1. |
The British Museum
01:48
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The British Museum
It’s late Sunday afternoon in the British Museum - oddly bashful at a bas-relief of a long dead Phoenician.
Been round and round the corridors until the day began to tire, half humbled, half embarrassed at the detritus of empire.
In the reading room, scholars grow old gracefully - but everybody must go home and so it is, eventually
I shuffle past the tourists and contemplate the fact
The most British thing that we could do would be to give it all back.
And it makes me kind of confident as I step out in to the train
That millennia of endeavour ends up dusty in glass cases.
So I’ll go have a conversation in a public house by firelight, knowing everything is futile, but everything is quite alright.
And in the reading room, the lights are off and silently
Shelves and shelves of reference books slide out of date relentlessly.
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2. |
Welcome to Justiceville
04:15
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Welcome to Justiceville (City of the Psyche)
Tell the pharaoh we’re going to build a psychedelic citadel high on that hill
A red chrome palace with a tin boulevard - I drive my lemon lime jaguar
Build a statue to the founding elite. Ride a housefly down Marriott Street.
Mine quicksilver from the motherlode - but can you cope when the teardrop explodes?
Getting even with your demons in the black vinyl underground
Let the elevator music take you up to the digital clouds
A city built of stone will ultimately crumble
A city built of steel will get swallowed by the jungle
A city of the psyche going to shine to the end of time
Ha!
You're in the army that refuses to fight
A storm trooper for the all seeing eye
A prophet warning, you'll get what you're owed
Shoot metallic parables, relax and reload
See the satyr and the incubus
(You wait forever then two come at once)
Taste the fresh air under the ocean
Their eyes are closed but their minds are open
You get issued with a sitar as you face the sun
Lay down your weapons, it's the mantra with the golden gun
Leave the planet with your hands up, we've got you surrounded
I set my phaser to stun
In the temple of Oliver Sacks the priest mistook his wife for a hat
See the twins playing with matches, finding music in the mathematics
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3. |
It's a Rollover
05:05
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It’s a Rollover
Everything I say is derivative in some old way
You can’t escape the world around you and all its influence
So you need make no apology for given the technology
The Romans would have spent their lives just waiting for the browser to refresh
So let it rollover, it’s a rollover, let it roll over you my friend
While she puts your records on she says “Anyone for Tennyson?
Call somebody a nobody and you’ll be incorrect.”
My generation played a blinder, staring long at the egg-timer.
Nobody’s a somebody, just slight under-dressed.
All that anger, just static on the line.
It seems to me you might have the gift of second sight
Cause you’re railing against something that I cannot see.
So won’t you come outside with me, ignore the mocking evergreens.
I’d rather be a stoic oak just rattling in the wind.
When the heavy weather comes and interrupts the intercom
You can feel the solidarity of silence.
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4. |
My Little Pony
05:06
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My Little Pony
When the 19th is a Friday it’s a long weekend
I walked for miles to 7 Dials with nothing left to spend
I found a coin outside the corner shop and stepped inside
Life is hard - but sometimes scratchcards just throw you a line
I don’t know but it’s been whispered happenstance is a terrible mistress
But I will take her hand
I find the number 25 and suddenly the night’s alive
Fortune’s on my side, tonight I’m gonna ride my little pony
Make haste to the alchemist employed down the Ottoman’s Head
He mixes me a gin ricky and resurrects the living dead
The Kinks are on the jukebox and all my friends are here
Engaged in expert repartee about nothing in particular
I don’t know but its been hinted a few different choices, I could’ve been minted
But I will not complain
It’s not big and it’s not cool but now I’m looking sharp at pool
So just to summarise tonight I’m gonna ride my little pony
We spill out to the pavement just 3 coins left to waste
Worse for wear we meet a busker playing chords from outer space
Three coins in the bowler I’m dancing in the street
To the chunky funky money sound that makes sense of my week
Now I know coz it’s been proven
All you’ve got is what you’re grooving to
Improvidence may seem quite foolish
You’re never alone when you’re lost in music
So what are you gonna do?
There’s always room for two
On my little pony
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5. |
Surrender Fields
04:07
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Surrender Fields
I only spoke to myself today but I still got into a fight
My wallet’s full of foreign coinage, I can’t remember why
Life is shortbread butterfingers, coffee kills the time
Can’t wait to get onto my scooter and leave this all behind
Past Surrender Fields, right down to The Pier
Round the great Pavilion, wishing you were here
Salt air through open windows, music from the street
Let your mind just wander - you might get a souvenir
The city’s built on dusty vinyl, dog-eared magazines
On madness and on genius and all that’s in between
Once this was a war zone every long weekend
Now kids hold hands just out to sea, an enemy’s best friend
Past Surrender Fields, right down to The Pier
Round the great Pavilion, wishing you were here
Living in each moment before it slips away
Let your mind just wander - you both need a holiday
Because time is an angry bus driver
He will not wait for you
And I know, when I’m old, and haggard in some far off land,
I’ll think fondly of this city that we knew
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6. |
Black Disc Signal
05:06
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Black Disc Signal
A little weary, perchance to be a little wise
Well that’s unlikely when better judgment is telling you just lies
The days are breaking you - well let them try
There’s a certain frequency where all the shades of love are in your hand
Voices from a summertime so long ago but still alive
There’s nothing more to do today
Just close your eyes and wait for the black disc signal
Feed me bad cryonics til this wave comes round again
Let me go Han Solo - wrap me up in lead
The world’s a semibreve echoing in space
There’s a certain frequency where all the shades of love are in your hand
Voices from a summertime so long ago but still alive
There’s nothing more to do today
Just close your eyes and wait for the black disc signal
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7. |
The Company of Gentlemen
03:36
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The Company of Gentlemen
I’ve yet to find religion - maybe one of us is hiding
I’ve yet to find myself so it is probably me
But the company of honest men is something to believe in
When the litany of pessimists starts to disagree
We’ll be alright with bonhomie and patience, I know we will
If there’s laughter when you leave the table don’t retaliate
If the waiters say we’ve passed a tipping point just let them wait
The company of gentlemen is something to adhere to
When your ex asks why the zed bed still invades her living space
When falling down we fall together, I know we will
So we held a seance with 1967
And a band of revolutionaries came through
Although I’d never hear of a single one of them
It’s not who you were, it’s who you knew
So be grateful when you’re living for the company of gentlemen
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8. |
Kicking That Can Around
03:39
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Kicking That Can Around
I woke up to chest pains, mouth as dry as Stephen Fry
The room span like the markets as I opened up my eyes
Pressure pushing down on me just like the Dame had cried
As sound and vision focussed, imagine my surprise
A crooked dwarf leaned over me grinning like a clown
I tried to leap right to my feet but he kept pushing down
He said “I’ve come to tell you boy, one thing I must expound:
You can’t go on forever kicking that can around.”
“What do you mean?” I coughed at him, and he laughed back at me.
“If a metaphor’s too hard for you, I’ll try a simile.
A grudge is like an anchor on the sea of memories -
Forgive those who hurt you most if you are to sail free.”
“Enough bad poetry!” I cried, “You’ve stopped making sense!
I don’t think ill of anyone” I said in my defense.
“Idiot!” he sternly spoke, his patience at an end
“I’ll show you faces of them all - abandon this pretense.”
The room was filled with images of all my enemies
With awkward words and stutterings and improprieties.
Some of them were teenagers, some adults, some babies.
All of them were imbeciles, and all of them were me.
And I was filled with sympathy for the ragged crowd.
Suddenly the dwarf was gone, no images, no sound...
And I could breathe again my friend, relieved that I had found
You can’t go on forever kicking that can around.
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9. |
Euston Sunrise
04:15
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Euston Sunrise
Now we blush at the first kiss of Winter, button up a brand new shirt
Toast the new day with a novelty mug, step outside let’s go to work.
Scraping ice from the car with a Nectar card, a pale hello to other early birds
Through air that fogs each hurried breath like it’s trying to hide our words
We’ll listlessness is a bed-fellow we all know
Melancholy: it’s our national sport, and lately I’ve been semi-pro
But I’ve come to spot how I’d forgotten
We have got so much in common
We share this narrow strip of time
And right now, a Euston sunrise.
The A40s so full of souls, bumper to bumper but we’re miles away.
Think of last night’s television: remakes, retakes, the next generation.
Or should you go back home for Christmas? The disc jock plays a revery.
We drum our dashboards in unison - it’s average speed camaraderie.
It’s 5 billion years since this journey began
I’ve looked so long at the A to Z but still can’t pin-point where I am.
But I’ve come to spot how I’d forgotten
We have got so much in common
We share this narrow strip of time
And right now, a Euston sunrise.
Well apathy is a sparring partner you’ve got to punch
Bafflement, it’s our national dish, and lately I’ve been out to lunch
But I’ve come to spot how I’d forgotten
We have got so much in common
We share this narrow strip of time
And right now, a Euston sunrise.
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10. |
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Fields Notes from the Hydrogen Economy
Drive through corn for hours and hours
Where your van goes, paint sunflowers
Cirrus, cumulonimbus
Long may you reign over us
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11. |
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Temporal Lobe Inversion / The Gecko / Temporal Lobe Reversion
Was it too much reverb when I detuned my guitar?
Was it too much dim sum in that shady noodlebar?
But as happens intermittently to the poles of the earth
I woke up this morning and my temporal lobes had reversed
My emotions were all flat-packed but the news was in blank verse
When your head is at war, its like a jigsaw, I can’t find release
All we are saying is give chance a piece
He can see through you like cellophane
As he’s stuck to your windowpane
Your PR tsar cannot help you now
You’ve no idea what you’re revealing
From that viewpoint on the ceiling
Your splinter cell of ne’er do wells, such a fragile grip on power
He’ll slide into your ear, roost in your hippocampus
Give you visions of the Buddha on a Japanese golf course
He’s the gecko
It’s the eggshell in your omelette
It’s the cork chips in your claret
It’s the little things that spoil all your fun
It’s a sticky wicket
Now you’re in the thick of it
Better watch out for his prehensile tongue
If you don’t believe his tale you can cut it off mid sentence
But he’ll just sprout another one and you can make the papers
He’s the gecko
For a short while you may smile, he knows he is no crocodile
But there’s a crock of something heinous going on
When you get schizo at the disco he’s in the air vents trying not to eat all the flies on the wall
He’s the gecko, come on let go, hear him echo, at the disco, getting schizo, getting frisky, Nikka whisky, ipsy dipsy, did you miss me?, he’s the gecko
Was it mixing paint and turpentine then drinking from that jar?
Was it listening to Husker Du far too loud in my four-by-four?
Was it heavy heavy karma from some past life transgression?
Was it heavy heavy monster sounds in my cerebellum?
All the small ones tell tall tales
Now it’s time to learn my scales.
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12. |
Goodnight Rejects
05:31
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Goodnight Rejects
Goodnight rejects, although I’m of your kin
It’s time for me to leave now, you've really done my head in
Farewell fumblers, although I’m sure you feel the same
I must bugger off now before I go insane
I’m going to drive an ancient car around the B roads for a little while
I’m going to lean on dry stone walls and watch the geese until it makes me smile again
Sayonara social scene, I ain’t never coming back
In spite of careful planning everything went crap
The whingers and the wastrels, the morons and the gits
The liggers and backbiters, the egotists and blighters, you really took the biscuit
I’m going to drive an ancient car for miles and miles to keep myself amused
Lie down upon the grass beneath the Angel of the North and have a snooze
Under other circumstances we might just have got along
But now our toys are on the pavement I just have to run
Every weekend yields to Monday, every bender breeds headaches
Every well intentioned action gets debased by frauds and fakes
I’m going to drive an ancient car until the accents change and I am free
I'm going to doff my cap towards villagers who barely understand me
So goodnight rejects, I hope that you’ll be fine
Happy doing your thing and I’ll be doing mine
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13. |
I'm Looking Forwards
05:12
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I’m Looking Forwards
If you wind the record backwards, listen hard and you will hear
A message for you that was never really there.
Turn me on deaf man, I doubt that’s what John planned.
You could just play it straight and have yourself a little dance.
I’m looking forwards to looking backwards only at the end.
I’m looking forwards. Unless my memory fails me, it’s worth having plenty to forget.
If you keep on looking over your shoulder sooner or later, you’re gonna go over a cliff.
Don’t let it happen to you.
Lost in history - when the shoulders of giants shrug uncommitedly,
Better stand up, face the audience and grin.
One in six billion - and that’s just the humans.
All those opinions but we’re ultimately clueless.
It’s a big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big universe.
I’m looking forwards to looking backwards only at the end.
I’m looking forwards. Unless my memory fails me, high clouds make for bright sunsets.
Keep your brown eyes on the road.
Keep your blue eyes on the road.
Keep your green eyes on the road.
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Elastic Justice Brighton, UK
Elastic Justice: purveyors of uplifting psychedelia.
We first got together house sharing in Clapham. Back then
we had to take turns to sleep next to the washing machine. Now we are based in Brighton, Miami and San Francisco, but distance proved no object in producing an intensely British sound. Listeners so far find echoes of the Kinks, Madness, Blur and Pink Floyd in what we do. Hope you dig.
... more
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