RECORDINGS

2001

Buying New Soul

Dried up, a guitar upon my knee
I should have sold out when the devil came for me
Dig a hole and throw it out to sea
Break the code, how happy I could be

I still wave at the dots on the shore
And I still beat my head against the door
I still rage and wage my little war
I'm a shade and easy to ignore

White wall, I had to paint a door
I always find that I've been through it before
Close it up and throw away the key
Break the code, how happy I could be

I woke up and I had a big idea
To buy a new soul at the start of every year
I paid up and it cost me pretty dear
Here's a hymn to those that disappear

Access denied
All of the smarter kids they stay inside
But out in the pouring rain
You're kicking me with that look of sheer disdain

The fat controller man
He doesn't understand he's my biggest fan
So I'll stay here on the floor
It's better to be ignored than to be adored

Church spires ticking
Hose pipes hissing

Don't want to smother you
Just want you to be the mother of my children (now)
And you do

Good morning lucky man
I hope you enjoyed your sojourn in Japan
It's such a perfect scene
Back here in Golders Green - cut...end of dream

Up there a mountain rises
Down here an ocean dives
A stranger with a head full of lead
Photographs me

Steel bars and a doctor's note
Don't give up
They can plead and beg but don't let them fix your head

Outside a path to knowledge
Inside a waste of cells
A serpent with a mobile phone
Sweet talks me

We made the world believe we didn't care
We gate crashed parties and just stood and stared
We moved to London and stayed in all year
You wrote poetry while I disappeared

You made a choice for us to live it up
I've got a voice inside me saying give it up
Let's get out of here, let's find a new career
You be famous, I'll disappear

Disappear - I erase myself again

I need security, you favour chance
I ponder everything, you advance
You bring the world to me and I just sneer
Standing next to you I disappear

Dust in the kitchen
Coffeepot
Microdots

Now we are coasting
Talking less
Breathing stress

Somewhere inside
I have died
So I will lie
In formaldehyde
People walk
Through my insides

When I get out of here
I get a plastic vase
And you get to keep the car

Or do you want me to stay ?
The things that I have to say
You've heard it all anyway

Send me to sleep
You always could
Fatherhood

Tie up loose ends
Make it stop
Forget me not

And would you really mind
If I told you a millionth time
The story of my decline ?

You never seem to take
The time to contemplate
Before you annihilate

A body is washed up on a Norfolk beach
He was a friend that I could not reach
He thought I was cold but I understand
But for the grace of God goes another man

And I may just waste away from doing nothing
But I'm a martyr to even less

A choir boy is buried on the moors
Where we used to go dreaming when we were bored
Some kids are best left to fend for themselves
And others were born to stack shelves

And I may just waste away from doing nothing
But I'm a martyr to even less

Fuck you and your book too
You can have it back
When I'm gone these songs will
Will be my tracks

And I had a stupid dream that I could change things
But I'm a martyr to even less

I hate the ground that I have walked upon
Nothing I've done has ever mattered long