Show me the key to press
To undo this mess
Erase the sky, the sun
Undoing everyone
Erase the house, erase the tree
Erase my memory
Make this useless process end
And so begin again
So tell me is it nice
Trapped beneath the ice
To babble on cocaine
To chase the hurricane
Erase the house, erase the tree
Erase my memory
Make this useless process end
And so begin again
Lycidas
You'll get what I want in the end and give it to me
I'll hold out for something better than reality
Life's too short to spend with a friend who isn't really free
But you'll get what I want in the end and give it to me
You'll be who I want in the end, I can do that for you
I'll hold out for someone better, someone who is true
Life's too short to spend with a friend who isn't made new
But you'll be who I want in the end, and that'll be you
You'll get what I want in the end and give it to me
I'll hold out for something better than reality
Life's too short to spend with a friend who isn't really free
But you'll get what I want in the end and give it to me
You'll be who I want in the end, I can do that for you
I'll hold out for someone who's good and completely true
Life's too short to spend with a friend who isn't like you
But you'll be who I want in the end, and that'll be you
Dunes
A little ice enters the room
As the woman of the dunes
Comes slipping and sliding towards me
She brings a little of the night
And a little of the grave
But she won't do a thing
To hurt me
Dead but still high-functioning
A spectre of the night
And I am shuddering when
She steps into the light
Like a vampire on a broom
Like a cockroach in a tomb
You keep coming back to haunt me
And the light that you provide
Since your suicide
Can never harm me
Dead but still high-functioning
A reminder of our life
And you are shuddering when
I step into the light
Farther
Farther away
Can't understand a thing you're saying
Hallo Planet Earth I'm far away
Farther away
And I don't like the games you're playing
Hallo Planet Earth I'm far away
Somehow you're in the bedroom and she's in a neglige
Putting on a record by Valerie Dore
Then she lies back on the mattress and she lights a cigarette
And she asks you quite politely if you'd rather be inbed
And you wonder what she's taken, and you wonder if she's straight
And the other men she's brought here, did she treat them all the same?
And listening to the record by Valerie Dore
You drift away
Farther away
Can't understand a thing you're saying
Hallo Planet Earth I'm far away
Farther away
And I don't like the games you're playing
Hallo Planet Earth I'm far away
She still seems strangely distant though you're lying there so close
Tangled in the satin sheets, taking off her clothes
There's a disco in the distance, and the drugs are kicking in
And you feel a bit self-conscious cos your body looks so thin
And you notice then quite suddenly through unexpected tears
That her eyes are metropolitan, like Amanda Lear's
And listening to the record by Valerie Dore
You drift away
Core
Pack me a trunk, book me a bunk
I'm going on the trip of a lifetime
Into the bowels of the earth, dear
Since you left me I'm in hell
Digging a band, dig in the sand
Right to the core of the earth, dear
Since you left me I'm in hell
Wishing that you were here
You met some prick, fell in love quick
And in the blink of an eye
Vows they were vowed and knots they were tied
I felt so sick that I died, dear
So pack me a trunk, book me a bunk
I'm bound where the weather is balmy
Into the bowels of the earth, dear
Since you left me I'm in hell
Tears falling from the poet's eyes
Into the freezing snow
The flowing tears will run all the way back
Into his beloved's house
The source of all his misery
With you on my brain, on the ghost train
Dancing a waltz with the corpses
Everything's horrid in hell, dear
Wishing to hell, wishing to hell, wishing to hell you were here
With you on my brain, on the ghost train
Everything's talcum and sulphur
Satan and I and the corpses
Sincerely we wish you were here
Southbound
I'm southbound
I had a bad day
I'll fade away
Underneath the apple tree
Move along, there's nothing to see
I'm only here in theory
You made your last mistake
The last straw you will ever break
In the apple grove
You've decayed, you've lost your way
And I'm skipping out
Absent without leaving
I'm only dead in theory
But I'm still breathing
Bleeding
I'm only here in theory
Since I found out
What you're all about
I've been banging this drum
In the library room
My feelings won't spill
So you'll never find out
I'm leaving
I'm all clapped out
In the apple grove
I'm southbound
I'm heading for another town
I'm running round and round
Absent without leaving
I'm still breathing
Staying on as a thorn in your side
I'm banging this drum
I'm banging my head
On your glass ceiling
I told you I'm leaving
My feelings won't show
So you'll never know
I'm leaving
And the apple grove
Is where I'll rove
I'm southbound
I had a bad day
And now I fade away
Underneath the apple tree
Move along
There's nothing to see...
Huge
I never thought you'd mean everything to me
Huge as the moon on the sea
And sure enough you don't mean everything to me
If you were that huge, how huge could the world be?
Once there a man, and only one thing made him happy
Her eyes and her lips were so huge
But when she was gone, everything made him happy
The world was so huge and so new
Jackdaw
The world beyond the rhubarb patch
No-one seems to know
Why he put it out of bounds
Dr Barnardo
Stig staggers on the cinder path
Up beside the dump
The ghost of Colin Wilson's in
The bugger of a funk
And if the nettle stings your hand
You cure it with a dock
And if you try to run away
They hit you with a clock
They say a black magician
Trained a black jackdaw to talk
The ghost of Colin Wilson has
An electronic jaw
The mushrooms in the library
Were wolfed down by wild dogs
Which went woofing to the forest
Where researchers cut their logs
And now there is a skull to see
By the skullery
Elizabeth is blubbering
She hopes it's all a dream
They say a black magician
Trained a black jackdaw to talk
The ghost of Colin Wilson has
An electronic jaw
Erostratus
On the night of July 21st, 356 BC
I, Erostratus, burned to the ground
One of the wonders of the world
The fabulous temple of Artemis
Here in the great port of Ephesus
I did it to get famous
To thwart me
The authorities stupidly forbade my name
On pain of death
Ever to be mentioned again
The fools! That was my guarantee
Of immortality
Some tool in the 21st century
Even as we speak is singing about me!
And in your day I have many imitators and admirers
My name endures, said Sartre
"Like a black diamond"
Cheekbone
Professor Cheekbone
Is your uncle
Living underground
In a bunker
He's a poser
He's a theorem
He's an answer
To no question
He's got a girlfriend
She's always dressed the same
In a white shirt
With a white brain
It's just the outcome
Of a system
He's an abstract
He's a pot freak
He's a wise guy
She gives him deep throat
She's a gay boy
Life's a cabaret
When you're a wild thing
I'm a victim
Of the glycerine
In the system
He's an idol
He's an idiot
He's a gumshoe
In a black tie
He's a criminal
With a flash car
And the cash flow
It's subliminal
Professor Cheekbone
Is your uncle
Living underground
In a bunker
He's a wise guy
She gives him deep throat
She's a gay boy
Life's a cabaret
When you're a wild thing
I'm a victim
Of the glycerine
In the system
He's a poser
He's a theorem
He's an answer
To no question
International
Beijing to Seoul, Beirut to London
A red flag's hoisting to the skies
As if to say our time is coming
As if a sun's begun to rise
And can you hear the children singing
About a future fair for all
They'll live to see that red flag waving
They'll live to see this order fall
The old world dies in sheets of flame
Its banks destroyed, its streets on fire
And even stone is not written in stone
The world is made of our desire
With open eyes, and a sense of mission
We'll realise our dream some day
A universal recognition
Of justice, healthcare, equal pay
And can you hear the world insisting
A single song in every throat
On a new international system
For which they'll never let us vote
The old world dies in sheets of flame
Its banks destroyed, its streets on fire
And even stone is not written in stone
The world is made of our desire!
Bibliotek
They said that I'd get over you
And life would go on
But I never did
And it never did
You were the only one who knew me
And now you have gone
I keep it all hid
Keep it all hid
Like a book that goes unread
In a library stack
In a bibliotek
No-one takes me out
And no-one takes me back
To my bibliotek
Bibliotek
They say it's normal
That nothing at all
Is lasting so long
Lasting so long
There was a silence in heaven
About the space of half an hour
I'll just have to be strong
Have to be strong
And no-one takes me out
And no-one takes me back
To my library stack
Reflections on damaged life
Minima Moralia
Bibliotek
Bibliotek
Bibliotek
Like a book on a shelf
That's never been read
I am wasted
Untasted
You were the only one who knew
All the things that I hid
They said I'd get over you
But I never did
Shunned
To live apart from everyone
It isn't hard when it must be done
I have the rain, I have the sea
I am a danger to society
If I am shunned, then I am shunned
And I have lost, and you have won
You have your system, it's not my job
To interfere, demand you stop
And if it works, it works for you
There's nowhere else for us to go
But I am shunned, you turn from me
And I'm imprisoned, but you're not free
And all the things I tried to change
The bullying, the calling of names
Corruption, subjugation to your military
Humiliation systematically
And I am stunned, that I am shunned
That I am lost, and they have won
I'll read a book, I'll watch the wall
Breathing exhaust
While exhausted sparrows fall
And when the bees have disappeared completely
What did for them will do for me
And so I'm shunned, and so I die
And somebody asks why, but… no reply
Isaak
Stella mater
Light is failing
Making such a fool of thee
When you'd love to be someone
It's hard to act so simply, it's easy to make noise
I worship the silence that sings like a bird
I long for the moon as it looks from the earth
It's hard to act sincerely, it's easy to avoid
But to have and to hold it I'd only suggest
Suggest
You take one step away
Stella mater
Light is failing
Making such a fool of thee
When you'd love to be someone
c + p 2012 American Patchwork
Recorded at Ebisucho, Osaka
All songs written by Nick Currie and published by Sony Music Japan
except Isaak, an adaptation of Green Isaac II by Paddy Macaloon
and International, music by Paul Dessau
Artwork by Misaki Kawai, design by Momus
The album as a YouTube playlist: