Bad Shepherd

Stockholm night was leaking light

when your father died.

So you got on a boat,

an old rusty bulker, salt tears in your eyes.

Well that Arctic air's done you no good.

You’ve got a black handgun not made out of wood

(All broken things dream of repair).

Athletic thighs and sleep-walled eyes and your hair

Come out of the gloom come down from the top of the stairs

Let the lights from the freeway flow across the wall

A mind can get tired of all the pitfalls.

What a terrible crash, I jumped up the stairs,

With a heart so heavy and hands just spare.

Now didn't your mother ever teach you not to stare?

Let them stare, let them stare, you know I really don't care.

Now all you good children you're jetsam on the earth, modern day lepers.

Where are your flocks? There are the wolves. You're bad shepherds.

Well the heart it is the devil's machine,

and those hearts together like a bunch of bad dreams.

Architect

Your sex hex won’t even work on me now.

Elevator, you’ve got a little voice.

‘Going up,’ it said, ‘going up,’ and ‘going down.’

That’s all it said.

I know it’s no way

No way to treat a friend.

But those things you said,

Those things were all true.

Now the architect’s got no home.

He falls asleep with a slide trombone.

It’s true.

Then I watched the snowflakes melting in your hair

But that winter’s gone.

I know it’s no

No way to treat a guest.

But those things, those things were all true.

Now the architect sleeps alone.

He can build a building with a microphone.

Is that true?

You know it felt like sleeping

Like sleeping with the incredible Hulk

Oh please don’t wake him up

He’ll fall into the most terrible sulk…

Deep Frieze

Gave me seawolves from the Baltic,

Mullet fins with cress and mint.

So why'd I freeze him out with icy silence?

Please let me start again.

Got ten labels in the deep freeze

Felt like Jason on some Greek frieze

Hey Jason

Do you see that?

They're all so overwrought now

That's not what you want from a band of Argonauts now.

Ha!

The golden light dimmed as I slumbered

On that emperor's golden thighs.

Some god's playing with the thunder,

Pouring poison in my eyes.

Just a bantam to his robin,

Felt like poultry round those rare birds.

(I told them you've lost him

There's no point crying about it

Just wait now,

I told them,

One day we'll laugh about it.)

s l o w

Don't make me angry because you know where that ends (on the floor)

Come knit my parachute

I'm getting out of here

Come knit my parachute come get me out of here

Oh don't make ... come get me out of here

Come get a pair of shoes

I’m rolling out of here.

Well don't make him angry because you know where that ends (back on the dance floor)

blah blah blah

Swallow’s Tail

I’m sorry.

I got spun out.

It was a shock to me.

I got run out.

He was a good boy,

No trouble.

He was a decoy,

A body double.

We’ve got no more plans,

Just emptying hands.

Send me a little word,

Please send me one word.

There is a velvet heart, all stuck with pins.

You know I love that heart, and every one of those pins.

The moon is paper thin, it sticks in my mind.

How does a simple pin become an assegai?

Now all these plans,

Just water through our hands.

Send me a little word,

Please send me one word.

Sometimes you add, sometimes you subtract,

You open a door but then turn your back.

Milk

You don’t love me you don’t love me so bad,

I must be mistaken you’re the best that I had

Such self delusion never seen it so bad

I tried to tell you, you don’t understand

We saw bad blood on the dead man’s fleece

I see you as a wolf let loose in a flock of sheep

With all you had to live through

You just can’t see the pattern

Now somebody’s got to tell you where you’re coming from

I know you say that you can’t see the harm in it

I tried to tell you I tried to say

Your charity’s just a cattle prod

I don’t want your fences I don’t want your god

This swimming pool that you’re swimming in

This swimming pool’s on a sinking ship

You don’t love me you don’t love me so bad

I must be mistaken you’re the best that I had

I’ve seen the city and I

I’ve seen the town

I know hungry

I’ve been around

All my great intentions never come to life

You sounded like a bear in a trap on the thinnest ice

With all I have to live through

I just can’t see a pattern

Now somebody’s gotta tell me where I’m coming from

I know you say that you can’t see the harm in it

I tried to tell you I tried to say

Such self deception never seen it so bad

I tried to tell you you don’t understand

This swimming pool etc…

Sketch

Are you sure? Are you not sure?

Well, things that start badly are never going to improve with age.

The world has done things to you, but you’ve done more to yourself.

Oh Robert! There’s something in the air.

Slow release me now come on.

From this awful night, I cannot stand the thought of all those lies.

So I run from the light, from the thought I might,

Not have done something right.

At the back of your head, there’s an open door,

There’s the shock and awe.

It’s just shock that’s all.

Robotic Soldiers

Robotic soldiers are fighting machines

Fight for a president, fight for a queen.

Never get hungry and never afraid,

Don’t forget orders, don’t need to be paid.

But bring them to justice is like charging a steel blade.

Special Agents

Hide now, safe in the spotlight,

Blind now, just nail Braille,

Through pick-up,

There’s no hiccup.

My history’s in a box wrapped up in a pretty blue light.

It pays all my bills, once helped me to sleep in the night.

Truth is I’m cut up all sheep faced,

Got caught by the snipers I’m hurt.

Got took to your cleaners,

They’ve been working, you’ve never seen so much dirt.

Wearing your shirt, watching you flirt with her.

Take those lights down there are killers in the house:

Special agents, checking sentence.

They’re tapping all the wires but it looks like they’re tapping their feet.

They caught Elvis lying they wouldn’t let him sleep.

Bird Caught Fire

She saw death metal rattling across the sky.

A glint on a wing, now, an eye looked into an eye.

Then a bird caught fire in the air,

My brother & sister were playing over there.

Is that enough for you –

Blasting that kid into space?

You can’t wait to see another night

Fall asleep in her face.

You need someone to pay,

You need someone to blame,

Someone’s got to take a fall.

Well you’re falling now though I hear you say:

“So far so good”.

You have everything – come bring us some shade,

Bring it today.

That kid with the chemicals,

You’re going to get what you gave.

Now that kid needs a miracle,

Won’t get it today.

That kid needs a credit card,

Won’t get it somehow.

Then she fell asleep in her clothes

Growing cancer like you might grow a rose

She fell asleep in the road,

Growing cancer by the side of the road.

I was awake I could not move my eyes

I was awake, I could not move my eyes

The lung collapsed, the drug it paralysed you.

I saw a shape upon the bed.

The sunlight shone upon his head.

It was one of those things,

It was no surprise,

Was on the ECG,

Could not believe my eyes.

My sleep abused by bells and panic alarms.

To wash up here I’ve come so far.

I was 22, I had a kind of flu.

We got some good news,

We got some terrible news.

A life’s a dog upon the leash of lung,

Who’d give a heart, who’d give a lung?

Misheen

Michelle, I'm glad you're well,

but did you know your feet are nailed – oh hell –

into the diving board?

Well, it's better than a ward in a hospital

for punctured limbs, the doctor's in

he scratched his head he's not sure,

that the sick should be cured, the sick are just so pure.

Is there a conflict of interest?

Oh you poor narcissist

Go copyright the textbook for the modern age

You took the hook right from your gills

that rope of burning light

Now inside your leather cage you're just a human cow

You're not awkward anymore

I can't see one single flaw so

There's not much more to say that kid was lost had gone astray

It's just an oil slick that flawless mediocrity

There's someone else in know who's better than you,

who's the best I know. Those hands!

Like sunlight on my back. Like sunlight in the sack.

I mean

Love.

It fit like a leather glove mmm

There was a conflict of interest

There were two narcissists

Oh metal hands!

I think they’ve crushed the lightest one

Could I tell you how I feel?

Don't think I even know just

Just that sometimes this guitar

feels like a fucking corpse and

I could have killed you then

but I touched your hair, I touched your face,

And sublimate the drive

there'll be no shame and no disgrace.

If Nothing Else

All the love, now, that we turned down,

Crushed a bridge but, brought the house down.

Well was it just the overflow from a dam?

Is that a monk’s flannel vest in my hand?

Welded together are we welded together in love?

Welded together are we welded together?

I don’t know. I don’t know.

Oh that night has left me sleepless!

Took my heart and left it beatless.

Too much time with muses and tombs,

Ghosts come out to play.

Is this just a gate to the world

Where we’re told we shouldn’t stray?

Where do songs come from?

The underside/the un-decide?

There’s too much desire here to survive.

A song is no consolation/such a tiny space etc

A song is some consolation.

So Long, Dust

Right here, the dust collects.

I’ll never sweep it out,

I could never sweep you out.

I tried to sweep it out.

I’ll never sweep it out.

Well here you’re out of phase you’ve been proved wrong.

The land looks overgrazed you must move on.

So long now.

Oh so long now.

So long.

Lopsided

You know I tried to hold my tongue

I know even a bee can get stung

Locking hands and taking leave

Sense just flees on such an evening

Falling all around them.

Leaves

Were falling all around them.

Hung up on your lovely hooks

Snares and kicks on tenterhooks

How I try and hold my tongue

I will not impose these feelings

You don’t need this

Like I need this (what you need)

But weakness,

Who needs this? (More than what you think)

You know I try and keep my head

Because a heart can be misleading

If I had to tell you true

Well I’ve got a sinking feeling

Do you need this (I need this like I need a heart attack)

like I need this? (I need this like I need to be on fire)

& weakness?

Who needs this?

Oh the head I dream of

sleeps beside a head

that dreams of you too.

(Don’t waste your dreams)

How could I have been so misguided

Start a thing that’s so lopsided?