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

LYRIC: Bursting From The Grave

Just as fucked up as I ever was

Maybe fucked up a little more

The damage of a life lived wide awake

While other people close their eyes

I cut my hair sometimes to celebrate

To mark another minor liberation

You join the dots of every scar

They come together and they form a mask

That’s far too easy to slip on

I find myself when I refuse

When I raise two middle fingers at the world

Bursting from the grave

I gasp deep at the fresh air

A zombie roaming empty streets

Finding myself, Piece by piece

Just in time for them 

To bury me alive again

I find myself in my old notebooks

Which read the same as this one now

And listening back to all those favourite songs

Which never fail to make me feel

The way I felt listening for the first time

I wear myself upon my sleeve

In new tattoos and ancient t-shirts

I am myself when I am ill at ease

Sleepless nights and restless days

I am nothing but my patterns

Childhood traumas locked in amber

Bursting from the grave

I gasp deep at the fresh air

A zombie roaming empty streets

Finding myself, Piece by piece

Just in time for them 

To bury me alive again

We can always disappoint 

The person we see standing in the mirror

But we can also make them proud

A lot is lost with every passing year

A thousand cuts of compromise

But they can never take it all away

So hold on tight to what is left

I have never been the person that they thought I was

Some days I am better

Some days I am much worse

But I am always somewhere inside even when I’m lost I’m still there clinging on

Bursting from the grave

I gasp deep at the fresh air

A zombie roaming empty streets

Finding myself, Piece by piece

Just in time for them 

To bury me alive again

My nemesis is the unthinking status quo

My secret power is my power to say no

Bursting from the grave

I gasp deep at the fresh air

A zombie roaming empty streets

Finding myself, Piece by piece

Just in time for them 

To bury me alive again

LYRIC: Congratulations

False smile, wide eyes

Dreams dead, lost pride

Chin up, shut down

Lost and not found

And hey, what happened to you today

Hey what happened to you?

Where is the you, the you we used to see?

The one with all the hopes and all the dreams?

The one who said the world was ours to change?

Where is the idealist artistic heart?

The revolution we were charged to start?

Where is the you, the you you used to be?

Earning a living

Worn down, give in

Sold out and employed

Bills paid, but hope void

You got a job

Mortgage, locked in

Own your own prison

Pension, pay cheque

Another lost reject

And hey, what happened to you today?

(You got a job)

Hey what happened to you?

LYRIC: Social Distance

I’ve been self-isolating

Since before it was cool

But now that I have to

What is there to do?

There’s been social distance

Now for far too long

Where better than quarantine

To write a song?

Can we all come together now, alone,

And recognise that when we needed help,

We always had each other to provide? 

While the powers that be

Wrung their hands.

The old way of doing things

Falls to the ground

No shock to the system

Has been more profound

We watch the mask slipping

Beneath it we find

Nothing more was needed

Than just being kind

Can we all come together now, alone,

And recognise that when we needed help,

We always had each other to provide? 

While the powers that be

Wrung their hands.

There’s been social distance

Now for far too long

LYRIC: I Will Look Back on This Fondly

Terrified, I clambered over ancient ruins

Rushing sights

Other people wait a lifetime just to see

Counting down the days

I took photographs 

And wished for home

Always thinking of tomorrow, 

I miss out on today

I will look back on this fondly

Even if now I am crippled by fear

Retrospect: the only joy I’ll ever see

When your own mind is your worst enemy

I miss the live show of the best days of my life 

But catch up with them later, on demand

Viewed from a safe distance

I confront anxiety with its false narrative

But in the amnesia of tomorrow

The lesson fades

I will look back on this fondly

Even if now I am crippled by fear

Retrospect: the only joy I’ll ever see

When my own mind is my worst enemy

That sinking feeling in my stomach instead of butterflies

Instead of looking forward I begin to catastrophize 

Wherever I am I am always locked up trapped inside my head

My fingers reach and brush against the key

This does not have to be my destiny

The airplane is hot with expectation

people breathing out 

Summer hopes into a flying metal box

Reminding us there are some laws of nature 

We can overcome

Even when they seem to be so permanent  

We can overcome

LYRIC: The End of the World (Today)

The people have spoken and I’m feeling sick

Who could imagine things changing this quick

Frustrated, ignorant grasping at straws

These are the things that make people start wars

I tremble as everyday life starts to look

Like the opening chapters of an old history book

These were the dark days that caused Rome to fall

These were the factors that started it all

The end of the world

Comes without warning

The end of the world

Is today

A moment of madness undoing the years

Of progress it’s taken to get us to here

Long battles fought and hard victories won

The evolution of civilization

Enlightenment can’t last without any lights

And now we are facing the darkest of nights

Desperation giving way to despair

The people have spoken and I’m feeling scared

The comfort of thinking it can’t happen here

Is the surest sign that it is already near

Right on your doorstep, right on your street

Amazing how well we can walk in our sleep

Napping our way through this democracy

Uninformed, responsibility-free

Until we awake and blink open our eyes

It’s hard to believe that we’re even surprised

LYRIC: The Day I Write That Song

Every summer, every weekend, every fucking night

I tell myself today’s the day

The day I write that song

The one that starts the album

The one I’m gonna write myself

Because I can come to terms with the fact the band went to the morticians

While I teach kids at the academy

But I won’t come to terms with that’s it

When I still have something to say

Even if I don’t quite know what it is

Because sometimes feelings are too big to condense

And you fear garbled words won’t make enough sense

Or, worse, will be met with indifference

And I’m only just one guy

Who can barely play a bass guitar

So who am I?

To write an album when I can’t even read music?

Just been banging these same four strings since ‘96

An old dog with no new tricks

Still tuned badly in open E

The way my best friend once showed me

Because that’s what his dad taught him

And we’re all so strangely shaped by fathers

Even when they’re not our own

When your dad’s not around

Because he’d rather be fucking around

You make do with what you can

So Every summer, every weekend, every fucking night

I tell myself today’s the day

The day I write that song

The one that starts the album

The one I’m gonna write myself

LYRIC: 86

They say there’s no return

You can’t go home again

My haircut proved them wrong

The trimmings fall on local paper

A familiar front door

I was six when I first saw it

Said goodbye at twenty-nine

Dead people don’t need their houses

I used to think the place was haunted

Couldn’t have guessed I’d know the ghosts

Back when we lived, for all those years at 86

That new chapter that never quite turned the page

Back when we lived, for all those years at 86

Until the cracks could just not be contained

They called it a new start

Back when we were kids

Thought changing house might change each other

Pretend the marriage wasn’t over

A new address to mend old wounds

Barely speaking, seldom smiling

An elephant in every room

We were trained to just ignore them

Painting lipstick on a corpse

I used to blame the architecture

Back when we lived, for all those years at 86

That new chapter that never quite turned the page

Back when we lived, for all those years at 86

Until the cracks could just not be contained

Daddy not around

Cuz he’s fucking around

Mom buried in work

To avoid how much it hurt

They wouldn’t even fight

It was somehow worse

Living separate lives

Under the same roof

An appointment after work

Faking first time buyers

A long sleeve shirt to cover up

My new eighty-six tattoo

The one that matches with my sister’s

The one that brands us as survivors

They’d spent a lot to do it up

But 86, it still felt haunted

Plush new carpets aren’t enough

To mask those same old creaking floorboards

Back when we lived, for all those years at 86

That new chapter that never quite turned the page

Back when we lived, for all those years at 86

Until the cracks could just not be contained

LYRIC: Well Kept

Privilege can sometimes be

A burden of its own

We were so lucky but in all the wrong ways

Maintaining a façade

Could break the bank for some

But we had money to throw at our problems

Someone to clean the house

Someone to mind the kids

Someone to deal with all that dirty laundry

Someone to organise

Someone to buy supplies

Someone to do it all so they don’t have to

We were always so well kept

When you outsource care it’s not called neglect

We had a lot of toys

To keep us company

Those endless nights when mom was working upstairs

We had a lot of books

To keep our minds off why

Dad never seemed to spend his evenings at home

We got used growing up

To doing what we’d want

Raising ourselves and setting our own boundaries

We visited our friends

And made our mental notes

Of how a real family was meant to function

We were always so well kept

When you outsource care it’s not called neglect

How old are you supposed to be

The first time you need therapy?

We always just assumed

That it was natural

That everybody had insomnia

The same anxiety

The same panic attacks

The same depression, the same thoughts of suicide

We wanted for nothing

Except a mom and dad

Who actually felt like a mother and a father

They gave us everything

Except the things we need

Just like their own parents had done before them

We were always so well kept

When you outsource care it’s not called neglect

It’s just the price they paid to pay the prices

Of all their cowardice and vices

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!