1. |
Dumbing Down
02:48
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Dumbing Down
I don’t know how to even begin
I’ve eaten up my trail of crumbs
I wandered into a maze without string
Now I’m back again
Back where I started
I sense a trap round every turn
I fear the Minator breath on my neck
I don’t have the intelligence I had
Not of a mouse
Not of a rat
Don’t want you to feel like I don’t care
It’s just tonight I feel like dumbing down
In this world of idiots we live in
A stupid man like me’s a genius
Turn off the light, turn off the light baby
Maybe put a book mark in that magazine
Turn off the light, turn off the light baby
Don’t you feel like dumbing down?
Lying on the launch pad full of corn snacks
I’m strapped to the seat, there’s no going back
Blasted out into space in a suit
That’s not my size
And not my colour
Memories of a simpler life
As the gall hits the back of my throat
Don’t have the cohunes I had
Not of a mouse
Not of a rat
Don’t want you to feel like I don’t care...
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2. |
White Lies
02:59
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White Lies
I lied I was in music
It seemed much better than drowning in debt
She seemed impressed by that
She seemed impressed enough to me
I showed her a picture
Of me in front of a stranger’s car
She said “You can drive me home in that”
I said “We can walk from here”
What can we build on top of these lies?
Even white lies, even white lies?
Never meant to take it so far
But one lie led to another lie
But we came here with nothing
Now we’re leaving with something
Bread rolls in our jackets
And bottles in our pockets
We’ve made something
Out of nothing
We’ve made stories
Out of sawdust
Poetry in prosody
And sordid little secrets
She said she was a model
Of feet and hands in the nineties
I was impressed by that
It seemed plausible to me
She said she invented
A piece of punctuation of shock and surprise
“I’ll give you a use for that”
She said “You’re more common or garden”
What can we build on top of these lies?
Even white lies, even white lies?
Never meant to take it so far
But one lie led to another lie
But we came here with nothing
Now we’re leaving with something
Bread rolls in our jackets
And bottles in our pockets
We’ve made something
Out of nothing
We’ve made stories
Out of sawdust
Poetry in prosody
And sordid little secrets
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3. |
Zimmers
02:22
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Zimmers
Superman walks
With the help of a zimmer
His cape’s in the wash
And he’s running with sweat
Where once he upped and flew
Captain America slumps
Shrivelled in an armchair
He’s not cross
Just confused by the strangers
Please release me
From this pinch that I’m in
Won’t somebody drive me home?
Do you remember
What I was to you once?
Won’t somebody take me home?
Batman impotently
Shouts at the television
He punches his fist
And throws his dinner tray
At the wall
Nobody visits
No more newspaper headlines
Tended by hands
On minimum wages
Dosed up to the eyeballs
Please release me
From this pinch that I’m in
Won’t somebody drive me home?
Do you remember
What I was to you once?
Won’t somebody take me home?
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4. |
Dangerous Grazes
03:40
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Dangerous Grazes
Our bodies are amazing
They heal themselves
From cuts
And bruises
And dangerous grazes
Our faces are front of house
Behind the scenes
Toil billions of fixers and patchers
Microscopic miracles
And sometimes they break
Sometimes they fall apart
Sometimes they break
Sometimes they fall apart
Sometimes they break
Sometimes they fall apart
Our hearts are incredible
They fix themselves
They stop
And start again
They take all that we can throw at them
Our minds are adaptable
They compensate for the terrible
The slights
And insults
And half meant cruelties
And sometimes they break
Sometimes they fall apart
Sometimes they break
Sometimes they fall apart
Sometimes they break
Sometimes they fall apart
Sometimes they break
Sometimes they fall apart
Tell me something I don’t know
Tell me something I don’t know about you
Tell me something I don’t know
Tell me something I don’t know about you
Our bodies are amazing
They heal themselves
From wars
And train wrecks
Mysterious insects
Our minds bear the brunt of it
Skewered by the loss of it
Perceptions of difference
Of bounded desire
And sometimes they break
Sometimes they fall apart
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5. |
An Arrow In The Eye
03:40
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An Arrow In The Eye
I’ve got difficult answers
To easy questions
I’ve got complications
Of simple afflictions
I’ve got stray threads
Snagging out my head
I’ve got a loose arrangement
Of certainties
I’ve got a grip of the facts
On a don’t need to know basis
I’ve got loose thoughts
Blocking up my brain
So I don’t want to see myself
In five year’s time
And I don’t want to talk about
My ambitions
I’ve got a wound that won’t heal
That’s the nature of bed sores
I’ve got sub clauses of clauses
Small print weasel cheats
Clawing at my dreams
I’ve got symptoms of diseases
That haven’t been found yet
An illness Noah’s Ark
A cashpoint for chemists
Prizes for anyone that cures me
So excuse me if I don’t want to see myself
In five year’s time
Still staring at your shelf
As I start at the top
And I work my way down
I don’t want to talk about my ambitions
I’ve got a family tree full of ancestors
Who ran away, that’s how luck found me
I was born to fly
In the sense of running
I don’t feel any shame
In a lack of courage
So I don’t feel a fraud when I’m backing away
It’s in the nature of my family affliction
I’ve got a history
Of missed appointments
With altercations and fisticuffs
I’ve got false diaries
Places I was supposed to be
As I slip out the back and I’m running away
I hear them talk about their ambitions
I’m not related to the last of the line
The one who died
With an arrow in the eye
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6. |
High Horses
04:40
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High Horses
I look out on this great green country
With a sentimental tear
At all those gift shop scavengers
Poking through the remains of
Once great dynasties
Our father’s father’s father’s father thought
Would last for ever
Gaze in awe at our countryside
Blink away all of your miserable towns
Show some appreciation
All those insults casually thrown
They don’t mean anything
Chinless wonder, spineless bastard
We’ve still got teeth, we’ve still got claws
You’re littering our country estates
Now you’ll get what’s coming to you
Saddle up in the morning
Let’s go ride our high horses
One day, without warning
We’re going to
Ride through your sensitive needs
Get out of our way ‘cos we’re coming
Saddle up in the morning
Let’s go ride our high horses
Shut up all you plebs and strays
Nobody listens to you anyways
Now we don’t care
Who we trample from on high
Because it’s not about you
1066 is not the price
Of a bottle of vodka
And all those paintings on the wall
That’s my chin, that’s my nose
We were not born and bred
To be subservient
To dance attention
On your ill mannered children
You’re trampling our country estates
But now we’re going to serve our turn on you
Saddle up in the morning...
I own a painting by Gainsborough and Goya
I own a view by Capability Brown
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7. |
Dear Body
04:47
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Dear Body
Dear body
I am so sorry
I have neglected you for the longest time
Ignored you in your time of need
Back down on the pavement
Looking at the passing faces
Averted eyes
“Thank god it’s him and not me”
Now who’s going to drag me home tonight?
Who’s going to hold me back tonight?
I’m caught between the rock of my body
And the hard place of the mind
Caught between the rock of my body
And the hard place of the mind
Caught between the rock of my body
Caught between the rock of my body
Caught between the rock of my body
Caught between the rock of my body
Dear body
I am so sorry
I have brimmed you full of passing desires
I’ve wrecked your mechanical perfection
With my appetites
Now who’s going to drag me home tonight?
Who’s going to hold me back tonight?
I’m caught between the rock of my body...
Dear body
I am so sorry
I logiced away your fracture lines
I ran on broken limbs
Driven only by my pride
I should allow myself
The strength to be weak
I should allow myself
The strength to be weak
You should allow yourself
The strength to be weak
We should allow ourselves
The strength to be weak
I’m caught between the rock of my body...
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8. |
Bigger Boys
04:05
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Bigger Boys
In lieu of sex and drugs
I got into the poetry of dead men
I wandered lonely as an orphan
Working in a Christmas toy factory
Unmade for this world of pain
I skid and fall
On the slippery, slippery leaves
Don’t want to give all my money
To the bigger boys
With their confident fists
Stay down, stay safe
Stay out for the count
Let bigger beasts eat their fill
Or get up, look tall, put up a fight
Spit out a tooth, cough up a lung
Play dead, suck it up
Feel the paw on your chest
It’s only pride and money
Or get up, look tall, put up a fight
Spit out a tooth, cough up a lung
I’ve been living dangerously
Bending spines of books I don’t read
In light of recent events
I’m reading up on
Sun Tzu and The Art of War
I’ll grab hold of life
By the neck, in my fingers
Like a slippery, slippery fish
I’m training, toughening
Like a montage sequence
Of Rocky Balboa
Stay down, stay safe
Stay out for the count
Let bigger beasts eat their fill
Or get up, look tall, put up a fight
Spit out a tooth, cough up a lung
Play dead, suck it up
Feel the paw on your chest
It’s only pride and money
Or get up, look tall, put up a fight
Spit out a tooth, cough up a lung
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9. |
Bend and Break
03:42
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Bend and Break
Your glamorous assistant I
Watch through fingers
You, holding me in
The palm of your hand
Completely
Chains unbreakable
Underwater, inescapable
I hold my breath
You’ve got new tricks
The suspense is killing me
No more rabbits out of hats
So long, sawing acrobats
Score me down the middle, maybe I’ll fold
Maybe I’ll turn nickel into gold
I will bend and break
Any way that you want me to
Your clamorous curtain calls
Applause at bursted chains
My bait and switch
Unnoticed in your shadows
I’ll spin straw into gold
If you want me say the word
For you, I’ll put my head
In the mouth of a lion
The frustration is killing me
No more rabbits out of hats...
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10. |
Canaries
07:23
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Canaries
Don’t you crave it?
Certainty
I once had it
Or it had me
Now I don’t want it
I’ve done wracking my brains
From the pulpit
Platitudes
On the mystery
Of the soul
You build a fantasy
Round a grain of sand
In the midst of nothing
I know something
I could be your premonition
Keep an eye on me
I’ll keep you safe
I could be your early warning
Let me be your early warning
I don’t know what has happened to me
I’m a canary in a coal mine
I flap my wings
I sing my song
Attract attention from the bottom of my cage
I used to feel an illusory
Certainty weighing down on me
A heavy pressure
A heavy load
Now I’m early warning
I don’t know
I don’t know
I don’t know shit anymore
I don’t know
Don’t you crave it?
Certainty
In the entrails
In the tea leaves
The future’s coming to you
I know because I’m here
In the coalmines
Of our hearts
In the parts we
Hope will last
Crushed like diamonds
Forever we glitter in the dark
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