LYRIC: Mom

If I had listened more

Then I would try to make a clever Shakespeare reference here

But I just used to roll my eyes

Whenever she would try

 To tell the tale of how she came to England from America

Her stomach full of butterflies

Voice of Olivier

Through soliloquy, seducing her far across the raging sea 

He spoke to her and her alone

The Bard was her first love

And she would meet her second in the library studying the first

3,000 miles away from home

Blinded by love she could not see

 That this production was not to be

Some wry and witty comedy

That she was starring in a tragedy

The first two broken hearts

Were of her forsaken mother and the father left behind

Abandoned back in old New York

The third heart was her own

Discarded once again and crying by herself another night

For the man she’d left them for

The man she hoped would change

That a ring would change everything was the tale that she would tell herself

To try to get to sleep at night

A writer by her trade

Published in every paper but always her own best audience

No need to fight when she could write 

Blinded by love she could not see

 That this production was not to be

Some wry and witty comedy

That she was starring in a tragedy

Hoped a baby might work?

And when the first one didn’t change him maybe another would?

Fuck two lives for the price of one

If you repeat a lie

Often enough it starts to feel like it might be something true

She said they were young and in love

Until she understood

That this would never be the fairytale she’d always thought it could be

And she returned across the sea

Her mom and dad long gone

Dead before they knew their little girl had finally found real love

Like I said – a tragedy

Blinded by love she could not see

 That this production was not to be

Some wry and witty comedy

That she was starring in a tragedy

They married on the beach

I gave her away, my sister maid of honour, mom in white

Her stomach full of butterflies

LYRIC: Dad

Dad did not choose the life he got

He was not happy with his lot

His own mom bound to his sick dad

He did the best with what he had

Learnt life was cruel; always taking

Learnt rules were subject to breaking

Lost his accent, and gained some degrees

Started writing poetry

An angry boy becomes an angry man

The life he lived, not the life he planned

A compromise: that withered, ugly thing

All symbolised within a wedding ring

Thought that his words might make the grade

To one day be published on the page

Turned out that he was far better

Piling up rejection letters

The failed writer’s focus went to sorting

Once writing books became thwarting 

The Oxford qualified grammarian

Became instead a librarian

An angry boy becomes an angry man

The life he lived, was not the life he planned

A compromise: that withered, ugly thing

All symbolised within a wedding ring

In the shelves he fucked frustration away

With different women, on different days

Like Jagger once said, no satisfaction

But at least sex offered him distraction

Yet even when he finally found romance

Dad could not keep it in his pants

And when he said “I do”, in his heart he knew

The vows that he’d made would not stay true

DAD

LYRIC: Jess

I stood alone in my room

Broken bass bashed in my hand

Mic turned loud

Amp aiming out of the door

“Why did you have me I want to know?”

A lyric that wasn’t rhetorical

Falling on unresponsive ears

They had their own problems

More troubling than mine

We were just collateral 

They were the carnage

We suffered as spectators but got to enjoy the intervals

After-show dissections

Arguments with friends

They were stuck in the performance

Each and every night

Twice on weekends

In character even offstage

Sometimes we would laugh about it

How awful it all was

“I’m off to university,” I grinned,

“You won’t be my problem anymore”

My sister’s face darkened

Condemned alone to the encore

LYRIC: Their Competence

There are no drugs in this story

No broken bones or any straying hands

We never went to bed hungry

And the wolves were always kept far from our door

I didn’t grow up on the streets

The car it always started

Rooms were always warm

The only fights were ever on Nintendo

We never doubted we were loved

What we doubted was their competence

In the one job they didn’t put first

If they couldn’t show it to each other

What the fuck could they show us?

A Sunday morning

A ringing phone

Stranger informs me

That dad ain’t coming home

Rebelling body

Shaking hands and feet

Numbly I listen;

Ask them to repeat

Once again your dad is not around

Because their marriage finally unwound

And in the rubble of your parents

You try to smile through bleeding open wounds

But you’re just another kid

Fending for yourself

Fucked up but far from fucked

There were worse childhoods than mine

But mine was all I had

And what we doubted was their competence

In the one job they didn’t put first

If they couldn’t show it to each other

What the fuck could they show us?

Three years pass by

A phone it rings again

My best friend’s wedding day:

The day I am orphaned

Rebelling body

Shaking hands and feet

Numbly I listen;

Ask them to repeat

Ten years after leaving 86

Teacher training in a freezing hall

They taught us how to spot the tell-tale signs

When you outsource care it’s not called neglect

Except in legislation

Passed too late to safeguard me

When no-one is around

Cuz they’re both fucking around

It turns out the victim is you

LYRIC: This Chord Plus That Chord

I can’t count how many times I’ve picked up my guitar 

Since the day I picked up that phone

How many ideas, how many lyrics, I have scribbled down, 

Crossed out and eventually thrown

How many notes I’ve plucked seeking to drown out my grief

Hoping this chord plus that chord will somehow equal relief

It’s always been how I deal with everything I feel

Until it’s been put in a song I don’t think that it’s real

Ever since I was a teenage kid living in an “Anti Me World”

Yearning for love, yearning for mystery, for an “Unknown Girl”

Raging at God, raging at life, raging at hypocrisy

Raging at the universe, raging at my fucked up family

While the rest of society may be “Culturally Dead”

I found solace translating all of the thoughts inside my head

Into art, that somehow kept most, of the darkness at bay 

A guitar on my shoulder, a pen, a mic and stage

No “Reality Casualty” no “Too Lazy To Live”

I’d write myself out of the holes that life always gives

Each romance, each heartbreak, each precious moment in time

I have always found the right chords and always found the right rhyme

From school days, to college, to uni, to career, to every brand new walk of life

My wedding day gift was a song that I wrote dedicated to my wife

Yet nearly ten years have now passed since the day my life changed with a ringing phone

And still I am nowhere near closer to ridding myself of this stone

Up the hill, just like Sisyphus, a task I cannot complete

An impossible mission, doomed for defeat on repeat

If looking, for evidence just, hear the song I sing now

The plan was my grief song but I just didn’t know how

I started this project precisely to mourn

But all this time later and still no grief song is born

It’s there at the edges, a peak every now and again

But far more than shadows are needed release my pen

I’m done setting scenes while avoiding the plot

My next song must be all the grief song I’ve got 

LYRIC: Grief Song

The first time I told you I loved you

Was in your eulogy

We weren’t ever that kind of father and son

Were we, you and me?

More high-fives and the occasional hug

Than words such as “love”

And all those years of poison didn’t help

You cheated on her, but never on us

But when that voice whispers into your ear

Day after day, year after year

That you were never here

A child finds it easy to believe

But if you weren’t around

When you were fucking around

Why are you so frequently found

In weekend memories

Parents’ evenings

Teaching me to ride a bike

Football matches, cricket games

Lakeland walks and mountain hikes

Sharing favourite books and music

Family holidays, Fish and chips

You financed our first album – 

Shallow Permanence: a Christmas gift

It was only when you really were not there 

That I finally saw how much you had been there

Not the best father

But the best that you could be

And good enough for me

Only – by the time that I could see

You were gone

A Sunday morning

A ringing phone

In a hotel room in Gothenburg 

You had died alone

Meanwhile mom used the word like a weapon

“Love?” with a question mark

Emotional blackmail abuser

A narcissist at heart

Her love always attached with some strings

Love that’s demanding of proof 

Love, once pure, corrupted by heartbreak

His cheating on her; taken out on us

And we were lumbered with all her fears

Day after day, year after year

That he was never here

Fears a child finds easy to believe

But when he wasn’t around

Cuz he was now in the ground

Why was it that she was not around?

Except whenever 

money was mentioned

Selling 86 and his pension

Souring memories; recrimination

Making worse the devastation

In ancient wounds that had not yet healed

Her true character was revealed

In earlier years: our primary care

But when we needed her most she wasn’t there

Little did we know she was dying

And soon our anger would turn to crying

Not the best mother

But the best that she could be

And good enough for me

Only – by the time that I could see

She was gone

Three years pass by now

The phone it rings again

My step dad informs me

Cancer wins again

They’re gone so young

And I’m here

LYRIC: Somewhere There’s a Table

Somewhere there’s a table

Sitting empty

The one I thought that one day

Would be ours

Mom, Dad, Jess and Me

A reunited family

One last meal to put the past to bed

Reminiscing the good times

Those precious few we had

And laughing now about the bad

Mom and her new husband, Dad and his new wife

Each now finally happy

For the third act of their life

All of us at peace

With those years at 86

What seemed so awful then

Having now led us to this

Somewhere there’s a table

Sitting empty

The one I thought that one day

Would be ours

Mom, Dad, Jess and Me

A reunited family

One last meal to put the past to bed

The one we missed the chance to fill

Because we chose not to forgive

Quick enough for them to live

To see the day time healed our pain

Each year a softening

Of a disappearing stain

Where we could reconcile and finally break bread

Because grudges seem so pointless 

When the ones you hate are dead

Somewhere there’s a table

Sitting empty

The one I thought one day

Would be ours

Mom, Dad, Jess and Me

A reunited family

Having one last meal to put the past behind us

But instead I have a hole

Where a mom and dad should be

A half-sister in a drawer

And a step-dad overseas

Two phone-calls and two funerals

And a pair of eulogies

Two sets of ashes that I’ve scattered

Two premature obituaries

An empty table waiting

For a meal that will never be

And an 86 tattoo

For all the memories

From when we lived

For all those years at 86

That new chapter that never quite turned the page

From when we lived

For all those years at 86

Til the cracks just could not be contained

LYRIC: March In Line

March in line for the London Olympics

March in line for the Queen’s Jubilee

March in line for the coalition government

March in line for the economy

March in line as they take away your services

March in line as your pay and pension freeze

March in line as they take away your benefits

March in line as they bring you to your knees

March in line as they talk about the deficit 

March in line and don’t talk about the war

March in line and forget about the cause of this

March in line and don’t ask what you’re marching for

And don’t forget your flags

Yes you must wave your pretty flags

And march in line for the right team in the football game

March in line and love the same celebrities

March in line and pick conveyor opportunities

March in line to serve your master’s every need

March in line when they tell you that you lost your job

March in line as they spin your tears to gold

March in line to the growing unemployment queue

March in line and maybe you won’t feel the cold

March in line for the new great depression

March in line for a taste of poverty

March in line for the bankers and their bonuses

March in line in the name of your country

And don’t forget your flags

Yes you must wave your pretty flags

Starving children dressed in rags

They all wave their pretty flags

And march in line

March in line like a lamb off to the slaughter

March in line and say a prayer for corporate greed

March in line and stop asking awkward questions

March in line and march until your feet bleed.

March in line.

LYRIC: The Media Destroyed My Mind

Wandering aimlessly

Guided by my TV

Confusion peaking as I'm smothered by their soundbites

Don't know what's real or not

Can't construct my own thoughts

Brainwashing from that box I feel dehumanized

Are my own choices mine?

They're fucking with my mind

Newspapers they all lie

What happened to real life?

I don't know my fact from fiction

I'm controlled by television

Know I voted for them

Why'd I do that again?

Good idea at the time is now a living nightmare!

Why did I buy that crap?

I have no need for that!

So much plastic shit and no money left to spare

Get up and work all day

Because I need the pay

Why is that anyway?

I just do as they say

I have got no control of my life

The media destroyed my mind

What is real and what's made up

I know more about celebraties than about myself

Give me back my own mind!

TV, won't you entertain me?

I have got no use for my brain today

There ain't much left of it anyway

Aren't you tired of being their drones

Or do you not even know

They've got us suckered in and I can't wait until the day their media burns!

LYRIC: Progressing Ever Backwards

Screaming-don't you hear it?

Screaming-I can hear it

Begging for sustainability

Climate-going crazy

Wildlife-dying daily

Death-throes of a raped and pillaged world

Green turns to concrete

Clear a wood erect a street

Hear me scream

Profit-before survival

Defeat-business rivals

Anything OK to get on top

Chokin-on their cost-cuts

Burning-from corners cut

Commodifying the environment

Progressing ourselves

Out of a future

Hear me scream

This is the 21st century

Exploited so the richest can achieve

We're so advanced, we've got so much money

We're just lacking everything we need

Progress-supposed to take us 

Forward-I only see us

Racing backwards to our destruction

Once we've -exploited all that

Earth has-on it to give us

Priced it up and put it up for sale

I have just one question for you

Where are you planning to live?

Hear me scream

LYRIC: Retail Therapy

Got no food to feed yourself

Let alone your starving kid

Can't afford your sky-high rent

Downsized you can't afford shit!

Got conditions in urgent need

Of by a doctor being seen

But such notions are just daydreams

You can't afford such luxury

These days nothing goes for free

Except maybe your sanity

Pressure choking killing you

But what the fuck are you going to do?

Feel alone and forgotten

No help around for your problems

Here is some advice for you

Compassion and help are yesterday's news

Sorry

Only one suggestion for you it's all there is I hope it's some use?

Shut up and shop

Shop 'till you drop

Dead

LYRIC: We’re Not The Good Guys

So good to cheer for the home team

I fly my flag and I watch the news

We fight for right – that’s what it seems

The screaming crowds block other views

With intentions honourable, mistakes are often made

We’re always sorry

Collateral damage is a price to pay

We think it’s worth it just to save the day

We only kill when it will save lives

We’re not the good guys

We never were

The other is my enemey

We’re always on the winning side

The cheerleaders on my TV

Explain the other has to die

More murdered civilians – mistakes are often made

We’re always sorry

But murder ain’t murder if you have a rank

And if it helps put money in the bank

We only kill when it will save lives

We’re not the good guys

We never were

It’s hard to believe what I say

But believe me it’s harder to believe the lies

Historical record displays empirical fact that we’re not the good guys

We’re not the good guys

We never were

LYRIC: We Are The Rascal Multitude

I had a dream the other night

A teacher barking orders at the class

But instead of obeying

Some kids put up their hands and politely asked

How life would be, if from an early age

We were all treated as equals not as someone else's slaves

The class agreed that they wouldn't let themselves

Be pushed around unquestioned by anybody else

We all accept too much

This rogue consensus

Whilst deep inside we see

Better possibilities 

Each day there's someone who says no

Questioning norms and analyzing facts

This rebel lives inside us all

It is that itch we're so afraid to scratch

But still we do because we know that something's wrong

The game has been corrupted and we just won't play along

And so many of us try in our own little ways

To struggle through conventions and try to make a change

And they, the ones in charge

Shake, scared, and try so hard

To quell the rabble's dissent

But we just come back again

We are the rascal multitude 

Here to voice our opinions too

There's more of us than there are of you

And together we just cannot lose

You've manipulated much too much

Made us buy into all of your myths

But we never go away

We keep on coming back

We can see when we're cheated

And who exactly is stacking the decks

You try and cloud our seeing eyes

And say we're free when we're clearly oppressed

You have the tools, the media and money

And I guess you think it's funny that we're dying for your cause

But still we come, struggling against you

You may silence one movement but there's always plenty more

For life, lived on our knees

Is not life, it's slavery

We won't rest until we're free

And we've smashed your ideology

We are the rascal multitude 

Here to voice our opinions too

There's more of us than there are of you

And together we just cannot lose

You've manipulated much too much

Made us buy into all of your myths

But we never go away

We keep on coming back

We are the rascal multitude

We'll never go away

LYRIC: Socrates Wept

I was going to work and I wondered why

I was paying my rent and I wondered why

I was following the rules and I wondered why

I was ignoring my thoughts and I wondered why

I was watching TV and I wondered why

I was believing the news and I wondered why

I was supporting the war and I wondered why

I was feeling quite sick and I wondered why

Resist the unexamined life

I was buying more things and I wondered why

I was praying to God and I wondered why

I was voting last year and I wondered why

I was smoking again and I wondered why

I was hating myself and I wondered why

I was blinding myself and I wondered why

I was denying myself and I wondered why

So much acceptance unthinking and I wondered why

Resist the unexamined life

LYRIC: The Bigger Picture

Lost in sensationalism, a pop-culture prison

Incoherent image parade

Another news flash, but nothing that lasts

Just soundbites and vacuous commentary

Here today gone tomorrow, our media forsakes

It's purpose to keep us informed

Preferring to make a climate fit for shopping

Than one fit for democracy

We're living in the information age

And we know less than we did before

We see the words and feel the emotions they want us to feel 

But miss out on understanding

As shallow reporting abut non-incidents

Takes precedent over our need to be informed

On issues affecting our lives

Not about what there is to buy

Disjointed stories out of context 

Give us nothing but so much wasted paper

The information superhighway

Has been diverted down a byway

Keeping us fooled, by their slanting

Feed us the facts sans understanding

They're out to please advertisers not to inform you or me

Flickering visuals

News shown like rock videos

Incomplete events

A billion stories all sadly lacking and

Stop!

What about the bigger picture?

They're out to please advertisers, not to inform you or me.

LYRIC: Same Ideologies/ Different Hairstyles

They're doing that dance again

Using all the same moves

Each one claiming concern

And an interest in you

They offer me up a choice

That gives me no choice

And participation

That gives me no voice

My representatives represent nothing I want or need

Behind the rhetoric and lies, there ain't nothing but greed

Same ideologies different hairstyles, same pro-freemarket creed

The choice of who sickens me less, that's my democracy

They say all the right things, promise us the earth

Such meaningless statements, the truth as clear as dirt

The same mistake every four years

And when has it ever paid off?

They play on our hopes and our fears

And fuck us again and again and again

They're raking it in-as we are suffering-just to profit them

No choice-between the parties-it's just the monied-whose interests are taken account of

When there's no meaning left in voting, disenfranchised all are we

We can't let them get away with this deception anymore

We are the many and they just the priveledged few

We have the numbers now all that's left to do is to...

Find our hearts, build our strength and reclaim what is ours once again

LYRIC: The Trap

A question

I want you to answer me

If you can’t be yourself can you really be called free?

Employment

That shackled compromise

To give up who we are so our bank accounts can rise

I WEAR THE PLASTIC SMILE AND I

PERFORM SO EASILY AND I

PRETEND NORMALITY AND I

CHOKE DOWN CONFORMITY AND I

FEIGN THIS IS SANITY AND I

INDULGE DEPRAVITY AND I

STUNT MY CAPACITY AND I

PLAY ALONG WITH YOUR WORLD

The system

To which our membership is birth

And from which we can’t escape until we’re buried under earth

Is to trade our greatest days for the promise of a wage

And trade possibility for the comfort of a cage

Where we can rage amongst the beige until we reach retirement age

Exploited at every stage like Karl Marx warned on every page

Of those books we never read because we had to get ahead

Working hard, overtime, I can relax when I’m dead

Except I can’t

Because I’d no longer exist

And the one life that I had was just an opportunity missed

All those things I never did, all the sights I didn’t see

All because I strove to be a dedicated employee

First to start and last to leave

Achieve each task you could conceive

Sacrifice and sweat and bleed to serve my boss’s every need

And for what?

Why did I make this sacrifice?

So I could pay all my bills on time but have no time for my life?

I WEAR THE PLASTIC SMILE AND I

PERFORM SO EASILY AND I

PRETEND NORMALITY AND I

CHOKE DOWN CONFORMITY AND I

FEIGN THIS IS SANITY AND I

INDULGE DEPRAVITY AND I

STUNT MY CAPACITY AND I

PLAY ALONG WITH YOUR WORLD

The trap

Which seems to sucker us in turn

Is the idea that a living is a thing you ought to earn

You don’t earn what is a right, it should be yours without a fight

And what we buy would still exist if all the costs were just dismissed

Because the price is far too high if we must work until we die

Yet to ask why, and not comply, is a sure path to suicide 

We took all their fictions and lived like they’re real

Economists laugh with duplicitous zeal

And inside our bones you know we all feel,

That we’re not paid enough for the hours that they steal

But that alarm

Rips us from sleep again each day

And too tired to complain we can’t see another way

But to climb on that treadmill and to our daily grind commute

Stuck in a rut, routine set, we cannot see another route

And out we sell our precious days, as entrenched, the system stays

But at least we’re getting paid, as we endure this masquerade

And as we die a little death and feel our will begin to fade

We know at least there are new toys on which to spend the cash we saved 

I WEAR THE PLASTIC SMILE AND I

PERFORM SO EASILY AND I

PRETEND NORMALITY AND I

CHOKE DOWN CONFORMITY AND I

FEIGN THIS IS SANITY AND I

INDULGE DEPRAVITY AND I

STUNT MY CAPACITY AND I

PLAY ALONG WITH YOUR WORLD

LYRIC: Too Long; Didn’t Read

Remember when the internet would save us all?

Information freely shared – no obstacle?

Do you remember ugly sites, with big ideas?

The greatest research resource invented in years?

When did this tool to learn become lobotomized?

How did we let it make us so infantilized?

A world of knowledge lying at our fingertips

But mainly used for dancing cats and nipple slips

Too long; didn’t read

A 21stCentury creed

Retweet, like, share

But there’s no substance anywhere

Soundbite platitude

Count how many times it’s been viewed

Clickbait, monetize

Only the vacuous will survive

The answers to our greatest woes could be online

Hidden in plain sight, ignored cuz we don’t have time

Update a status, tell the world the food I eat

But never read what won’t fit in a single tweet

Too long; didn’t read

A 21stCentury creed

Retweet, like, share

But there’s no substance anywhere

Soundbite platitude

Count how many times it’s been viewed

Clickbait, monetize

Only the vacuous will survive

I am connected every minute, every day

Search engines beckoning to guide my way

Knowledge is power but I’m feeling so weak

I sleep much better when the world is kept oblique 

Too long; didn’t read

A 21stCentury creed

Retweet, like, share

But there’s no substance anywhere

Soundbite platitude

Count how many times it’s been viewed

Clickbait, monetize

Only the vacuous will survive

LYRIC: What Happened?

A week in this world’s enough to make all hope go out the door

Racist murders, mass destruction, ignorance and war

Pseudo-democracy that benefits only the elites

While the masses have no voice with which they can speak

Demonstrations ignored, protests dismissed

Popular uprising is just met with fists

Propaganda machines manufacture consent

To make us all tools of a government

Who are tools to corporate CEOs and their cash

Please take this away and give none of it back

What happened?  Reality is so the opposite of how it’s supposed to be

What happened?  Why is no one looking out for each other anymore?

What happened?  Everything thing has been bought or sold, our needs left in the cold

What happened?  What happened to the world?

All of our leisure and pleasure is not what we need

False wants implanted creating consumer greed

No concern for whether we will benefit

Only motivated by their increased profit

The tiny privileged minority

Exploiting a bought-off majority

Clouded so much by PR that we no longer see

What is it we actually need.

What happened?  Why can we not buy food that’s not been chemically abused?

What happened?  Why are there so few people rich and so many very poor?

What happened?  Why do we not see that we are clearly not free?

What happened?  What happened to the world?

What happened to community?  Everyone out for each other’s needs?

Now we’re just out for our wealth.  Don’t give a damn about public health.

All we buy leads to our death.  No-one’s accountable for this mess.

Free trade counts, our lives do not – a public exploited to keep them on top

It’s gotta stop!

This is not the world I want to live in

Violence rules and is fed by this system

I won’t be a puppet for a puppeteer that kills me

I no longer want to be a spectator in my own democracy!

What happened?  Why are we not a part in the running of our lives?

What happened?  Why is life so unlike the life I was promised as a child?

What happened?  Why are we so desensitized to the loss of lives?

What happened?  What happened to the world?

LYRIC: Acceptable

There's crazy Joe he's talking to himself again, 

Diagnosed schitzo, everybody laughs at him 

Call him names, take the piss, label him a lunatic 

As he talks to his imaginary friend called Eric

There's Reverand John he's praying to himself again 

Communities' most trusted, everybody's friends with him 

They think he's great, a role model, nothing about him is odd 

Cuz the imaginary friend he talks to has the name of GOD 

Why is it OK to talk to yourself if your "talking to God" But if you're not talking to God, you're judged insane and labelled odd? 

Gibberish!  The title of a hobo's raves and rants 

The same affliction's "talking in tongues" when it happens to a Christian 

When will these silly double standards ever end? 

Never -  Cuz God is the socially acceptable imaginary friend. 

God's the socially acceptable imaginary friend

Believe in him or be locked away 

If you hear God talking when you pray 

You're as crazy as the next guy and should be locked away 

Eric and God: there's no proof of either one 

So go free all mental patients or go lock up all the Christians 

God's the socially acceptable imaginary friend

Believe in him or be locked away/ Believe in him or be sent to hell