1. |
Starzecs
02:50
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When I first came over here from Poland
This town was as a paradise to me
The smell of chocolate was a joy to a small ten year-old boy
Spending hours gazing at that factory
Now that factory has gone the way of history
And in the faded photograph on my wall
Oh so much has changed, only my cobblers still remains
In the same place we have been since the war
I used to sit on the old Two Counties Stone with
One foot in Gloucestershire, one in Somerset
Shield my daughter from the cold, in this place that I call home
Proud to call myself an immigrant
The Dapps Hill flood it tried to sweep us off the High Street
But my family we didn’t down our tools
Here at fifty-one B, we have left our legacy
Like Horace Batchelor and his football pools
I want my daughter and granddaughter to grow up here
To be part of a strong community
To learn from our mistakes, fight the serpents and the snakes
As Saint Keyne did in the fifth century
Supermarkets, fast-food restaurants, café lattes
Meant they tore the old ironmongers down
Chain after chain, now every high street looks the same
And they’re stealing the heart of the town
But when times are tough and I feel like I’m broken
And hardship leaves me angry, sick and scared
I look over at you and at the soles of my shoes
And know there’s nothing that can’t be fixed or repaired
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2. |
Be Creative
04:18
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With all my savings, I bought this block of wood, now I can’t wait to make the thing talk
Today my bedroom tomorrow the world, strumming before I can walk
In this small town there’s a factory plant, no other signs on the road
But each time I pick up this six-string guitar, it’s like pulling the sword from the stone
Dad says, “Son, you need a proper career, something more conservative”.
And I shout that “I don’t just want to make a living, it’s far more important to live!”
Standing on twenty-year-old kitchen tiles, he’s shaking his head but somewhere in his eyes,
I swear I see more than a flicker of pride, as he holds onto my shoulders and says...
“Grab a pen and some paper and write ‘til it hurts
Whatever you do, it’ll need hard work
No one owes you a living in the real world
You’re just gonna have to be creative”
The ‘free’ school they built just a few miles away, turned out to be far too expensive
So my favourite teacher taught music to me, in my small town comprehensive
With her head in her hands she said “powers that be, tell me I can’t teach you how to play, they said ‘there’s too much music in your music lesson’ I can’t carry on this way”.
As she cleared out her desk I picked up my guitar, and the whole class just burst into song. “In a world of more testing and relentless assessment, you taught us not to fear being wrong.
They think poetry, painting, theatre and art are just hobbies to us but we reach for the stars, they may have full wallets but we have full hearts” and you stood in the doorway and said…
“Success, in this world has no reason or rhyme, do what makes you happy and you’ll do just fine, but if you don’t want to toe that old party line, you gonna have to be creative”
With all my savings got this block of wood, now I know just how to make it sing
I open the window as wide as I can, feeling the future rush in
To hell with the choices you tell me to make I’m ready to build my own track
My education will always be full of mistakes No curriculum can hold me back
And I’m gonna have to be creative, and I’m gonna blow this town today
I’m gonna have to be creative. And nothing’s gonna stand in my way
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3. |
Me and Maria
03:31
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Me and Maria, we meet at midnight
By the bus stop where we once carved our initials on the red plastic seat
We share a kiss that’s so discreet, if any people pass by here, it’s like I’m whispering in her ear, oh this is love
We take a walk down, to our hideout, in this park there’s a road above our heads, but we’re down here under Echo Bridge, singing songs and reading poetry, like Dead Poets Society, just sweet Maria and me, oh it’s love
The dirty river running next to us, and cars racing by overhead, are our perfect accompaniment, a clandestine soundtrack
Maria reads softly to me, poems in her perfect Polish, I don’t understand a word oh but I know this, there’s no going back no more
When Maria, is harmonizing, the sound it bounces off the curve of the concrete, and the echo sounds so sweet it clashes with her dark eyeliner, and that dark green army jacket that she wears all the time, oh this is love
Both her parents, have to go back, to the dirty running rivers of Gdansk, and we’re no good at making plans but there’s no way that’d we’d survive this, with a whole ocean between us, we could just run away and hide, and leave this all behind
And we can’t let this poetry so quickly turn prosaic, but there’s still so much left to say, so it all pours out in a flood. And I don’t care how much her parents earn or if that’s why they must go home, some parliamentary orders, my feelings have no borders, she’s not going back to Gdansk I’ll never let go of her hand, oh this is love
This town’s too small to contain us, but Maria never wavers, doesn’t care for being famous she just wants to make her mark
An immigrant without a home, just a notebook of half-written poems, we’re a river that just keeps on flowing, under bridges under stars.
Me and Maria, we leave at midnight
From the bus stop where we once carved our initials on the red plastic seat, we share a kiss and then we leave, if anyone comes looking for us, we’ll be long gone on the next bus, this is love. Oh, this is love.
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4. |
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When we first got off the bus, Maria looked at me and said “Wow, gosh”, then stared up at the skyscrapers, and down at free newspapers, that were littering the streets, and she took my hand and took a deep breath, and opened up our coffee flask and sat down on a bench.
Filled with luminous impatience just outside Victoria Station, and she said that being there reminded her of when we met. At a festival in Somerset, she came over and said that, I looked just as confused as she felt, drinking whisky and iced tea from a plastic water bottle, she said “God there’s such a lot of us things I really wanna see”, Allo Darlin’ clashed with Art Brut, She banged on and on about seeing The Fall. Oh the agony of choice left us paralysed so we missed it all. So when Maria looked up from that bench, all she saw was one giant tent, aware that this event was her life, finally getting started, And so far from home in Keynsham, there in Victoria Station, she said “It’s like we’ve got invitations but we always miss the party”
(And I said) Come on Maria, let’s paint this big old city
Every colour of the rainbow, we’ll make it so damn pretty
If we believe every tale we’re told,
Then these London streets are paved with gold
So we took the tube on every line, busked and sang No Woman No Cry and danced along in time with Bowie’s Changes. Wandering the trail of hidden waterways and rail tracks, rowing pedaloes in the Serpentine, feeling the wind on our backs, sneaking into Madame Butterfly and finding some binoculars, Maria cried as sleeping toffs missed the soaring melody that sank so deeply into her and me, ten-pin bowling, karaoke, kissing by Westminster Abbey, the knowledge of black cabbies and red double-decker buses, and sweet Maria gushes that “one day maybe we’ll ride on that big wheel. We’ll look down on the river and from up there even high-rises will look beautiful”. And sitting in a park, on the south side of the river, we picture our destiny somewhere far off in the future.
Right now we may be sitting in a rocket meant for children, rocking back and forth just to keep each other warm. But tomorrow this rusty rocket could propel us anywhere, and we will look down on eight million arms and legs below us, book ourselves a sell-out show and then we’ll be the ones inside that jazz club on the river, in Chelsea restaurants steak for dinner, spinning in that wheel, prosecco in our hands, backstage passes with the band, sing with oddballs kooks and hippies, reading Steinbeck in the chippy, We’ll make our Marx in Highgate, smell Columbia Road flowers, climb Crystal Palace dinosaurs we’ll sit and talk for hours. ‘Cos there’s nothing ugly here, there’s just possibility, we’ll get jobs in bookshops by day, and by night read poetry, and the audiences will get bigger ‘til we’re not missing the party at all. We are the party. We’re the ones in Time Out listings, never again will we miss things; museums, exhibitions, afternoon tea on the Strand, holding hands in Hyde Park, singing underneath the stars, oh it’ll all be ours, dancing in the dark, by the stalls in Borough Market.
And Maria’s taking pictures of the council high-rise tenements, for an exhibition, sometime and somewhere. She sees romance in rusty bikes and poetry in washing lines, rows and rows of wind-blown underwear.
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5. |
Priced Out
04:42
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As young professionals pour out of new coffee shops and bars
Talking loudly on their hands-free mobile phones
The estate agent looks out and says “Living here’s an investment”
But all we really want, is a home. He says “These flat whites are to die for! I assume you want to buy for the proximity to local artisans? And I’m sure you’ve heard the rumours, there’s a restaurant coming that just sells houmous, Now, let’s then guys let’s get down to brass tacks…”
We’re priced out, we’re priced out, we’re always priced out, today and always
Maria’s got a job earning minimum wage pay
Wearing a headset in a call centre, at least eight hours a day
I took a job driving a bus, it pays the bills but both of us
Have wandered off the map and lost our way
We’re existing in a fourth floor high rise overlooking different lives
On our balcony, t-shirts hang on the line
Outside the shattered glass front door, discarded beds old ironing boards
Like an installation that could win the Turner Prize
Nearly half our income goes to just paying the rent
To a hand we’ve never shaken, to a man we’ve never met
To save for a deposit here, it’s gonna take at least ten years
When the Waitrose van drives round the bend, you know the end is near
From our window without curtains, Maria’s flirting with the city
To the sound of next door’s screaming teenage daughters
She says “It’ll never knock me down, no matter how hard it hits me”
As she stares down at a high street lined with Porsches
‘Cos you might think it’s laudable to build more unaffordable flats
And turn us into five-per-cent Home Starters
But by storing wealth and profit and by keeping our hands off it
There’s no room left for the dreamers and the artists
So though we stand there defiant, wrecking balls they bust and boom
A sea of hard hats and hi-vis below
This utopian dream was just a big city scheme, designed in a boardroom
But all we ever wanted, was a place to call our home
‘Cos we’re struggling to cope in, this architects’ utopia
A designer’s dream of ‘good community’
It’s turned inwards upon itself, crumbling like MDF shelves
If you lived here you wouldn’t see the poetry
From the outside looking in, flat screen TV’s sell that dream
Holidays, water features and home cooking
And it’s all about “location” so long as you’ve got the means
The rest of us will never get a look-in
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6. |
So Dave Called
03:42
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So Dave called, asking where I was. Dave was my boss, and I should’ve been here at work. Sitting at my desk. Typing emails. Answering the phone. Doing spreadsheets. Occasionally popping to the photocopier, mainly to stretch my legs. Occasionally getting up to go to the toilet, or filling and re-filling my plastic cup from the water-cooler, waiting for a “water-cooler moment”, only to return to my desk with stories about the level of performance of the actual water-cooler.
Dave asked me where I was, and I told him I was at home. “I’ve got some catching up to do”, I said. Dave told me that was an invalid excuse. He’d started using words like ‘invalid’ to make himself feel more like my boss. He was new at this. And I made a joke that if I was old and frail, it would be an ‘invalid’ excuse. There was a pause. Dave didn’t laugh. Instead he said “Catching up on what? You need to get your ducks in a row. What have you got to catch up on, eh? Going forward. ” And so I told him.
“I feel pressure. The pressure to see and hear everything, Dave. For years now I have entertained aspirations of completeness. The world keeps making things, building things, creating works of art, paintings, film, TV and music that I fear I will never get to see, hear or experience. I am fatigued by the overwhelming absurdity of choice.
DVD’s, iPods, museums, galleries, radio, digital TV, digital radio, blogs, vlogs, magazines, fanzines, newspapers, books, apps, pamphlets, podcasts, all of it, all of it terrifies me.
And the lists of ‘must-sees, must-haves-simply-unmissables, if you only see one show this year make it this’. The music of Stravinsky, the albums of Jacques Brel, a round-the-world-trip starting in Venezuela, the intracacies of jazz, the bonus features on season three of The Wire, surfing, hang-gliding, the works of Dorothy Parker, Hillaire Belloc, or Engelbert Humperdinck. What if I never get round to any of these? My brain seizes up at the number of options laid before it, Dave, it really does. I have fallen behind, and I’m sure that if I just watch everything there is to watch, read everything there is to read and listen to everything there is to listen to – in my own language of course, I’m not insane- I will be a step closer to understanding the state of the universe and solving the question of why are we here? What’s the point of all this?
You know, I recently discovered that if I listened to my iPod in order, without shuffling, it would take me 3 weeks, 4 days, 6 hours and nineteen minutes. So I need at least a month off. Because people keep on making more and more stuff. In fact, I was wondering, if you in your new position of power could get in touch with whoever is in charge of cultural output, and tell them to please stop. Just for a while. Just until I’ve caught up. Just for a bit.
You know, Stephen Hawking never completed the Ultimate Theory of Everything and I’m convinced the mysteries of the observable universe can be unraveled by studying what we’ve accomplished so far. So please, Dave, please make a few calls. Do what you can. I’ve got some catching up to do.”
There was a pause, then Dave said “That’s an ‘invalid’ excuse. Huh. Very good. Just got that. Now, get into work or you’re fired”.
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7. |
Give Me My Job Back
02:35
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I don’t need your pity sir I don’t want cash
I only want one thing from you, give me my job back
Think me stupid if you wish sir, call me green blue red
There’s one thing I know for sure, my family must be fed
I can see right through your window as you light up your cigars
And out there in the parking lot I see your flashy cars
I don’t need your riches I don’t want your money
All I need’s my self-respect my pride and dignity
Cos my wife has seen me crying, banging my fists through the wall
My child’s birthday is arriving, and I can’t buy him nothing at all
You won’t know the pain I feel you won’t know what I mean
Til you have felt the shame of being replaced by a machine
My father tells me all the time, my boy you must be brave
That’s why I’m spending every day, sitting by his grave
Cos the bills fall upon my doorstep and I can’t pay a single one
Can’t kiss my wife without shaking, and I can’t bear to look at my son
I’ll keep talking til you listen and I’ll bend you ‘til you crack
Til you hand me back my right to live and give me my job back
No I don’t need your pity sir, I don’t want your cash
I only want one thing from you, give me my job back
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8. |
Was It You?
03:37
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I’m in a queue for train tickets the day after the election
And on the glass machine there’s something strange in my reflection
And I realize that it’s anger, brewing since the exit polls
A heady cocktail mix of sadness, desolation and dashed hopes
I turn round and see a couple that are holding hands and smiling
They look happy and content, like they have been for a while and
As they waltz on through the barrier, flashing their annual passes
I think “Don’t you care that last night you destroyed the working classes?”
‘Cos human rights are on the line. How can you seem completely fine?
The welfare state’s obliterated too.
You fell for right-wing propaganda, so wave goodbye to social handouts
Oh how the hell did this country turn blue?
Was it you? Was it you? The silent majority?
Was it you? Was it you? ‘Cos it truly wasn’t me.
Shame on you, I blame you, and if you’ve got a three-piece suit
It was probably you, it was you, it was you.
So in the café a barista serves a flat white to a guy
Who’s the antithesis of all the friends that I’ve accrued online
And based solely on his coffee choice and red-top tabloid paper
I think I know which box he crossed and his views on immigration
This government experiment, oh I thought that we would end this
‘Cos I believed my News Feed represented a consensus
I forgot about you people with small-town mentality
‘Cos mostly everyone I love and like in life agrees with me
The girl wearing the Versace dress, I bet you’d privatize the NHS
Anyone with their tie done up a bit too tight
You made me a judgmental bigot, but a briefcase makes you complicit
Oh the gloves are off, I’m ready for a fight
‘Cos the majority of you, from cashiers to shareholders
As the shelter doors close and there’s nowhere for the homeless
Still think that the poorest folk among us are all scroungers
Stuffing state handouts right down the front of our trousers
But though government began this unethical experiment
We’re the ones backing it, we’re the ones sharing it
What’s sympathy worth for the disenfranchised
Unless we open our hearts as well as our eyes?
So next time the plan is to engage more with my opposition
Win an argument with a stranger who doesn’t share my position
‘Cos unless I change a mind or two, it’s obvious to see
I’ll have to look at my reflection and say “It was me”
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9. |
Big Man On Campus
04:13
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It’s been a long, road, to the top
But it’s no accident, you don’t get where I am by good luck
I come from good Etonian stock
Please understand that I’ve got plans, now I’m the top dog…
Let’s start with prisons, I got it figured
They’ve been rehabilitating folks for far too long now
No second chances, they’re cattle ranches
I really think we should be milking this giant cash cow
Then let’s drain purses of doctors and the nurses
They can’t go around saving lives and making us pay
We need more powers, let’s give them longer hours
Then when they’re broken smoke ‘em out and swoop in to save the day
I’m no quitter; I’ve started so I’ll finish
Chop up the Human Rights Act, to make it more British
God I’m so strong and tough, Oh yeah I’m the big cheese
I’ve waited long enough, so get down on your knees
Walking tall, with all the answers, tucking into Fortnums hampers
Yeah I’m the Big Man on Campus
Now onto teachers, those whinging leeches
We don’t even need to train them for a PGCE
Sell to high bidders, then we’ll get rid of
Accountability to us and call schools ‘academies’
The so-called ‘needy’, well they’re just greedy
So I’ll slash billions from their welfare, all to stimulate growth
They’ve still got food banks, so where’s all my thanks?
They can keep eating or home heating, but they cannot have both
The motion’s tabled; let’s attack the disabled
‘That lot’ never vote for me, especially the poor
And all the others, demanding single mothers
I’ll take benefit payments away and hide them offshore
God I’m so strong and tough, Head honcho big kahuna, I’ve waited long enough, if you’re poor I’m gonna ruin ya, there’s no method in my madness, dance around you on the canvas, dominate you like Pete Sampras, yeah I’m the big man on campus
Close the borders to the migrants ‘cos all they do is scrounge
Be seen as European, but for God’s sake save the pound
Close every single library, ‘cos no-one needs to read
Lest we educate the masses and they take to the streets
But keep the fighter jets on standby, nuclear capability
Cos if your ratings drop then only a good war can set you free
When everybody hates you, that’s how to be a statesman, please
Put on a suit, do up your tie and sing God Save The Queen
To all newspapers, my friends in higher places
Don’t panic, ‘cos the tax breaks are never gonna stop
My darling media, don’t bite the hand that feeds ya
And that’s my little tip, to get to the top
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10. |
Get Connected
03:48
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I wake up I stretch and yawn and before I know it’s dawn I’ve got my phone in the palm of my hand, And in less than a minute, I signed two online petitions, saved the Orcas and I’ve stuck it to the man, I show no signs of moving, still ensconced under my duvet, Proving in the big machine a vital cog, Learn ‘bout Syria and Isis, the top ten movies of the ‘90’s, And seen someone stroke the tummy of hedgehog
But my curtains are still closed to the world
And there you are next to me, the most beautiful girl that I know
And I know. I should put down this pocket window…
That I scroll and swipe and text with
Do something unexpected
And just get connected to you
I just want to get connected to you
But those six novels by the bed remain defiantly unread, As your smartphone fills your head with dopamine, Raymond Carver gathers dust, as you try to keep in touch
With all those friends of yours you’ve never even seen, Neurotransmitters of elation, rise with each notification, Every one a confirmation you exist, Can’t afford to miss the zeitgeist, we are moths dtawn to a red light, Like a toddler pressing buttons in a lift
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11. |
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I’m at a dinner party tucking into the wine
Stuck in a conversation about Israel-Palestine
And I remember something Tony Benn said that should fit here just fine
“If there’s a God he’s not an estate agent”, I pretend that’s one of mine
After that big impression I’m now out of my depth and
There’s no going back to chit-chat, Haven’t got the guts to say,
“I don’t know enough about that”
Now there’s an online petition about boycotting Nestle
And I know that it’s bad but I don’t know in what way
Something about baby formula past its sell-by date
Or is it forcing kids to drink breastmilk for minimum wage?
So I add my name to the thousands, though I don’t know the facts
As I sit down with a cuppa and eat my Kit Kat
Yeah I’m sorry to say, “I don’t know enough about that”
Don’t know enough, don’t know enough about that
I know when I watch TV news on the Syrian crisis
I can’t finish the report without crying my eyes out
But before my tears are dry I’m back checking my status
Scrolling through photos of friends on exotic vacations
And after five minutes, I’m laughing at a video of a cat falling off a piano
Then I’m with my wife shopping for tools to build a shed
She needs drill bits and a hacksaw and wood chip for the bed
And the man in the shop ignores my wife and then instead
Directs all advice to me but I’ve no clue what he said
Something about “leaving the base some room to breathe”
So I nod along as my wife rolls her eyes and turns to leave
It would be easier to say “you should talk to her mate,
I don’t know enough about that”
I know a lot about all the things that I like
Every lyric of Bob Dylan ‘til he crashed his motorbike
I could write a thesis about every episode of Friday Night Lights
And I’ll always know my downstage left, from my stage right
But now you’re talking foreign spending and the Human Rights Act
And I listen but I’m missing that piano-falling cat
I just wish I could say, Don’t know enough about that
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12. |
I Am European
06:06
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When we left we hoped we’d get back to strawberries and cream teas
Back to when we all just left our back-doors open
But you took everything that we loved including feta cheese
Forty-eight-per-cent of our hearts are broken
Without the French we never sink into a proper kiss
So I haven't had too many of those lately
And though we've got Elgin Marbles you've got the Acropolis
And we lost the recipe for Danish pastry
No-one commentates like an excitable Icelandic
Every restaurant is now badly understaffed
A Brit wins Wimbledon each year now, but I just cannot stand it
Cos no-one's got legs quite like Steffi Graf
I'm wearing a jaunty beret, smoking Gitanes cigarettes, reading Kafka quoting Rilke watching Scandi-noir box sets, I am sorry I’m ashamed and I’m profoundly embarrassed ‘cos I am you, you are me, I am us, I am we, I'm a international human being, I am English, I'm a Brit, but if you want a name that fits, then I'm a European
There’s no croque-monsieur no more monsieur, all we’ve got is a sandwich
Adios, auf wiedersehn it won’t come back, And I miss words like ‘chou-fleur’ since you took away your language, Dzienkuje, danke, gracias and Tak
We’ve had to give Italy back the Roman Baths we bathed in, Had to say farewell to German Shepherd dogs, Without Switzerland and Liechtenstein we’ve run out of tax havens, And we mourn the loss of windmills, spliffs and clogs
So I’m wearing lederhosen, outside Buckingham Palace, wishing I was under the aurora borealis, I never said I was an expert and I’m so very embarrassed
Now we’re stuck here under cloudy skies, Under doctor’s orders
Eating endless steak and kidney pies, Gazing at our tighter borders
We forgot those Polish pilots in that 1940 summer, On our side during the great Battle of Britain, Now all the Poles have gone, no-one wants to be a plumber
And no-one built a house for us to sit in, To Prague and Bratislava and your small sweaty dancefloors, We owe you an apologetic thank you
How we miss your bargain-basement beers and long penis-shaped straws
Cos there’s nowhere here good enough for a stag-do
So hit the grand bazaar in Istanbul, cross Malmo-Copenhagen Bridge
Buy poetry along the Seine, raid Oktoberfest fridge
Turn up the Europop and dance like crazy to Kraftwerk
Hasselhoff and Haddaway and everything by Bjork
Throw three coins in the fountain all Italians probably pee in
When in Rome it feels like home inside the Coliseum
Buy local art in Montmartre and a joint in Amsterdam
If you ever go to Belgium, dress up like Jean Claude van Damme
‘Cos one day they’ll take it all away and we’ll miss it when it’s over
Gazing across the Channel from these old white cliffs of Dover.
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13. |
Friends On Benefits
04:09
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Remember when we sat up all night, trying to rewrite the works of Raymond Carver? And it was so much harder and it took longer than we planned, to turn his stories into songs, and we turned an opportunity missed into a chance to sing some early Taylor Swift?
And the way you stroked my burgeoning belly as we watched a cop show on the telly, knowing this was just one day of so many days ahead.
And “who cares if we waste this one cos there’ll be millions more like this to come”, free of guilt we let time tick on as my Dad slept on upstairs. Blissfully unaware of his wine cupboard being raided, oh those were the greatest days, you know?
‘We Could See The Smallest Things’, our unfinished concept album, was just scrunched up and discarded next to my striped-t-shirt and your black cardy. And what started as a dance to dad’s Frank Sinatra singles, ended up giving us tingles on the cold kitchen floor
Two bodies pressed together, quietly. As the record played ‘Come Fly With Me’, Outside Christmas lights far as the eye could see, do you remember that December night, Marie?
But gone’s all the Carver, the Sinatra, and the Swift
Cos five years on, now it’s all just come to this
We had so much to give then, Now we’re existing not living
We’ve turned into two friends on benefits,
We’ve turned into two friends on benefits.
Five Christmases later, you're crying into your calculator, wondering if it's fate or whether we made the wrong choice,
Money causes all this tension, now its too tight to even mention
Tax is taxing and there's no pension, when you're self employed
Trying to get by on credits of fifty quid a week
These years they run like rabbits but we barely even speak
I'm scanning supermarket yellow stickers for cheap meals
You search the shops and you compare buy one get one free deals.
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14. |
Time To Go Home
04:45
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Well, I’m standing at the bar ordering yet another beer, that I’ll drink half of then forget about, and then I’ll be back here, with more money in my hand, and a barman all too glad to take it
There’s a moment in a night out with the boys, and it is fleeting, and that moment is the moment I should grab my coat and leave, but before I know it I’m outside singing Daydream Believer, telling everyone I meet that I love them and I mean it
And if I could I would turn back the clock, To a few hours ago
Could’ve left things on a high note, but I always miss the boat
I never know, when it’s time to go home, Time to go home
Wedding reception’s going fine, although we only know the bride and groom, and every time you catch my eye I’m thinking of our hotel room, the complimentary tea, what movie’s on TV, the thickness of the walls
Then we make friends we’ll never see again, drink into oblivion, throw dancefloor shapes we should regret, but we’re so drunk we’ll soon forget, the name of our hotel oh it was all going so well, ‘til the Ceilidh dancing started and my Strip the Willow hell
At the festival my favourite band’s headlining the main stage, there are fireworks and unfurled flags, I feel half my age, I’m surrounded by great people, Got my top off for no reason, and a feeling that the night sky is my own star-studded ceiling
Yeah I’m exactly where I need to be, I hope it never ends, I’ve got a bottle full of whisky and a night with all my friends, But maybe that’s exactly when I should go back to bed, when it’s perfect say goodnight, back to a pop-up two-man tent…
I’ve started, to read between the lines, Time to depart, when you recognize the signs
The last bus leaves in five minutes and you’re asleep on the couch
You're the only one that’s sober and the drugs are coming out
You’d rather watch an old documentary about Arsene Wenger
It’s three-thirty in the morning, someone shouts out “Let’s play Jenga!”
Your best friend’s started crying about a lost or stolen phone
You ran out of all your cash a good four hours ago
You’re dreaming of the telly and a nice hot bath, but you can’t seem to fight back
So you pretend to belly laugh, whilst talking to a right twat
You’re buying shots of Tequila for a complete bunch of strangers
Doing all the moves from the Macarena, inside those nightclub cages
Always a reason, there’s always a reason, to go
Cos the alcohol has all run out a stranger’s grinding next to me, I’m not the Mayor of Partytown, not even the Deputy, but next time I’m on a night out I’ll look out for the best bit, on the joke that gets a big laugh, that’s when I’ll make my exit
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15. |
Without A Fight
03:14
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We’re not going down without a fight
There’s a fire burning behind our eyes
You can keep us in the dark, we’ll see a flicker of light
Cos we’re not going down without a fight
And we're not gonna take this lying down
Hear our footsteps marching on the ground
You can cheat us and mistreat us, but you’ll never ever beat us
Cos we’re not gonna take this lying down
We won’t let you win this time
We won’t, leave our side of the line
Set your cavalry to charge, we won’t cross the great divide
And we won’t let you win this time
It’s not faith based on ideology
Just a belief in deep down decency
That we’re strong and we’re proud of our roots
Underground like an old oak tree, ‘til we’re scattered like leaves on the breeze
And free
There’s more of us than there are of you
Take your best shot, come on turn us black and blue
You may have the boxing gloves, we’ve got dignity and love
And there’s more of us than there are of you
All we want, is what you stole from us
When you left our families scrambling in the dust
Give us back our pride, give back what we have lost
All we want, is what you stole from us
We’re not going down without a fight
There’s a fire burning behind our eyes
You can keep us in the dark, we’ll see a flicker of light
Cos we’re not going down without a fight.
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16. |
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I’m not sure I can pay my tax bill, and I’m struggling to sleep at night
Feel like I’m always falling through the cracks still,
I think it’s gonna be alright
I’m trying to make a case for the government
Swinging further off to the right
But flying in the face of all the evidence,
Somehow I think it’s gonna be alright
Cos I sing these songs, and I beat my chest
Drink with friends, and then I feel that it’ll work out for the best
Hold my girl, hold my kids real tight
And I think it’s gonna be alright
I’m pushing forty and I often feel defeated
By all the things I haven’t done with my life
But if I say it to the mirror and repeat it
Maybe everything will be alright
The big smoke, it kicked us like a tin can
Right back to this Somerset starlight
But while we’re under echo bridge here in Keynsham
We know everything will be alright
Cos they say it’s always darkest, right before the dawning
The neighbours’ dog is always barking, at six in the morning
So pick a side to fight against and be the one to stick a thorn in
This is the only life we ever get to be born in
And I think I’ll get some sleep tonight
Cos I think it’s gonna be alright
Somehow I think it’s gonna be alright
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