1. |
Manhattan
02:34
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There’s something about Manhattan that puts you in a magic state
We got pickles with our pastrami and rye bread
There’s something about nostalgia that puts you in a trance like state
What hits you when young will stay deep in your head
If you can look into a book or an internet meme…
Everything is quite deep man, but I don’t mean that to sound silly
As you will hear if you go on, I devoted months to Black Metal
I work in an office
There’s something about song writing that makes you absorb anything
Kate Beaton and Nelson, at the time of writing
There’s something about an actual Chicago pizza or cheese steak
The history and touch are a euphoric state
If you can just block out the din and really feel their smooth skin
There is so much, with velum fluff, pores and warmth and goose bumps
I’m standing by the *actual* lion statue, seen in Ghostbusters!
I’m eating an Italian beef, by the *actual* Chicago tribune!
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2. |
Doomesday Disc
02:52
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A golden disc, into a food wide slot
A 3D museum of pop
Culture, film and history
Highbrow and unsavoury
The Moors Murders and George Best
Morecombe and Wise’s breakfast
Lord Lucan and Rab Nesbitt
The first time I saw the Smiths
When we logged on, John Craven’s enthusiasm was well said
A, pre-Google Earth, zoom in-able world (for the UK)
A laser disc, into a food wide slot
A 3D museum of rock
Culture, art and history
Highbrow and unsavoury
From Vision On to Tiswas
Not the Nine and Future Shocks
Lord Lucan and Spinal Tapp
Kickstart and Granada Land
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3. |
Getting My Eyes Done
04:21
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The Swiss Cottage has a real Swiss Cottage
I’m nervous at 9am and off work for Optimax
I’ve had mine cut, air puffed, tubes stuck
Suction to test their strength and resilience
Tiny circular blades inside the tubes
Paid half by my Mum (after she kindly offered to)
I’ve just moved to London and West Finchley tube
Smell like an oven lighter… Blue strobing. Bright, blue
Destroying air, as the laser cuts in two
My minus eight eyes and tries to make them work new
When it’s over, you’ll sit and keep them shut
Resisting the urge to peek and still scared that it won’t work
I risked it in five and saw a new world
Just like my old glasses eye sight, but still hazy
They let you go out alone to try your eyes
So I crossed the street to the O2 Centre, Finchley Road
The colourful fish in tanks were my first view
I really can see the Waterstone’s and croissants
Full of sand but still soft, as if they move
I must never rub them, so bedtime goggles help too
Getting my eyes done
Getting lead home by new friend Mark Bannon
Such a good friend with whom it all goes so wrong
On check-up day I walk around London sites
An obsession that later fuels so many lyrics
The chandelier in the giant local mosque
Lords Cricket Ground and onto Abbey Road itself
Freud’s old house and Sherlock Holmes’s shop
This is perhaps the first time that I did this
Two days on, I show off new eyes to Karen at Container House
I squint at golden flames. Eyes are perfect, except for at night time
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4. |
Savoury
03:32
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My 1980’s lunch...
With 3D Piglets, cast in MSG and corn meal
The crackle and crunch wolf…
Five pennies for the orange packeted Prairie Wheels
In Ashby de La Zouch…
K.P. or Kenyon Produce nest, near to Adrian’s home
A Pandora’s Box of treats…
New hedgehog flavour or Walker’s flouting of colour codes
K.P. Sky Divers: only 5 pennies
In the car on the way from Grandma’s
Airy and corny, sky blue packet
Only puffs of wind in salt and vinegar
Close to the Stertin’s shop
Was an inflatable Santa with v-shaped digits
Spring onion Tudor Crisps
As the Band Aid single first came on the Top of the Pops’ list
Totally unsavoury, savoury flavourings
In dust of navy packets and salty seasonings
Ephemeral flavour shakers with fish and chip dust
Which we all would save to eat without the actual crisps
The anger of Raidettes…
After a 5p increase on Astra’s snacks
Artwork by Robin Smith…
Of Vy-Per the Venomous and a yellow square-eyed cat
Wickers gave me a jester kite
Astra the space pirate gave me dye-cast toys and a post-swimming bite
They were called Outer Spacers first…
Then Alien Spacers as well
Bright green or bright red to denote flavours…
The crisps themselves and their bags as well!
An Octopussy watch…
Free with the discontinued hunks of tomato flavour
Also crispy bacon…
Both of which were patronised by the, clearly fickle, blue monster
K.P. Sky Divers: only 5 pennies
In the car on the way from Grandma’s
Airy and corny, sky blue packet
Only puffs of wind in salt and vinegar
Joining the Monster Munchers Club
To get their tech specs, pen and tall stories books
The pink monster-shaped crisp is now long since gone
As are saucy flavour and their other two friends
Totally unsavoury, ice cream flavouring
It met with mixed reactions in 2004
Sharon Waterford invented the pickled onion flavour
Briefly poor graphic design, but now so cool once more
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5. |
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Only I have noticed her
She neither needs or remembers makeup
And her hair is naturally black
They only like her since she became slimmer
But I’m sure we’d have something they lack
She seems so like me before I came out of my shell… and realised what was what
And our deep friendship is what it’s all based on
She might not have dated much?
So she seems just like a mirror of what I need
Lacan said that I love my pet
Because she never mistakes me for a former love…
And only loves me for myself
But she plays her cards so close to her chest
I am sure that we’d have what it takes
But she might also be shaped by others
Nietzsche thought women appear deep, because they’re actually bottomless
She’s not quite perfect, so of course it makes it special…
If you saw her, it would be so exquisite, because she’s so normal
Like Donna and Justin, they are wide eyed corrupters
Whilst being corrupted and not realising
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6. |
Ration My Rum
03:35
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The first strip had blue lines
And then a fresher one
So we went to Boots, to get a better job in and not tell anyone
Everything is different in our world today
Everything is different in our world today
Ration my rum, well that is surprising
We’ll find a bigger house together now then!
We don’t quite believe it, but everything’s different in our world
We don’t quite believe it, but everything’s different in our world today
I wanted They Might Be Giants’ new CD
Which wasn’t in Chicago
So I’ll buy that to toast our epiphany
Girls’ names have potential. Boys’ just seem functional
And the best are all shorter for their (less cool) full versions as well
I’ll buy a big rucksack so we can go out
I’ll treat it like always and minimise jobs
To just what’s important, although I guess we’ll be tired out
So we all have fun and I’m laden with essentials
I’m so so excited, except I’ll have to ration my rum
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7. |
Homerton
02:20
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Instrumental
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8. |
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Roll on slow train to dawn, pulled by Anthony Stone
For our town day out
Love love love the good news from Jaggers
I’ve been summoned to a séance
We’re getting out, to somewhere art goes on
In our charabanc
I hadn’t met my Estella Haversham as yet, so the world’s my Oyster card
Each year I think about which songs I like this time and I write them in my camera book
Moonlight Shadow, The Air That I Breathe, Building a Bridge to Your Heart
I am about six
Last of the Famous International Playboys
That Friday Feeling song
Love love love the hydraulic buffers at the end
Where everything must come
Every year we walk to the Casey Jones’ café and eat a doughnut
That Otravine advert is everywhere we look
I’d read about Geales and tried to write my own guide book
Something isn’t perfect in 1990 and I feel it should be
I have to soak up everything
Seeing dinosaurs for the first time in 84
A t-shirt with a candelled Stegosaur
My Mum and my Grandma go to see Diana Spencer’s wedding dress
The Visionaries are my favourite in 86
But I have so much more to fit
Songs can’t contain all that I feel
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9. |
Storm in a Teacup
04:10
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On the 230 from Wood Green to Leyton (tied to the mast)
Nasty kid called Tricky, swearing at a nice Mum on her mobile
Ra’s smiling at him as he sails through London to her
Like Odysseus all calm
Just think of her in your strong arms
There’s always trouble ‘cos there’s something in the way
On the bus route to the dance show
Past the Poor School on the Gray’s Inn Road
City that we romance so
And she’s standing in the chorus of the dance show
As the Trojan War comes to an end
And she’s warming up and stood in third position
As our hero’s on the final bend
It’s a laugh to know a secret you would kill to know
We’re the Muses for this story
And Kate Bush is good, George Bush is bad
And he gets to see her dance on time
You just watch them by Beau Brummel’s statue Saturday
They’re a Rockette and a Myrmidon
And the gaping face of jaws ajar…
The sound of corsets hitting floors
Heaving with lust outside your window
Inside, it’s a storm inside a teacup blown away
It’s a magic day
Oh she’s inside of an unusual picnic (all crumbly and entertaining)
We won’t go away with you, please put her down
Bad situations like Rawlinson End
And I’m like, “their life’s changeable and entertaining”
Now I’ve gone all voluble, please put me starboard…
Where I can see the stars above the briny…
See our heroes climb Clissold fence at night
Saved in a submarine by my kind aunt
She’d dazzle the chorus line please put her down
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10. |
New Town
02:28
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Bombs fall down
Raymond Unwin - you don’t choose to live in a bloody new town
It’s not your fault - you’re good, good guys
The car centric layout was their soul’s demise
The Shredded Wheat Tower, in Welwyn Garden town
Not so much a city, but not really bad at times…
Glenrothes got it right with their new art
Milton Keynes’ concrete cows have charm…
Derek Walker thought that telecoms
Had outmoded the need for non-grid systems
A lazy grid, to keep it real
With cloned roundabouts and a Prisoner feel
It’s actually green and good for cycling…
A pagoda, windmill and also lots of muggings
Swindon on the other hand seems quite glamorous…
I’d die if I lived there myself, but I love trains and Mr. Partridge
“Let no building be higher than the tallest tree”
Nah, that’s not for me
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11. |
Shoes Lift the Winner
01:46
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For the next 1 minute and 47 seconds, every noise I’m making came to me in dreams…
The melody stuck as I woke up upon my sofa
I have no clue to what the lyrics mean
Fishes and loaves
You toady; you try and impress me with amazing hobbies
If I was a woman, would I do something something all the time?
Embezzling spice – you’re so unnecessary
Aim for the place
Something to do with Jodie Kidd on Newsnight Review
I let you eat the food that comes from my machine
I never ask for thanks; you never give me no thanks
Tell me is this the way that it has always been?
Bangers and mash
The nut cracked ballet is a girl with shoes that lift the winner
Anything bad you can imagine, will have been done
Bananas in wine - you’re being so contrary
Aim for the face
Aim for the place
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12. |
Development Deal
03:58
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From Rodean to Bodeans caff
Dressed by J.F. Leotard
Our art must need to exist (We can’t just want to be a band)
Using the 4, 5, 1 progression can be elegant
Quo and C. Christian do it eloquently (Jet can only make it drag)
The Brit School can move a few hoofers, but you risk coming from a mould….
Technique is always great, but your casual listeners won’t do work
If you go to a show, you’re mostly there to chat to all your friends
So you can’t expect total observation, you should just create for your own ends
Punk is pretensions (ironically)
With prog bands they aren’t pretending….
We could check out Fever Fever’s, “Monster,” single (for inspiration with stage things)
If we make a mistake we should always play on, with smiles on our chops
Take a spare guitar, tune up and practice for ever….
The sound is always bad and they don’t listen much
Being modern is sometimes popular (but nothing else will date as fast)
Using nostalgia’s always good (but you can’t know it will last)
“Backbeat, the word is on the street that the fire in your heart is out”
Those lyrics are shit
Infinitely shit
You’re like a grumpy pixie
And maybe I only like you for who you remind me of?
But we both have room for development…. So, can we make a deal?
Each punt at Trinity was named with a connection to threes
K.T. and Duffy have sure been lucky, but in the end they are actually good
Stanivlaski, taught her to feel like a FOX
Lindsay Kemp
Michael Clarke’s screeching website dock
The Vaganova method I’ve decided is ace
The Cecchetti method she was mostly against
Florence Ballard can’t even cash in on the moniker of her own band
You’re like a lovely pixie, so could we make a deal?
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13. |
The Crown Courts
04:02
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Colin the squirrel is the reincarnation of one of the old judges
He has his own Facebook group and no fear of jurors
We queue to get into Southwark assizes
It takes ages to be searched. It’s like an airport and very 60’s
I’m tired and excited
I’m not called to a case in the first week, so read Caitlin Moran’s book and Scarlet Traces
I’d like coffee and crisps, but don’t want to waste them
By day three, I’ve realised that there’s no rush to do anything
We’re opposite HMS Belfast, whose guns point to a motorway service station
Scrawled in the toilets is, “Judges eat caviar, barristers eat shit. Jurors eat at Whittington’s”
The best value for your free food card is pie chips and beans at lunch
The cooked breakfast is nicer, but smaller and leaves you with credit crunch
10am start. 4pm finish. Good hours for me
The judge sends us home and I go to buy cheese
Borough Market is nearby as well as St. Thomas’s. The tallest hospital on earth
It’s still dwarfed by the alien Shard. It’s like the end of War of the Worlds
I love the George coaching inn nearby and the big model skull in the surgery yard
The judge is all I’d hoped for – jowly and upper class with a ruddy complexion
The defence barrister notices a juror’s Howard Marx book and makes an ill judged attempt to appeal to him
Saying that some people might think of anti-cannabis laws as immoral. But the defendant is a copper, whom all of us give honour
It’s weird how close the twelve of us feel, despite forgetting to give names and ideals
We joke that a witness might be silenced. Or that he’s having an affair - it’s fun to make up evidence
And to laugh about how bad that would be
We find him guilty, which he really must be
But, as a policeman, he’ll lose his job we worry and it’s only one grand
They want to play charades while we wait, but I’m too shy to partake
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14. |
The Black Country
03:10
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Most boys liked metal and fantasy
But not me yet… it was always Brit-pop
The death grunts were slow to get past
But time changes were my first way in there
Meshuggah, Death and Melvins at first…yeah!
Christmas 2011, I only listened to the Black stuff
And Norwegian weather forecasts
I read the whole lot
Varg Vikernes has served sixteen
But Venom weren’t totally real
Filosofum’s my fave – so unusual and stretched and folky too
In Terrorizer ’11, he was still deep in hate
So you can admire music and not a man himself
Darkthrone changing…
Death and Black both great
Soulside up to Plague...
I’m still against the crust punk
Krallice also make spells work
Gehenna might have made my fave with World War
Pallbearer and that groove on Werewolf
Bergen troubadour
Mayhem haven’t really made a bad album
Are Immortal secretly good musicians?
Glenn Benton’s face
Now Cannibal Corpse. Terrible covers, but best head banging ever and intense riffage
I’m now onto them
I long to scream out yeah
In the Black Country air
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15. |
Plane Trees
04:06
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Plane trees
Moving in the breeze
Shedding their achene
Fur to lungs and sinuses
They compact, survive black pollution and pollarding
Capability bred
Perfect for London
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16. |
Being Really Good at War
03:55
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Nathan Johnson didn’t care to fight, but he could do
Aggression is the key to win, should that hard path you choose
It’s so sad that people can get angry or hold a grudge
I disagreed, but didn’t want to shout
Because your chemistry made anger you’ve lost good friends
You thought they were your foes, but they were not
Just look for facts and work it through and always ignore hate
You put yourself in rage, but pretend it controls you mate
They say that anger is an energy and spurs you on
Am I really saying that it’s always bad?
Just to confirm - if you are angry then you are wrong
You’re talking over someone and not getting on
They say Saint Anger’s not respected and that is good
I understand hormones and I sympathise…
Now let’s get back to facts and sort this
Anger’s so certain, but kindess and wisdom are full of doubt
I know that your wife works from anger, but understand…
She kicked and shouted the c word in my face, because I stood near her at a concert
And I stayed calm. I would have been a friend and it’s bullying
From what I’ve read, Gideon Mantle did try his best to work with Owen, but it met with hate
Anger and arguing are the best way you can win
But only for yourself and not for long
The opposite of a conversation is waiting for your own turn, to talk over the other one
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17. |
I’m All Ears
02:45
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A speaking voice isn’t in key but can still express emotion…
So an out of tune singing voice can’t be inherently bad
And yet most would say that it is bad
If you’ve ever thought that free jazz is an, “emperor’s new clothes thing”
Just remember that *everyone* says they loathe it
So the average view has totally won…
The losers will still love it without you. For them it’s fun
Any two or more notes played together will form a chord
Whether they clash or not is called an opinion
If you make a mistake it’s only ever charming…
Unless you expect perfection, which is inhuman
First takes are often the best because it’s hard to be impressed with polish, over the first idea
If you’re an entertainer, your job’s to give an audience fun
If you’re an artist, your job is to please just one…
That’s you, and when you play it live you might want to ease the people in
I’d like to sound like someone with intense classical training
Who then just mucks about, which is almost true…
If you want to sing, paint or write you can always do
What you might actually mean is that you want to be famous…
If everyone liked your work, would that be a bad sign?
I suffer for my art and now it’s your turn
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18. |
Galvanic Sludge
03:46
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You never soap out a wok or teapot. Just soak in green tea, like that girl on Sherlock
In Heston’s pudding is a whole orange. So over Christmas all the juice soaks in
My toastie machine soaked in aged rich cheese
A guardsman’s jacket from the age of steam
A brace of pheasants on the rack above
Approaching half-life of galvanic sludge
Soaking an oak cask in galvanic sludge
Rubbing an apron in salt from the sea
Feeding a fruit cake up with neat brandy
The aftertaste of Cazu Matzu cheese
The ingrained pub smells since the smoking ban
Kylie, Liz Hurley and Nigella Lawson
A poetry book, splashed in crumpet stains
The changing language between Basque and Spain
Stuffing an oil drum with galvanic sludge
Avoiding change and not a moment too soon! File under imagination…. Lack of….
But, if you find your senses reeling, prepare to hit them through the ceiling
Our student fryer, never changed its oil
A baby’s blanket with her mother’s smell
Yamaha resonate guitars to age
Resting a steak to keep in juice and taste
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19. |
Debs
06:02
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At morning round the city, crowds mingle from stations and lanes
In Whitechapel, around of the church steps, Debs is buying tea
She’s waiting to meet a potential boss in office work
“Where do you see yourself in 5 years?” Stock questions and inane
“I only want money so I can have fun and security – Like everyone else in your company from sixteen to 61”
Drawing cartoons in the common room
Coffee from the machine
Revising history with Nessa in 1983
Is Debora
They had Grolsch bottle tops tied to their shoes on the day they met
Nessa and Viv liked the Specials and Debs is a lapsed Brossette
Debora
Finding a rare XTC CD after museum trip
She cried at footage of Live Aid, which really affected me
You’ve seen how she looks at her friends… Debora
They’re out at the pub once again. And then the first round’s on Debora
Eventually broken hearts mend
And then you can laugh with Debora
The best things in life are your friends… Debora
They’re laughing and holding on hands. So that they’re not split up whilst they’re watching the band
Debora
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