1. |
A Bitter Juice
03:35
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A Bitter Juice
Got to fill that noggin
With some usefulness
You can win an argument
But you can’t change a mind
Going to hypnotise ourselves
To happiness
There’s a big bad world out there
We won’t be left behind
Going to hang a sign up
Keeping out creative types
We don’t need them
Sneaking round our homes
For their torment’s boring
And it has no use
Every night they’re pouring out
A bitter juice
Going to learn some skills
That take us far from here
Far from the dairy board
And the song of the ice cream van
So the world will bow down
To our mastery
And the liars in advertising
Will have to change their plan
In our new republic
We will ban creative types
We don’t need them
Feeding us with lies
They can put their own heads
Through a homemade noose
Every night they’re brewing up
A bitter juice
We are not obliged
To buy the products that you sell
You can buy us all a drink
But we can spit it out
Don’t miss being lethargic and irascible
Fancy names for rotgut swill
That make you sad and ill
New republic thrives
Now we’ve removed creative types
No one misses what
They do not need
So we axed their budget
And we cut them loose
Every night they’re seething in
A bitter juice
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2. |
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How do we become what we are?
Average children
In an average town
Average statistician
Takes their average details down
Predict their progress
Through the coming years
The power of tradition
It is not what it appears
Now comes the tricky part
To hear the average beating of an average heart
You will miss the mystical
When your only methods are statistical
How do we become what we are
Can we read our fortunes
In a survey or a star
Can science only take us so far?
Or does the microscope
Show us things as they really are?
How do we become what we are?
Children of promise
And children of neglect
And those nature and nurture
Both fail to affect
Those whose lives seem predetermined
Those who fit no plan
Those who could run rings around you
If they ever ran
A generation gap
Gives you values scattered all across the map
They are perennial
There’s no need to class them as millennial
How do we become what we are
Can we read our fortunes
In a survey or a star
Can science only take us so far?
Or does the microscope
Show us things as they really are?
How do we become what we are?
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3. |
Ruby Mood
03:29
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Ruby Mood
Word salad takes over your mind
Narcissus by contrast seemed kind
Bad translator found out in the end
Unmasked as a fraud and false friend
Envy’s a bitter food
Your poisonous attitude
Turning a water cooler spat
To a professional feud
In sapphire solitude
I’m in a ruby mood
Hoping one day these galley years
Seem an unpleasant interlude
Freelancer no dragons to slay
And nothing to fill up the day
Kings don’t need you to dig up their treasure
Enjoy this new penniless leisure
But I’m in a ruby mood
In sapphire solitude
Riches of the mind help me endure
Ordeals with fortitude
The gold that you have accrued
The adoration of the multitude
They’re no comfort for a ruler
Sunk in turpitude
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4. |
Werewolf Rights
03:08
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Werewolf Rights
Werewolves have been around for a very long time
They witnessed the human race as it passed its prime
Put on your public face
To hide the murky place
The things we really search for
When we think nobody’s watching
Keeping thin
With rejuvenated skin
But there are no cosmetics
That can hide the beast within
Beast within
Werewolves were long despised but their luck will turn
If you won’t put your pitchfork down you’ll just have to learn
New rules we will backdate
So don’t discriminate
And watch out Brothers Grimm
We’ll give your nasty tales a trim
That’s how we’ll spend our nights
We won’t give up the fight
We’ll occupy the square
And we’ll campaign for werewolf rights
Werewolf rights
Werewolves were hunted down now they’re here to stay
Be happy you’ve lived to see this enlightened day
Old order overthrown
Now we’ve got werewolf rights A-ooo
New age of tolerance
Celebrating werewolf rights A-ooo
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5. |
Utopia
03:06
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Utopia
With mutinous eyes and treacherous hearts
We’re sailing this ship to the edge of the charts
To a space on the map inhabited by monsters
But the mapmaker’s inventions
Won’t deter us from our goal
Utopia the floating island
Where the likes of us
Will be granted free asylum
Utopia the scourge of tyrants
Equal treatment shown
To philosophers and pirates
Far beyond Christendom’s crowded jails
From the realms of one god and the dervishes’ wails
There’s a fabulous land devoid of superstition
Our masters kept it secret
But they could not kill the truth
Utopia the floating island
Where the likes of us
Will be granted free asylum
Utopia the scourge of tyrants
Equal treatment shown
To philosophers and pirates
Utopia the floating island
Where the likes of us
Will be granted free asylum
Utopia’s on the horizon
A fortress
That no kings can put their spies in
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6. |
Andatino, Allegretto
03:23
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Andantino, Allegretto
Halloween hymns
That could wake the dead
Appetites rage
Better left unfed
Say it’s not your real self
Only fancy dress
But where can truth hide
Under constant jest
Stand up again
We already got it
Your punchline
It sunk in
Stand up again
You’ve already fallen
It won’t hurt
To fall again
Allegretto, Andantino
Thrown out of the casino
Andantino, Allegretto
Find another ghetto
Palace of greed
Even coins are fleeced
A vanishing act
You escape at least
Throw them the bait
Make a switch they’ll feel
The bullet in the trick
Wish that it was real
Fool them again
You know that they want it
The same trick
In new rags
Fool them again
You’ve already fooled them
They won’t mind
They look dumb
Allegretto, Andantino
Thrown out of the casino
Andantino, Allegretto
Find a new libretto
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7. |
Hotel No Possessions
03:26
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Hotel No Possessions
Though the doomsayers flubbed it
And their predictions were lies
You’re still taking a year off
Severing all human ties
You broke off with your cronies
Who relentlessly sponged
You couldn’t be selfish
When your self was expunged
Hotel No Possessions
Gets you off your high horse
Takes 14 lines to write a sonnet
Quatorzines of remorse
Hotel No Possessions
Modest Louis Quatorze
Lie in bed smoking
To stop us fighting wars
And the psychics were helpless
They had nothing to say
You were wise to avoid them
And to drive them away
But you’ve consulted a reader
Cards show imminent doom
To be safe you’ll be spending
Another year in this room
Hotel No Possessions
Grand piano installed
88 chances
Your number will be called
Hotel No Possessions
Marble blank and austere
Starve for inspiration
Pluck sounds out of the air
So you’re staging a lie-in
Occupy your own bed
Film crews capture the wisdom
Born from your sleepyhead
You could never imagine
With the passage of years
You’d set the world an example
Of how the self disappears
Hotel No Possessions
Gets you off your high horse
Takes 14 lines to write a sonnet
Quatorzines of remorse
Hotel No Possessions
Modest Louis Quatorze
Lie in bed smoking
To stop us fighting wars
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8. |
The Unattainable
02:53
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The Unattainable
Eternal happiness
An iron will
Why must the simplest things be unattainable?
Before you make your case
You’re asked to leave
Why is the truth the last thing people will believe?
We’re heading into the storm
Without a legend to keep us warm
And we’re drawing up plans for invading heaven
We’re about to unleash the swarm
And our state of affairs today
Is not the way we intend to stay
The masters who kept us down for so long
Will finally have to pay
A shelter from the cold
Where you can eat your fill
Why must the simplest things be unattainable?
Nobody threatening you
A decent pair of shoes
Why is the life you’re given not the one you’d choose?
And we’re filling out a form
To be given a place we can keep warm
We’ve abandoned our hopes for a place in heaven
For a place in the vagrants’ dorm
On a bunk bed by the wall
I mumble pride precedes a fall
In seeking the unattainable
We ended up with nothing at all
A memory silencer
A happy pill
Why must the simplest things be unattainable?
Not forced to share a room
With folks you’d like to kill
Why must be the simplest things be unattainable?
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9. |
The Happy Chord
02:31
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The Happy Chord
All the studios
And all the hours
Can’t conceal the signs of
Fading powers
Can’t hide behind the wall of sound
For his former self swore to pay a debt
The present self can’t afford
And he can’t recall how he found the notes
To play the happy chord
His famous wit and his
Sophisticated sneering
One day the world decided
They were not endearing
And he was toppled from his throne
And now he busks by the palace gates
Where he used to be the lord
But he can’t recall how to play the notes
That make the happy chord
So they tolerate him
With his cap and bells
Makes the warlords laugh at
The world peace he foretells
Words forgiven in a fool
But he’s hoping they learn to get along
To the duo of lute and sword
That the sounds of peace and the sounds of war
Will form a happy chord
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10. |
I Got Lost in My Room
03:30
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I got lost in my room
In Oberammergau
They perform the passion play
And the Gods meet in Bayreuth
Where they sing what they have to say
Sorcery and swords
Fill the Southern Alpine air
Relevance is bunk
When it makes them millionaires
But I would also take a sword
And gladly march off to my doom
But I got lost in my room
I can’t find my way out and
I see no exit in this gloom
I got lost in my room
Show bestsellers respect
Stay faithful to each page
Art music is junk
Put the singers in a cage
People of the book
Become the people of the cloud
Incinerate the tomes
If that will please the crowd
But I regret the hoarding that has made this
Space into a tomb
I got lost in my room
When the dust is in your head
It can’t be tidied by a broom
I got lost in my room
So easy to say
You look down on fantasy
To describe the everyday
Only adds to our misery
Carve out a slice of life
And hardly change a word
It’s ready to be played
The theatre of the absurd
If life is a rich tapestry
I seem to have mislaid the loom
I got lost in my room
Nihilism is my bride
And I am the reluctant groom
I got lost in my room
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Simon Patterson and the Bichan Orchestra Auckland, New Zealand
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