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The words to all the songs we have recorded so far. Enjoy.
A Petrol Pump In The Cradle Of Christianity
look out from whithorn at the wild wild wild sea and you can feel humble or see endless possibilities. i ran past the chapel, you can’t see it from the car park, went straight for the rockpools, they’re a much better landmark. we decided to drive to the cradle of christianity in case we felt something. i felt nothing but i did see they built a petrol pump on the wall of the church. it was so disrespectful i laughed until my sides hurt. this is where I am now, the black sheep of the family. i spit and use bad words and then dare you to forgive me. i don’t want to live forever, i don’t want to worship anyone, so where does that leave us? well, it just leaves us. yes, my wife is dying, and my child is dying and the petrol that brought us here is from oil wells that are dying but we’ve got love and picnics and we know we won’t last but we will try to outlive you or at least reach the beach. look out from here at the wild wild wild sea and you can feel humble or see endless possibilities.
All The Hits
And all the hits you take that play havoc with your heart,
they were not sent here to test you.
You’d be crazy to think that, darling.
You’d be crazy to think that.
But if you must think of them as something with a point
think of them as your greatest hits, they are yours to wear like armour.
This is a better time without the ridiculous rush
of a hundred dance routines that simply leave you exhausted.
Instead there’ll be quiet music
and everything will be ok,
everything will be ok,
just not in the way you expected.
But My Heart Is Broken
punk’s dead. the world’s grey. the Sun rules, it sucks life out of each day. i hate love. it’s soap stars and fake pink castles. you took real life and left me a plastic matrix of cartoon people who talk loud but don’t say anything except ‘don’t stay in, go join in, find a friend, drink some gin. you won’t put the world to rights unless you can sleep at night. let her go.’ but my heart is broken. my heart is broken. i’m lost to goodness, i’m such a mess now you’re gone. the planet is dead, babe, except for the part that you’re on. tv clowns in fuck me heels, businessmen with smug fat smiles, grey ideas and grey-haired fear, i’m trying to love you but it just got harder.
Dead Orchestras
One day, love, all this will be yours.
I just hope it’s enough,
when we have gone to wherever we’re going,
when we have gone and left you listening to dead orchestras.
We tried hard to make beautiful things.
I hope we made more than just stuff.
When we have gone I hope that there’s something
in all this junk that you find some life in.
Dead orchestras.
Will you forgive our numerous failures
and the fact that these songs were mostly about ourselves?
‘Cause we really did love you
Keep a brave face darling,
we’ll sing you to sleep if you want us to, or we’ll try to, from wherever we are.
Drowning Nightmare 1
if we stay in this place we will drown, we are lost. there must be an exit. where’s the host? he should know, but all he can do is stare at your chest. he wants to know details, wants to hear us confess. the boat’s overturned, no one here has got long so the host keeps them calm with some gossip, jokes, and songs. we just want to know if there are rafts or a flare. they just want to know if you scream, what you wear. he says: ‘if you don’t survive the ratings will go through the roof for this. you can’t want to die without the world having a chance to know you. you have 15 minutes of air, you should make your seconds count. do you keep on going till you’re numb? what sound do you make when you come?’ and nobody says: ‘this is insane.’ and nobody says: ‘leave these people alone.’ the water is flooding over the stage and on to the sofa. and nobody says: ‘we’d rather live.’
Drowning Nightmare 2
we watched him step into the river clyde. we watched until his head went under. the water briefly bubbled then was still, and then we went for chips and cheese. we watched the news and there he was again but they left out the best part, the part where he became something more than a drowned man, when the sunlight caught his hair just there. i was just sick of all this shallowness. i wanted to see somebody go deep. then maybe i could sleep. maybe i would sleep.
Ghosts In The Hotel
The lobby seemed a decent place to wait.
Sooner or later you had to pass through on your way somewhere.
Everyone needs to sleep.
I have lived my life in bland rooms full of nondescript anonymous stuff
that offers you no clue where you are.
I told myself that if i saw you passing through one of those rooms
I’d write your name on all the furniture.
Someone asked if I wanted a room.
No way, I told them.
If you unpack your life it might not fit back in your case.
After that they left me alone
with all the things you can’t give names to, all the things you have to share
with travellers who always leave alone,
all the things you try to hoard but know that when you close that door
will be somebody else’s mobile home.
We are all just tourists here, we do our best to leave our mark,
But in the end, we know very well,
all that’s left when we are gone are broken hearts and dust and bones,
ghosts in the hotel.
Everybody needs to sleep, this is as good a place as any.
Close your eyes, pretend it’s your own bed.
I’ll be waiting here for you downstairs.
Here’s Your Train, Safe Home
Do the bars round here ever close?
Not until we’ve set the world to rights.
Maybe both of us were a little too honest tonight.
The point is not to take flight.
Safe home darling, safe home.
There’s no cause for regret, there’s no need to feel guilty.
Safe home darling, safe home.
If we both keep our heads maybe we can sleep soundly.
So many ways you can love someone, I really had no idea.
These hearts of ours are such fragile things, careful how you handle them,
Here’s your train, safe home.
How Could Something Like That Be Love?
we moved out here five years back when the coughing fits got bad. i propped you up with cushions and read you trashy novels. sometimes we get fan mail in amongst the hate mail. they don’t agree on anything but they all ask the same thing. they say, ‘why do you hide yourself away out here? what is it that fills you with so much fear when there’s so much going on?’
the rumours started spreading thanks to a nosy neighbour. he never liked us anyway, just thought he recognised you from some cheesy one off pop hit (ironically the wrong one). we said goodbye politely but he kept on asking anyway. he said, ‘why do you hide yourself away out here? what is it that fills you with so much fear? what’s your secret?’ my friends have all stopped calling now. the only reason that they would is to find out if it’s all true. they seem excited at the thought. perhaps it means i’m not as dull, perhaps it means i’ve hidden depths but the phone calls don’t reveal them so they hang up and don’t call again. what do i care? i’ve got my world wide web cam on, you’d be amazed at what goes on, my lovers could be anyone and there’s so much going on.\n\n’you look like you are losing it out here. why not come back here where there are people who care?’ but the web shows me what’s back there and there’s nothing for me back there. at least here i’ve got high walls to keep the bad things outside. i know what they say around here. ‘he’s nothing but an old queer who got up to all kinds of stuff. how could something like that be love?’
Largs Hum
take a drive to where the ships leave. go straight through, fly right by, always listening, always listening. there it is now, can you hear it? there’s a noise that this place makes. it’s a low hum that sticks in your head and it never quite rises but it stays with you till you are dead. there’s a woman who lives here says the migraines drive her half insane. ‘yeah,’ i say, ‘i have always felt that way. that’s why I keep moving.’ i grew up here but i didn’t hear until i grew up; now i can’t shut my ears. all these people never knowing it. do the churches know? does the parliament know? i’m sorry darling, i was in love with you. you tore my heart apart but i’m not angry now. you have a nice house, you have a nice life. i lost my innocence, the world revealed itself. if you sit at the water’s edge and you stare out into the abyss you will find yourself listening, you will find your hand forming a fist. it creeps up on you slowly. some say government, some say it’s god. i can’t tell, i just know it feels like hell. this one time the noise stops. a village appears as the mist clears. i am so scared i have to drive away much faster than before. my head is full but my heart is empty. i don’t think that anyone i meet can save me from thoughts like: ‘largs hum is louder and higher. i know too much, someone wants me dead.’ if i just keep driving i’ll be fine. i feel sure the answer’s round the next bend.
Lorelei And Dorothy
Anyone here for love? We’re not gonna fix this mess.
Not in a hundred years. So anyone here for love?
Oh Lorelei and Dorothy I think we were made for this.
We are here to watch a cabaret show, not to dispense justice.
The moment they had is gone, the money they had is gone
and there are no miracle cures to fix the damage they’ve done.
But I have a dream of a country, I have a dream of a city,
where there are late night bars that’ll pay good money to see our scars.
Everyone here’s in need of love, now who’ll be the first we kiss?
We are here to watch a cabaret show, not to dispense justice.
London and New York are sinking under the waves.
No one’s gonna sing for them.
This is not a time for pissing round making hay.
Dry land is a girl’s best friend.
It’s too late for us to go back to Little Rock now even if we wanted to.
All the lights have gone out on that little old town
Anyway they never loved you like I do, my Lorelei, my Dorothy.
We could make the perfect team, girls. Please take me with you,
won’t you?
National Theatre
we are trying to find ourselves in a backstage hallway. yes, i know it’s getting late, but we never quite grew into the skin we were born in. we can’t help but make mistakes; it’s what we do. but here it is, the new show by the national theatre, and here we are the freaks whose lives just scream disaster. and it’s all so moving and they look so much like us that who are we to argue? when the national theatre tells you that it loves your story you’re expected to feel thrilled. it’s what they do. they will make you as tall as a building or as bright as a fireworks display but somehow in this riot of colour all grey areas get washed away, and i won’t be their god damn freak show to be pelted with fruit from the stalls, so i hope that they feel entertained while i slip out the back door. we are better off here in our heads with no audience watching the bed. why’s it strange not to want a display and to love you anyway? but here it is, the new show by the national theatre, and here we are the freaks whose lives just scream disaster. and it’s all so moving and they look so much like us. but i never could act, i never could perform, and i prefer you off stage, so close the curtains, sit next to me and promise you’ll never leave.
Psychogeography
No, I am not in this place shopping, I am tracing the letter A
as directly as possible through the city centre.
I started in Ashton Lane, and the line went through here.
This is my friend Jim, he’s not shopping either.
He does psychogeography.
No for me it’s just a hobby, the designer shoes are that way,
yes I’ll pass on my love, no I’ve not seen him for ages…
And now I’ve run out of stuff to say so I hope you find those shoes,
I could get on my high horse, say ‘I’m not the one who’s lost’,
but a high horse isn’t practical, you can’t get it through revolving doors.
When these shops are all flooded we’ll be in the same boat,
drifting through the plague years, drifting through the plague years.
Can we please leave this shop now? There is nothing of value here.
All this stuff makes me dizzy, it gives me the fear.
When all this is under the water these maps will be all that’s left,
so we should try to make these maps beautiful.
We are making geography, psychogeography.
Regional
take that bus. i’ll wait right here with all of your favourite music. we’ll find your friends, we’ll find a hill and climb right up until we’ve risen above all this pollution. i got tired of living life as a regional variation of something i don’t even like. i got tired of watching you get weighed down by these weightless people and not wondering why the centre pulls the whole world in until we all look exactly the same. you talk like them, you think like them. you cry, dress, fret, get depressed like them about nothing that matters. but i liked you more when you looked like no one else on the whole planet and thought that the planet was saveable. they told you lies when they told you everyone is just the same, or why on earth would i love you? you are not here to amuse them. you are here to live. you are not here to confuse them. they just need to know the centre no longer holds you. this is the place where everything stops, then starts up again but this time much clearer. i know we can’t walk away from all the damage that we’ve done but we can try not to do more. so don’t you work there, don’t you shop there, keep to the edge of the path. these are not our wars. you are not here to amuse them, you are here to live. you are not here to confuse them. they just need to listen. if this is the end of the world for these last few hours let’s go back to the start. from this vantage point, this privileged position, the city’s just a speck on the horizon. i sit and watch the smoke rise, safe from floods and earthquakes and all the stupid things we made while distracted by TV, wondering where you are, hoping that you’re safe, knowing that i won’t see you again.
Talk Me Down From 20,000ft
the day we left i read about this ghost plane cruising over canada. it happened so fast four hours passed before anyone knew they were dead. i think the windows blew or something, autopilot kicked in, on they went. all they did was follow instructions, put on their seatbelts put out their cigarettes. i’m sure i’ve seen this film before, in fact i think we’re on the same plane. i know the crash instructions off by heart. i didn’t listen this time but what if they’re different? quick hand me the leaflet. look that’s us up there, they’ve been trying to get us on radio for hours. the pressure’s punched my face in. i’m too busy poring through magazines to notice. i forgot to tell you so much but look outside, the ground is getting bigger. there’s an oxygen mask on my face, the instructions say help yourself first but there’s no one to help if i wanted to, i am out like a light and you’re gone. they say it definitely was not a bomb and there is definitely no one to blame, so won’t you tell me who am i supposed to shout at. won’t you tell where i go to complain for all those times when the windows blow in and the instructions just can’t explain why i am trapped like a corpse in a ghost plane as you disappear into the sky. head down between your knees, you will find your life strapped beneath your seat. so hold on to it like a baby while she talks you down from 20,000 ft.
The Balance Company
there was that low point when you thought you’d jump. i whispered, you stopped. i’ve loved you for years, i feel duty-bound as a good employee. i am trying my best to serve the balance company so you get what you deserve from the balance company. try not to shatter the nerves of the balance company. i joined this company to sing good words, tell me what’s so wrong with good words? like: ‘put that shotgun down, turn off that gas supply.’ yes, sometimes we fail, but if i turn this voice off for a minute or two then i am a lab rat looking for something to do, so i do this. i am trying my best to serve the balance company so you get what you deserve from the balance company. try not to shatter my nerves, yeah? yeah. there is nothing but love in the world. there is nothing but love. there is nothing. keep singing the first part and you will be fine. the company disco will teach you to dance in time. it’s all in the chorus, the way you say ‘love’. don’t fret about verses, you don’t need that stuff.
The Dark Ages
the dark ages are approaching, or we’ve been living them for years. it kind of depends on the state that her heart’s in. the city centre’s full of people. it’s been one of those rare days when it feels like the earth could be moved if we all shoved hard. but she knows much better than that, she knows how much cruelty is wrapped up inside them: ‘they’ll march and they’ll sing and wave flags, then go home, hurt somebody. they just came here for the pop songs, they just came to feel less scared, and to feel someone else will take care of the problem.’ but if she decides that, she’ll drown, and then the dark ages will really have got her. she might not much care for this town, but it’s full of children in need of protection from men who think money will save us, from men who would like to enslave us, from boys with their heads full of bombs who think god has sent them to take us back to the dark ages. she will learn to feel less hopeless at the lack of maps or torches. we gave it our best and i know that she’ll make us proud.
The Erskine Bridge
I thought I’d end up here, I even knew where to park the car.
I thought I’d drive out here, I even wrote a goodbye note
but I am so scared of exits, I cling like a coward to the railings
then silently scream at the traffic while the water indifferently flows
under the Erskine Bridge
I’m sorry for all the pain. I’m sorry for all of the heartbreak I caused you.
I didn’t know myself or understand anything that I felt for you.
Too caught up in the water’s indifference to everything we built above it,
The way it says: ‘Any time I like, I could rise up and smash that bridge
And carry you all out to sea.’
And if i had loved you more, and if I had been content
with feeling safe and solid as bricks in a bridge it still would not be enough.
I am tired of feeling numb, like there’s so much guilt and anger trapped inside
that there’s nothing to do but jump, just to watch it all explode into the sky.
There is no escaping the sadness of love, the cruelty of love,
the violence, the cold cold water.
So I will be leaving but I won’t go that way
because I don’t believe in all these tall buildings.
They are not ours, we should tear them down.
Yes I will be leaving but I won’t go that way
because if I don’t do something I will always be here in the shadow of the Erskine Bridge.
The river has burst its banks, everything’s floating away out to sea.
I am not scared.
The Fakester Genocide
my lover lived somewhere over the sea until the day that she died. she was wiped out in 2003’s fakester genocide. i try not to miss her. she could have been a he. trust disappears as the world grows in size but everything is possible. my lover lives in a town full of hope where nobody is miserable and nobody lies. put down your drugs, close your tired eyes, fly through the air with the greatest of ease. there’s a kid in japan likes the same films as me. we’re doing lunch today, i’ll be back for tea. i travel to survive. there is nothing to keep me here. but if every country is basically the same where does that leave all the glorious escape routes? i lie about loneliness, try to stay sane by reaching through cables for something like heaven or something like love. what can i do here? i miss you like crazy, miss the earth’s surface stretched out before me. i’m in the ocean, my plane has come down, but there are always rafts, there are always voices: ‘fakester boy, don’t give up yet. swim for shore, you’re fine. they can’t kill us off quite so easily. trust us, she’s alive. you’ll find her in the unsaid words in sentences, in the spaces between strangers on trains. you’ll find her between reels at the cinema. she’ll love you, keep you safe.
The Fakester Resurrection
The chair in my room is facing the wall.
I can’t make it turn the other way,
but I can move my head much better now,
so I know what I’ll see when I finally stand up.
They built a new forest today
and the ocean’s a little bit bluer.
The man two doors down is a surfer
but I can look at all this any time.
There’s no rush, no fuss,
I am seven years younger
and the depression is gone.
I know this room won’t always be here,
and I know that there’ll be no warning,
but at least it will be painless and sudden.
I just wanted a house near the beach
where the sewage and the smoke don’t fill your lungs,
where people don’t conspicuously die,
where the water isn’t rising one minute at a time.
And I know our parents wouldn’t understand.
They never had the tools that we have
but they didn’t have this weight on their shoulders.
You have to look for comfort where you can.
So I don’t want to know any of their names,
I don’t care if they’re not what they say,
just as long as we can all get along
in a quiet and uncomplicated way.
And outside it gets hotter by the hour,
and bad news always feels like accusation
but inside it’s as cool as you want it
and there’s no death that you can’t come back from.
And darling I hope that you’ll learn to forgive me.
When I’m gone will you paint me in a positive light?
Something like I was neither filthy rich nor cruel,
I always voted green and liberal,
gave money to the homeless on the street,
(well ok, if they were right there, standing right there, in full view),
but I just got scared I’d lose what life I had left,
and I seem to lack the skills to try to make things better,
and I couldn’t bear to sit here and just watch us all die,
I’m really better off inside.
It starts with a panic on Sauchiehall Street,
the sight of you plugged in, locked in your own world,
desperately wanting to make a connection
while running headlong in the opposite direction.
Dazzled by bright lights and white noise and shouting,
loveless and joyless and poetry-free
music that never shuts up for a second
and makes you so numb you do absolutely nothing,
you can sit there frustrated or turn round and flee.
Come on, you know you can make it.
Come on you know you can make it.
Everything will be alright.
There are places where we can be safe.
It’s not what we were hoping for
but do we have any reason to stay?
Come on in, take a seat,
you can make all the fear go away.
We can build a better world than this one
and if we can’t well then at least we can hide.
Christine, Frank, Jennifer, Gregory…
I’m not coming back but I hope to see you soon.
This Club Is For Everybody, Even You
Now I’m dancing in the disco.
Now I’m lying on my deathbed.
Now I’ve made sure that you’ll never know.
Now I’ve said what needed said.
I have made it.
Now I’ve got high for the first time.
Now I’ve conquered my addiction.
Now I’ve bought a place in the west end.
Now I’ve burned your house to the ground.
I have made it.
I have waited all of my life.
Now my racehorse is the winner.
Now my little girl’s all grown up.
Now I’m rid of you forever.
Now the bomb is on the bus.
You can try to make this music yours
but it always slips out of your hands.
This is the moment, we’ve made it
This is the moment we made.
We Just Make Music For Ourselves
when we lost our jobs we didn’t panic at all. we just waved goodbye to our bosses and laughed as we thought of their losses. we set up this place in a rush, on a high, and we plan to stay here till the day that we die. don’t try to stop what we do, we’ve done this since we were 13. we do not even know why, it’s in our blood, in our genes. we just make music for ourselves. you can spot us a mile off. you even could at school. but we don’t do this to be different. we don’t do it to be cool (although it is, obviously). we set up this place in memory of you. we’ll sit here and watch you fall to pieces. don’t try to make us come home. there’s nothing at all for us there. just traffic and brown smoke and mobiles and millions of products that all kill you. we’re standing on top of tall mountains while you make lists, pretend to have fun, our radios and tvs switched off. we have our own charts and we’re all number one. it just takes some confidence. yes i know how that sounds, but nothing‚Äôs forbidden, nothing is out of bounds. i wish you could see this, i wish you could know that we won. it really is possible, don’t give up hope, don’t take up guns. don’t you feel rejected, there is none of that here, just warm smiles and warm words, there is no fear, no heartbreak or tears. i wish you could see this but you left it far too long. now we just kiss your lips for three minutes, then we’re gone. we’ve moved on.
Whatever You Do, Don’t Go In The Basement
love, have a glass of wine and sit there quite still. as soon as you say this i feel numb. seven years old with a voice in my head. ‘it’s your choice where you go but you really should know, whatever you do don’t go in the basement. you might not like what you find down there, stay here upstairs.’ but as soon as it’s out there that chance is gone. now I know what your scars and all of those marks under your fingernails are. please stay, you say, i’m all alone. then someone else says: ‘you should go.
You Have Fallen Way Short Of Our Expectations
I’m sure he loves you now, his head is full of wine.
You look just like his wife but she’s not here tonight.
I know how his mind works, our brains are wired the same.
How could he not kiss you when there is so much love,
so much love, that is filling up his heart?
So much love, so much love, that he doesn’t know what to do with it
but if you knew what he thought you’d run out of this bar
before he finds the courage to ruin his evening and yours.
You think that he’s your friend but he’s just like those other men.
The difference is he pretends that this is about love,
so much love that is filling up his heart,
so much love, so much love, that he doesn’t know what to do with all this love,
all this love, it’s so much it’s made him sick.
He needs a slap to the face and a chorus of disapproval:
‘You have fallen way short of our expectations.’
But this isn’t how it happens at all.
I don’t point the finger, pin him to the wall.
Say ‘go home to your wife, stop dreaming of the circus,’
because I just want you, because I just want you.
Instead I just sit here, watch it all play out.
There is no chorus of disapproval, just disappointment.
