Oblivion
The end of the world, it's not the end of the world
But if it's the end of the world I won't be defending this world
A haggard old moll who calls closing time
To customers jumping the queue
Rolling her eyes, her lips turning blue
It eats me away, how we let our success slip away
We ended up losers with little computers
As the bull bears down
We mangled it all, mismanaged by clowns
Slipped on the turf, we splat in the mud, fumbled the ball
We ruined it all
But may I just say, it shouldn't end any old way
Not a bang or a whimper, a whizz or a banker
Just a hot little cough to kiss us all off in this horrible way
Drowning in pus, stuck in a tent
Like your worst holiday
Well is this how it ends?
But thanks everyone, all you policemen who move me along
You politicians who get it all wrong
The madmen and women who hurt me into song
A rancid old moll that filled me with smoke
Slapping your ass and filling your throat
On the bed of your gonzo delirium
Tossing your way into porno oblivion
Goodbye everyone, it's a scary old world
A carelessly sweary old world
Boozing and floozing and losing your touch
Flirting and hurting and lining your crotch
But thanks for the ride, thanks for the ride
And I am alone
Working From Home
Working from home, dying alone
Nothing happens in the zone
In the vacuum you want to heave
Exposed and hidden, struggling to breathe
Frightened pirate, frightened sheep
Bored awake, bored to sleep
Bored, bored as hell
Nothing to taste, nothing to smell
Nothing to buy on the shelves
To defy except ourselves
And who to fuck, and who to fight
And what to draw and what to write
Frightened by people, frightened alone
By the web and by the phone
Bored of papers, scared of the sun
All the lepers and all the lungs
Tell yourself that you can face the pain
Going sensibly insane
Scared to death by everything
With a fever that soaks you to the skin
Working from home, dying alone
Nothing happens in the zone
In the vacuum you want to heave
Exposed and hidden, struggling to breathe
Frightened pirate, frightened sheep
Bored awake, scared to sleep
Ten Foot Hut
When this is over I'll learn to ride a horse
Maybe take a correspondence course
Study Portuguese, maybe Japanese
Tap sunshine from the source
Me I'd like to be an archeologist
Possibly a harpist, escapologist
And a hula hoop jumbo juggernaut king
I want to do everything
All I need is a ten foot hut
Where I can live as Chomei taught
Listen to the wind singing in the reeds
Write poetry no-one reads
If I were a rich man I'd give it all away
Find a cure, I would pay
A billion dollars, all I've got
What good is money when you've lost the plot?
Me I want see what Iceland's like
I want to see the northern lights
Have sex in public
Just to say I've done it
When this is over, when not if
Life will be better than it is
Listen to the smart, take their advice
Think big, think twice
All I need is a ten foot hut
Where I can live as Chomei taught
Listen to the wind singing in the reeds
Write poetry no-one reads
If I were a rich man I'd give it all away
Find a cure, I would pay
A billion dollars, all I've got
What good is money when you've lost the plot?
One body, one life
One chance to get things right
Why not get back to the land
Form a mariachi band?
Be a shaker, be a quaker
You'll always be a faker But that's okay, we don't mind
Just saying what's on our mind
All I need is a ten foot hut
Where I can live as Chomei taught
Listen to the wind singing in the reeds
Write poetry no-one reads
If I were a rich man I'd give it all away
Find a cure, I would pay
A billion dollars, all I've got
What good is money when you've lost the plot?
When this is over I'll learn to ride a horse
Maybe take a correspondence course
Study Portuguese, maybe Japanese
Tap sunshine from the source
September
Just when you think the war is won
It all begins again
And when you think you've reached the end
It's only the beginning of the end
The brilliant days return to grey
Oxygen begins to disappear
What once you thought was breathing air
Begins to scarcen and to scare
The diamonds in your pockets turn to rain
The daylight in the tunnel is a train
September, October
It's over when it's over
And when the normal life returns
Your pretty body burns
Illusions, delusions
There's been this danger all along
The diamonds in the tunnel turned to rain
The bright day you saw coming was a train
September, October?
It's over when it's over
Parasite
Do you expect me to talk?
Because I don't mind
In fact if I talk
It'll spin out the time
The time of my life
The life of my mind
But you reply
You expect me to die
Do you expect me to talk?
When I'm facing the end
When you're facing the end
You appreciate friends
Do you appreciate me?
In your parasite mind
When you've got what you need
You expect me to die
You expect me to scream
And you expect me to squirm
And when the worm turns
You'll be the worm
And you'll be the spy
With the golden eye
In your parasite mind
You'll expect me to die
Yet you depend on my life
In your parasite way
You're not quite alive
So alive I must stay
Yet you threaten my life
I wonder why
You threaten my life
Yet expect me to die
Self-Isolation
I salute the ones who clearly are about to die
But I salute more dearly those who stay alive
And I adore you, land with heroes primed to save your race
But happy the land that doesn't need heroes in the first place
Heroes cannot save us now no matter how we try
What saves us now is staying home determined not to die
Self-isolation, isolation
Self-isolation, isolation
You came and saved my life in the nick of time
To think that only yesterday I was feeling fine
But thank you all you first responders carrying me away
If other things were equal I would really rather stay
Bravery won't save us now no matter how we fight
All we can do is stay at home every day and every night in
Self-isolation, isolation
Self-isolation, isolation
Empty Paris
I am teacher who works on a farm
Immunity barcode tattooed on my arm
But the children must eat, education can wait
I coax up the carrots til quarter to eight
And if I don't farm then nobody eats
And if nobody eats we're in pain
What if someone declared a black death but nobody came?
And the Ibis hotel is a hospital now
The conference centre's a morgue
The city's so quiet, I can't get used to it
The police have turned into the Borg
Saw a lonely flaneur with a drone overhead
With a thin metal voice that shrieked out as it said:
"You have the choice to be thrown in a cell or go home"
Empty Paris, empty Berlin
Empty London, New York, empty Dublin
Empty Lagos, Johannesburg, Moscow, LA
Empty Adelaide, empty Belgrade
And I dig on the farm, this tattoo on my arm
Proving I've come through the plague
And when this squeeze is over and we all recover
Perhaps we will drink lemonade
I had a partner but she's disappeared
And I'm not used to living alone
Well the hard work all starts when the loneliness hurts
And sometimes I wish we'd both gone
And I'm scared of the government, scared of the Russians
And scared of these criminal pricks
When I head out to work at a quarter to five
They all watch for signs that I'm sick
And where once there was motion now there's just stubbornness
Where once was health we're just ill
Feral rats have invaded the Quai de la Monnaie
Foxes took over Café Kitsune
In the Palais Royale it's now head-high with weeds
Food rots in the Carrousel du Louvre
In Ikea I see only chaos and fear
A ghost town where nobody moves
Empty Paris, empty Berlin
Empty London, New York, empty Dublin
Empty Lagos, Johannesburg, Moscow, LA
Empty Adelaide, empty Belgrade
And I dig on the farm, this tattoo on my arm
Proving I've come through the plague
And when this squeeze is over and we all recover
Perhaps I will drink lemonade
Movement
Once I had freedom to move
So I moved through the world
With a bag and a girl
In a pair of flip flops
In a ragged straw hat
With no sense of danger
A tourist inspired
Indulged or admired
Sometimes desired
An esteemed visitor
And although I was strange
I was never a stranger
Now I'm confined to my flat
All I do is think back
To my days of being free
How I'd move through the world
With a bag and a girl
And nothing constrained me
Movement, you were my all
You made me rise, made me fall
Set me loose when I'd lose
You made the difference I'd choose
Before the end of the world
Before the fail of our falling
Movement, the sea where I swam
You were my master, my plan
You put my life on your lines
And your journeys defined
Who I was and might be
And there was no horizon
Now there's no movement at all
All I do is recall
My obscure vagaries
All my days of being free
How I moved through the world
And there was nothing to stop me
Movement I'm wasting away
In the Medusa gaze
Of the sickening sun
Casting glistening rays
Like the bars of a cell
On the floor of my kitchen
Where is the land beyond lands
Where I can walk on the sands
Where the islands are curves
The curves I deserve?
I know I've been here before
Though maybe I only dreamed it
Where is the city of stairs
The city of layers
The city of prayers
Souks and bazaars
Where I can find what I need
Before I even know I need it?
Movement, you were my all
You made me rise when I'd fall
You let me loose when I'd lose
You were the difference I'd choose
Before the end of the world
When there was no horizon
I Got It From Agnes
I love my friends and they love me
We're just as close as we can be
And just because we really care
Whatever we get, we share!
I got it from Agnes
She got it from Jim
We all agree it must have been
Louise who gave it to him
She got it from Harry
Who got it from Marie
And everybody knows that Marie
Got it from me
Giles got it from Daphne
She got it from Joan
Who picked it up in Ireland
A-kissin' the Blarney stone
Pierre gave it to Shiela
Who must have brought it there
He got it from Francois and Jacques
Aha, lucky Pierre!
Max got it from Edith
Who gets it every spring
She got it from her daddy
Who just gives her everything
She then gave it to Daniel
Whose spaniel has it now
Our dentist even got it
And we're still wondering how
Ah, but I got it from Agnes
Or maybe it was Sue
Or Millie or Billie or Gillie or Willie
It doesn't matter who
It might have been at the pub
Or at the club, or in the loo
And if you will be my friend, then I might
(Mind you, I said "might")
Give it to you!
My Corona
Tiny army slithering through the Marne of me
Tiny enemy, oh what a horrible war!
That's not fair play, that's not human decency
How can I give my enemy what for?
My Corona, frightening and amazing me
Tiny enemy, inner world war three
That's not fair play, that's not human decency
How can we beat an enemy we can't see?
Bring back all the hijackers and the terrorists
Give me the good old IRA any old day
You knew where you stood with a human enemy
Fighting hand to hand by the light of day
My corona probably inside me
Stowed away on a twist of RNA
Your spiked helmet spikes here inside of me
Doing what damage? Nobody can say
Not-quite-living thing, I feel you parachute in
To spread ground glass in the cilia of my lungs
Are you happy, to take my hospitality
And repay me with such horrible pains
Sassy assassin, foul insidious toxin
Spread by a kiss or lingering in the air
Are you hiding in my lover's tresses
Or her sneezes, or her flaxen hair?
Tiny army, will you be my Waterloo?
Kiss me, Hardy, now before I die
What immortal hand could frame thee
What eye see thy tiny symmetry?
My corona frightening and amazing me
Tiny enemy, inner world war three
That's not fair play, that's not human decency
How can I beat an enemy I can't see?
My corona probably inside me
Stowed away on a twist of RNA
Your spiked helmet spikes inside me
Doing what damage? Nobody can say
Long Distance Love
I've lost control of my drone
I don't know where my drone has flown
Je suis tres conscient de l'honneur de ta connaissance
Et j'espere que je merite toute cette passion
Qui me met en valeur pour le monde et pour moi-meme
Et meme si pour le moment nous sommes separees
Ce n'est pas pour toujours, je le sais
Long distance love
L'amour a distance, ca n'a pas de sens
Long distance love
I've lost control of my drone
I don't know where my drone has flown
Et l'intensite de notre reunion inevitable
Va chasser tous les demons et tous les doutes
Et dans l'apres-guerre inevitable nous allons rester ensemble
Nos vies envahi par bonheur et tranquilite
Long distance love
L'amour a distance, ca n'a pas de sens
Long distance love
I've lost control of my drone
C'est comme perdre la controle
I don't know where my drone has flown
D'un drone
Is it too much to hope they'll reopen the border
Et pour la re-ouverture de la frontiere, qui sait?
Too much to hope they'll restore the old order?
Et la restoration de l'ancien regime, j'imagine a jamais
For I'm in love with a girl in another part of the world
Long distance love
L'amour a distance, ca n'a pas de sens
Long distance love
La joie de vivre, l'art de vivre, c'est de vivre pres de toi
Mais pour le moment ils ont ferme la frontiere, donc quoi faire?
I've lost control of my drone
Et meme si nous sommes separees, chaqun sur son cote
Ca ne sera pas pour toujours
Long distance love
Ces sont les certitudes d'amour qui durent
Long distance love
I dreamed I was in an unfortunate airport
J'ai reve que j'etais dans un aeroport malfortune
When suddenly I saw you pass
Et soudain je t'ai vu
I called out your name but you couldn't hear me
J'ai crie ton nom, j'ai hurle, mais tu etait comme asourdi
Through the security glass
Par la verre interpose de securite
Long distance love
L'amour a distance, ca n'a pas de sens
Long distance love
Spring
Who beats the clock?
Nobody
Who's for the chop?
Everybody
There are so many words to heed
But is there any blood left to bleed?
Make this stop
Somebody
We're for the chop
But not today
I know there's so much left to do
I can't accept that we are through
I don't feel quite right inside
But there are five things left to try
Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and then accepting
Got me through to spring
I just can't accept that everything's screwed
There must be something we can still do
Why not push that button on the right?
Do a new drug test tonight?
Give this a try says everybody
Let's lie down and die says nobody
Don't just stand there, do something!
I know you've got your song to sing
I don't feel quite right inside
But there are five things left to try
Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and then accepting
Gets me through to spring
Who beats the clock?
Nobody
Who's for the chop?
Everybody
There are experts yet to heed
But is there any blood left to bleed?
And I'm not feeling right inside
But there are five things left to try
Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and then accepting
Got me through to spring
Levitation
As long as I don't look down
Everything is fine
I can do this thing because you see
Once upon a time
I practised levitation
In a previous incarnation
Suspended animation
No obvious solution
Sleight of hand and fleet of foot
Unnatural suspension
In a soluble solution
I practised levitation
Swimming in a soluble solution
I practised levitation
Well I can do this thing because you see
Gravity applies to me
But only in good time, and one day I'll come down
Hovering after zooming off a cliff
As long as I didn't look down
Everything is fine, everything is fine
In a previous incarnation
Lev-lev-lev-levitation
In a previous incarnation
Which now seems far away
I could walk around on pavements
And breathe in people's way
I was lighter than air, had my head in the air
I suspended disbelief, I ran right off of that cliff
Talkin' bout lev-lev-lev-levitation
Lev-lev-lev-levitation
I'd come and stand behind you
No matter where you were
Without you looking nervous
And starting to swear
As long as I don't look down
I think I can stay
All in good time
I'm crashing today
Lev-lev-lev-levitation
Lev-lev-lev-levitation
Suspended animation
Lev-lev-lev-levitation
I'm hovering after zooming off a cliff
But as long as I don't look down
Fever Dream
I'm in the underworld but also in my kitchen
I'm in the afterlife, but also television
I've lost Eurydice, but as I stand here at her grave
Shepherds appear to me bringing Cupid, the god of love
Go down to the underworld, Cupid now commands me
And bring back your girl, your lost Eurydice
All will be as before, and there's only one condition
Do not look at her before you return to earth
Down at the gates of hell the Furies try to stop me
But I play on my lyre, and the Furies must admit me
The air in Elysium is pure and clean and lovely
And there in a wooded grove I find Eurydice
But my darling can't divine why I fail to look at her
She takes it as a sign that I no longer love her
She thinks I've been untrue, so I turn round to comfort her
She dies a second time as my gaze falls upon her
I'm in the underworld but I'm also in my kitchen
I'm in the afterlife, but also television
I am Orpheus, the world's greatest musician
But without Eurydice I am nobody at all
Optimism
Don't lose heart, precious friend
You'll make it in the end
Though the trials may be hard
And nothing goes your way
You'll come through, always do
My precious friend
Stay the course, find the way
Create a greater day
And soon we shall surely see
The happy life again
Hold the course, precious friend
Through thunder and through rain
Optimism of the will
Keep the mind realistic still
We'll get through, always do
In the end
Climb this hill bit by bit
Step by step, keeping fit
Punching through, precious friend
To the end
We've been slugged
We've been bugged
But this is not the end
We can fight, we can write
Ourselves a happy end
We'll come through, always do
My precious friend
Optimism of the will
Intellect realistic still
We'll get through
Always do in the end
Climb this mountain bit by bit
Up we stagger, keeping fit
We keep swinging, precious friend
To the end
Optimism of the will
Intellect realistic still
We'll get through
Always do in the end
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