1. |
Startled by Stars
04:10
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Startled by Stars
I've been in love a few times I've had toothache twice 25 pairs of glasses
Through which I have made several observations
Number 1 there's a shit-ton of everything you cannot hope to take it in
Like glimpses of the weaving wings of starlings murmurating
2 the world is wider than the travel agents would have you believe
Through a glass darkly we see mostly what we expect to see
3 the journey is within you
4 you’ll never arrive
5 do what makes you happy
6 look up at the skyline
It's startled by stars look up at the sky line it's startled by stars
I don't need to make great works of art I am content to be a part of other people's stories -I don't need undying glory
I've never backpacked round the world or padded barefoot through the Taj Mahal
But I was there in Frensham ponds when 100000 frogs born
We didn't know where to put our feet and we didn't know where to our feet and we didn't know where to put our feet
So look up at the sky line it startled by stars
I've been in love a few times and I bet I could have bathed a bison in my tears
I dipped my thimble in the deep bidet 40000 years of human knowledge
I've been to six form college and though I'm thick as porridge
I've made several observations.
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2. |
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You can probably tell from the way that I speak I was born in the home counties
Somewhere near the bottom of the top of the heap but I've always felt more green belt than street
I drop my 't's but I can talk nicely one dropped an 'e' at an all night party
I like the Landscape around here and the trees and my ladybird book of philosophy says
I believe that it's alright to like your good luck buttered
Providing you're prepared to spend a little time in the gutter
It's evident fate doesn't make home visits strange as it may seem
Normal's not something to aim for is just a setting on your washing machine
Living in a van in a field suits me meet my lack of equity with equanimity
I voted Green in a blue safe seat just a drop in the ocean of all the small 'c's
They say we've got to leave the European Union but we've just got to get a lot more Epicurean
You can sum up a whole civilization with those little tiny cups of milk you get in service stations
There are more ways you can look at your life than there are cats eyes on the M25
Time and motion the unexamined life is a slow self murder it's a kind of suicide
While you're cutting your grass and paying your taxes the moon wanes and the moon waxes
Cutting your grass and paying your taxes the moon wanes and waxes
The fact is it takes practice knowing when to get distracted
Here's to the pursuit of happiness in your trainers and tracksuit
I wrote this song in the home counties
Sitting in my van making toasted cheese
Which I burnt to a cinder trying to tie up loose ends
Eating cold baked beans from the can thinking
What am I doing trying to put this all into words
But I'm far from certain if they mean anything
Talk is cheep cheep cheep chirp the birds when they sing
words are light like feathers but put together right feathers made wings
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3. |
Portland Stone
03:46
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Portland Stone
I want to feel like a frisbee feels
I'd rather be a river than a reservoir
I'd rather be a shoal of salmon shimmering
Than bathed in brine and boneless in a tin
'Cause it's a sin to sit in silence when you want to sing
Or clip clip clip your own wings
I want to feel like a river I want to feel like a river
I'd rather be a landslide than a hotel on the hillside
I'd rather be subsiding than abiding there's no hiding how
I want to crash into the sea with a symbol splash cacophony
The kind of crazy cadence caused by marching bands colliding
I want to feel like a landslide feels
I want to feel like a landslide
All the calcified crustaceans waiting for the tide to take them home
Portland stone the falling walls of Jericho
I want to feel like a melody feels when you sing it
Want to feel like a Frisbee feels when you fling it
Don't want to be a manuscript or a file in a folder in a filing cabinet
I don't want to be an un-played 78
In the attic of your grandma's home
So put me on a gramophone put me on a gramophone
Because I don't care if I get scratches
Strike me I'm a box of matches
The shimmering salmon swim up from the sea the shimmering salmon swim up from the sea
The 78 spins like a Frisbee
Frisbee flies like a river bending beginning and ending
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4. |
Similar Materials
02:36
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If you and I where stick insects
I'd stand as still as I could next to you
While you stood still as you could stand on a stick stuck in Silver Sand
If we were pebbles on a beach I'd lie so close to you
The action of the waves would mean you borrow deep inside of me
You and I are made from similar materials you and I are made from such similar materials
If me and you where metaphors in a song with several simple chords
The flags would fly in semaphore while sailors said I love you more
And worst things happen out at sea then you being away from me
But even monsters of the deep need other monster's company
You and I are made from similar materials
Of all the gin joints in all the world
You'd stumble into mine if you'll be Ingrid Bergman
I'll be both those other guys
If we were hydrogen we'd find ourselves and molecule of oxygen and bond with it
And stabilize it's outer shell
WE’D fly out over the sea you'd never be away from me
Because we'd be deep
And we'd be bonded chemically.
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5. |
National Trust
02:36
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National Trust
We drive Land Rovers we like brushcutters
Butterflies and glow-worms slow worms and sand lizards
We know the difference between the shovels and spades
We've got Belted Galloway's
We are mostly underpaid our green shirts don't help us to get laid
We're the National Trust Mother Hubbard trust us we've got it all under control
We're the National Trust Mother Hubbard trust us we've got it all under control
We like to put up signs we protect the countryside
We drive Land Rovers we prefer red to white clovers
We've got nice warm pullovers we have outdoor sleepovers
We are friends to ant and spider we make our own cider
We've got great big shiny tractors built bought by wealthy benefactors
From the Mighty Eagle to the tiny little ball from the long eared owl
To the long eared bat to the silver studded blue caterpillar
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6. |
Origami Birds
04:00
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Late to develop I was told
I’d never be a ninja
Went home and cried for a while
And became a TEFL teacher
Flew to Brazil and got sunstroke
On Copacabana beach
A cockroach fell into my can of coke
I was vomiting for hours
Feeling pretty foolish very white and much to English
I started smoking cigarettes
Waiting for my adult life to start
Met a girl in evening dress and heels
Who said she worked in cinema
I had a mental image to conceal
Of me naked underneath her
Never happened but that is OK
Because I’ve got it in the archives
Of my late night onanism library
Under ‘C’ for cinematic imagery
Drowning out my sorrows bought a second hand miniature banjo
It was totally unplayable
The soundtrack to my freshly broken heart
Waiting for my adult life to start
How the days we live in all unfold like origami birds
Looking back we can’t make out at all the shapes they had before
Found a dead guy in the street
Near my apartment
Tried to tell a cop in bad Portuguese
He was totally indifferent
He didn’t even take my name or check his pulse
He just walked away
Smoking a cigarette
I went home a watched foreign TV shows
Watching foreign TV shows all night
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7. |
His Brother's Keeper
04:35
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After spending all my savings on the Internet
I phoned my brother and said "I've done something I think I might regret"
And when the bidding war was over
I was the proud owner of a vintage tractor
I confessed to my distress that I'd spend every penny I possessed and he said
"What colour is it?" and I said "red"
After making my lover cry until her hair was wet
I banged my fist up on his door and got him out of bed and he said
"Hey man it's 3am" and I said
After all these years I can't believe it's over
My head hurts and my heart's worst and it's at least as bad as it could be
And he said "I'll put the kettle on then" and I said "thanks"
So wrap me in your arms and I can sleep wrap me in your arms and I can sleep you are your brother's keeper
I gate crashed the party when you were three without so much as an invitation
You had absolutely no say in it just get used to having me around
Grandma's coming over for the weekend while mummy is going to hospital
He may not seem like a human being at first
But he will soon be wearing all your hand-me-downs
Next I annexed half your bedroom I'm pathologically untidy it's true
"That is not your train that is my train give me my train or I'm telling"
Tiny tiny baby found among the rushes wrapped up like a package please return to sender
Now you're going off to university it's been a long journey you realise that
You are your brother's keeper
After driving my van into a flood in Somerset
We all got drunk and made light of the fact that I was dispossessed
But in the cold hard light of day, faced with my imobile home and my hangover
My head hurts and my heart's worse and it's at least as bad as it could be
And he said "at least you've got a tractor" and I said "that's true"
After spending my whole life with you I can't forget
The times so farcical and fine I find a few regrets as yet
When our lives are almost over
We can look back at these lives of ours and know
THat we've been fortunate and free and I was made for you and you for me. telling
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8. |
Border Road
03:41
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Maureen smelt of baking and hairspray
Jive danced in the living room 'till her hips gave way
Named her daughter Tracy for Spencer Tracy
Because she cut his hair
After the war after the war
There were flowers 'round the estate then
They kept it up much better when people were proud
But all of the net curtains with twitching as she pushed the pram down Border Road
She's been in the wars she's been in the wars
Maureen got a job in the Rex in the dark behind the silver screenselling ice-cream
When she married Derek she moved in
Six doors from her childhood home
On Border Road on Border Road
Driving to the south coast in August forty miles to Milford on Sea in the Hillman Estate
Fourteen summers later Tracy left home in a Kaftan and a velvet gown
Meeting a man who played in the band
When I was wearing size five shoes and after school she'd wrap me in her arms
a love too deep for words
and later when the drugs they gave her made her see spiders crawling up the walls
I held her hands and they were birds
Maureen left the world through the window with all four of her daughters there on midwinter's eve
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9. |
Parasol
03:51
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Parasol
You will leave this all behind and walk out in the sun
Someday soon you'll climb the hill and find you're looking down on everyone you know
Letting go of all the hurt you've had to hold
Let your heart unfold
Set aside the load you bear and smooth your furrowed brow
The rays of sun will warm your shoulders
There'll be no more heaving boulders now
Leaving out the part of you that doubts the whole
Let your your heart unfold like a parasol
You can open and close
For now my dear just sleep and I'll be watching over you
I'll see you no harm can reach you there is no task that I would rather do
And if you want me to I'll warm you when it's cold
Let your heart unfold
And in the morning let the bird song in the spring is full of sound
You'll blow your horn and beat your drum and then you'll drive your demons out of town
You'll look back on all of this when you are old
Let your heart unfold like a parasol
You can open or close
You will leave this all behind and walk out in the sun
Someday soon you'll climb the hill and find you looking down and everyone you know
Letting go of all the hurt you've had to hold let your heart unfold
Gather up the strength you have and turn to face the wind
All of us are tossing turning tumbling into a journey's end
You will see the sun setting on the world turn to read from gold
And let your heart unfold
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10. |
Raw Food
02:27
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The Burning Glass London, UK
Edwin Brooks writes songs that tell stories and make people laugh, jiggle about and even occasionally cry. The band use tuned percussion, ukulele, fiddle, drums and lots of singing to bring these songs to life in their own distinctive style of acoustic pop. They will be performing their debut recording ‘Things that Happened and Other Stories’ on the festival circuit in 2014. ... more
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