What's Your Take?



Welcome to our border
We do things our way
What's that in your suitcase?
What's that in your brain?

This line is our border
We tend to the terse
You could be a terrorist
A socialist or worse

We can search your suitcase
We can search your brain
Search your social media
So much to explain

And if we don't like the sound
Of anything you've said
We have the right to put you in
A grim fluorescent shed
Keep you there forever
Beyond the rule of law
Welcome to our border
This is what they're for

Do you like apartheid?
Here we like it tons
Everywhere it's happening
Our leader's sending guns

And if we don't like the sound
Of anything you've said
We have the right to put you in
A grim fluorescent shed

What's your take on Hitler
Now Americans
Want to share his big ideal
With everyone?

Car Crash Man



Although I often do forget about you
I'm never going to forget about you
I may feel some regret about you
But I feel no real regret about you
They call me the car crash man
I never crash again and again
I won't let bullies set about you
Until the bullies set about you

I'm not the kind of guy to change my mind
Much beyond the seventh time
And I never say what I'm going to do
So do as I don't, not as I do

I don't believe in sliding down rainbows
Which is why I'm sinking this canoe
Things I swear I'll never do
I'm strangely drawn to

I'm writing this song in invisible inks
Fixing my genie up as a jinx
Stuffing my demons back in the puzzle
Throttling thread in a camel's muzzle

The Rum Tum Tugger's got nothing on me
I want to be where I don't want to be
Animal perversity
Is my human normality

You can't unsee the invisible thing
Listen to the phone fail to ring
They call me the car crash man
I don't crash to prove I can

I bend forks on the factory floor
Levitate on a gull wing door
I climb mountains, I don't care
Just to prove that they're not there

I predict, when I don't fall
I won't fall from the top of it all
Won't sell lies to tell my truth
So don't buy this lie, my truth

You can't unsee the invisible thing
Listen to the phone fail to ring
They call me the car crash man
I don't crash to prove I can

I don't believe in riding on dragons
Which is why I'm astride this kangaroo
Things I swear I'll never do
I'm strangely drawn to

The Blond Beast



What is success?
How is it defined?
With money and with fame
Making up a name
Making up a mind
And where's the joy in just
Rolling in the stardust
Hoping some will stick?
You graft until you're sick
Just to make a quick
Buck in the grime

And what happened to you?
You used to look so good
Now you're just a mess
You've sacrificed your best
To the insatiable beast
Of success

But what is success, really, in the end?
To be stopped and recognised
By people you despise
Your imaginary friends
To swagger through
Another booked out day
Glad to be alive
Running to survive
Faster and faster away

What happened to you?
You used to be so cool
My boogaloo guru
You had to be the best
For that insatiable beast
Called success

And I guess this is all just sour grapes
On my part
But what is my part?

Are there ways to fake the joy?
Of course there are
Prescribed by doctors you trust
Packs that punctuate your night
With unnatural delight
Undermining everything you are
Stuff to fake the rush
That never seems enough
And fades away with time
Diminishing returns, a need for self-harm
As you execute the masterplan

And what happened to you?
You used to be my friend
Now you're just a name
A legacy of theft
A name is all that's left
A victim of the sweet sickness
Of success

Another idiot lost
On the interminable quest
To be the best
In the blue eyes
Of that blond beast

Hothead



You goo-goo-goo gooseberry
You fa-fa forever goosing me
That step did nothing for me
I don't want to waltz with zombies

You're too far behind to catch up
Through your endless wastes of ketchup
Uh-oh no, that's the real thing
I don't care, you'll never make me drink that

Watch you sink in the thick black wine
Tar baby oil well cross the red line
Stop telling me there's no planet B
You already walk like a doggy doggy dead man

And if you slaughter all the things that have mattered to me
Gonna hold your hot head under the sea
I'm not the kind of guy to lie back and let things be

A Faberge egg in Trafalgar blue
A crimson armada sailing to whit to whoo
A flabby old body with a dagger for a key
If you please, good sir, no goose step around me!

So tell me where does the land end under the sea?
What's the kind of end you've got coming to me?
How much road before the rust rots through?
How many throats until they get to you?

And if you slaughter all the things that have mattered to me
Gonna hold your hot head under the sea
I'm not the kind of guy to lie back and let things happen to me

A Faberge egg in Trafalgar blue
A crimson armada sailing to whit to whoo
A flabby old body with a dagger for a key
If you please, good sir, no goose step around me!

Randomness



Why try to improve the world?
You'll probably just make matters worse
No man can fix the world
No god will fix the universe
Unintended consequences
Serendipities and unforseen events
Just remind us of our powerlessness
To be powerless can also be intense
Can also be intense

So give up all control
Whatever comes, just take it in your stride
Find love for randomness
To match the chaos inside

I was in a cafe when
Two sparrows came flying in from the rain
Stole crumbs from someone's cake
But we were laughing all the same
Find love for randomness
You'll find it brightens up your day
The unexpected is a ray of sun
When everything is grey

So give up all control
Whatever comes, just take it in your stride
Find love for randomness
To match the chaos inside

Don't try to fix the world
It's broken and on top of that you're broke
Fools claim they'll fix the world
But soon are sorry that they spoke

So give up all control
Whatever comes, just take it in your stride
Find love for randomness
To match the chaos inside
To match the chaos inside

Odradek



I wonder what I'm here for
It's complicated now
I'd like to be small and cheerful
Make you happy somehow

I'm the bouncing ball
Bouncing for you all
They say it's impossible
But someone throw me
Someone catch me

I'm the bouncing ball
Wonderfully small
Solid rubber
Like my mother
The squishy squash ball

Come on, up the stairs
Up towards the stars
I might dare you
I might scare you
Thank God I mean nothing to you

I'm the Odradek
You're the human wreck
Just how stupid must you be
To follow balls like me?

I'm the bouncing ball
Stronger than you all
When you're dead I'll still be bouncing
You'll be rotting
I'll be flouncing

And if I'm attacked
I'll just bounce right back
Do not follow Pied Pipers
Do not follow rubber leaders

I wonder what I'm here for
It's complicated now
I'd like to be small and cheerful
Make you happy somehow

Eat the Disease



Well you crawl out of bed a quarter to dead
You don't have a clue about the shape of your head
Are you some kind of gargoyle or some kind of man?
The mug in the mirror, the bug in the pan
The wrench of the day, the stench of your life
Your attempts to conceal all the things you despise
In yourself, you rebel, rebel against what?
The sickness must be the best thing you've got

Your demons say this, and your demons say that
Your fingers feel thin and your fingers feel fat
And some days you swagger and some days you slink
It depends on the weather and whether you drink
The disease is at ease, the disease is at bay
But you know that it's coming to take you away
You'd think you'd be scared to desist and decease
But the disease is the gift, eat the disease

And it's back to your bed at a quarter to death
Crap in your head and a girl on your breath
Was it some kind of joy or some kind of sin
Well boys'll be boys, and girls'll be men
You've got Catholic cant in an atheist heart
No wonder you can't get the engine to start
Everything triggers your atrial fib
I won't tell lie, the disease will be big

When your demons say this and your demons say that
And your morals get numb, your fingers get fat
And some days you swallow and some days you blow
It depends who you see, depends where you go
Your disease is at ease, it loiters nearby
Choosing its moment to whisk you away
You'd think you'd be scared to desist and decease
But the disease is a gift, eat the disease

Mr Young Men



They call me Mr Young Men
Even though I'm not young at all
I can do everything a young man can
But I can't do anything at all
Everywhere I go I've got a young man's face
And a young man's insouciance
They call me Peter Pan and Dorian Gray
In gai Paris, La France

Mr Young Men, Mr Strange Men
Mr Young Strange Men, Mr Young Men, Young Strange Men
Mr Young Men, Mr Strange Men
Mr Young Strange Men, Mr Young Men, Young Strange Men

First impressions are hasty
Lasting impressions, maybe
But I'm sad to say that people come away
With the strangest impression of me
Cos I still look like a young man looked
In 1983
Yes, I still look like I just rolled in
In a DeLorean time machine

So call me

Mr Young Men, Mr Strange Men
Mr Young Strange Men, Mr Young Men, Young Strange Men
Mr Young Men, Mr Strange Men
Mr Young Strange Men, Mr Young Men, Young Strange Men

The Kitchen



I am only happy when I am dancing
I'd like to dance like Trisha Brown and Twyla Tharp
I'd like to dance one day for all those people at The Kitchen
But for now I'm in my kitchen in the dark

I dance for now alone in my cold-water walk-up
I copy Yvonne Rainer, Meredith Monk
For food I hit the corner of Prince and Wooster
Eat what Carol Goodden is cooking up

Dance is difficult fun here in 1971
For introverts uneasy around the scene
I like to be around mysterious people
One day I'll have the courage to talk to them

And I am only happy when I am dancing
I dance like Trisha Brown and Twyla Tharp
I'd lke to dance one day for all those people at The Kitchen
But for now I'm in my kitchen in the dark

Busted



We sorted it out somehow
After hours of talk
And things are much clearer now
I believe I will walk the line
I always should have walked

Uh-oh, guess I got busted
Uh-oh, guess I got handed my ass
For making a pass
At the girl

Once in a twicetime I'll want somebody
(You do your thing, I'm getting on with it)
Most of the time I'm happy on my own
(You do your thing, I'm getting on with it)
Don't steer a hateship through a dictatorship
(You do something, I'm getting sad
You do your thing, I'm getting mad)

Trussed up, busted
Spending the night in a cell
Bail bonds posted
I am the guy
That poisoned the water
In his own well

Uh-oh, guess I got busted
Uh-oh, guess I got handed my ass
For making a pass
At the girl

Trussed up, busted
Spending the night in a cell
Bail bonds posted
I am the guy
That poisoned the water
In his own well

Phone rings, door chimes, in comes somebody
With a sack full of rumours and schadenfreude eyes

Oh oh
Oh oh oh
Oh oh
Oh oh

Once in a twicetime I'll want somebody
(You do your thing I'm getting angry)
Most of the time I'm happy on my own
(You do your thing I'm getting, I'm getting)

Uh-oh, guess I got busted

Beautiful When Angry



I love it when the thunder thunders
And the rain it rains
To people sheltering in shelters
How could I explain?

I love the odours ozone brings me
Plasma, ions, bleach
Since danger is our only safety
Keep your risk in reach

And you are beautiful when angry
Contradictory
Amidst the gargoyles green with envy
Will you marry me?

I watched an old man beg for coins
As I begged for desire
Releasing from my ageing loins
Old St Elmo's fire

I love to melt a cube of ice
I clench beneath my tongue
And by the time the ice has melted
My life will be done

And you are beautiful when angry
Uncontrollably
Amidst the gargoyles green with envy
Will you marry me?

Situationship



I'm adrift in the doldrums of love
And I'm liking it
Got no ropes around the raft of my love
And I'm riding it

I'm never sick
On the deck of you
I will save you from the wreck of you
I see the best in you
Locked in Davy Jones' locker
With the worst of you
I've got a thirst for you
All I really want is a burst of you
A relationship
A situationship

So full speed ahead
On the high sea of our relationship
We steer no clear course
We need no charts
And no seamanship
I'm never sick of you
Up on the deck of you
I see the best of you
I surf the crest of you
I give you scrutiny
But I swear I'll never mutiny
Even if you're sometimes Captain Bligh
In Davy Jones' locker I'll try
To save our relationship
Our situationship

I'm adrift in the doldrums of love
And I'm liking it
Got no ropes around the raft of my love
And I'm riding it

Quantum Strangeness



I hate the thought that things will soon be over
When it seems they've only just begun
That's simple mathematics, but in the scheme of quantum physics
Everything is happening at once

The forward march of time is an illusion
The multiverse our great infinity
And everything that happens
Occurs to an infinity of mes

Friend who left this strange world before me
You believed in physics so you knew
The distinction that we make
Between past, present and future
Isn't true

And lately all my certainties are melting
The more I understand the less I know
There is no simple answer to the riddle of existence
No creator and no karma, and no goal
Maybe everything that's dead
Is also always alive
And everything alive is also dead
Everything that happens in a multiverse
Happens elsewhere and instead

Anyone's Guess



It's becoming clearer
The narrative of my life
Not exactly failure
Never quite success
Sunshine in the winter
Shadows in the spring
Such a lot behind me
Who knows what tomorrow brings, and

Dazzle me with stardom
Puzzle me with cash
Stub me out in ashtrays
Already full of ash
Learn a foreign language
Sift through my ordeal
Calculating everything I feel

Lead me through the garden
Meet me up the path
It's becoming clearer
The arc of my life
Not exactly failure
Never quite success
And then it's anyone's guess

Shredding in the shredder
Sprinkling with fire
Old love letters
Rotten with desire
Archived through the winters
Written in the springs
Such a lot of past and
Who knows what tomorrow brings?
Remember me to Broadway
The Parade Goes By
Remember all my movies?
No, neither do I
There's a foreign language
Spoken in the past
I'm starting to misunderstand at last

Lead me through the garden
Meet me up the path
It's becoming clear now
The arc of my life
Not exactly failure
Never quite success
And then anyone's guess



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