1. |
Baby with the Bathwater
07:22
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In the lowland towns
Where people like to paint their food
Be patient while you starve
To rush the painter would be rude
But when you cut the canvas
For a pair of trousers
And you use the oils
To paint the walls of houses
It’s not always the best way just because it’s shorter
Throwing out the baby with the bathwater
You claim no subjects left
It’s your imagination’s fault
Here comes the prince of poets
With an ode to table salt
But you must remind us
One day we’ll all be dead
You think a skull beside a book
Says all that need be said
It’s not always the best way just because it’s shorter
Throwing out the baby with the bathwater
Your neatly ordered land
That seems the size of a postage stamp
It makes them envious
They say I’d like a piece of that
Aping your achievements
At the cost of thousands killed
Denies the humane principles
In everything you build
Why are they resorting to this mindless slaughter
Throwing out the baby with the bathwater
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2. |
People and Places
03:22
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People and places
These are what we do not see much now
Where have you been this month
Well I’ve been walking up and down
I’ve found a helpline
Claims that it can offer guidance
For all the lonely souls
Unhappy in their hideouts
There is a service
That replaces human company
You can be everything to others
That you’d like to be
People and places
These are concepts from another time
Crowds in the galleries
And hours spent standing in a line
But if the simulation is
As real as it’s claimed to be
Why would we ever want to
Go back to reality
It profits nobody
To change the world that we have found
Not while technology
Is moving on in leaps and bounds
People and places
These are what we do not see much now
People and places
These are what we do not see much now
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3. |
Sleeptalking
05:18
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There’s no one up there physics tells us
There’s no one out there statistics say
These are childish misconceptions
Adults learn to put away
But we don’t buy your cold hard science
These ideas still have their place
What if an alien civilization
Were founders of the human race?
I believe in sleeptalking
There are things you can’t explain
The power of visions and of revelations
The key is in the human brain
I believe in sleeptalking
Like a hidden message in the record groove
Our minds hold secrets of creation
And reveal them when the body cannot move
What’s the song about asks the critic
What’s the meaning behind the dance
These words and movements come from dreaming
We recreate them in a trance
The ruling minds say mystic garbage
Only trust what they can see
But we’re sleepwalking towards extinction
By only thinking rationally
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4. |
The Fat Years
04:59
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Long office hours
They were bad news for my shape
Swift corruption from
Working for the media
Order more fast food
Before the scandal can escape
Help the public
Learn to get even greedier
Undermining Bill Clinton
Was our butter and our bread
We would have liked him more
If we had known what lay ahead
We would have felt less guilt
About the burgers and the beers
How we miss the fat years
Everyone believes
They’re living through an age of decline
Everything went downhill
Since they invented the horse and cart
Say the youth of today
Know nothing at all
But no one can recall
A time when they were smart
Undermining Boris Yeltsin
Was our butter and our bread
We would have liked him more
If we had known what lay ahead
We would have felt less guilt
About the vodkas and the beers
How we miss the fat years
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5. |
The Underground Elite
05:08
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When the tune sleuths had tracked you down
To the night when you’d heard all you wanted
From now on there are no words without songs
And no music you can’t sing along to
A slave to chords and the tyrant of rhyme
Simple couplets marching in common time
In a dingy basement this is where they come to meet
And they call themselves the underground elite
Their reputations couldn’t get any worse
They take the secret of success and use it in reverse
They make brows rise or sink down low
If there’s a trick here then we’ll let you know
They tread the same streets, live the same days
But see them bathed in a roseate haze
Even floosies take on this aura
Take these two here call them Beatrice and Laura
Honest citizens conspire to keep them sane
They’re leaving on some mystic journey once again
In a dingy basement this is where they come to meet
And so they call themselves the underground elite
While the management convenes on the top floor
No one suspects what retribution lies in store
A revolution brewing far beneath their feet
Down in the basement of the underground elite
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6. |
Last Runner in the Race
04:52
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He could take the big wheels
And be there in a moment
He could get there on his floating bike
Could be back to join us
Seconds before he left us
In the way the watchdogs do not like
He needs no magic
Just the trance that comes from training
And the fervour burns inside his bones
And in his face
And this tablet’s made of stone
It has no tricks to offer
He will be the modern primitive
Last runner in the race
He could press the buttons
To set the forklifts moving
He could mobilize the country’s fleet
But he only takes the things
That his two hands can carry
Only travels places with his feet
He needs no magic
Just the trance that comes from training
And the fervour burns inside his bones
And in his face
And this tablet’s made of stone
It has no tricks to offer
He will be the modern primitive
Last runner in the race
Only pen and paper
There is nothing he can conjure
Surrounds himself with cemeteries of print
Doesn’t hold with progress
And he will not have an upgrade
Not for all the money in the mint
Doesn’t have to thank a bunch
Of such amazing people
He has everything he needs
All in one place
With a tablet made of stone
That offers only silence
He will be the modern primitive
Last runner in the race
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7. |
A Tourist in Hell
05:08
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From a drawer of rotting apples
Or contortions of the damned
To jolt us from the commonplace world
We take inspiration where we can
The writhing of the sinners’ bodies
Their cries of never-ending pain
Suburban life being0 short on subjects
Turn to them time and again
You enjoy the view
Down at the bottom of the well
You see the ravens overhead
Call them a murder
Over time you’ve learned to be
A tourist down in hell
How to take suffering so far
But never further
Only takes a little oiling
To start th’ infernal chariot
The chance you might not be returning
Adds thrills to sinking down into the pit
Folks back at home will not believe you
But they’re glad to sing your songs
Plagiarize the howls of demons
Your art’s beyond all rights and wrongs
You enjoy the view
Down at the bottom of the well
You see the ravens overhead
Call them a murder
Over time you’ve learned to be
A tourist down in hell
How to take suffering so far
But never further
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Simon Patterson and the Bichan Orchestra Auckland, New Zealand
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