1. |
Performance
02:54
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I'm not masturbating - what, do you think that I'm 14?
I'm brimming with pornography, but the adult kind that's clean
And if I say I like/love you, believe that I’m sincere
I’ve a thousand roving eyes in my head somehow all trained on you, dear
How's my performance?
How's my performance?
How was my performance?
Of course I love your child, it means so much to me
And I love you so much more now that you're painfully unfree
Yes, please send me your writing - your words are silken wings
I'd wouldn't rather go online and watch cat videos and things
How's my performance?
How's my performance?
How was my performance?
Performance performance performance performance
Yes, I’m laughing with you
Yes, that brown it really suits you
And your band
What about your band
Your wonderful band
You did really well up there
When’s your next performance?
I’ll definitely be there
Oh please don’t get me wrong, I do so admire truth
Though I’ll make a little sacrifice if it seems at all uncouth
And if I'm duly spirited I can speak candidly
Yes of course I know the difference between spite and honesty
So tell me
How's my performance?
How's my performance?
How was my performance?
Performance performance performance performance
Come, come, come, come
Come to the masquerade
Come, come, come, come
Come join the parade
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2. |
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Moving, moving forward whilst moving back
Was I too linear for a world that lets us do both?
Moving, moving forward, moving back
I was just one dimensional
I watched three men kill a rat today
They laughed and I kept my mouth shut
Its whiskers touched the sky
And for a moment I wished that all of us were dead
As rats and men, look how far we’ve come
So tired of being offended
Should l try to be amused?
Moving, moving forward whilst moving back
Was I too linear for a world where we can have both?
Moving, moving forward, moving back
Was I too rudimentary?
I wanted to love
I heard a man through glass today
Say that roughly half of us are scum
And in the resulting confusion
Most of us agreed with him
Later we laughed, for we knew we were still modern
Wildfires may blaze and raze
But they’ll surely never reach our town
Moving, moving forward whilst moving back
Was I too linear for a world that lets us do both?
Moving, moving forward, moving back
I was a basic bitch
Attempting to love
I want to steal bodies
You want to mow them down
Smash up all our faded toys
And run from what we’ve done
Still trying to force a future
Through the burnt up past
And though perhaps we don't deserve it
I guess we were built to last
Moving, moving forward whilst moving back
Was I too linear for a world that lets us do both?
Moving, moving forward, moving back
I was just one dimensional
Moving, moving forward whilst moving back?
Was I too linear for a world where we can have both?
Moving, moving forward, moving back
Was I too rudimentary?
I wanted to love
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3. |
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Vicious circles
Love triangles
Square pegs
Diamond geezers
I like shapes
I like shapes
I like shapes
Trés beaucoup
I may say I like chaos
But I need order same as you
I like shapes
I like shapes
I like shapes
I like shapes
I like shapes
I like shapes
Shapes
Vicious circles
Love triangles
Square pegs
Diamond geezers
I like shapes
I like shapes
I like shapes
The highest art
You want a clumsy sonnet
I want an ideograph
I like shapes
I like shapes
I like shapes
I like shapes
I like shapes
I like shapes
Shapes
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4. |
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I danced as though I were about to die
And the playthings that I broke would be just fine the next day
I'd fall and rise and march again into the sea
Until the sirens of the shore would call me back to the fray
In time one must let go, or so I’m told
So I’m told
Like skin, words grow so old
But still my heartbeat keeps me awake
Pulsing in time with the clock though neither means anything
My heartbeat keeps me awake
Counting every second as I lose everything
I wear blue like a cryogenic crown
And the arch of my eyebrow will outlast Notre Dame
And even drowning in the waters that I need
I look twice as good as you although I'm playing at half speed
As long as I feel cold in summer
I’m warm enough
I’m thin enough
Shades make this vision clearer
Yet my heartbeat keeps me awake
The rain is falling like it wants to smash the window
My heartbeat keeps me awake
Repeating information that I already know
I dance although I feel like I could die
And the playthings reconstructed are wasting away
Looming shapes beyond the surface of the sea
The mirage of the sirens still tempts me to stray
My heartbeat keeps me awake
Pulsing in time with the clock though neither means anything
My heartbeat keeps me awake
Counting every second as I lose everything
My heartbeat keeps me awake
The rain is falling like it wants to smash the window
My heartbeat keeps me awake
Repeating information that I already know
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5. |
Fresh Legs
04:16
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Walk away (you can't dance)
Walk away (you can't dance)
Just walk away (you can't dance)
Walk away, baby, walk away
Fresh legs (try to dance)
Fresh legs (still can't dance)
Fresh legs (try to dance)
Try to dance, still can't dance
I work in the service industry
I buy my saddle oxfords in Oxford
I like it best in the passenger seat of a brand new Volvo
Tied to the steering wheel with fine silk cravats
Shut up, baby
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6. |
Thin Line
03:21
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Occupying the doorway to the subway
He is not watching me
He carries a radio but it plays no music
Childbearing hips
There hangs an instrument to keep us level
Right next to the radio
A sliver of light between two deep darknesses
He could extinguish mine
We walk the thin line
Something we share
Finger the thin line
As though it is not there
Can't keep my eyes from his waist
The magnitude of the waste
Sprawls unguarded between us
One eye on the handle toward our hands
One move is all it would take
A fountain of chaos so pure
Absurd, almost sublime
We walk the thin line
Something we share
Finger the thin line
As though it is not there
We walk the thin line
Something we share
Brushing the thin line
How did we get here?
Preoccupying the doorway to the subway (car)
Maybe he was watching me
Speeding into Stillwell Avenue
Perhaps he wrote a song for me?
We walk the thin line
Something we share
Finger the thin line
As though it is not there
We walk the thin line
Something we share
Brushing the thin line
How did we get here?
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7. |
Hologram Tour
01:45
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Time leaks out so fast
And my loyalty can only go so far
Without a ghost to make the hole whole
The deity gyrates in 3D
I don’t see them, but I think they see me
I’m picking up good vibrations
In the hall of incantations
Circuits bent
The circle is complete
Hologram - it’s what they would have wanted
On my knees in the postmodern cathedral
On my head a raspberry beret
Suppose I’ll have to bide my time
To see Harry Styles one day
My space is oppressively physical
My mind has mislaid an eye
Erase all lines of separation
Until death itself has died
Hologram - it’s what they would have wanted
Ne-cro-polis
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8. |
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The room is empty but for a flag and some cans
And an abstract man
Hood down, so it couldn’t be you
Bare your soles to the lens
And slip off the strings holding up those blood-bleached jeans
Struggling to attention
Spit on the floor
And with a gesture one could interpret in various ways
Vent your sac on the Union Jack
The screen melts again
A second room, a second man
He looks unsure but you’re there to reassure
Those words of hatred still drip from your lips
Repurposed now for a different game
The screen melts again
He’s on his knees
Not shy now
Does he despise, like you?
Does he pretend to?
Lick off the blood
The screen melts again
Into Channel 4
You're lit as though you're the feature of a South Bank Show
The most vicious of lives behind you now
So you say
And in that moment it's hard to disbelieve you
And Ian says he's going to kill you
And all the boys are after you
But they're still terrified
For a world that never made sense
Makes even less sense now
A flash of yellow lycra on a bike in Soho
Was it you? Was it you?
Someone said ‘good for you’
But they never saw you again
And not much later you died holding his hand
For you were but a man
You were but a man
You were just a man
Just a man
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9. |
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What happens when a nobody dies?
Do we cry inside, or by the side of the grave?
Do we pen a bad poem or a Facebook eulogy?
A terse obituary for the Daily Mail?
Does one person say ‘I knew they had it coming’?
Does somebody else throw themselves in the Thames?
Or the Rhein, or the Hudson or the Yarra? Will we
Lose ourselves in their forest of loose ends?
What happens when a nobody dies?
What happens when a nobody dies?
Will it make us other nobodies feel more alive?
How long til we forget someone not so well-liked?
Or if they were a star, for their lustre to fade?
'Cuz you know we can't all be Amy, Prince or Bowie
Most of us can’t even be Jade Goody
Will we become immortal through Bandcamp or Etsy?
Will there be a retrospective in someone's garage?
Will a teenage choir sing our requiem?
Will they overlook our friendship with Nigel Farage?
What happens when a nobody dies?
What happens when a nobody dies?
What will we do with their punk 45s?
And if it has to be morbidly public
Will it render the public too anguished to speak?
Or hold up the journeys of straphanging pundits
Who’ll tartly remark they were selfish and weak?
Will we stand in line to accept their few possessions?
Throw their ashes down the toilet of their favourite bar?
Crying for each tiny life as we all wonder
How we ever managed to get this far
What happens when a nobody dies?
What happens when a nobody dies?
Tell us what happens when a nobody dies
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10. |
Wondrous Disease
04:28
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Body’s rebelling, but the mind is in line
We beat the body down together because we know it’s lying
The mind needs liquid, we’re in harmony
Remanded once again, and we’ve never been so free
The day is underway, and I cannot ignore
The taste of blood, I must have more
One eye in the mirror, heart in hand
I call to you, my truest friend
Let me know
You don't know
Ravaged lungs cough out the sweetest song
Braying so loud we don’t notice when the notes are all wrong
The tempo wavers, we're careening out of key
But the liquid keeps us singing with its wondrous disease
Let me know
When it's time to go home
It makes no difference
When night and day to me are the same
You don’t know
What we would do for this love
There is no difference
The pleasure is at one with the pain
Some of the ghosts say they’re giving up
Their spirits turned holy whilst we were in our cups
For want, for need, some for sanity
And my god, I hate them all
Let me know, let me know
When it's time to go home
It makes no difference
When night and day to me are the same
You don’t know, you don’t know
What we would do for this love
There is no difference
The pleasure is at one with the pain
We’re still rebelling and the mind is kind
Bodies betray us, how fortuitous it is to be blind
Amongst the stars or when we’re down on our knees
Our passion poison, it’s a wondrous disease
Let me know, let me know
When it's time to go home
It makes no difference
When night and day to me are the same
You don’t know, you don’t know
What we would do for this love
There is no difference
The pleasure is at one with the pain
Let me know, let me know when it’s time to go home
I won’t be listening, can’t hear a single word that you say
We can stay, we can stay here quarantined forever
Where time is meaningless
And pleasure is at one with our pain
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The Casual Sexists Brooklyn, New York
Transatlantic couple Varrick and Ed Zed have been coaxing crooked pop songs out of disillusionment, animals and the glorious horrors of modern life since before Brexit. Drums, computers and household objects are their tools.
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