LYRIC: How Do You Ignore? (August 2025)

How do you ignore a genocide?

(Practice, man, practice)

This isn’t the first

And it won’t be the last

Our lives bathed in blood

That we try not to think about

How do you ignore the climate crisis?

(Practice, man, practice)

We’ve been in trouble

Since before I was born

The future a precipice

We try not to think about

Just try not to think about it

We try not to think about

How do you ignore this creeping fascism?

(Practice, man, practice)

Swastikas carved

Into primary school desks

Just everyday terrors

We try not to think about

How do you ignore how fucked up everything is?

(Practice, man, practice)

The problems never change

It’s a feature not a bug

Of the unjust structures

That we try not to think about

Just try not to think about it

We try not to think about

What if we thought about it?

What if we stopped ignoring?

Did more than just post about it?

Did more than just empty warnings?

Well how would we sleep at night?

Where would all the fun be then?

We can’t stop ignoring!

So just try not to think about it

How do you ignore a genocide?

How do you ignore the climate crisis?

How do you ignore this creeping fascism?

How do you ignore how fucked up everything is?

We just try not to think about it

LYRIC: The Actor, The Cello, and the Dark, Dark Cloud (July 2025)

This one’s really more of a poem, as the song is spoken word, but hey — it counts:

I sat and watched a fallen childhood hero

sincerely sing and speak from literature,

over cello, violin, and piano

in Birmingham’s Symphony Hall.

It had seemed so funny as a kid

to see Venkman hitting on Dana

in her haunted New York apartment.

But these days it just reads like harassment.

Another woman’s life made worse

By an entitled man without boundaries.

But it’s still my favourite film.

Ray’s parents left him that house; he was born there!

Meanwhile my grandmother lived and died in Dana Barrett’s building:

55 Central Park West.

If there are ghosts, she might still dwell in the service elevator

where she fell dead after brunch at Tavern on the Green.

The same place the Keymaster, Vince Clortho,

invaded the body of Louis Tulley.

Another entitled man in violation of bodily boundaries,

which I think about as I try and square my enjoyment of the actor,

singing covers of Tom Waits and Sondheim,

with the circle of his alleged wrongdoing.

What else do you expect from a vegetarian

who knows he probably should be vegan

but is too lazy to do all that cooking and food prep?

The world is much more grey

than it was ever black or white.

A reference to Michael Jackson,

perhaps,

who I occasionally also still listen to,

although I know I shouldn’t.

Ghostbusters was the first movie I fell in love with,

and Thriller the first album.

My grandmother,

the one who died in Spook Central,

and who might have made my mother’s life hell sometimes,

used to send me clippings

every time Jackson was mentioned in the papers.

She didn’t know who he was!

Was more into classical opera than the King of Pop.

But she knew her grandson loved him,

and that was enough.

Just as I still loved my grandmother,

no matter what my mother’s feelings.

Whatever the actor might, or might not, have done,

his performance was beautiful that night in Birmingham,

on the same stage where,

the year of its grand opening,

my grandmother had travelled from America to take us,

unwillingly,

to see the CBSO.

My only memory was of Sir Simon Rattle’s

wild and wonderful hair.

All these years later,

I would give anything to watch that concert I ignored again,

and spend one more precious evening with my gran.

But instead I get my favourite ghostbuster,

putting a little love in my heart.

He gave me a rose as he took his bows,

which sits now drying in a cupboard.

An artefact of a memory

I didn’t realise how much I’d cherish

when I guiltily bought the ticket,

and felt somehow like I shouldn’t.

LYRIC: The Poverty of Low Expectations (June 2025)

An education is a battle

Fought each day against our schools

In the gaps between the classrooms

In the gaps between the rules

And what is learned cannot be tested

At your isolated desks

In coercive competition

In examination death

The real assessment comes from living

Yes living lives much better than

The lives they had timetabled for you

Yes living lives against the plan

LYRIC: Ballad of an Aging Punk with a Keyboard (May 2025)

Fingers stained black again

Those fanzines marked me

in more ways than one

Filled my head with strange ideas

Like anyone can have a voice

Do things for passion, not for pay

Create the worlds you want to see

And champion all the things that you love

Here’s three chords now start a band

And when the band breaks up

Just keep on Doing It Yourself

Doing It Yourself

Bands nobody heard of

Except all of us that had

Records shipped from bedroom distros

To ears all over the world

Singing:

We accept you one of us

No more gatekeepers of talent

Ability in the beholder’s eye

Make your own kind of noise

Here’s three chords now start a band

And when the band breaks up

Just keep on Doing It Yourself

Doing It Yourself

This life’s not like the pop songs

This life’s an ugly mess

This life’s not perfect plastic

This life’s what we protest

Re-used envelopes through the door

Packing tape and thick black marker

Missives of hope from better worlds

That truly saved my life

Don’t let the bastards grind you down

Call out whatever needs calling out

And when the bullshit gets too much

You’ve got to get in the fucking van

Here’s three chords now start a band

And when the band breaks up

Just keep on Doing It Yourself

Doing It Yourself

LYRIC: I’m Alright, We’re OK (April 2025)

It’s not all depression and despair

I like to laugh as much as anyone

Not the wild-eyed cackle of the lost and deranged

But sitcom sofa chuckles

The joy of silly voices

Goofy comedy songs

I sing around the house

To amuse my wife and cat

I like to go on walks to pretty places

see the trees and mountains

Hills and lakes

With my favourite person in the world

That said

It’s not like everyday is perfect

I’m alright

We’re okay

There is so much to be thankful for

Weekends we watch the football

In between too many hours

of professional wrestling and sometimes baseball

My music is misinformation

Showing only my bleakest self

While behind the lyric sheet

contentment reigns

My otherwise wonderful life

Causes me no urgent creative crisis

I tend to write most of my songs when I feel down

That said

It’s not like everyday is perfect

I’m alright

We’re okay

There is so much to be thankful for

That said

It’s not like everyday is perfect

But mostly it’s okay

I read a lot and listen to music

Write my songs and play my bass guitar

Everyday is perfect

I’m alright

We’re okay

There is so much to be thankful for

LYRIC: The World’s Not Worth Saving Anymore (March 2025)

I miss the world I used to know

Though it’s a world I used to hate

For though a better world seemed far away

I never doubted it’s our fate

Today it’s hope that seems far away

I look around and blink my eyes

I miss the bad old times we’ve lost

I miss that world I once despised

Because

The world’s not worth saving any more

I think of all the things we learned

How quickly it was thrown away

I once believed we’d found the path

But sadly that was yesterday

Because

The world’s not worth saving any more

LYRIC: The Worst is Not (Feb 2025)

I’m feeling crazy, feeling panicked, feeling very very scared

This time is not like the last time

My head it felt so better when I had it buried under sand

They say that ignorance is bliss

A broken clock will turn out to be right at least two times a day

Still you don’t believe the boy who cried out wolf

The worst is not,

So long as WE

can say

‘this is

the worst’

The monster in the closet isn’t just some naive childhood fear

Sometimes those burning eyes are real

As much as I would like to make believe that things will be alright

I know sometimes that they are not

Every day the world is full of many other tragic tales

of people far worse off than me

The worst is not,

So long as WE

can say

‘this is

the worst’

This

Is not

The worst

This

Is not

The worst

LYRIC: Right Now (Jan 2025)

We are not all journalists

Despite the tempting sound of this

We have no column and no beat

No urgent deadlines to meet

So why do all our phones go ping

With every alert that comes in?

Why do we interrupt our lives

To keep on top of their headlines?

Why all the urgency?

Need for immediacy?

To see as soon as we can see?

All the latest tragedies?

Do

We really

Need to know

RIGHT NOW?

Keep up with the conversation

Hot takes which divide a nation

The quickest comments get liked first

Encourage us to be our worst

They said become the media

And we did, losing who we were

Hijacked the discourse way off course

We need a digital divorce

Why all the urgency?

Need for immediacy?

To see as soon as we can see?

All the latest tragedies?

Do

We really

Need to know

RIGHT NOW?

LYRIC: What Might Blossom

I work within the gaps
One mind at a time
Seeds sown into the dark
On ground infertile and malign
 
My progress rate is slow
And mostly I’ll never know
If what I’ve sown has taken root
If what I’ve sown will even grow
 
And though it likely will take more than my lifetime to yield the harvest
I’m nourished by the thought of what might blossom after I am gone regardless
 
The world that’s always been
Sometimes it looks the other way
That’s when I find we can slip in
And try to show another way

I am the change I want to see
A living elevator pitch
There’s something’s broken underneath
But it is something we can fix

And though it likely will take more than my lifetime to yield the harvest
I’m nourished by the thought of what might blossom after I am gone regardless
Other worlds than these are possible, and we just have to show them
And recognise that they’re worth fighting for even if we won’t live to know them

LYRIC: Too

Too many observations

Too many notebooks filled

Too many creative outlets

Too many darlings killed

Too many lyrics sang to no one

Too many words unread

Too many ideas unwanted

Too much repeating what I said

Too much repeating what I said

Too free to be worth buying

Too hard a friend to keep

Too blunt in conversation

Too much the grandson of a priest

Too canary in the coal mine

Too much the spectre at the feast

Too straightedge for your parties

Too many questions probing deep

Too many questions probing deep

Too broken to get better

Too hopeful for despair

Too jaded by the bullshit

Too stubborn not to care

Too stubborn not to care

Too lacking references and mentors

Too few accomplishments of note

Too many other candidates competing

Too many of us stuck in the same boat

Too out of practice for the journals

Too everyday and imprecise

Too radical to take a chance on

Too much lost to a different life

Too much lost to a different life

Too honest for the classroom

Too much daily mental toll

Too few visions of what comes after

Too much losing of my soul

There’s too much losing of my soul  

Too much damage to stay longer

Too many things this system lacks

Too many structural complications

Too many years I won’t get back

Too many reasons for inaction

Too much I’ve sweat and too much I have have bled

Too used to comfort and to routine

Too easy staying ‘til I’m dead

To whom it may concern

Too often now I feel such dread

Too many sleepless nights

Too much repeating what I said

Too much repeating what I said

LYRIC: The Christmas That I Could Have Died

Last Christmas I had COVID 19

And the very next day I still had COVID 19

Because it turns out that motherfucker stays for a while

This Christmas as the tree lights shine

And Cliff Richard sings of Mistletoe and Wine

I can’t help thinking ‘bout the Christmas that I could have died

It’s been nearly two years since this virus first arrived

And it’s easy to forget we’ve been lucky to survive

So far

So far

Last Christmas there was no vaccine

And very few treatments waiting under the tree

So I’ll raise a glass that my white cells did their job

This Christmas I’m at least double vaxxed

But the variants are coming out thick and fast

And I can’t help thinking ‘bout the Christmas that I could have died

Because all around me at this special time of year

Masks start to slip to sing a song of Christmas cheer

Too close

Too fucking close

Last Christmas I had COVID 19

And the very next year there is still lots to fear

But you wouldn’t know it from the tinsel on the street

This Christmas I’d love to let go

But the daily infection numbers grow 

And I can’t help thinking ‘bout the Christmas that I could have died

Trying to eat a mince pie with no smell or taste

Hoping I wouldn’t be the next they’d ventilate

Too many Christmas dinners have less mouths to feed

This year

But we’ve survived 

So far

LYRIC: Condemned To Repeat

Sometimes poetry just obscures

What should be simply said

When fuck the police says it all

Why use more words than are needed?

When you mean to say

fuck the government

Why say anything else

Than fuck the government?

When you just want to tell racists

to go and fuck themselves,

Phobics, incels, sexists and fascists

Why bother couch it in rhyme?

Metaphor can muddy the waters

So let’s now be crystal clear

Some lyrics are for high theory

But you’ll find none of that here

Just Fuck the police

Fuck the government too

To the racists, and sexists, and fascists

Fuck you

Fuck our silent politeness

Fuck my privileged whiteness

Time to say what we mean

In a world that’s obscene

Fuck you sad homophobics

Can’t you recognise love?

Fuck you bi and transphobics

Ain’t life hard enough?

Fuck your gods and your masters

unmasked anti-vaxxers

Fuck all the blind eyes

To our climate disaster

Fuck the billionaire bastards

Leave them all up in space

Fuck the phone in our hands

For the time that it wastes

Fuck all systems of oppression

history’s unlearnt lessons

We’re condemned to repeat/ Condemned to repeat

LYRIC: I’m Sick of All the Hustle

I’m sick of all the hustle

Life shouldn’t be this hard

It isn’t admirable 

how close to the line you are

Or how much you may have struggled

Your way up from the streets

Because everything you needed

Should’ve already been on every street

Right from the start

We shouldn’t celebrate this 

badly broken system

By making role models of 

The ones who wouldn’t let it kill them

Ignoring all the others

Too tired to take up arms

The ones without a choice but

To succumb to its harm 

Forty years of nine to five

You never missed a single payment

But you missed a whole lot of birthdays

And you never spent a single day fulfilled

We glorify this bullshit

How hard we work to make ends meet

How long we fought to make it 

The things we did so we could eat

And it serves only the system

The one that fails us every day

A fairy tale pretending

Things can’t be another way

Than the way they say

All we ever needed

Already it exists

But has been stolen from us

For somebody’s profits

To keep us all exploited

As if it is the natural way

But we could change the whole world

By changing everything today

But I’m sick of all the hustle 

LYRIC: Alternatives To Extinction

Eyes feel like they’re bleeding

Sucked dry by hungry screens

Lost with my attention

I’ve no more fucks to give

The sheer fucking stupidity

Of basically

everyone

Makes it very very hard for me

To want to see

Alternatives to extinction

I have to remember

It’s not entirely their fault

Advertising works

And it shits in your head each day

Don’t believe me?  Well I wrote this song

On an expensive phone

That I didn’t need

After playing mindless video games

On a new console

That I could not afford

More shoes than I have feet

More wants than I have needs

When the headlines sell you

Distorted narratives

And when your best friends share you

Propaganda clips

What chance have you got to know a thing?

Beyond echoing

The way that choirs sing

The conductor’s baton’s tightening

It’s so frightening

How much we are losing

The sheer fucking stupidity/ Of basically/ everyone/ Makes it very very hard for me/ To want to see/ Alternatives to extinction

ALTERNATIVES TO EXTINCTION

LYRIC: Profitganda (The New Variant)

I’ve been told to go to work and that it’s not a threat

By the propaganda spewed by business and government

We must do our jobs but not ask the reasons why

To keep our masters rich so many might have to die?

Essential work must still be done 

so society can run

Inessential work, meanwhile, 

exposes exploitation’s smile

We were told two metres – 

then just one inside a shop

Consume just as you did before, 

until you start to cough…

Think twice about the information you’re fed

Whose interests is it in?

It’s profits over people in the modern age

Do you think they care if you die?

It’s their money they want – not you – the money not you

Are we being told the full story?

What’s being kept out and what’s being put in?

The state controls the information and they want you back at work

If you believe everything you read you’re likely to get hurt

We’ll just tell them it’s safe now, 

But we can’t quite explain how

Take your masks off to eat out, 

but it’s not you who it helps out

We were told to stay at home

but not how we’d pay the bills

Forced the poor out into harm’s way 

so friends’ pockets could be filled 

Refused to learn from the past

Put us at risk to do pointless tasks

Eased the lockdown too fast

Encouraged not wearing masks

When you read more than briefings say

And listen to scientists

The evidence just overwhelms

How badly our government fucked this

Think twice about the information you’re fed

Whose interests is it in?

It’s profits over people in the modern age

Do you think they care if you die?

It’s their money they want – not you – the money not you

I won’t die to increase your wealth 

Hands/Face/Space/Stay Alert

LYRIC: Stay Alert

Stay alert

Stay alert

Incompetence is coming for our life

Stay alert

Stay alert

To how they’re making us a sacrifice

Stay alert to their propaganda

Bold faced lies told with fake candour

In the name of ideology

Stay alert to manipulation

Distortion of the situation

Put us at risk for their economy 

Stay alert

Stay alert

To how the world transformed so easily

Stay alert

Stay alert

To all they do not want for us to see

Stay alert to the latest branding

Designed to twist our understanding

Repeat their slogan in our Twitter feed

Stay alert: their green and yellow warning

Suddenly the truth is dawning

They do not give a shit about you or me

So Stay Alert

LYRIC: With Burning Anger

With burning anger I

Sing songs written in my youth

Furious that the 

lyrics still apply

Police brutality, government lies

Capitalism Sucks, innocents die

The Profitganda media march us to war

The rich getting richer the poor staying poor

With burning anger I

Watch the daily proof

A vindication I wish 

I wish was not the truth

Same ideologies/different hairstyles

Progress Ever Backwards for another few miles

Fat on Junk Food News and Culturally Dead

I Fear For The World, cuz it’s losing it’s head 

Is This What Democracy Looks Like?

Surely There Must Be More Than This To Life?

Or are we Too Lazy To Live?

With burning anger I

Write another song

Familiar lyrics

Until the problem’s gone

I stared at my navel but now I am back

To point out our failings and show where we lack

I play this guitar with burning anger 

We’re still Not The Good Guys

And we never were

LYRIC: The Things We Do To Pay The Bills

I exist behind a guise

Crushed beneath professional hair

Cannot breathe inside this suit

The one I swore I’d never wear

They were the worst days of my life

Yet I’m back inside in that cell

The one I thought I had escaped

The one that I always called hell

The things we do to pay the bills

Can make us strangers to ourselves

If only I could see me now

But I have become someone else

In my bathroom there’s a mirror

But staring back at me

Unrecognizable reflection

Pseudo identity

I plaster on my daily smile

The one the world expects

I turn away and close the door

My tie a noose around my neck

I hear the words fall from my throat

Saying things I don’t believe

Same old stories I was told

The ones from which I had been freed

Until I had masters to please

Bosses I’m forced to obey

The evil’s always so banal

When normalised as just another day

The things we do to pay the bills

Would make our younger selves blush red

If only I could see me now

But the me I was is dead

In my bathroom there’s a mirror

But staring back at me

Unrecognizable reflection

Pseudo identity

I plaster on my daily smile

The one the world expects

I turn away and close the door

My tie a noose around my neck

Life – 

binding me, 

hiding me, 

holding me prisoner, 

entwining me

Now I need, 

to break free, 

now I need to begin finding me

Finding me

LYRIC: To All My Almost Friends

It’s hard to find others

When you keep losing yourself

But harder to lose them

Because they wanted someone else

Think you’ve found a home

But it’s just foster care again

A temporary reprieve 

Until you’re out the door again

I don’t mean to be so difficult

But I will always speak my mind

The ones who like what they hear

Are the ones I need to find

Each time I’ve found my tribe

All too soon I don’t belong

Think that I’ve found my people

But soon find out I was wrong

Each time that I’m welcomed

I’m too soon shown to the door

I show the world who I am

It never asks for an encore

I don’t mean to be so difficult…

I light my beacon, hopeful

It will attract like-minded light

The beacon’s glow starts to smoulder…

Fades, unseen, into the night

I shout these words out in rhythm

Write down who I am in rhyme

My voice is a constant prayer

In a world with no divine

I don’t mean to be so difficult…

But I’m not changing for acceptance

Because those who get it, get it

And those who don’t…

…Were never worth the time

LYRIC: Searching For That Scene

I’m still searching for the scene

Dreamed of in the suburbs

Listening to records of a past already dead

Because where do you go when you want to be you

But you want to be you in a place which no longer exists?

I’m still searching for that scene

We dined on leftovers long out of date, hoping

the next meal would bring nourishment not more empty stomachs

But there’s only so many disappointing rooms taunting

Before you realise this is all you are gonna get

I’m still searching for that scene

Sending out messages in cut and paste, 

With a self-addressed 

Envelope 

To rusting PO Boxes only answered 

By the heroes we were told to never meet

Ahead of our time, we lived in the past

Unable to bridge the gap between the then and now

We were children hunting down an impossible dream

One from which they can’t seem to shake me quite awake.

I’m still searching for that scene