1. |
Airport Hotel
03:17
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On the bed at the airport hotel
You were curled up like a question mark
I buttoned my collar
My tie like a noose
As you emptied out the mini bar
And I could still taste you on my tongue
Your body hard and young
On the train into town
I mouth the words repeatedly
If you knew just what you mean to me
I could be better than this
Denial on denial ‘til no integrity exists
That silent resignation
With the words right on my lips
And the feeling maybe baby
This is all that there is
I could be better than this
Well I dream about crashing
On the long drive home
Pull over in the lay by
Change the sim card in my phone
But there’s nothing left to say
Just the sound of your voice
Oh you say I’ll never leave her
Like as if I had a choice
But these words are poison arrows
And I am paralysed by fears
And it gets harder every day
Every night that you’re not here
Well I know they talk behind my back
I Pretend that I can’t hear
About the greedy young queen
And the dirty old queer
I could be better than this
The promise of suburbia
The widening abyss
When I’m laying in the bathtub
With the razor to my wrists
And a list of explanations
She’s gonna give to my kids
I could be better than this
On the bed at the airport hotel
You were curled up like a question mark
I buttoned my collar
My tie like a noose
As you emptied out the mini bar
And I could still taste you on my tongue
Your body hard and young
On the train into town
I mouth the words repeatedly
If you knew just what you mean to me
I could be better than this
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2. |
Bit Part Actor
03:36
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On Tuesday morning 22nd of July
I tend my resignation, walk out to the street
I decide to stop feeling hopeless
And admit defeat
I draw the poisonous air into my meaningless lungs
And gaze up at the windows lit up high above the slums
And think of all that life there
Piled up like shit in a stable
Drenched in the blood of Abel
So nothing ever grows
And I am tired of listening
To the sound of your laughter
Let me deliver my lines and leave
Like a bit part actor
Pacing in the wings
Waiting for a cue
But no one ever comes
To usher you in
In the end it is down to you
I watched the narrative fade
Right off the page
I watched my fiends grow up and grow apart
Grow cynical with age
I watched a new generation
That was taking our place
And I couldn’t recognise what I’d become
And on Sunday morning 27th of July
Well I woke up from a nightmare and I wanted so to die
I saw every opportunity that ever passed me by
There in your cold blue eyes
I saw it crystallize
A place where nothing grows
And I am tired of listening
To the sound of your laughter
Let me deliver my lines and leave
Like a bit part actor
Pacing in the wings
Waiting for a cue
But no one ever comes
To usher you in
In the end it is down to you
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3. |
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Oh Jeremy
There will be no reward for your persistence
For the cancer it has riddled me
The tumour is malignant
And I’ve lost all of the faculties
I need to judge the distance
Between the nature of the beast
And the culture of resistance
Oh Jeremy
Mendacity’s the perfume of your peers
Ideology is bankrupt
It is decades in arrears
And there is no manifesto, no
Just the catalyst of fears
For an imperial monopoly
As it slowly disappears
Oh but I
I want to
Believe too
To be swept along
When the feeling’s strong
But I
I just pretend to care
Hungover in my underwear
Oh Jeremy
Society’s been digging it’s own grave
There’ll be no one left to save
It’s just a long, slow process of decay
Oh Jeremy
The first time it was bound to be explosive
When the ecstasy took full effect
In floods of serotonin
And you spoke of liberation
While I paid my dues to Onan
For though my brother; he lay slain
There was nothing that I owed him
Oh Jeremy
I’m sick with the whitest of afflictions
I have moved beyond sincerity
I have lost all my convictions
I am cloaked in pseudo-literary
Notions of existence
And there is no room for cowards
In the culture of resistance
Oh but I
I want to
Be there too
When the orchestra plays
The Internationale
But I
I’m just to cool to care
Leather jacket and long hair
Oh Jeremy
The enemy
Has gifted me a grave
Now all I have to do is wait
For the long, slow process of decay
For the long, slow process of decay
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4. |
London
03:13
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As we toil in our indifference
And the hours turn to days
We are passive but never complicit
We mind our own business
We don’t act afraid
Like spokes on the wheel of an exercise bike
The perpetual motion of a stationary life
We build ourselves out of the products we buy
We document everything
Building the lie
We document everything
Building the lie
But on the 277 I am starting to cry
With my head in my hands I am wondering why
I get up in the morning go to bed at night
When nothing ever happens in between
Baby I am on the verge of collapse
It’s like I can’t wake up but I can’t relax
And we’re not getting any younger
Let’s face the facts
We are mining an empty seam
We are mining an empty seam
I was careless when I was younger
Full of appetites and hungers
So I followed a lover to London
But the lover did not love me
And the city it bound me in ivory chains
Like the false economy of bad cocaine
Oh first it giveth
Then it taketh away
Now everyone’s a stranger and you don’t know why you came
Everyone’s a stranger and you don’t know why you came
Everyone’s a stranger and you don’t know why you came
But on the 277 I am falling apart
There’s a rock at the bottom of what used to be my heart
And I know I need a change but I don’t know where to start
When no one ever says what they mean
Maybe I should just hedge my bets
If life is suffering then what are regrets?
And maybe in time we will all forget
We were mining an empty seam
We were mining an empty seam
We were mining an empty seam
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5. |
Get On Top
06:12
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Come on over baby girl
Get on top
Leave the lights on
We don’t need to talk
You can close your eyes
Think about any other lover you like
But it wasn’t like this when we first met
We used to burn for each other
Like lit cigarettes
But we burn out so fast
I guess the good things never last
Let’s pretend we’re strangers
Like we just met in a bar
Undressing on the stairs
All tooth and nail and recency
Who cares for common decency
We know who we really are
Well I work all week and I don’t know why
I take myself off the clock I wanna go get high
‘Cause I’ve got no meaning
No purpose in life
So won’t you lay with me tonight
Oh come on over baby let the silver moon shine
Through the cracks in the curtains
Like a song form the old time
Get on top
Tell me that lie
One more time before you say goodbye
Let’s pretend we’re younger
Our bodies free of scars
When our actions had no consequence
When I still had self confidence
Before we had forgotten
Who it is we really are
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6. |
Silence
05:35
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You are socially liberal, fiscally conservative
You say live and let live
Or let die
Why should I
Pay for the lifestyles
Of those that never tried?
We all make choices
Under the weight of compromise
And I made mine
But you are confident enough about your presence in the world
To extend your neuroses
To your little boy and girl
Now she’s standing in the mirror
At eleven years old
And sees her body as an object
That society will mould
But if we’re all to be commodities
Then we might as well know
Our place in the market
Before anxiety takes hold
I can’t sleep at night
Oh unless I drink just the right
Amount of beers
On the night bus home
From my dead end job
To my sub-let home
And there’s no future here
Amidst the waves of mediocrity
The uniform appearance
Of alternative consumer choice
When I open my mouth
There is only one voice
And I am silent
I am silent
Now I’m standing in the ashes
Of the person that I was
And in a moment of sobriety
See the severity of the loss
While you’re butchering semantics
Trynna tell me black is white
I just bite down on my calloused tongue and remain satisfied
With the moments of self-loathing
When I begin to fantasize
About random acts of violence
And all the people I despise
Now you’re hooked on cheap pornography
Desensitized to sex
You’ve got a useless liberal arts degree
And thirty grand of debt
But your open letter’s going viral
You’ve got twenty thousand likes
And you think you’re a fucking environmentalist
Just because you ride a bike
But you show no solidarity
When the transport unions strike
You say the age of collective bargaining
Was in nineteen-eighty-five
I can’t sleep at night
Oh unless I drink just the right
Amount of beers
On the night bus home
From my dead end job
To my sub-let home
And there’s no future here
Amidst the waves of mediocrity
The uniform appearance
Of alternative consumer choice
When I open my mouth
There is only one voice
And I am silent
I am silent
I can’t sleep at night
Oh unless I drink just the right amount of beers
Right now it’s up to five
And it’s beginning to leave traces
On my body and mind
But there’s no future here
In the century of the self
I am consumed by the fear
I am haunted by the ancient doubt
When I open my mouth
Nothing comes out
I am silent
I am silent
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7. |
Selfish Lover
04:41
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Oh I was a selfish lover
As I drunkenly entered you
On the hotel floor
But I was just one of many others
Your Mona Lisa smile said boy
“I’ve seen it all before”
Now I’m too drunk to cum
My ego deflates as my dick grows numb
God I wish I was home
I’d crawl back in
To my mother’s arms
How cruel the world has become
Darling these pills are making me sick
I don’t know who I am anymore
I guess fluoxetine and alcohol really don’t mix
‘Cause I blacked out in a taxi
And I woke up on the floor
And I tried
I tired
I tried
I tried
But we are all changed in our turn
Transformed completely
A terrible nothing is born
I was a selfish lover
I held the door open
Then locked it behind your back
I guess I was young; I guess I was afraid
I guess I held my tongue too long
And too long I held you back
O amazing grace
You left the most bitter taste
What a terrible waste
To pray for one that can’t be saved
How cruel the world has become
Darling these pills are making me sick
I don’t know who I am anymore
I guess fluoxetine and alcohol really don’t mix
‘Cause I blacked out in a taxi
And I woke up on the floor
And I tried
I tired
I tried
I tried
But we are all changed in our turn
Transformed completely
A terrible nothing is born
Transformed completely
A terrible nothing is born
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8. |
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I’m still surprised
That the rest of my pride
Hasn’t crumbled
From keeping this sinking ship on the sea
When your vanity tames
Every lame
Attempt to be humble
You’re a sociopath with a Narcissus streak
It’s the oldest conceit
The narrative of self defeat
Washing the feet
Of every Mary you meet
Carrying that cross
A monument to what you’ve lost
C’mon Boss
Why don’t you give me a break?
You’re a well made fake
I can’t believe
I’m attending the needs
Of an infant
What about all those big books that I read?
A spoilt little boy
Who would rather destroy
All his playthings
Then film your wife while she’s giving him head
But still I repeat
The narrative of self defeat
I’ve been keeping you up late
When you should be asleep
Carrying that cross
A monument to what I’ve lost
C’mon boss
Why don’t you give me a break?
I’m a well made fake
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9. |
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I walked away from a glittering career
Left my bourgeois affectations
On the baggage carousel
Of an Airport
In a distant destination
I wanted very badly to be free
Of the western existential malady
I threw away my razor and my comb
‘til I looked just like a native
A secular Loyola
In a four by four Toyota
I’ve come to tell the truth
Even white men get the blues you see
It’s very windy at the top of that tree
The yellowing whites of her eyes
Trynna find a buyer
For a temporary child bride
But all I see
Is a picture perfect for a magazine
But there’s no absolution
For this sin
I will only ever be
On the outside looking in
It’s an accident of birth
I shouldn’t let it damage my self worth
I walked away from a glittering career
‘Cause I was born to be creative!!
Oh all my teachers said
A great future lay ahead
And though I wasted
Every opportunity
There would never be a door that closed on me
I traded middle management for Marx
A suburban Victor Laszlo
There was romance to be had
Amongst the great white proletariat
The calloused hands
And pornographic jokes
I was a tourist in a land devoid of hope
The ritual persists
So the culture is maintained
With a homemade Bunsen burner
Trynna sterilise a razorblade
This cannot be real
It’s not a pain that ‘m supposed to feel
But there’s no absolution
For this sin
Of cultural inheritance
Of where do I begin
It’s just an accident of birth
Doesn’t mean sometimes it doesn’t hurt
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10. |
Home Sweet Home
03:29
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Well I started off standing on the side lines
Ended up in a car park on my knees
Oh the reductive power
Of a coastal town
I could never quite seem to leave
And we all stood around with baited breath
Waiting for that apple to fall from the tree
While the broken glass
And the old public baths
Were slowly returned to the sea
Oh home sweet home
How could you be so cruel
The culture of blame
The patriot game
And old men in cassocks
To keep down the masses
With guilt and and shame
We were two pairs of shoes beneath the cubicle door
And me with my library card
And if I wanted to feel
Any worse about myself now
I’d have to try pretty damn hard
Oh and all of the girls had straightened their hair
And poured themselves into a dress
‘Cause if you’re living at home
And drawing the dole
No you can’t let yourself get depressed
Oh home sweet home
How could you be so cruel
The culture of blame
The patriot game
And old men in cassocks
To keep down the masses
With guilt and and shame
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Louis Brennan London, UK
London-based Dubliner Louis Brennan is a singer-songwriter in the folk tradition. His folk however aren’t the field hands and travelling minstrels of yore but the repressed middle managers and ennui-ridden urbanites of late-stage capitalism. They populate tales of bad sex, drunk commutes and interpersonal claustrophobia delivered in Brennan’s cracked baritone, at times embarrassingly intimate ... more
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