1. |
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Confidants shall ever be
Enjoining one another
Two behave as one behaves
So nodody’s in the know
Nobody’s in my confidence
Nobody’s in the know
Nobody’s in my confidence.
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2. |
The Cinema Bell
03:02
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THE CINEMA BELL
I was talking again at an assembly of friends
We were close, we were close, we were close to the end
We had a blood connection and other difficulties
We don’t write memoirs, we write massive autobiographies
I heard the clanging clunk of the cinema bell
In my reverie
There was a boy on the screen, apologetically
Offering, offering a pet bird to a priest
We had the one ambition: to grow up quickly and be
In the privilege of the relevant authority
I remembered my tear-ducts existed and worked, like land mines they hurt
So then it proved impossible to answer understandable
FAQs from them
I heard the clanging clunk of the cinema bell
In my reverie
I had a fast and full recovery
Enjoying grapes and 7-UP
Whereupon the sacred heart above me interrupts:
“Do you want to come to a better town with me, town with me?
Do you want to come to a better town with me, town with me?
Do you want to come to a better town with me, town with me?”
They would have stayed awake for anyone else
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3. |
As Low as Possible
04:29
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AS LOW AS POSSIBLE
As I roved out, Westport Bridge Street
Nearly twelve years old and my eyes were on my feet
I was bang in step to those post-showband ballads
And the hotel lobby promised Strawberry Beds and Sonny
As a lowly cipher then, that seemed encrypted: and I drifted
Off on a song
Sent from the Turkish winter, three cassettes for a tenner
Played as low as possible
Then on a white Cretan terrace near the sun
The breaks were fierce and the children always won
The staff took their beatings well and stuck to singing
Is She Really Going Out With Him?
Joe Jackson, Prefab Sprout and Tears for Fears: painted-on ears
Offered a song
Nothing I sought or wanted, music had been invented
Played as low as possible
If there’s a moment, one moment of importance
And that’s uncertain as life on other planets
Then it’s the morning you landed in our garage
Holding a camera, some distant scientist tracking your moves
You presented me, the native, with a clock around which to rock
Oh, and a song
Nothing I sought or wanted, music was re-invented
Played as low as…
Played as low as…
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4. |
Gravedigger
03:53
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Oh darlin’, I was gonna marry you
Instead I’ve played the old soldier purely to punish you
In Poland, you told them I was funny and kind
But like your Bonieks; your Latos; your Deynas
Your data was from another time
Haven’t made you smile for ages on end
And I can’t remember our last kiss
Honey pie, I am just a gravedigger for you
I’m digging ‘til you’re disabused
To others, your love is still exotic
You’re the African loot in an old French attic
No worries – I know what’s in the pipeline
On your dating-site profile, you’re damaged
And docile and looking for a man
Who will make you smile at the very least
And bring you to festivals, yes
Honey pie, I am just a gravedigger for you,
I’m digging ‘til you’re disabused
Leaving it late to order again
Holding my tongue, I had told you “eat early,
And feel strong”
Oh Dziekenowski started well, digging for goals
But soon became a gravedigger
And Williamowski, he was lauded, famous and bold
Remembered as a gravedigger
So there is nothing I can do, love
I am just a gravedigger for you.
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5. |
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When Nana asked the pocket orchestra to come and play for her
I didn’t know how to tell her they had broken up again
Who was sent for but a lone trumpeter?
And so he played an air that hung still like a childhood
She was hardly fooled, but nonetheless she told him it was very good
Empty as evening, I dropped him to work
And there I was, with no one to my name anymore
Alone by seventeen years of streamlining
Redialling a number I had kept to order something
There is a shallow cutout water feature
That’s shadowed by three-story structures
A ghost pleading his case by them, woah yeah
That evening, my eyes were embarrassed
The pollen assaulted the palate
The ghost knew I had been to her
And a death song came to life
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6. |
Life's Work
03:18
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There’s a danger in speaking up
When the powers that be find your lungs lacking
Besides, did you want to be understood?
If the time was right, bloody sure you would
But the time was wrong; I’d a life’s work to do
After I finished that walk with you
There’s no record of your voice
I taped you at Christmas refusing your uncles a song
What they wanted was yours alone
You’ll enter eternity guarding your groans
Your bones, bones, bones are a bleak masterpiece:
Off with the camera, on with the fleece
There’s a blue swollen sea
It comes rushing for me
In the days left in balance
When you’ve left me your diaries, your daughters, your dockets
Will I set aside time for each of those?
Or wonder if Pharaohs were buried with more clothes?
A ghost with a life’s work to do:
Patrolling the body you’ll leave me to ruin
There’s a blue swollen sea
It wants you to believe
That the laws of the universe do not apply under it
It comes rushing for me.
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7. |
Legion of Saps
03:55
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Nearly unlivable, that mice-infested lodging
Where I imagined cockroaches throughout the building
Under the sofa that served as a receptacle
For cans and coins and a pliable girl I could never ply
Oh here comes the legion
Make way, let those eejits
Into your evening to give it meaning
Leaving that hovel, I joined the aforementioned grouping
We go out to restaurants, tell funny stories to women
Tweaking the narrative to tighten, deepen, lighten
We have to help at animal homes in the morning
Oh here comes the legion
Make way, let those eejits
Into your evening to give it meaning
In the analysis, we must forgive each other
Every malpractice, this is the mark of the brothers
All the way to Beaumont, where her husband ails
Julie’s own misfortune was to put wind in his sails
Oh here comes the legion
Make way and let those eejits
Into your evening to give it meaning
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8. |
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I was looking through the dormer window
At my children’s children in the neighbours’ garden
And knowing then that they would soon discover
How slow and abject was their father’s father
At other points in life, I’d thought of moving somewhere beautiful
Where everyday existence didn’t taunt me through a terminal
But always I’d say, “It’s too late”…
So douse me, douse me, douse me, douse me
With the blood of Patagonians
I’m tired of this life, you see
Where everything I do is scrutinised
Scrutinised like public money
Or the hands of sex offenders
I’m going where there’s only peace and quiet for a fella
Somewhere that hasn’t fallen to the kids of IT Tallaght
A wilderness that’s crying out for one man to adore
Is nowhere far away anymore?
Blind me, blind me, blind me, blind me
With the sun of Anatolia
I’ve no connection to my family
But everything I do they scrutinise
Scrutinise like private photos
On the screens of jealous boyfriends
I’m stubbornly intractable, attracted to a mission
Until I’m ex-ed in exile, I’ll be buried in revision
And gravely do I go amongst the dead who must explore
Is nowhere far away anymore?
Always I’d say, “It’s too late”
Always I’d say, “It’s too late”
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9. |
Born in Armour
02:54
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Who will lead my troops today?
I would lead those boys astray
So, whole worlds lie down for them
She will teach them to be men
Softly
CHORUS:
It’s the way that she wears her armour
It’s the way that she talks to them
It’s the way that she wears her armour
Was she born in armour?
Who will take these kids from me?
Show them what they ought to see?
Should they set their limbs to rest,
She will show them who knows best
Softly
CHORUS
Who will lead my troops today?
I would lead those boys astray
Who will say ‘goodnight’ to them?
Cause them to forget girlfriends?
They are young and they are hopeless
There is nothing I can do
To make their English improve
CHORUS
The song of her unremitting eye
While her predecessors cry:
“Was she born in armour?
Was she born in armour?
She was born in armour!
She was born in armour!”
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10. |
My Heart Was Angled
04:28
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I am bound to love you until the end of recorded time
Have the legislators lost their collective minds?
It’s late in the evening
Like Clapton before me:
I’m ‘Slow Hand’;
I’ve taken to wearing the thin beard of a creep
For a while I thought my figures were Greek
When you told me they were pleasingly oblique
It was a lovely thing to hear
In the context of an advanced hour
My heart was angled
And reeled in terrifyingly
Oh my heart was angled, angled oh
And so we are contracted to each other indefinitely
Do the common criminals watch interestedly?
Or are they in mourning?
For their younger selves, de-lined and flowering
There are generations stricken on the grass
Playing dead for the slowest kid in the class
They assured her she was middlingly fast
It was the decent thing to do
Too often, honesty is a front for cruelty
My heart was angled
And reeled in terrifyingly
Oh my heart was angled, angled oh
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11. |
Terry & Julie
04:11
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Terry and Julie cross over the river
Gladdened again by the sight of each other
They’re famed for their simplicity
And it is their song that providence shuffles
Onto my lips between splutters and sniffles
Outstaying my welcome on the earth
Oh, what a century!
To live and reign
You kneel down to navigate
The length and the breadth of a prayer
Long have you languished in there.
Terry and Julie admire the sunset
But a song removed, it’s not quarter to one yet
Though the days pass like a second hand
Here in the front room, hooked to a contraption
You do my ablutions and block my distraction:
A grey matinée movie
Oh, what a century!
To slip one’s chain
The mother of mortals
Constant and stable and scared
Spinning the bad news she heard.
You kneel down to navigate
The lone, level sands of a prayer
But nobody’s in the know
Nobody’s in my confidence.
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Land Lovers
Self-designated pop band from Dublin and co-founders of Popical Island.
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