust - i long for you,

Oh i feel so incomplete, oh, oh it seems so incomplete,
If we could only bring those days back when there were never wounds to heal,
When everything was perfect and the dream we had was real,

You don’t hear me anymore, you don’t touch me anymore, you don’t know me anymore.

Oh i feel so incomplete, oh, oh it seems so incomplete,
When there were never any questions over who or what we were,
And the future only promised all the answers to our prayers

You don’t hear me anymore, you don’t touch me anymore, you don’t know me anymore

Dick, antwi, millet

(fishy music ltd, rondor music publishing/marc sher, frontburner music/irs songs)

Album : Raingods With Zippos

Tilted Cross

There’s a message that’s been left in the long grass by a stranger who’s passed this way before,
Planted seed from which we reap a bitter harvest from his long forgotten war,

I left my love in a grave and i marked it with a cross that will stand so straight and true,
It’s not alone in the shade of the valley, they’re what remains of the ones we once knew,

Walk with me my child but tread softly on this earth,
Keep a close eye where your feet they touch the ground,
Watch out for the signs and heed what they say,
One false step and all is lost,
In the land of the tilted cross.

They lie beneath the needles of the forest, in the fields where only shadows dare to play,
Washed down from the slopes of the mountains in the spring when the snow melts away,

So be sure when you go on your journey, carry sticks, mark the place where they are found,
Make a cross and be sure that it’s tilted so that others don’t step on this ground.

I left my love in a grave and i marked it with a cross that stands so straight and true.

Album : Raingods With Zippos

Faith Healer

If your body’s feeling bad
It’s the only one you have
You want to take away the pain
Just go out walking in the rain
You watch the flowers go to bed
Just ask the man inside your head
Your spirit never has to grieve
All you’ve got to do is believe
The faith healer
The faith healer
All you’ve gotta do is feel
Your body’s gonna start to heal
The finger tips of holy fire
Ever lasting sweet desire
It never mattered what the doctor said
The healer man will sail away
It’s immortality for two
Oh the miricles they will come to you
From faith healer
The faith healer
Can i put my hands on you
Can i put my hands on you
The faith healer
The faith healer
Faith and hope and charity
The simple relativity
He can make you understand
All you’ve gotta do, you’ve gotta take his hand
The finger tips of holy fire
Ever lasting sweet desire
It never mattered what the doctor said
Listen to the man inside your head
The faith healer
The faith healer
Can i put my hands on you
Can i put my hands on you
Let me put my hands on you
Let me put my hands on you
Can i put my hands on you
Can i put my hands on you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you
The faith healer
The faith healer
The faith healer

(a. harvey/h. mckenna/a. cleminson)

Album : Raingods With Zippos

Rites Of Passage

With this right of passage, cruel twist of fate, with every turn of every card i never see,
Until it’s too late, the deed is done and leaves me wondering just where our love has gone
I cannot say in honest truth that i still trust all my feelings for you.

You knew that it was wrong,
You think that saying sorry is gonna make it seem alright,
Maybe in this song you will hear me for the first time
And you’ll start to see the light.

Living with you is like being parked on double yellow lines waiting to be towed away,
I’ll pay the fines and i’ll be back, but i’m running out of reasons to stay.

You knew that it was wrong,
You think that saying sorry is gonna make it seem alright,
Maybe in this song you will hear me for the first time
And you’ll start to see the light.

You knew that it was wrong,
You think that saying sorry is gonna make it seem alright,
Maybe in this song you will hear me for the first time
And you’ll start to see the light

With this right of passage i reclaim my heart,
I take my leave, as if on cue, i play no further part
In your self-penned dramas,
Where each stolen kiss
Just goes to prove that happy endings don’t exist.

Dick, simmonds. 1998 fishy music ltd

Album : Raingods With Zippos

Plague of Ghosts

1. Old Haunts

I found a home in the darkness,
Found a home in the drakness,
Found a home in the drakness,

Empty stomach empty head a body
fills a vacant bed

And the thunder rolls by,
and the rains come,
and the day’s gone
and I wonder where I am

Found a place in the darkness
found a home in the darkness,
In the drakness,
Home
In the darkness

A crowded room of passers by and in
The shadows strangers cry,
And the ghosts try to hide

When the rains come,
When the storms form,
When I wonder who I am
In the drakness,

Home

2. Digging deep
Digging deep in the drakness,
Digging it deep down
Deep down
Deep down
Digging it
Deep in the darkness,
Digging it deep,
Down deep
Down
Deep down,
Digging it
Deep in the drakness,
Digging it deep,
Down,
Down,
Down,
Down,
Digging it
Deep in the darkness,
Digging it down,
Deep down,
Deep,
Down deep,
Digginrowded room of passers by and in
The shadows strangers cry,
And the ghosts try to hide

When the rains come,
When the storms form,
When I wonder who I am
In the drakness,

Home

We wachted an insect stray to the edge of it’s world,
A lily pad streched over a green mirror
In which the ghost carp swirl like clouds before a storm.
This is the season of the rains,
This is incoming.

And when it came there was no cover,
No place to hide,
Vision blurred,
Hard to breathe,
trying hard to hold onto something that’s real.

Nothing left,
Nowhere to go,
No open road it’s washed away by swollen streams,
Carried of downriver with all my broken dreams

Digging deep in the drakness,
Digging it dg it

And when it came there was no cover,
No place to hide,
Vision blurred,
Hard to breathe,
trying hard to hold onto something that’s real.

Nothing left,
Nowhere to go,
No open road it’s washed away by swollen streams,
Carried of downriver with all my broken dreams

Digging deep in the drakness,
Digging it deep down
Deep down
Deep down
Digging it
Deep in the darkness,
Digging it deep,
Down deep
Down
Deep down,
Digging it
Deep in the drakness,
Digging it deep,
Down,
Down,
Down,
Down,
Digging it
Deep in the darkness,
Digging it down,
Deep down,
Deep,
Down deep,
Digging it

A thetered goat bleats from the corner of the graveyard
Where lizards hang motionless
as the angels of stone above them
their broken wings throwing long shadows into the grass
Where the scorpions hide.
The tigers are running out of the jueep down
Deep down
Deep down
Digging it
Deep in the darkness,
Digging it deep,
Down deep
Down
Deep down,
Digging it
Deep in the drakness,
Digging it deep,
Down,
Down,
Down,
Down,
Digging it
Deep in the darkness,
Digging it down,
Deep down,
Deep,
Down deep,
Digging it

In the end I was tired of being asked
If I could say that I was happy now,
As if you need me to convince you
That everything is ok.
Would you take me back?

Are you happy now?
You keep ngle

In the end I was tired of being asked
If I could say that I was happy now,
As if you need me to convince you
That everything is ok.
Would you take me back?

Are you happy now?
You keep asking
Am I happy now?
why can’t you tell me that i’m happy now?
Are you happy now?
Happy now?
Happy now?

Album : Raingods With Zippos

Script For A Jesters Tear

So here i am once more in the playground of the broken hearts
One more experience, one more entry in a diary, self-penned.
Yet another emotional suicide, overdosed on sentiment and pride
Too late to say i love you, too late to restage the play
Abandoning the relics in my playground of yesterday

I’m losing on the swings, i’m losing on the roundabouts
Too much, too soon, too far to go
Too late to play, the game is over

Yet another emotional suicide overdosed on sentiment and pride
I’m losing on the swings, i’m losing on the roundabouts
The game is over

Too late to say i love you, too late to restage the play
The game is over

I act the role in classic style
Of a martyr carved with a twisted smile
To bleed the lyric for this song
To write the rites to right my wrongs
An epitaph to a broken dream
To exorcise this silent scream
A scream that’s borne from sorrow

I never did write that love song
The words just never seemed to flow
Now sad in reflection
Did i gaze through perfection
And examine the shadows on the other side of morning
And examine the shadows on the other side of mourning
Promised wedding now a wake

The fool escaped from paradise will look over his shoulder and cry
Sit and chew on daffodils and struggle to answer why?
As you grow up and leave the playground
Where you kissed your prince and found your frog
Remember the jester that showed you tears,
The script for tears

So i’ll hold my peace forever when you wear your bridal gown
In the silence of my shame, the mute that sang the siren’s song
Has gone solo in the game, i’ve gone solo in the game
But the game is over

Can you still say you love me

Album : Script For A Jesters Tear

He Knows You Know

Light switch, yellow fever, crawling up your bathroom wall
Singing psychedelic praises to the depths of the china bowl
You’ve got venom in your stomach, you’ve got poison in your head
You should have listen to the priest at the
Confession when he offered you the sacred bread

He knows, you know, he knows, you know
He knows, you know, but he’s got problems

Fast feed, crystal fever, swarming through a fractured mind
Chilling needles freeze emotion, the blind shall lead the blind
You’ve got venom in your stomach, you’ve got poison in your head
When your conscience whispered, the vein lines stiffened
You were walking with the dead

He knows, you know, he knows, you know, he knows, you know
He’s got experience, he’s got experience, he knows you know
But he’s got problems, problems, problems

He knows… slash wrists, scarlet fever
Crawl under your bedroom door
Pumping arteries ooze their problems
Through the gap that the razor tore
You’ve got venom in your stomach
You’ve got poison in your head
You should have listened to your analyst’s
Questions when you lay on his leather bed

He knows, you know, he knows, you know
He knows, you know, but he’s got problems

Blank eyes, purple fever streaming through the frosted panes
You learned your lesson far too late from the links in a chemist chain
You’ve got venom in your stomach, you’ve got poison in your head
You should have stayed at home and talked
With father listen to the lies he fed

He knows, you know, he knows, you know
He knows, you know, but he’s got problems
He knows, you know, he knows, you know
He knows, you know he’s got experience
He’s got experience, he knows you know
He knows you know

Album : Script For A Jesters Tear

The Web

The rain auditions at my window, its symphony echoes in my womb
My gaze scans the walls of this apartment to rectify the confines of my tomb

I’m the cyclops in the tenement, i’m the soul without the cause,
Crying midst my rubber plants, ignoring beckoning doors,
Clippings from ancient newspapers lie scattered cross the floor
Stained by the wine from a shattered glass,
Meaningless words, yellowed by time,
Faded photos exposing pain, celluloid leeches bleeding my mind
Christ, you’ve finished playing hangman, you’ve cast the fateful dice
Advice, advice, advice me, this shroud will not suffice
And thus begins the web

Attempting to discard these clinging memories,
I only serve to wallow in our past
I fabricate the weave with my excuses,
It’s strands i hope and pray shall last
Oh please do last, oh please do last

The flytrap needs the insects, ivy caresses the wall
Needles make love to the junkies, the sirens seduce with their call
Confidence has deserted me, with you it has forsaken me
Confused and rejected, despised and alone,
I kiss isolation on its fevered brow
Security clutching me, obscurity threatening me
Christ, your reasons were so obvious as my friend have qualified
I only laughed away your tears, but even jesters cry, but even jesters cry

I realise i hold the key to freedom,
Oh i cannot let my life be ruled by threads
The time has come to make decisions, the changes have to be made

I realise i hold the key to freedom,
I cannot let my life be ruled by threads
The time has come to make decisions, the changes have to be made

Now i leave you, the past does have its say
You’re all but forgotten a mote in my heart
Decisions have been made, they’ve been made, they’ve been made

Decisions have been made
I’ve conquered my fears, all my fears
The flaming shroud, the flaming shroud
Thus ends the web, the web, the web, the web, the web.

Album : Script For A Jesters Tear

Garden Party

Garden party held today, invites call the debs to play,
Social climbers polish ladders,
Wayward sons again have fathers,
"hello, dad!", "hello, dad!"
Edgy eggs and queuing cumbers,
Rudely wakened from their slumbers
Time has come again for slaughter on the lawns by still cam waters,
It’s a slaughter, it’s a slaughter

Champagne corks are firing at the sun again
Swooping swallows chased by violins again
Straafed by strauss
They sulk in crumbling eaves again, oh god not again!

Aperitifs consumed en masse display their owners on the grass
Couples loiter in the cloisters, social leeches quoting chaucer
Doctor’s son, a parson’s daughter where, why not and should they oughta
Please don’t lie upon the grass, unless accompanied by a fellow,
May i be so bold as to perhaps suggest othello, perhaps suggest othello

Punting on the cam is jolly fun they say
Beagling on the downs, oh please do come they say
Rugger is the tops, a game for men they say, they say, good god they say

I’m punting, i’m beagling, i’m wining, reclining, i’m rucking, i’m fucking, so welcome, it’s a party

Angie chalks another blue, mother smiles she did it too
Chitters chat and gossips lash, posers pose, pressmen flash, flash, [flash]

Smiles polluted with false charm, locking on to royal arms,
Society columns now ensured, returns to mingle with the crowds
Oh what a crowd

Oh, punting on the cam, oh please do come they say
Beagling on the downs, oh please so come they say
Garden party held today they say, oh please do come,
Oh please do come, they say.

Album : Script For A Jesters Tear

Chelsea Monday

Evening standard: late one!
Evening standard: late one!…

Catalogue princess, apprentice seductress
Hiding in her cellophane world in glitter town
Awaiting the prince in his white capri
Dynamic young tarzan courts the bedsit queen

She’s playing the actress in this bedroom scene
She’s learning her lines from glossy magazines
Stringing all her pearls from her childhood dreams
Auditioning for the leading role on the silver screen

Patience my tinsel angel, patience my perfumed child
One day they really love you, you’ll charm them with that smile
But for now it’s just another chelsea monday, chelsea monday.

Drifting with her incense in the labyrinth of london,
Playing games with faces in the neon wonderland
Perform to scattered shadows on the shattered cobbled aisles
Would she dare recite soliloquies at the risk of stark applause,
To chelsea monday

She’ll pray for endless sundays as she enters saffron sunsets
Conjure phantom lovers from the tattered shreds of dawn,
Fulfilled and yet forgotten the st. tropez mirage
Fragrant aphrodisiac, the withered tuberose,
Of chelsea monday, sweet chelsea monday

Patience my tinsel angel, patience my perfumed child
One day they really love you, you’ll charm them with that smile
But for now it’s just another chelsea monday, sweet chelsea monday

(spoken:) hello john, did you see the standard about four hours ago?
Fished a young chick out of the old father
Blond hair, blue eyes
She said she wanted to be an actress or something
Nobody knows where she came from, where she was going
Funny thing was she had a smile on her face
She was smiling
What a waste!

Catalogue princess, apprentice seductress
Buried in her cellophane world in glitter town,
Of chelsea monday

Album : Script For A Jesters Tear

Forgotten Sons

Armalite, street lights, night-sights
Searching the roofs for a sniper, viper, fighter
Death in the shadows he’ll maim you, wound you, he’ll kill you
For long-forgotten cause, on not so foreign shores
Boys baptised in wars

Morphine, chill stream, bad dream
Serving as numbers on dogtags, flak-rags, sandbags
Your girl has married your best friend, love’s end, poison pen
Your flesh will always creep, tossing turning sleep
The wounds that burn so deep

Your mother sits on the edge of the world
When the cameras start to roll
Panoramic viewpoints resurrect the killing fold
Your father drains another beer he’s one of the few that cares
Crawling behind a saracen’s hull
From the safety of his living room chair
Forgotten sons, forgotten sons, forgotten sons

And so i patrol in the valley of the shadow of the tricolor
I must fear evil for i am but mortal and mortals can only die
Asking questions, pleading answers from the nameless
Faceless watchers that stalk the carpeted corridors of whitehall
Who order desecration, mutilation, verbal masturbation
In their guarded bureaucratic wombs

Minister, minister care for your children, order them not
Into damnation to eliminate those who would trespass
Against you, for whose is the kingdom?
The power and the glory, forever and ever
Amen

Halt who goes there?

Death

Approach…. friend

You’re just another coffin on its way down the emerald aisle
Where the children’s stony glances mourn your death
In a terrorist’s smile
The bomber’s arm places fiery gifts on the supermarket shelves
Alleys sing with shrapnel, dance in a temporary hell

Forgotten sons

From the dole queue to the regiment a profession in a flash
But remember monday’s signings when from door to door you dash
On the news a nation mourns your unknown soldier count the cost
For a second you’ll be famous but labelled posthumous

Forgotten sons
Forgotten sons

Ring o’ roses, they all fall down
Peace on earth and mercy mild, mother brown has lost her child
Just another forgotten son

Album : Script For A Jesters Tear

Market Square Heroes

I found smog at the end of my rainbow
I found my thoughts shift slowly into phase
Declared the constitution of the walkways
I realised it’s time to plan the day, the day, the day, the day, the day, the day, the day

I’m a market square hero gathering the storms to troop
Cause i’m a market square hero speeding the beat of the street pulse
Are you following me, are you following me?
Well suffer my pretty warriors and follow me

I got a golden handshake that nearly broke my arm
I left the ranks of shuffling graveyard people
I got rust upon my hands from the padlocked factory gates
Silent chimneys provide our silent steeples

Cause i’m a market square hero gathering the storms to troop
Cause i’m a market square hero speeding the beat of the street pulse
Are you following me, are you following me?
Well suffer my pretty children and follow me, follow me

I am your antichrist (are you following me?)
Show me allegiance (are you following me?)
I am your antichrist (are you following me?)
Pledge to me defiance (are you following me?)
Suffer my pretty warriors (are you following me?)
Suffer my fallen child (are you following me?)
The time has come to conquer and i’ll provide your end.
We march.

I give peace signs when i wage war in the disco
I’m the warrior in the ultra violet haze
Armed with antisocial insecurity
I plan the path of destiny from this maze.

I’m the market square hero, i’m the market square hero
We are market square heroes, to be market square heroes

Album : Script For A Jesters Tear

Grendel

1) heorot’s plea and grendel’s awakening.

Midnight suns bid moors farewell, retreats from charging dusk,
Mountain echo, curfews bell, signal ending tasks
They place their faith in oaken doors, cower in candlelight
The panic seeps through bloodstained floors as grendel stalks the night

Earth rim walker seeks his meals
Prepare the funeral pyres
The shaper’s song no longer heal the fear
Within their eyes, [their eyes]

Wooden figures, pagan gods, stare blindly cross the sea
Appeal for help from ocean fogs, for saviour born of dreams
They know their lives are forfeit now, priestly head they bow in shame
They cannot face the trembling crowd that flinch in grendel’s name

Earth rim walker seeks his meals
Prepare the funeral pyres
The shaper’s song no longer heal the fear
Within their eyes, (their eyes)

As grendel leaves his mossy home beneath the stagnant mere
Along the forest path he roams to hrothgar’s hall so clear
He knows that victory is secured, his charm will testify
His claws will drip with mortal blood as moonbeams haunt the sky

Earth rim walker seeks his meals
Prepare the funeral pyres
The shaper’s song no longer heal the fear
Within their eyes, (their eyes)

2) grendel’s journey.

Silken membranes span his path, fingerprints in dew
Denizens of twilight lands humbly beg him through
Mother nature’s bastard child shunned by leaf and stream
As alien in an alien land seeks solace within dreams
The shaper’s lies his poisoned tongue malign with mocking harp
Beguiling queen her innocence offends his icy heart

3) lurker at the threshold.

Hounds freeze in silence bewitched by the reptile spell
Sulphurous essence pervades round the grassy dell
Heorot awaits him like lamb to the butcher’s knife
Stellular heavens ignore even children’s cries

Screams are his music, lightning his guide
Raping the darkness, d-d-death by his side

Chants rise in terror, free round the oaken beams
Flickering firelight portraying the grisly scene
Warriors advance, prepare for the nightmare foe
Futile their sacrifice as even their hearts must know

Heroes delusion, with feet in the grave
Lurker at the threshold, he cares not for the brave, he cares not for the brave

4) finale.

So you thought that your bolts and your locks would keep me out?
You should have known better after all this time
You’re gonna pay in blood for all your vicious slander
With your ugly pale skins and your putrid blue eyes
Why should i feel pity when you kill your own and feel no shame
God’s on my side, sure as hell, i’m gonna take no blame
I’m gonna take no blame, i’m gonna take no blame

So you say you believe in all of mother nature’s laws
You lust for gold with your sharpened knives
Oh when your hoards are gathered and your enemies left to rot
You pray with your bloodstained hands at the feet of our pagan gods

Then you try to place the killer’s blade in my hand
You call for justice and distort the truth
Well i’ve had enough of all your pretty pretty speeches
Receive your punishment, expose your throats to my righteous claws
And let the blood flow, and let the blood flow, flow, flow, flow.

Album : Script For A Jesters Tear

Charting The Single

Yeah!

Slow french kissing with the dauphin’s daughter
If i fall in love now i’ll be floating in seine
Plastered in paris i’ve had an eiffel
Gonna make my escape on the midnight train -
Choo, choo to you - choo, choo to you - charting the single

Schnapping my fingers on an alcoholiday
Sniff round a fraulein when i’m scent to cologne
All night hotel liebling make your mark
Let sugar daddy melt in his home
Sweet home
Home is where the heart lies,
Where is home, is where the heart lies, but where is home?

Get a pizza the action when i romeo again
Chianti see you with me, so just let him wine
Juliet on the balcony, it’s pasta serenade
Wedding rings, i know when venice time,
Venice time to chart the single, to chart the single

Charting the single, charting the single

The chicks are getting cheaper on the not so common market
Stockpile experience before the blond hairs turn to grey,
Before the blond hairs turn to grey
I like to train, express myself in the universal language
Ego on my face in the nicest possible way
It’s absolutely the nicest possible way

Charting the single

I got no clause in my contract, got no shares in my name
I’m just charting the single in a bachelor’s game, charting the single
It’s a solo performance on a one way street
You’ll never have the chance again and never again we’ll meet
Charting, charting, charting, charting the single

Yeah, yeah, charting the single
Yeah, yeah, charting the single
Charting, ouh, charting, ouh charting, ouh, charting the single
Charting, charting, charting, i’m charting the single
Charting, charting, i’m charting the single
Charting, charting, charting, charting
Charting the single, charting the single

Home is where the heart lies, but if the heart lies,
Where is home, is where the heart lies, but where is home?
Where is home? - charting the single

Album : Script For A Jesters Tear

Three Boats Down From The Candy

Three boats down from the candy, vacant deckchairs on a floodlit beach
Three boats down from the candy, rollers coast invade the deepest sleep
Three boats down from the candy, carnal dancer let their senses preach

It’s a social disease, it’s the new moral cancer
Don’t think crying wolf will give you the answer

You ask for my love on the strength of a kiss
But can’t you just play for experience?
I’m a poet, i’m a poet, i’m a minstrel, i’m a minstrel, i don’t need your chains
Romance lies in ruin let debauchery reign, let it rain.

Wipe the tears from your eyes, wipe the sweat from your thighs
Don’t crawl to me with sentiment, my laughter drowns your cries
You’re a memory trapped on polaroid, a puppet drawn on celluloid
So drink the wine, confess your sin, just flotsam in a silent void

Three boats down from the candy, i’ll remember you
Three boats down from the candy, much too much to lose
Three boats down from the candy, those words were never true
Three boats down from the candy, i’ll remember you, i’ll remember you,
I’ll remember you

Album : Script For A Jesters Tear

Question

[moody blues, "question of balance"]
(justin hayward)

Why do we never get an answer
When we’re knocking at the door
With a thousand million questions
About hate and death and war?
‘cuz when we stop and look around us
There is nothing that we need
In a world of persecution
That is parting in its greed

Why do we never get an answer
When we’re knocking at the door?
Because the truth is hard to swallow
It’s like a wall of blood before…

It’s not the way that you say it when you do those things to me
It’s more the way that you mean it when you tell me what will be and when you stop and think about it
You won’t believe it’s true
That all the love you’ve been giving

Has all been meant for you i’m looking for someone to change my life
I’m looking for a miracle in my life
But if you could see what it’s done to me
To lose the love i knew
That safely leads me through…

Between the silence of the mountains and the crashing of the sea
There lies a land i once lived in
And she’s waiting there for me
But in the grey of the morning
My mind becomes confused
Between the dead, and the sleeping,
And the road that i must choose

I’m looking for someone to change my life
I’m looking for a miracle in my life
And if you could see what it’s done to me
To lose the love i knew
Could safely lead me to
The land that i once knew
The land as we grow old
The secrets of our soul

It’s not the way that you say it when you do those things to me
It’s more the way you really mean it when you tell me what will be

Why do we never get an answer
When we’re knocking at the door?
With a thousand million questions
About hate and death and war
But when we stop and look around us
There is nothing that we need
In a world of persecution
That is parting in its greed

Album : Songs From The Mirror

Boston Tea Party

[the sensational alex harvey band]
(alex harvey)

Chorus
Are you going to the party?
Are you going to the boston tea party?

Redcoats in the village
There’s fighting in the streets
The indians and the mountain men, well
They are talking when they meet
The king has said he’s gonna put a tax on tea
And that’s the reason you all americans drink coffee

Chorus

Fire in the mountains, flames upon the heath
And the president spits out the news
He’s biting on wooden teeth
The children of the colonies
Got a different tale to tell
I’m going down to the city
Tell my folks i’m doing well

Chorus

Bringing back the buffalo to the long prairie
Bringing back the fishes swimming in the sea
The children of the colonies
Got a different tale to tell
I’m going down to the city
Tell my folks i’m doing well

Chorus

Album : Songs From The Mirror

Fearless

[pink floyd, "meddle"]
(d. gilmour / n. mason / r. waters / r. wright)

You say the hill’s too steep to climb,
Climb it!
You say you’d like to see me try,
Climb it!
You pick the place and i’ll choose the time
And i’ll climb
The hill in my own way
Just wait a while, for the right day
And as i rise above the treeline and the clouds
I look down hear the sound of the things you said today

Fearlessly the idiot faced the crowd, smiling
Nothing waits, the magistrate turns ’round, frowning
I know the fool who wears the crown
Go down in your own way
And everyday is the right day
And as you rise above the fearlines in the frown
You look down
Hear the sound of the faces in the crowd

Album : Songs From The Mirror

Apeman

[the kinks]
(r. d. davies)

I think i’m sophisticated ’cause i’m living my life
Like a good homo sapiens
But all around me everybody’s multiplying and
They’re walking round like flies man
So i’m no better than the animals sitting
In the cages in the zoo
Cause compared to the flowers and the birds and the trees
I am an apeman.

I think i’m so educated and i’m so civilized
’cause i’m a strict vegetarian
But with the over-population and inflation and starvation
And the crazy politicians
I don’t feel safe in this world no more,
I don’t want to die in a nuclear war.
I want to sail away to a distant shore and make like an apeman.

I’m an apeman, i’m an ape, apeman, oh i’m an apeman
I’m a king kong man, i’m a voodo man, oh i’m an apeman
Cause compared to the sun that sits in the sky,
Compared to the clouds as they roll by,
Compared to the bugs and the spiders and flies i am an apeman.

In man’s evolution he’s created the city
And the motor traffic rumble.
But give me half a chance and i’d be taking off my clothes
And living in the jungle.
Cause the only time that i feel at ease
Is swinging up and down in the coconut trees.
Oh what a life of luxury to be like an apeman.

I’m an apeman, i’m an ape, apeman, oh i’m an apeman
I’m a king kong man, i’m a voodo man, oh i’m an apeman
I look out the window but i can’t see the sky,
The air pollution is a-fucking up my eyes,
I want to get out of this city alive and make like an apeman.

Oh come on and love me, be my apeman girl
And we’ll be so happy in my apeman world.

I’m an apeman, i’m an ape, apeman, oh i’m an apeman
I’m a king kong man, i’m a voodo man, oh i’m an apeman
I’ll be your tarzan, you’ll be my jane,
I’ll keep you warm and you’ll keep me sane,
We’ll sit in the trees and eat bananas all day, just like an apeman.

I’m an apeman, i’m an ape, apeman, oh i’m an apeman
I’m a king kong man, i’m a voodo man, oh i’m an apeman
I don’t feel safe in this world no more,
I don’t want to die in a nuclear war.
I want to sail away to a distant shore and make like an apeman.

Album : Songs From The Mirror

Hold Your Head Up

[argent, "all together now" and/or "hold your head up"]
(r. argent / c. white)

And if it’s bad
Don’t let it get you down, you can take it
And if it hurts
Don’t let them see you cry, you can take it

Chorus
Hold your head up, hold your head up
Hold your head up, hold your head high

And if they stare
Just let them burn their eyes on you moving
And if they shout
Don’t let them change a thing what you’re doing

Chorus

Album : Songs From The Mirror

Solo

[sandy denny, "who knows where the time goes …" ?]
(s. denny)

Good morning, good afternoon
And what have you got to say?
Well, i’m waiting, but i can’t stay long
It’s such a lovely day
There’s a time to be talking
And there’s a time when it’s no use
Right now i think the things you say
Are liable to confuse

I’ve just gone solo
Do you play solo
Ain’t life a solo?

What a wonderful way to live
She’s travelling all over the world
Why, the flame and all the golden
Opportunities unfurled
No time for the gent with the mulliner bently
And heaven knows what else
Why, he wouldn’t even stand a chance
With all his oilwells

She just went solo
Do you play solo
Ain’t life a solo

I’ve always lived in a maison
On the other side of the moon
I’ve always kept a unicorn
And i never sing out of tune
I could tell you that the grass
Is really greener on the other side of the hill
But i can’t communicate with you
And i guess i never will

We’ve all gone solo
We all play solo
Ain’t life a solo

Album : Songs From The Mirror

I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)

[genesis, "selling england by the pound"]
(t. banks / p. collins / p. gabriel / s. hackett / m. rutherford)

It’s one o’clock and time for lunch,
Dum-dee-dum-dee-dum-dum
When the sun beats down and i lie on the bench,
I can always hear them talk.

There’s always been ethel:
"jacob, wake up! you’ve got to tidy your room now."
And then mister lewis:
"isn’t it time that he was out on his own?"
Over the garden wall, two little lovebirds - cuckoo to you!
Keep them moving blades sharp…

I know what i like, and i like what i know;
Getting better in your wardrobe, stepping one beyond your show.
Sunday night, mr farmer called, said:
"listen son, you’re wasting your time; there’s a future for you
In the fire escape trade. come up to town!"
But i remebered a voice from the past;
"gambling only plays when you’re winning"
- i had to thank old miss mort for schooling a failure.
Keep them moving blades sharp…

I know what i like, and i like what i know;
Getting better in your wardrobe, stepping one beyond your show.

When the sun beats down and i lie on the bench,
I can always hear them talk.
Me, i’m just a lawnmower - you can tell me by the way i walk.

Album : Songs From The Mirror

Jeepster

You’re so sweet
You’re so fine
I want you all and everything
Just to be mine

`cos you’re my baby
`cos you’re my love
Girl i’m just a jeepster
For your love

Your slide so good
With bones so fair
You’ve got the universe
Reclining in your hair

Just like a car
You’re pleasing to behold
I’ll call you jaguar
If i may be so bold

The wild winds blow
Upon your frozen cheeks
The way you flip your hip
It always makes me weak

Your motivation
Is so sweet
Your vibrations
Are burning up my feet

Girl i’m just a jeepster
For your love
Girl i’m just a vampire
For your love

I’m gonna suck you.

Album : Songs From The Mirror

Five Years

[david bowie, "the rise and fall of ziggy stardust and the spiders from mars"]
(d. bowie)

Pushing through the market square
So many mothers sighing
News had just come over
We had five years left to cry in

News guy wept and told us
Earth was really dying
Cried so much his face was wet
Then i knew he was not lying

I heard telephones, opera house, favourite melodies
Saw boys and toys, electric irons, tvs
My brain hurt like a warehouse
It had no room to spare
I had to cram so many things to store
Everything in there

And all the fat-skinny people
And all the tall-short people
And all the nobody people
And all the somebody people
I never thought i’d need so many people

A girl my age went off her head
Hit some tiny children
If the black hadn’t a-pulled her off
I think she would have killed them

I saw a soldier with a broken arm
Fixed his stare to the wheels of a cadillac
A cop knelt and kiss the feet of a priest
And a queer threw up at the sight of that

I think i saw you in an ice-cream parlour
Drinking milk shakes cold and long
Smiling and waving and looking so fine
Don’t think you knew you were in this song

And it was cold and it rained
So i felt like an actor
And i thought of ma
And i wanted to get back there
Your face, your race, the way that you talk
I kiss you, you’re beautiful, i want you to walk

We got five years, stuck on my eyes
We got five years, what a surprise
We got five years, my brain hurts a lot
We got five years, that’s all we’ve got

Album : Songs From The Mirror

Mr 1470

Here i sit in my bones, on the bones upon the hill
Staring out at the wild, blue yonder
Digging deep, i’d found buttons in my pockets
Naked now my skin begins to crawl
I dream suits, i see suits
Looking back, was there ever such a moment
Immersed in mystery i was witnessing a crime
Digging deep i came across a murder
Among the roots of our spreading family tree
We learned to love, we learned to kill
We taught ourselves to rule the world
I dream suits, i see suits
Do you see suits, can you dream suits?

There i stood, face pressed against the window
I know his number, but i’ll never know his name
Behind the glass buried in the sockets
A recognition, my skin begins to crawl
We learned to love, we learned to kill
We taught ourselves to rule this world
But who’s the one we’re frightened of
We are the sons of 1470

The geese fly chevrons cross the night sky
Heading south, the hunters lead them on
Jets trail the hems of skirts of angels
A train threads along that very floor
So here we live in our bones, on the bones beneath the soil
Staring out, mortal in the darkness
Digging deep we try to find the answers
To all the questions that hatch within our skulls
We learned to love, we learned to kill
We taught ourselves to rule this world
For who’s the one we’re frightened of?
We are the son of 1470
I dream of suits. do you dream suits?

(dick/paterson/boult)

Album : Suits

Lady Let It Lie

You should have listened to what your mother said
You should have listened to what your father told you to do
But you always did just what you always wanted to do
Now you end up here singing in a gilded cage
And for half your life you were wishing you were half your age
Lady let it lie
It’s hard putting down your family roots when you’re living in
A mobile home, but there’s always blood even in a rolling stone
You squeezed me hard for the white collar dream
But you woke up to a tie dye lifestyle and its choking me
Lady let it lie

Chorus
All the boys want to be all the girls want to be all the boys
I don’t want to be me no more
All the boys want to be all the girls in this turnaround world
I don’t want to be me no more

They once said i was a rising star declaring me a bright contender
When it all worked out i was just a pretender
I could never disagree if you said you were dissatisfied
But why you got to take it out on a guy that tried

But surely there’s something left, something worth fighting for
Something out of all this mess that’s worth building on
Maybe we can start again, maybe give it one more try
Or do we just walk away, and maybe fade and die

Chorus
All the boys want to be all the girls want to be all the boys
I don’t want to be me no more
All the boys want to be all the girls in this turnaround world
I don’t want to be me no more
I don’t want to be me no more
Me no more

(dick/paton/cassidy)

Album : Suits

Emperor’s Song

What would you do if it all broke up
What would you do if the doors were shut
And the pearls are being eaten by the swine
What would you do when the worms don’t turn
There’s nothing left nowhere to run
And it’s looking slightly bleaker every day
Do you follow your heart, do you follow the drum
Do you follow the flag, do you shoulder the gun
Do you slow march off the edge with head held high
Do you do down gently without a fight
Do you take it on the chin and beg for more
When the sword is raised and the trumpet calls
You bow down, bow down, bow down to the emperor’s song

Did you believe in the post-war dream
Do you hate dealing with machines
And one’s picking up your prayer off the phone
You followed advice, you followed the work
You followed the rules, you gave it your lot
But a younger man’s just taken on your job
We’ve all got long term contracts with the man upstairs
But who’s picking up the options on our souls
When it’s one life firm and the deal is up
You bow down, bow down to the emperor’s song

What do you do when its all too much
When you’re out of luck and out of touch
And you can’t relate to anything they say
What you do when it gets too tough
When you want to say that enough’s enough
You want to walk away and just throw in the towel
Do you go with the grain, do you go with the tide
Do you go with the crowd, do you go for the ride
Do you hang on in until the bitter end
There’s a bandwagon leaving but it’s not for me
I’ve swallowed all the hooks and want no more
But when the lights are dimmed and the curtain calls
You bow down, bow down, to the emperor’s song

(dick/cassidy/boult)

Album : Suits

Fortunes Of War

Rosebuds scattered across the lawn like the squares at waterloo
With bayonets of thorns repelling small children in search of lost tennis balls
Imaginary cannonballs that were fired at the legs of galloping cavalry
Resting their dreams in the shade of the apple trees
Toy soldiers drunk on warm lemonade
And the children dream of glory and fortunes of war
Safe in bed with stories of fortunes of war, fortunes of war

As the sun sets low on these playing fields
An army returns bearing swords and shields
Dustbin lids and raspberry canes they’ll live to fight another day
For warriors medals, milk bottle tops
Battle flags fashioned from mother’s old table cloths
Bright colours run in the summer rain

Sometimes when they fall they will pretend that their hankie is a bandage to stop the bleeding
And imagine city streets and desert storms and foreign fields
There’s bullets flying, these are the fortunes of war

I heard a wheelchair whisper across a stale, stagnant gymnasium
Trailing an ivy league jacket like a matador
Through the jitterbug steps of the night before
I followed him down to the church parade
Where he makes his peace every armistice day
I watched him fade away, melt in the autumn rain

For sometimes when they fall they can’t pretend
That the hankie is a bandage that can’t stop the bleeding
They’re out in city streets and desert storms or foreign fields
With bullets flying, these are the fortunes of war
While their children dream of glory and fortunes of war
Safe in bed with stories and fortunes of war
Of uniforms and glory, fortunes of war, fortunes of war

(dick/cassidy/boult)

Album : Suits

Somebody Special

She’s got a photograph of david bowie
In a victorian hand made frame
Signed backstage by a roadie in his name
She’s got hemingway in her bedside table
And a pistol under a pillow beside her head
The bullets round her neck
She wants to wear suits
A cocktail waitress smokes gauloises blondes
She’s been taking tips from tables for too long
She drinks frozen stolichnaya
She likes powders from peru
She don’t like no one to tell her what to do

Chorus
She wants to be somebody, be somebody, be somebody, somebody special
She wants to be somebody, be somebody, be somebody, somebody special
She wants to wear suits

She’s got a nasty reputation as a cruel dude
She likes japanese movies, she likes chinese food
She’s got handmade patent leather shoes riding on her feet
She knows the lifestyle that she wants and she’s willing to compete

Chorus

She put her mind to the classroom but outside
She learned more from giving head
She gave her innocence to someone that she once considered a close friend
She gave her hand to the quarterback on loan to the local football team
He gave his world as security, his heart as deposit on the dream
But, she wants to wear suits

Chorus

She’s got a wedding ring
That’s cartier as far as you can tell
She threw it down the local wishing well
She’d lost it in the kitchen sink
Or in a desert motel room
The insurance claim just couldn’t come too soon

She wants to be somebody, be somebody, be somebody, somebody special
She wants to be somebody, be somebody, be somebody, somebody special
She’s somebody special
Do you want to be somebody special
Could you be somebody special
Somebody special

(dick/boult/paton)

Album : Suits

No Dummy

Me, i’m a nothin’ double zero trying to do something
Me, i’m a screwball, tired of being put down
Tired of being shot down
I’m gonna put some ink on the white sheets
Gonna put some blood on the white sheets
Me, i’m no dummy

Me, i wear colours bright and righteous
Serve them with honour
Me, i’m a weapon, a gun for hire teaching the lesson
Gonna be the guy in the white suit
Gonna get my hands on the white suit
Cos me, i’m no dummy

Ducking and diving, thieving and lying, scrounging and sciving, surviving
Ducking and diving, thieving and lying, scrounging and sciving
Ducking and diving, me no dummy just surviving

Me, i got muscle, no qualifications needed to hustle
Me, i’m a killer ready for the role of the serial killer
Gonna get my hands on the white suit
Ready for the fitting of the white suit
Cos me i’m no dummy

Ducking and diving, thieving and lying, scrounging and sciving, surviving
Ducking and diving, thieving and lying, scrounging and sciving

Ducking and diving, me no dummy just surviving
I am just surviving look at me no dummy

I’m gonna shoot down the shopping mall gonna get me a name
When they catch me all dressed up i’m gonna blow them away
I’m gonna blow them away

(dick/cassidy/boult)

Album : Suits

Pipeline

Waiting in my corner, waiting on the bell
I was coming off the ropes, i was going to give them hell
Now i’m waiting
Waiting on the lyric, waiting on the song
I know the muse is coming, i’m holding on
I’m waiting
Waiting on the chances, waiting on the breaks
Waiting on an opportunity that i could take
I’m still waiting

Chorus
And all the time i wonder why
Just what or who the hell i am
Where i’m at, where i’m from
Where i’m going, where i belong
Tell me where i’m coming from
Because i’m waiting in the pipeline

Waiting on a message, waiting on a sign
I was waiting on my holy grail to shine
Waiting with the crossword, waiting on reviews
Waiting on something or someone to give me a clue
I’m still waiting

Chorus
And all the time i wonder why
Just what or who the hell i am
Where i’m at, where i’m from
Where i’m going, where i belong
Why do you keep me waiting on
Because i’m waiting in the pipeline

If the carpet that i’m sitting on could fly
If the ring that’s on my finger was a sorcerer’s charm
If the cloak that i’m wearing could hide me away
I could wait for forever and a day
If the lady that i’m waiting on isn’t mine
Then the castles that i’m building are on shifting sands
If the dream that i’m chasing isn’t true
Then the light at the end of the tunnel is just a wrecker’s fire

Waiting in the pipeline, waiting on the silence
Waiting on the sound, waiting in the backstage
Waiting on the crowd, waiting
Waiting on the critic, waiting on the gong
Waiting on the dj to play my song
Play my song, i’m waiting

And all the time i wonder why
Just what or who the hell i am
Where i’m at, where i’m from
Where i’m going, where i belong
Tell me where i’m coming from
Because i’m waiting in the pipeline

Waiting in the pipeline, waiting in the pipeline waiting waiting

(dick/paton/boult)

Album : Suits

Jumpsuit City

All the way from bucharest your skin crawled on the way to hollywood
Through a whole in the wall
You saw the free world trading in bones
There’s a guardian angel at the window
Staring at the corner
She’s nowhere to go
She’s in the free world trading her bones

Chorus
But if your mother didn’t like it she don’t need to know
As long as your sending the money home
What happened to the body of the child she bore
Answers on a postcard from jumpsuit city

Sprayed by a moonbeam through the linden leaves
Cast in a shadow in anonymity
He found the free world and sucked on their bones
Performing for animals he’s dressed to thrill
High on a pedestal see the surgeon’s skill
He lets the free world feast on his bones

Chorus
Behind the curtains there’s a sanctuary
For the businessman and the refugee
This is the free world and they trade with their bones
A dead flower from a buttonhole
Lies in the gutter with a million souls
It’s the free world, and they’re only trading in bones

Chorus

(dick/boult/cassidy)

Album : Suits

Bandwagon

Bandwagon, it’s coming into town
To turn your life around
And take you to the places that you once
Could only dream of
They’ll be standing right there before your eyes
And the heroes that you worship
They’ll be riding with you, up there by their side
On the bandwagon, it’s rolling into town
Gathering the crowds to show them all the places that they once
Could only dream of and put them right before their very eyes
In the stories that they’re selling for some pennies and a little of our time
Well, well do i hear you say, i’m only dreaming
That i’m staring out the window letting all my life just pass me by
In my defence, listen to me i have never ever stopped believing
That there’s a better world out there waiting
And that all i have to do is hitch a ride on the bandwagon

It’s coming to my door
I’ve been on it before
And it took me to the places that i once
Could only dream of they were standing
Right there before my eyes
And i can tell you the stories for
Some pennies and a little of your time

Bandwagon its coming into town
To turn your life around
And take you to the places that you once
Could only dream of
They’ll be standing there before your eyes
And the heroes that you worship
They’ll be riding with you, up there by their side
On the bandwagon
Here it comes

(dick/paton/boult/usher/paterson/wilkinson)

Album : Suits

Raw Meat

-for andy field
Raw meat for the balcony
Another mugging in tin pan alley
Another heart of attack takes the centre stage
You might think i’m getting cynical
But after these years i can still pass the physical
Still got my corner, still got my edge

And the waitress takes an order for another round
As i try to blend my way into the crowd
The hunter of the autograph he wants my name
And i just can’t find the strength to turn him down

Raw meat for the balcony don’t get me wrong
I don’t need your sympathy, just lend me a needle and spare me a dime
Just a tear in the public eye
From laughing or crying it don’t mean that much to me
Some sort of reaction is all that i need
The cognac goes down better in the hotel room,
When you’re staring at the writing on the wall
Condemned by the critics who want to tear me down
When it’s just another lyric going for a song

We’re low on life on the highway in search of coin
Picking up the pennies from the road
Guided by direction in the wake of stars
We were driven by a dream that’s broken down
But the bandwagon’s parked up in another town
We hope tomorrow its heading out our way
To get us out the tunnel where we’ve paid our dues
With friends we buried there beyond the lights

Raw meat for the balcony
Is that all i am, is that all i’m going to be?
Raw meat for the balcony,
Nobody’s fool but mine, is that my destiny?

But if that bandwagon takes off for another town
And the suits that buy the wine don’t like my song
Though i’m playing to empty tables
Till the curtain falls
I’ll always find the strength to carry on
I’ll always have the strength to carry on
I’m raw meat!

(dick/paterson)

Album : Suits

Out Of My Mind

The girl that i’ve been dreaming of is stepping with another guy
On the dancefloor at the center of the room
And the record that they’re dancing to’s the one we used to dance to
I caught a smiling at the corner of her eye
It’s not getting any esier, it’s just getting harder
It’s not getting any easier as these months go by
…

Album : Suits

Black Canal

They’ll always find a place for you in the sidewalk cafes
No one ventures into the streets these days
Except strangers and those like me, looking for work
I noticed the smell when i got off the bus
And traced it down to a canal that ran
Right through the heart of the city
Like an open vein full of black rotten blood
A mirror surface broken only by the bubbles of gas
Escaping from the stagnating mess that lay on the bottom
Fuelled by the chemicals and effluent of the city
Which was fed, in turn, by the barges and the ships
That followed that line and created the waves across that
Surface to the dockside where they unloaded their holds,
The swarms of people clambering over them
I sat down in a cafe and i was holding my own
And minding my own business
And a voice spoke in my ears as if it recognized
That i was questioning the source of the smell

Have another beer boy, take it with a pinch of snuff
And my eyes were bedazzled, by the jewels in his silken cuff
And a voice rolled out from an ashen cloud from behind a long cigar
Son, you’ll never need to smell the black canal

It was as if he’d read my mind, as if he expected it
And, as the afternoon was wasted, i became aware
I was becoming wrapped up in his world
I became aware of the smell from the bouquet in his buttonhole

It was taking me away from the canal
And away from my questions
I was aware that the perfumes were all around us
And he sold me the city, well at least he tried to with all his stories

All the silks out of china
And all the satins out of spain
All the powders for your noses
Will keep the stench at bay

Have another beer boy, take it with a pinch of snuff
Your eyes will be bedazzled, by the jewels in my scented cuff
And a voice rolled out from an ashen cloud from behind a long cigar
Son, you’ll never need to smell this black canal

And my world was spinnin’, my head was awash
With this promises and his beer
And i looked up as he reached down
And snorted the flower in his buttonhole
He smiled and his eyes lied
I was staring at a suit with no soul

No matter how you wash them
How you scrub and bleach and boil
You’ll never get rid of the smell of the black canal
Of the black canal
Black canal
The black canal
The black canal
The black canal

(derek dick/foss paterson)

Album : Suits

The Perception Of Johnny Punter

Just another nigger, a spooky piece of white trash,
Just another jewboy, spic, mick, yid, raghead motherfucker living on the planet.

(usa version: just another wake up, a hostage of a sunrise,
Just another paranoid, victimised motherfucker living on the planet.)

Just before it kicks in

Just like a silver bullet,
Take a good look at yourself in the mirror and tell me that it’s worth it,
Said it’ll never happen, you said you’d never get caught out,
You settled in a habit, so now you’re mr fixit,
Just another alien, living on the planet,
Living on the planet, living on the planet.
It’s just one of those days when you know that something’s gonna happen.

Another betrayal, lose another friend,
You know you never need them, on your own until the bitter end.
Just another pick up, just another kill, someone else’s daughter, someone else’s girl,
Living on the planet.
We are in another world, living on the planet we are, we are,
And you know there’s some days when you feel that something’s gonna happen,
This is one of those days which you know that something’s gonna happen,
And something’s gonna happen.

Somedays you just wake up and you don’t have any real sense of direction, you just can’t find the will to get up and go through with it all, your next allotted 24 hour slice of destiny.
There’s just a bad vibe and rather than a world of opportunities, it’s full of threats and just too many negative variables.
I’d noticed these houses way up in the hills and i tried to imagine what it would have been like living up there isolated from the world, every night watching the fires crawl slowly down the val
And knowing that one night it was gonna be your turn for the visit.
I tried to imagine what it would have been like hiding in a cellar with your family and the fear hoping that when they do come, when the dogs don’t bark, and the silence is around you, you hope
They burn the whole house around your ears and they don’t discover you hiding in the cellar because you’ve got nowhere to go, and you know that one day that something’s gonna happen.
There’s one day, just one day.

Just another village burning in the hills,
I saw it on the tv, just another thrill,
Someone else’s problems, someone else’s grief,
Someone else’s children, living on the planet,
We are in another world living on the planet,
We are in another world living on the planet, we are, we are.

It’s just one of those places that never exist till you’ve been there,
It’s just one of those things that you never will see till you wake up,
And you know that somewhere there’s somebody that’s out there who thinks like you do.
And you hope that today is the day that it’s all gonna happen for you.
And you know there’s somedays when you feel that something’s gonna happen.
This is one of those days which you know that something’s gonna happen.

Album : Sunsets On Empire

Goldfish And Clowns

There are vampires in the park malgorzata ,
But i only hear the sound of dancing bears.
They’re shooting stars in warsaw malgorzata ,
Mawgojzeta do you care?

Do you believe that anything that i could say would sort your life out?
What’s the difference?
Could you trust anybody with your heart except yourself?
Well what’s the difference?

Between sunsets and dawn, kings, queens and pawns, goldfish and clowns.
Between what’s right and wrong can a love still grow strong,
What’s the difference?

There are werewolves in these streets malgorzata ,
But you only hear me howling at the moon
There’s betrayals in the tarot malgorzata a is it me, or is it you?

Do you believe that everything i say is really true?
Well, what’s the difference?
Don’t you think everything’s against us, that there’s much too much to lose
Well, what’s the difference?

Could you see everything i should have been and everything i could be,
What’s the difference, between sunsets and dawn, kings, queens and pawns, goldfish and clowns?
Between what’s right and wrong can a love still grow strong,
What’s the difference?
What is the difference?

There are vampires in the park malgorzata ,
But i only hear the sound of dancing bears
They’re shooting stars in warsaw malgorzata , malgorzata do you care?
I know you believe that everything will work out alright, what’s the difference?
But is it a love or is this a life i need?
That’s the difference.

Between sunsets and dawn, kings, queens and pawns,
What’s the difference?
Between goldfish and clowns can a love still be found
Well, what’s the difference? what is the difference?
Between playing away and playing at home
Well, what’s the difference? what is the difference?
What is the difference?
Between holding your own and holding her close? well what’s the difference? what is the difference? well what is the difference?
Between holding your own and holding it close? well, what is the difference?
That’s the difference, that’s the difference that is. between sunsets and dawns,
Kings, queens and pawns, goldfish and clowns

Album : Sunsets On Empire

Change Of Heart

Maybe it’s you or maybe it’s me, maybe it’s just the weather.
I just can’t decide i can’t make up my mind,
Tomorrow seems like forever.

It’s just a change of heart that’s all it is,
It’s just a change of heart that’s all it is,
I’m just falling apart, as a matter of fact that is all it is,
That’s all it is, that’s all it is. just a change of heart
That’s all it is.

Maybe it’s time, it’s maybe too late, i just can’t believe it’s over,
If you just walk away, turn your back on me now,
Tomorrow will be forever.

As the springtides shift the sands swelled by winter snow,
And the summer green melts to autumn gold.
I’m a man for every season but i live from day to day
Is that what you want? is that all you want?
Is that all it is?

At the end of the day please let me stay you know we belong together
I’ll promise you now as i promised you then,
Tomorrow will be forever

Album : Sunsets On Empire

What Colour Is God?

I was thinking about thinking about thinking about thinking i was thinking.
Contemplating situations and the visions blew my mind.
In the gutter i was crawling as the shells just kept on falling all around me.

(chorus): what colour is god? why can’t you tell me, can’t you tell me?
What colour is god? why can’t you tell me, can’t you tell me?
What colour is god? why can’t you tell me, can’t you tell me?

As the library was burning and the pages kept on turning back in history.
As the doorways they were full of refugees and lonely people staring at me, they were asking of me.
What colour is god?
What colour is god?
What colour is god?

No matter what i say or do, it never looks like making any difference.
Don’t keep on looking down at me as if i don’t exist as if i’m not here
Don’t focus all your anger and resentment that you have,
Don’t blame it on me, don’t blame it on me.

(chorus):

Black brother in an open sports car pulled over by suspicious officer,
Uniform man got a nervous partner,
Weapon was pulled from a shoulder holster.
White jogger see the roadside gangsta,
Heart beat just a little bit faster,
Rasta man speaking in the island patois,
Gonna give you the righteous answer.

Why can’t you tell me, can’t you tell me?
What colour is god?

(chorus):

No matter what i say or do it never looks like making any difference
Don’t focus all your anger and resentment that you have
Don’t blame it on me, don’t blame it on me

(chorus):

Please, please, please tell me.
Please, please, please tell me.
What colour is god?

Album : Sunsets On Empire

Tara

I want to be there in the morning, i want to wake up by your side.
If i can make it back i’ll be there, if i can catch the early flight.
I’ll bring you dragon’s teeth from silver beaches, shells from africa.
I’ll give you china dolls and silken shawls, orchids for your hair,
Treasures drowned in sunken galleons, jewels from desert caves when i get there.

We’ll see each other in the morning when the sun comes up
We’ll see each other in the morning when the sun comes up
In the morning

I’ll guard you from the monsters on the tv,
From the pirates in the corners of your dreams.
I’ll keep you from the cold and safe from trolls, from the bad men while you play.
I’ll hunt for crocodiles and snakes with smiles i’ll keep them
Far away from your innocence in all it’s wonder.

We’ll see each other in the morning when the sun comes up
We’ll see each other in the morning when the sun comes up
In the morning, in the morning, when the sun comes up

Album : Sunsets On Empire

Jungle Ride

The car finally burned out around three. the blue beacon of a silent patrol car threw new shadows into the street turning the window into a flickering monitor screen.
I’d seen the kids torch the vehicle before i left on a nightly surfing run to a cybersex site in chile. it wasn’t as if they were getting rid of prints, everyone knew it was them. they didn’t gi
Shit. they just wanted to see the flames, to throw a bit of light on a situation.
I looked up the hill at the spread of the estate. the streetlights glowed like campfires of an army on the eve of battle or fireflies trapped in the canopy of an immense jungle.
Jungle, young mental jungle,
Here in the jungle, in the jungle

Where men don’t cry and husbands lie and you never have to justify a kickin’.
When mates jump in to save your skin if a chib is ever pulled out in a square go.

Jungle ride, jungle ride tell me when it’s over.
Jungle ride, jungle ride tell me when it ends.
Oh here she comes round again, here she comes round again,
Here she comes round again, here she comes, here she comes.

The glazed eyes of porcelain clowns stare skywards at clouds of goldfish madly circling their own silent plastic worlds, high above the children who stuff ping pong balls like pills in the mouth
Slowly rotating heads.

Intentions true as the arrow’s flight
Wins a cuddly toy to while away an evening.
Outside this ring of light he’ll claim his prize,
She’ll sport lovebites just to prove to all he’s been there.

I crept along the edges of the parade, staying glued to the shadows where the dogs slept uneasily on their chains under the caravans.
I followed the drums and the pulsing light until i came across a clearing in the centre of which was the attraction.
And then i saw her, an angel in a chariot, her hair trailing behind her like the tail of a comet. and i knew that she was mine. i knew that we were destined to leave this place together. we didn
Long to this carnage and the knowledge of escape was the only thing keeping me sane.
But for now i could only watch and wait for this was an arena i dare not enter.

On the rim of the machine the animals had gathered.
Big cats at a waterhole waiting on the weak and wounded to stagger into their territory so they could exercise some violence and feed their starving reputations.
No climbdown in this standoff with the world.
They already know that they can never win the war but in this battle they’re gonna do some damage.
The pack will follow the stragglers into the dawn. young mental jungle.

Jungle ride, jungle ride tell me when it’s over
Jungle ride, jungle ride, tell me when it ends
Jungle ride, jungle ride, tell me when it ends
Here she comes round again, here she comes round again
Here she comes round again, here she comes, here she comes.

Album : Sunsets On Empire

Worm In A Bottle

When you’re down to the last skin
And the limelight splutters to darkness in the death of a zippo.
At the backstage door the last fan has long disappeared
With a plastic bag stuffed full of memories.
If only you’d signed them, if only to testify, if only to recognise that he existed.
That for a moment he stood there.
Side by side in the gutter on the hard cold shoulder of destiny.

You say never again this is the end and it’s all gonna change you’re determined this time.
Year after year you pretend it’s for real and it’s all gonna change you’re determined this time.
Well happy birthday to me!

When you’re the worm in the bottle.
You’re the last one to leave and there’s nowhere to go to.
And the minicab driver politely suggests you go home.
If you could only remember, just where that’s at,
Just where you been, just where it went wrong.
You’ll eventually find it.

When you’re down to the end line and they’re writing you up and writing you off and it feels just like an obituary.
You feel it’s all over. you want to drive on down to the beach
And just keep on swimming. but you’re still treading water.

Happy birthday!

Album : Sunsets On Empire

Brother 52

Doc: "tattoo shop"
Fish: "hi doc"
Doc: "hey fish, what are you doin’?"
Fish: "if you don’t mind, we’re gonna record this. is that cool?"
Doc: "oh that’s cooler ‘n hell. hell yeah, 52’s biggest dream man.
You know his biggest dream was, me and him go party with you."

On the trail of torn-out twisters, two angels on a mission came
Dust devils danced before them in the path of the hurricane.
On the road to oklahoma, through the flatlands from l.a.
From the shadows in the valley, from a country where the lizards play.
While they drove they kept the radio on, why don’t you singalong, singalong, singalong.

(chorus:) tattoo, tattoo, tattoo, tattoo, tattoo, tattoo, tattoo, tattoo brother 52
Tattoo, tattoo, tattoo, tattoo, tattoo, tattoo, tattoo, tattoo brother 52
I don’t think so.

A man stands behind his shadow, a man stands behind his words.
These men are together with family to defend their rights in another man’s world.
Most people stood against them, most people disagreed
With the need for all those weapons in our safe, secure society.
Paint the words and the pictures on another man’s skin
We are lover, warrior, magician kings.

(chorus):

Doc:"fuckin’ brilliant, man. ok, here’s what happened. 52 barred the door shut from the inside. a gunfight started on the front porch. 52 shot back. you know…they come into his home with
O he’s protecting himself. the guy inside the house blew his brains out. yeah, they made it look like he killed himself. but, no one believes he would, ’cause he’s not that kind of man. that’s a
Think, he wasn’t afraid of death. you know, he believed in something to die for, that’s what he did."
Some say he had it coming, others say he was sole to blame
But who says they’ve got the rights if any at all to blow the brothers away.
A man got a right to wonder, a man got a right to dream,
Without looking over his shoulder to choose the manner of the life he leads.
One man’s thoughts on another man’s skin
We are lover, warrior, magician kings.

(chorus):

Doc: "what they have done, was they’ve come in and murdered him, for his bombs and his ammunition. just like that waco texas or any of these other things, over here in the united states. an
That’s stockpiling firearms and ammunitions is a threat to the government, so the government wages war against us. they tortured him, he went out but i’m sure he stood up like he was supposed t
U know? they smashed all the rings shut on his fingers with a hammer. it was all an orchestrated plan, man. the more.. the closer i was getting to it.. to the truth, the more they got everybody
Ng at me as being the guy that pulled the trigger. and what they did when they killed 52, is they broke the whole family up.
That’s exactly what they wanted to do.
They wanted to break all of us up."

Album : Sunsets On Empire

Sunsets On Empire

And then it was over and we took our applause.
We passed the peace pipe and thought no more
About the scenes that were missing, about the lines we had crossed.
And we smiled at each other and knew that the moment was lost.

I let you snuff out the candles, i let you blow out the flame,
And i knew that this time it would never be the same.
The smiles you had wavered, tears welled in your eyes
And i looked and i knew that this magic it was only a sign
For sunsets on empire it was only a dream.
I knew that it was broken when i heard you scream
I know you can’t believe it. it meant nothing at all.
And we looked at each other and we smiled and the moment was gone.
Sunsets on empire is this really the end
Sunsets on empire left with a friend
Could have been a lover, could have been a wife
But when it comes right down to it all i want is a life,
Just a life.

You said it never mattered. you said it’s just a thrill.
You couldn’t beat it. another bitter pill.
It never was a habit. a one off just for sure.
You never really thought it out but i hoped that one time
That you’d come back for more.

Sunsets on empire that’s where i am
Sunsets on empire that’s all we have.
To face a new beginning when you’re so close to the end
And you looked at me gently and smiled,
Would you still be my friend?

You started to smile
Is this really the end?
Is this really the end?
Sunsets on empire
The sun sets on empire

Album : Sunsets On Empire

Say It With Flowers

We could talk for hours and we do about nothing,
And avoid talking about anything that could cause us problems,
That we couldn’t ignore, and have to talk about, to sort something out.
We got to keep talking, keep talking.

So we’re talking, and that’s something.
I’m really happy that we’re talking,
It’s sure to get us somewhere, make it better,
And then we’re sorted just as long as we keep talking
Everything’s gonna be alright.

I got secrets then you know that.
You’ve got secrets i want to know about.
But if you want to know what i know
That you know then, we got to start talking.
Let’s be honest. we can’t ignore it. keep talking.

When i look into your eyes i don’t know what to say to you,
When i’m standing face to face, i don’t know what to say to you,
They said say it with flowers so i said it with flowers.
I sent you short red roses, short red roses.
Everything’s gonna be alright.

We’ve been talking for hours, so have we got somewhere?
Can we say it’s all worked out, it’s all ok?
Let’s go to bed, i’m tired, to be honest.
I just want to go to sleep, i’m tired.
Let’s talk about it in the morning, let’s talk about it in the morning.
To be honest, i’m tired.
I’m tired.

Album : Sunsets On Empire

Do Not Walk Outside This Area

Welcome on board to those of you in transit en route from the horror
For most of you it’s morning but we’re really in the middle of the night,
Chasing the sun, chasing the sun.

Stay in your seats until the journey’s over, follow instructions
Your fear is in the luggage secured within the hold
Do not walk outside this area, do not walk outside this area.

Here in the cabin under constant pressure, a cargo religion
Stacked in a holding pattern above the killing fields.

Do not walk outside this area, do not walk outside this area,
Do not walk outside this area, do not walk outside this area,
Chasing the sun, chasing the sun.

Way down below there are trenches carved in the hillside
Shadows on contours
Dug in with orders to fight to the last man caught in a ceasefire.

Do not walk outside this area, do not walk outside this area,
Do not walk outside this area, do not walk outside this area,
Chasing the sun, chasing the sun.

Gentlemen the briefing is as follows. at this moment both sides have withdrawn to their original defensive positions and have agreed a temporary ceasefire. i must stress that a very fragile truc
Sts and the slightest incident of provocation would create an extremely explosive situation.

I know they stare at the heavens where i will parley with angels,
With god’s will, they will see me create another star
For my comrades in the darkness i will provide the light
With the souls of these unbelievers, i will create another star
I will create another star, i will create another star.

Chasing, we are chasing, chasing, we are chasing, chasing the sun
Do not walk outside, do not walk outside, chasing the sun.

Album : Sunsets On Empire

Angel Face

Are you ready for the rest of your life
Does your comforter provide
Are you ready to remain evermore in your world of ice
All your feelings locked inside
Are you a woman or just a mannequin
Does your heart beat like the rest
Do you ever feel like joining in with the human race
Or are you happier outside?
But now you’ve gone you’ve broke the spell
I’ve got no memories just a photograph
I’ve got the best there is of you
You’re just a devil with a pretty angel face
You’ve made your choice and thats ok
It never would have worked out anyway
I’ve got the best there is of you
You’re just a devil with a pretty angel face
Will you be ready in your later life
When your looks are on the wane
And you’re thinking of the ones and the scores that you left behind
As they come to haunt your mind
And when the twilight moment comes at last
And you have to face that nobody’s there to care
But now you’ve gone you’ve broke the spell
I’ve got no memories just a photograph
I’ve got the best there is of you
You’re just a devil with a pretty angel face
You’ve made your choice and thats ok
It never would have worked out anyway
I’ve got the best there is of you
You’re just a devil with a pretty angel face

(tony banks)

Album : unknown

Another Murder Of A Day

She dreams china white behind her eyes of china blue
Her future wrapped in velvet and her memories wrapped in warm cotton wool

And the coffee grounds
Are burying the hours that she killed
In another murder of a day

Her patience starts to crumble
Like a rock that turns to sand
And time breaks down to seconds
When you’re waiting on a man

She’s checking out the doorway while she’s checking out the guy
Whose drunk imagination is climbing up the ladder of her silk clad thigh

And the cigarettes
Are burning up the hours that she killed
In another murder of a day

Her patience starts to crumble
Like a rock that turns to sand
And time breaks down to seconds
When you’re waiting on a man

It seems so long since yesterday
The time goes by so slow
When you’re waiting on a man, waiting on a man to show

She shivers in a cold sweat that she’s trying to ignore
As she wraps her shaking fingers round the loose change by the phone
She needs him more than she’ll admit and more than others need to know,
She hopes the knots that tie her stomach are only butterflies
The time goes by so slow
When you’re waiting on a man, waiting on a man to show.

She prays that no one pays attention
As she punches out the call
As she fumbles with the number
That the panic still doesn’t show
She prays the lights stay green all night
She prays the traffic doesn’t slow
And the knots that tie her stomach are only butterflies

Only butterflies, fly by every day
While your waiting on a man, waiting on a man to show

There he stands behind the door
She reaches for her coat to go
And she wanders away in a dream
She wanders away to a dream

As she threads her way home through the neon washed alleyways
She flirts with the shadows and skirts round the victims
Of a night that’ll sleep through the day
That casts out its refugees and throws out its debris

She turns the key in a lock to a fairy tale world
That she guards with her ghosts of faithful familiars
Who attend to her shrine in a patchwork cathedral
Observing the ritual with silent compassion and prayers

On the candlelit edges of a tightening circle
She arranges the photographs faded and yellowing
Memories left of her friends and her family
Respectfully turned to the wall

She turns up the sound on a second hand radio
And drowns out the noise of the world that she lives in
Her conscience her witness her life is her courtroom
And the man she left waiting
Is waiting to murder a day

(written by tony banks and fish, from the 1991 album ’still’ by tony banks, virgin, tcv 2658)

Album : unknown

Flower Of Scotland

O flower of scotland
When will we see
Your like again,
That fought and died for
Your wee bit hill and glen
And stood against him
Proud edward’s army,
And sent him homeward
Tae think again.
The hills are bare now
And autumn leaves lie thick and still
O’er land that is lost now
Which those so dearly held
That stood against him
Proud edward’s army
And sent him homeward
Tae think again.
Those days are past now
And in the past they must remain
But we can still rise now
And be the nation again
That stood against him
Proud edward’s army
And sent him homeward,
Tae think again.
0 flower of scotland
When will we see
Your like again,
That fought and died for
Your wee bit hill and glen
And stood against him
Proud edward’s army,
And sent him homeward
Tae think again.

(trad)

Album : unknown

Chasing Miss Pretty

First of all i caught her reflection in the window of the pharmacy store,
There i was locked up in my pick-up in the rush hour on the delaware road
It must have been the scent of her perfume or the glimpse of that french lingerie
A product of my imagination, i blame it all on a hot summers day
Blame it all on a hot summers day, chasing miss pretty,

Chasing miss pretty, chasing miss pretty, chasing miss pretty.

I turned up the air-conditioning, nothing’s gonna cool me down,
I stared through the steamed up window and watched her glide away cross town,
I couldn’t let this vision escape me, couldn’t let her get too far out my reach,
I was throwing my life in the gutter along with the pick-up keys,
Along with the pick-up keys, chasing miss pretty, chasing miss pretty,

Chasing miss pretty, chasing miss pretty, chasing miss pretty.

I tell myself that this can’t be happening, i promised myself never again,
But when the chips are down and the lights go out i’m back here again,

Chasing miss pretty, chasing miss pretty, chasing miss pretty, chasing miss pretty.

I’ll promise her undying affection, promise everlasting love
I’ll buy her a ring for her finger , for this angel sent from heaven above,
The problem is i can’t seem to find her, it looks as if my true love is lost,
I’m standing alone with my heartache as my lady went and boarded the bus,
My lady’s gone and boarded the bus, chasing miss pretty, chasing miss pretty,

Chasing miss pretty, chasing miss pretty, chasing miss pretty, chasing miss pretty,

I’ve got to get me a doctor, i gotta get me some pills, i need a real cold shower,
I got to get my eyes off these girls, got to get my eyes of these girls,
I got to get my eyes off these girls, these girls, these girls, these girls,

Chasing miss pretty, chasing miss pretty, chasing miss pretty, chasing miss pretty.

Dick, bassett, braide 1998 (fishy music ltd., royal swirly/irs songs, perfect songs.)

Album : unknown

Institution Waltz

Raise your eyes to england’s skies, there’s more up there than butterflies
Alice smiles in chemical glow, "tea’s just about ready", she doesn’t want to know
The hatter laughs, he’s bought the rights
To the t-shirt of the movie of the terminal tonight
So take brittania by the hand and waltz her through this crumbling land
Kiss her apocalypse goodbye
Goodbye

I’ll have this last waltz with you, we’ll dance until the end
I’ll have this last waltz with you, until midnight chimes again
Round and round we go, round and round we go

I’ll have this last waltz with you, we’ll dance until the end
I’ll have this last waltz with you, until midnight chimes again
Round and round we go, round and round and round we go

Waves digest white cliffs of dover, a blindman looks for four-leafed clover
Canute cried an ocean’s tears, peter pan - well he’s showing all his years
The mortgage he and wendy planned
Down in never, never, never never, never, never never, never land

The madcap laughed, he knew the score with the owl and the pussycat
He fled the shore
In a leadlined, in the pea green boat
Fare thee well
Goodbye
Fare thee well

Album : unknown

Mr. Buttons

He works shifts, days in the factory, prints chips for foreign pc’s,
At night deep in his hideaway, steals out of the monitor screen,
Looking good mr buttons, so you should mr buttons.

He don’t have respect for authority, makes shadows in a rich man’s world,
Back doors are always available, no one ever gets hurt or killed,
Just a game mr buttons, feel no shame mr buttons

Simple break and entry, he never hangs about too long, in and out the money’s gone,
Always masks his exit, the systems always fail, he never leaves a trail.
A surfing highwayman making out the best he can.

Watch your back mr buttons, on your tracks mr buttons,
Watch your tail mr buttons, on your trail mr buttons.

He went down state penitentiary, locked him up threw away the key,
In time they gave him the library, access to the new pc…
Back on line mr buttons, doing fine mr buttons.

Simple break and entry, he never hangs about too long, in and out the money’s gone,
Always masks his exit, the systems always fail, he never leaves a trail,
Holding up the planet, a surfing highwayman, making out the best he can,
That’s mr buttons, mr buttons, mr buttons,

Holding up the planet, a surfing highwayman, moving money just for fun,
Oh mr buttons, mr buttons, mr buttons.

Written by dick/gardiner/sharp 1998

Published by fishy music ltd/ hit and run music publishing ltd/ little sharpster/irs songs

Album : unknown

Parting Of The Ways

It’s strange to find we’re almost strangers
As i turn to leave you now
I know there are dangers
You have believed in me
As i believed in you
But it’s not hard to see
In the end a man should do
What his heart tells him he must
And so i place my trust in the parting of the ways
The days that i have stood beside you
They are days that i could not forget if i tried to
But day has turned to night
Life’s changed for you and me
Who knows what’s wrong or right
We’ll agree to disagree
Now the time for talk has passed
And so we reach at last the parting of the ways
Now i need to find my own direction
Side by side we faced the world together
But nothing lasts forever
And so the story ends
More than pride’s dividing you and i now
And though we say goodbye now
At least we part as friends
It seems our future is decided
Now the fates dictate that you and i be divided
And though it’s hard to tell
Where we will go from here
You know i wish you well
Even though my course is clear
It’s no easy thing i do
To walk away from you at the parting of the ways
Though i need to find my own direction
You can bet i’ll never forget
The times we’ve come through
But now we come to
The parting of the ways

From ’spartacus’ - jeff wayne

Album : unknown

Plague Of Ghosts

(i) old haunts

I found a home in the darkness, found a home in the darkness, found a home in the darkness,
Empty stomach empty head a body fills a vacant bed,
And the thunder rolls by, and the rains come, and the days gone and i wonder where i am.

Found a place in the darkness, found a home in the darkness, in the darkness, home, in the darkness.

A crowded room of passers by and in the shadows strangers cry, and the ghosts try to hide,
When the rains come, when the storms form, when i wonder who i am in the darkness,
Home.

(ii) digging deep.

Digging deep in the darkness, digging it deep down deep down deep down digging it
Deep in the darkness, digging it deep, down deep, down, deep down digging it
Deep in the darkness, digging it deep, down, down, down, down, digging it
Deep in the darkness, digging it down, deep down, deep, down deep digging it

We watched an insect stray to the edge of it’s world, a lily pad stretched over a green mirror
In which the ghost carp swirl like clouds before a storm.
This is the season of the rains,
This is incoming.

And when it came their was no cover, no place to hide,
Vision blurred, hard to breathe, trying hard to hold onto something that’s real.
Nothing left, nowhere to go, no open road it’s washed away by swollen streams,
Carried off downriver with all my broken dreams.

Digging deep in the darkness, digging it deep, down deep down deep, deep, digging it
Deep in the darkness, digging it deep down, down, down, down digging it
Deep in the darkness, digging it deep, digging it digging it, digging it,
Deep in the darkness, digging it deep down, deep down, deep down, digging it.

A tethered goat bleats from the corner of the graveyard where the lizards hang motionless as the angels of stone above them, their broken wings throwing long shadows into the grass where the scorpions hide.
The tigers are running out of jungle.

In the end i was tired of being asked if i could say that i was happy now,
As if you need me to convince you that everything’s ok.
Would you take me back?

Digging deep in the darkness, digging it deep, down deep, down deep, deep digging it
Deep in the darkness, digging it deep, down, down, down, down, down, digging it,
Deep in the darkness, digging it deep, deep down, deep, deep, digging it,
Deep in the darkness, down, down, down, down, down, down digging it.

Are you happy now? you keep asking, asking am i happy now?
Why can’t you tell me that i’m happy now? are you happy now?
Happy now? happy now?

2. chocolate frogs

The bloated corpses of unsolved murders and old revolutions, pirouette and dance amongst the swirls and eddies in their final procession down the muddy river to the delta where they’re thrown up by the surf onto sterile beaches or are trapped in the roots of mangrove cathedrals of the islands that gather in the bay.

These are the first arrivals on this new horizon that will be coveted by strangers who will deposit themselves on these shores to build towers to the heavens. the storm will come and the rains will fall and remove their dreams and hopes once again to the waters that surround them. and while they pray the frogs will chant in the darkness

A heid full of chocolate frogs, a body full of rush, a pocketful of shrapnel and a skinfull of bush,
An eyefull of the future and a belly full of the past, how beautiful the present when you know it cannae last.

A tumblerful of voddie, two fingers in a glass, a handful of promises, a heart full of remorse,
Mindful of your manners when you’re brought down to your knees,
A heid full of chocolate frogs is all you gave to me,
That’s all you gave to me, that’s all you gave to me,

A spoonful of miracles a nostril full of dust a lung full of virginia the needs we have we must,
A pill to put your heart right a nose out for a deal for a heid full of chocolate frogs what can you give to me?
What did you give to me?
What did you give to me?
What did you give to me?

3- waving at stars.

You cracked up too soon before the punchline hit home and at the end of the joke did you notice that no-one was laughing with you.
You were out on your own,
Waving at trains, waving at cars, waving from bars, waving from aeroplanes,
Might as well be waving at stars,

You called out her name as the darkness hit home, raised up your zippo and opened the skies till the crowd melts away, at the end of the day, you ran out of light,
Praying for rain, praying for signs, praying for time, praying for endless night, might as well be wishing on stars

4. raingods dancing

Empty churches, empty pews, in the subway nothing moves and the static on the radio is drowning out the sound of raingod’s dancing,
Empty playgrounds, empty bars, i can’t remember how it was before the flood when all i had to do was recognise the love that’s trapped inside.

I gave it all, i took it back and in the end there’s nothing left except a shell surrounding emptiness and loneliness, a core of pain,
I see my pathway shining.

Raingods with zippo’s, a tinman hides a broken heart,
Raingods with zippo’s, he knows the flame has gone that soon he’ll fall apart,

So i lay me down to lie and with the rain my lullaby i drift away to dreamless sleep, leave behind a life that died, a victim of a plague of ghosts
I was wrapped up in my guilt buried deep within my memories, a shelter of self-pity that i know the rain will wash away, i sense the storm arriving.

Raingods with zippo’s, a tin man rusts away and slowly falls apart,
Raingods with zippo’s and all he leaves behind a bleeding broken heart.

(part ii) the wake -up call (make it happen)

In the end i found beginnings, not a vision, a wake up call,
Raised from the dead by a beating heart and at last i can see it all
And my eyes were opened to the darkness, in my hand a burning flame,
A spark of life to touch the fuse and blow these clouds away,
I can make it happen, if i want to,
Make it happen, if i try,
Forgive, forget, forever never means as much as it does today,
Make it happen, we can make it happen, we can make it happen.

When i wake up, will you be there? it can never be the same.
If we can take our lives slowly, step by step, we can be dancing in the rain,
We can make it happen, we can make it happen, make it happen,
Forgive, forget, forever means today, make it happen, we can make it happen,
We can make it happen, forgive, forget, forever means today,
Make it happen.

Plague of ghosts/chocolate frogs/ wishing on stars/raingods dancing including subsections written by derek w dick/tony turrell and mark daghorn 1998 copyright fishy music ltd

Album : unknown

Roadhouse Blues

Yeah

Keep your eyes on the road, your hands upon the wheel
Keep your eyes on the road, your hands upon the wheel
Yeah, we’re goin’ to the roadhouse
We’re gonna have a real good time

Yeah, back at the roadhouse they got some bungalows
Yeah, back at the roadhouse they got some bungalows
And that’s for the people
Who like to go down slow

Let it roll, baby, roll
Let it roll, baby, roll
Let it roll, baby, roll
Let it roll, all night long

Do it, honey, do it

You gotta roll, roll, roll
You gotta thrill my soul, all right
Roll, roll, roll, roll
Thrill my soul
You gotta beep a gunk a chucha
Honk konk konk
You gotta each you puna
Each ya bop a luba
Each yall bump a kechonk
Ease sum konk
Ya, ride

Ashen lady, ashen lady
Give up your vows, give up your vows
Save our city, save our city
Right now

Well, i woke up this morning, i got myself a beer
Well, i woke up this morning, and i got myself a beer
The future’s uncertain, and the end is always near

Let it roll, baby, roll
Let it roll, baby, roll
Let it roll, baby, roll
Let it roll, all night long

(densmore/morrison/krieger/manzarek)

Live versions appear on "just good friends" cd 2 and "toiling in the reeperbahn"

Album : unknown

Say It With Pride

The lion shall roar
We’ll walk through that door
Do it all
We say it with pride
The lion shall roar in the sun
Light up my eyes
A feeling that can’t be denied
A nation so small
We’re gonna walk tall in the sun
We’ll answer the call
Our hearts shall be beating as one
So we say it with pride
The lion shall roar in the sun
Say it with pride
Our hearts shall be beating as one
We say it with pride
Emotion is filling my eyes
Say it with pride
A feeling that can’t be denied
Hearts beat as one as the heat of the sun fills our eyes now
Weeks turn to days
As the moments keep slipping away
Say it with pride
We have faith on our side
Let us rise now
The world’s at our feet
And the glory’s a heart beat away
We say it with pride
The lion shall roar in the sun
Light up my eyes
A feeling that can’t be denied
A nation so small
We’re gonna walk tall in the sun
We’ll answer the call
Our hearts shall be beating as one
So we say it with pride
The lion shall roar in the sun
Say it with pride
Our hearts shall be beating as one
We say it with pride
Emotion is filling my eyes
Say it with pride
A feeling that can’t be denied
The lion shall roar
We’ll walk through that door
Do it all

’say it with pride’ - the scottish world cup squad and friends

Album : unknown

Scotland By Our Side

As we set out on this journey
Off to face the world’s best
The love of this small nation
Gives us strength to face the test
And if pride can bring us glory
We’ll be there, when it’s handed down,
We will never run or hide
We have scotland by our side.

Whether here in scotland
Or on a strangers shore
These aching pangs of longing
Only make us love her more
And to see those banners waving
How it makes us swell with pride
We’ll play the game with honour
We have scotland by our side
We have scotland by our side

So to france we march our army
We march in football’s name
Bathe in the sea of tartan
And watch it lift our game
And even if we falter
We’ll raise our banners high
We will never run or hide
We have scotland by our side
We have scotland by our side
We have scotland by our side

Album : unknown

A Gentleman’s Excuse Me

Do you still keep paper flowers in the bottom drawer with your belgian lace
Taking them out every year to watch the colors fade away?
Do you still believe in fairy tales, in battlements of shining castles
Safe from the dragons that lie beneath the hill?
Are you still a russian princess rescued by a gypsy dancer
To anyone who’ll listen is that a story you tell?
You live a life of fantasy, your diary romantic fiction.

Can’t you see it’s hard for me, can you see what i am trying to say?
It’s a gentleman’s excuse me so i’ll take on step to the side.
Can you get it in your head i’m tired of dancing?
For every one step forward we’re taking two steps back.
Can you get it in your head i’m tired of dancing?

I know you still like old fashioned waltzes
Your reflection in the mirror that you flirt with as you glide across the floor
But if i told you the music’s over would you want to hear
That your dance card is empty that there’s no-one really there?
Do you still believe in santa claus, that there’s a millionaire
Looking at your front door with a key to a life that you’d never understand?
All i have to offer is the love that i have, it’s freely given
You’ll see its value when you see what i’ve tried to say.

It’s a gentleman’s excuse me so i’ll take on step to the side.
Can you get it in your head i’m tired of dancing?
For every one step forward i’m taking two steps back.
Can you get it in your head that from this one step forward
There’s no turning back?
Can you get it in your head i’m tired of dancing?
We’re finished dancing.

Album : Vigil

Big Wedge

I found a new religion yesterday, i’d just cleared immigration jfk
A priest got in a cadillac, the shoe shine boy sang gospel
As god and his accountants drove away.
You’ll see him coast to coast on live tv, in a stadium
Rocked by satan just the night before
The collection from the faithful is tax free
It’ll pay for his presidential campaign and his yacht

And we all bow down, we bow down to the big wedge
And we’ll buy ourselves some heaven on earth
We sell our souls, sell our souls for big wedge
Are we selling out tomorrow for today?

A surgeon checks your plastic on the telephone
A casio concerto entertains you while you hold
Your credit rating’s good for a madonna or a bardot
A dali or a picasso for his wall.

You’re looking good, looking good with big wedge
Are you holding back tomorrow for today?
They’re driving in, driving in with big wedge
Are we selling out tomorrow for today?

You’ll sell the ground beneath your feet
You’ll sell your oil, you’ll sell your trees
You ideals and integrity your culture and your history
Your children into slavery to labour in their factories
Your mother and your family
You’ll sell the world eventually.
The imf and cia; there’s just no difference they’re all the same!
It just depends on what’s your point of view

America, america the big wedge
And they’re buying up your tomorrow with promises
The promises of big wedge and they’ll break them
Like your hearts another day
When you find out that you’ve left it just too late
And find that you’re the only one to blame
That you sold out your tomorrow for big wedge

Album : Vigil

Cliche

I’ve got a reputation of being a man with a gift of words
A romantic poetic type or so they say
But i find it hard to express the way i feel about you
Without getting involved with the old cliches.

In the old cliches, it’s the old cliches.

This song’s begun so many times but never
In a way that you wont consider to be an old cliche.
I want to say that i need you, i miss you when you’re away.
And how it seemed like fate - o here we go - the same old cliches.

It’s the same old cliches.

It’s not that i’m embarrassed or shy, well, you know me too well
But i want to make this song special in a way that you can tell.
That it’s solely for you and nobody else
For my best friend, my lover, when i need help - cliche - cliche?
Everything i want to say to you is wrapped up in an old cliche
I’d waited so long to find you, i’d been through the heartbreak and pain,
But of course you already know that cos you’ve been throught the same.
That’s why i’m trying to say with my deepest sincerity
That’s why i’m finding it comes down to the basic simplicities
The best way is with an old cliche
It’s simply the best way is with an old cliche
Always the best way is with an old cliche
I’ll leave it to the best way, it’s an old cliche
I love you.

Album : Vigil

Family Business

I heard a battle raging on the other side of the wall
I buried my head in a pillow and tried to ignore it all.
Every night when i hear you i dream of breaking down your door
An avenging knight in shining armour, to rescue you from it all.

From this family business, family business
How long does it stay, family business.
It’s nobody’s business, this family business,
But tell me how long it remains family business.

When i see you at the supermarket, sunglasses in the shade
Averting your eyes from those staring questions, how were those bruises made?
The children clutch tight to your legs, they’ve got so much they want to say
But daddy’s sitting home, drunk again so they bite their lips and pray
Cos daddy don’t like people poking in his private affairs
And if anyone asks from the social, well, you tripped and fell down the stairs.

It’s family business, keep it in the family business.
Can you tell me how long it remains family business?
It’s nobody’s business, this family business.
But tell me how long it should stay family business.

She’s waiting at the bus stop at the bottom of the hill
She know’s she’ll never catch it, she knows she never will.
The kids are all she lives for, she’s got nothing left to lose,
Nowhere to escape to, but she knows she’s got to move.
Cos when daddy tucks the kids in, it’s taking longer every night.

It’s family business, keep it in the family business.
Can you tell me how long it reamins family business?
It’s nobody’s business, this family business.
But tell me how long it should stay family business.

So i become an accessory and i don’t have an alibi
To the victim on my doorstep the only way i can justify.

It’s family business, family business.
How long do we keep it family business?

Album : Vigil

Jack And Jill

Me and my old lady we got a dream coming true
Me and my old lady just bought some room with a view
We kept our options open it was the only way we could deal
Living life on our own terms we took a house on the hill

But if it all comes tumbling down, a dream get broken
But souls stay sound, we can hold our heads high
And look back with no shame
With a conscience as clear as our ideals and aims
Cos where do you go at the end of the day
When your world comes tumbling down
Can you climb to your feet, wipe the tears from your eye
’cause its only the foot of a hill.

Some people take a mortgage down on memory lane
Hide their heads in the sand and hope their troubles go away
Detach themselves from living a life that they can never afford
Lock their hearts and their spirits behind heavy golden doors

But if it all comes tumbling down, a dream gets broken
But do your souls stay sound, can you hold your heads up
And look back with no shame?
With a conscience as clear as your ideals and aims
Where will you go at the end of the day
When your world comes tumbling down
Can you climb to your feet, wipe the tears from your eye?
Can you climb your way back up the hill?

Album : Vigil

State Of Mind

I don’t trust the government, i don’t trust alternatives.
It’s not that i’m paranoid, it’s just thats the way it is.
Every day i hear a little scream inside.
Every day i find it’s gettin louder.
I just want to reach out and touch someone,
’cause i find i need a friend in this dark hour.

We the people are gettin’ tired of your lies.
We the people now believe that it’s time.
We’re demanding our rights to the answers.
We’ll elect a president to a state of mind.

I trust in conspiracies, in the power of the military.
In this wilderness of mirrors here, not even my speech is free.
Every day i hear a little scream inside.
Everyday i find it’s gettin’ louder.
I just want to reach out and touch someone.
’cause i find i need a friend in this dark hour.

We the people want it straight for a change.
’cause we the people are gettin of your games.
If you insult us with cheap propaganda,
We’ll elect a president to a state of mind.

Every day i hear a little scream inside.
Every day i find it’s gettin louder.
I just want to reach out and touch someone,
’cause i find i need a friend in this dark hour.

When we the people have our backs to the wall,
Do we the people then assume control?
When it’s too late to stop our own execution,
When we’re faced with the final solution,
You can’t elect a dream revolution
When you’ve a bullet in the back of your mind.

It’s just a state of mind.

Album : Vigil

The Company

Where beggars take cheques and children steal credit cards
From the pockets of wrecks in the middle of the road.
I came to in my future and that was just yesterday,
Unsure of my past and that’s a knot in my gut.

You buy me a drink then you think that you’ve got the right
To crawl in my head and rifle my soul.
You tell me i’m free and want me to compromise
To sell out my dreams you say you’ll make it worthwhile.

Oh, boys would you drink to me now
Here on the hill, half way up, half way down

You tell me i’m drunk the you sit back and smug a while
Convinced that you’re right that you’re still in command of your senses.
I laugh at your superior attitude
Your insincere plattitudes make me throw up.

Oh, boys would you drink to me now
Here on the hill, half way up, half way down
Oh, boys would you drink to me now
Here on the hill, half way up, half way down
Oh for the company born to the company
Live for the company until i die.

The sooner you realise that i’m perfectly happy
If i’m left to decide the company i choose
The company i choose is solidly singular
Totally trustworthy, straight and sincere
Polished, experienced, witty and charming
So why don’t you push off, this company’s my own.

Oh, boys would you drink to me now
Here on the hill, half way up, half way down
Oh, boys would you drink to me now
Here on the hill, half way up, half way down
Oh for the company, dream of the company
Live for the company until i die.
Oh for the company, dream of the company
Drink to the company until we die
Until we die
Until we die.

Album : Vigil

The Voyeur (i Like To Watch)

Track down a satellite, beam in the action, life lies bleeding
Live in your living room, our senses on remote control overkill and overload.
>from lockerbie to lebanon’s getting closer every day
Hollywood to hungerford’s an impression away.

I like to watch implausible pledges of polite politicians.
I like to watch them even more than my video nasties.
I like to watch.

The bleeding of a bimbo, a backstabbing beauty queen
Titillating tabloids trigger off a wet dream into action
A fatal attraction, private lives are up for auction.
A cupboard full of skeletons are coming out to play.

I like to watch disasters in replay and rerun in slo mo.
I like to watch on the spot interviews kicking in front doors.
I like to watch.

To watch as my face is reflected in blank tv screens
The programmes are over, i like to pretend that that’s
Me up there making headlines, camera closeups
Catching my right side i don’t care if it’s only a moment
As long as it’s peaktime, just as long as all of
My friends and family see me, the world
Will know my name - come on down

I like to watch psychologists speculate, analysts analise.
I like to watch my methods and motives, the topic of talk shows.
I like to watch.
Switch off, turn on.

Album : Vigil

View From The Hill

You sit and think that everything is coming up roses
But you can’t see the weeds that entangle your feet.
You can’t see the wood for the trees cos the forest is burning
And you say it’s the smoke in your eyes that’s making you cry.

They sold you a view from the hill.
They told you that the view from the hill would be
Further than you’d ever seen before.
They sold you a view from the hill.
They sold you a view from the hill.

You were a dancer and a chancer, a poet and a fool
To the royalty of mayhem you were breaking all the rules.
Your decadence outstanding, your hopes flying high.
One eye looking over your shoulder, one on the hill.
You used to say you were scared of heights - you said you got dizzy.
You said you didn’t like your feet being to high off the ground,
But they said that up there you’d find the air would be clearer
Promised you more space to move and more room to breath.

They sold you a view from the hill.
They told you that the view from the hill would be
Further than you’d ever seen before.

You were holding out forever - thought they’d never turn your mind.
Your ideals they were higher than you ever could have climbed.
We thought that they couldn’t buy you - the price would be too high
That the riches there on offer they just wouldn’t turn your eyes.
But your conscience it was locked up in the prisons of your schemes
Your judgement it was blinded by your visions and your dreams
Praying and hoping that the view from the hill
Is wider than you’ve ever seen before.
For the view from the hill we held our heads so high (smell the roses)
All the loved ones that you lied to are strangers left behind.
All the ones that really mattered well you stood on as you climbed.
You were holding out forever for your fathers and your peers
Holding out for everyone that ever walked in here.
The edge was inside and you rode it all the way.
You were playing the games that you learned yesterday
Hanging around like a fool with a name
You are holding your place for the view, the view from the hill.

They sold you the view from the hill.
Look it all for a view from the hill
And you find the views no further than you’ve seen before.

They sold you the view from the hill.
And you stood and took it all from the view from the hill.
It’s simply coming up roses.

Album : Vigil

Vigil In A Wilderness Of Mirrors

Listen to me
Just hear me out
If i could have your attention
Just quieten down for a voice in the crowd
I get so confused and i don’t understand
I know you feel the same way you’ve always wanted to say
But you don’t get the chance
Just a voice in the crowd

I don’t know the score anymore
It’s not clear anymore
I can’t tell right from wrong anymore
I just don’t understand
I was sitting here thinking of exchanging a new world for old
Like changing the channels on tv
Or the dirt that we stand in to gold

When i was young
My father told me just bad guys die
At the time just a little white lie
It was one of the first but it hurt me the most
And the truth stung like tears in my eyes
That even the good guys must die
There’s no reasoning no crimes and i never knew why
Even now it still makes me cry

If there’s somebody up there, could they throw me down a line
Just a little helping hand, just a little understanding
Just some answers to the questions that surround me now
If there’s somebody up there, could they throw me down a line
Just a little guiding light to tell wrong from right
Just some answers to the questions that i’m asking you
I keep a vigil in a wilderness of mirrors
Where nothing here is ever what it seems
You stand so close but you never understand it
For all that we see is not all that it seems, am i blind?

And you sit there and talk revolution
But can you tell me just who’s in command?
When you tell me the forces we’re fighting
Then i’ll join you and gladly make plans
But for now only our t-shirts cry freedom
And our voices are gagged by our greed
Our minds are harnessed by knowledge
By the hill and the will to succeed
And if that’s not what you believe
Would you just let me know
I’m not standing alone
That i’m not just a voice in the crowd

If there’s somebody up there, could they throw me down a line
Just a little helping hand, just a little understanding
Just some answers to the questions that i’m asking you
If there’s somebody up there, just throw me down a line
Just a little guiding light to tell wrong from right
Just some answers to the questions that i’m asking you
I’ll keep a vigil in a wilderness of mirrors
Where nothing is exactly how it seems
You’re reaching out, you’re so close you can touch it
But it all disappears when it’s always so near
But one day we will find that we stand in the light
Until then i’ll keep a vigil in a wilderness of mirrors
Nothing here is ever what it seems
I’m scared to shout in case i draw attention from the powers
That preside over our minds and our lives
When they find what i want is the deadliest weapon, that is truth

Day by day it’s getting louder
And day by day it’s getting stronger
But when i can’t scream no more and i need reassurance,
I listen to the crowd

And the boy stood and stared at the hill
And the hill - it stared back

Album : Vigil

Whiplash

Hang a left, turn a right
We’re driving through the night
We’re on the road with fred
Anytime, anywhere but he’s sure to get you there
That’s the road with fred
With his foot right to the floor
There’s a corner coming on
Whiplash!

He’ll overtake anywhere he doesn’t really care
That’s the road with fred
Through rain and snow and fog
You sit and pray to god and place your faith in fred
You gotta close your eyes
So you never get surprised by whiplash!

Chew your nails right to the bone
You’re on the wrong side of the road
On the right side of fred
A collision coming on
You pray the brakes are gonna hold on the road with fred

The nut is loose behind the wheel
Hear that rubber squeal - whiplash!

Hang a left, turn a right
Driving through the night
On the road with fred
Anytime, anywhere he’s sure to get you there
On the road with fred
He’s got a mobile telephone
But you pray that no-one calls for whiplash

Album : Vigil

Vigil

Listen to me just hear me out, if i could have your attention
Just quieten down for a voice in the crowd.
I get so confused i don’t understand
I know you feel the same way you’ve always wanted to say
But you don’t get the chance, just a voice in the crowd.

I don’t know the score anymore; it’s not clear anymore
I can’t tell right from wrong anymore; i just don’t understand.
I was sitting here thinking of exchanging a new world for old
Like changing channels on the tv, or the dirt we stand in to gold.

When i was young, my father told me just the bad guys die
At the time just a little white lie
It was one of the first but it hurt me the most
And the truth stung like tears in my eye
That even the good guys must die
There’s no reasoning no crimes and i never knew why
Even now it still makes me cry.

If there’s somebody up there could they throw me down a line
Just a little helping hand just a little understanding
Just some answers to the questions that surround me now.
If there’s somebody up there could they throw me down a line
Just a little guiding light to tell wrong from right
Just some answers to the questions that i’m asking you
I keep a vigil in a wilderness of mirrors
Where nothing here is ever what it seems
You stand so close but you never understand it
For all that we see is not what it seems, am i blind?

And you sit there and talk revolution
But can you tell me just who’s in command?
When you tell me the forces we are fighting
Then i’ll gladly join and make plans
But for now only our t-shirts cry freedom
And our voices are gagged by our greed
Our minds are harnessed by knowledge
By the hill and the will to succeed
And if that’s not what you believe
Would you let me know i’m not standing alone
That i’m not just a voice in the crowd

If there’s somebody up there could they throw me down a line
Just a little helping hand just a little understanding
Just a little understanding to the questions that i’m asking you
If there’s somebody up there could they throw me down a line
Just a little guiding light to tell wrong from right
Just some answers to the questions that i’m asking you
I’ll keep a vigil in a wilderness of mirrors
Where nothing here is ever what it seems
I’m scared to shout in case i draw attention from the powers
That preside over our minds and our lives
When they find what i want is the deadliest weapon, that is truth
Day by day it’s getting louder
And day by day it’s getting stronger
But when i can’t scream no more and i need reassurance,
I listen to the crowd.

(and the boy stood, and stared at the hill. and the hill stared back)

Album : Vigil In A Wilderness Of Mirrors

Big Wedge

And we all bow down, we bow down to the big wedge
And we’ll buy ourselves some heaven on earth
We sell our souls, sell our souls for big wedge
Are we selling out tomorrow for today?

A surgeon checks your plastic on the telephone
A casio concerto entertains you while you hold
Your credit rating’s good for a madonna or a bardot
A dali or a picasso for his wall.

You’re looking good, looking good with big wedge
Are you holding back tomorrow for today?
They’re driving in, driving in with big wedge
Are we selling out tomorrow for today?

Album : Vigil In A Wilderness Of Mirrors

State Of Mind

We the people are gettin’ tired of your lies.
We the people now believe that it’s time.
We’re demanding our rights to the answers.
We’ll elect a president to a state of mind.

We the people want it straight for a change.
’cause we the people are gettin of your games.
If you insult us with cheap propaganda,
We’ll elect a president to a state of mind.

Every day i hear a little scream inside.
Every day i find it’s gettin louder.
I just want to reach out and touch someone,
’cause i find i need a friend in this dark hour.

It’s just a state of mind.

Album : Vigil In A Wilderness Of Mirrors

The Company

Oh, boys would you drink to me now
Here on the hill, half way up, half way down

Album : Vigil In A Wilderness Of Mirrors

A Gentleman’s Excuse Me

Album : Vigil In A Wilderness Of Mirrors

The Voyeur (i Like To Watch)

I like to watch implausible pledges of polite politicians.
I like to watch them even more than my video nasties.
I like to watch.

I like to watch disasters in replay and rerun in slo mo.
I like to watch on the spot interviews kicking in front doors.
I like to watch.

I like to watch psychologists speculate, analysts analise.
I like to watch my methods and motives, the topic of talk shows.
I like to watch.
Switch off, turn on.

Album : Vigil In A Wilderness Of Mirrors

Family Business

From this family business, family business
How long does it stay, family business.
It’s nobody’s business, this family business,
But tell me how long it remains family business.

So i become an accessory and i don’t have an alibi
To the victim on my doorstep the only way i can justify.

It’s family business, family business.
How long do we keep it family business?

Album : Vigil In A Wilderness Of Mirrors

View From The Hill

They sold you a view from the hill.
They told you that the view from the hill would be
Further than you’d ever seen before.
They sold you a view from the hill.
They sold you a view from the hill.

They sold you a view from the hill.
They told you that the view from the hill would be
Further than you’d ever seen before.

They sold you the view from the hill.
Look it all for a view from the hill
And you find the views no further than you’ve seen before.

They sold you the view from the hill.
And you stood and took it all from the view from the hill.
It’s simply coming up roses.

Album : Vigil In A Wilderness Of Mirrors

Cliche

I’ve got a reputation of being a man with a gift of words
A romantic poetic type or so they say
But i find it hard to express the way i feel about you
Without getting involved with the old cliches.

In the old cliches, it’s the old cliches.

It’s the same old cliches.

Album : Vigil In A Wilderness Of Mirrors

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 13th, 2008 at 11:30 pm and is filed under Lyrics Category F. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Fish lyrics

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