The King is Dead (Four Words Too Long)

This is a message to listener ‘A’

The dark-haired guy
He lights a fresh cigarette
Light it from the butt of another
He’s got a pack and it’s still in his hand
He didn’t say anything
He just drew on his cigarette
He blew the smoke out slowly
He was like an artist with that cigarette
He said “long live the king”
‘cause the king is dead”
He said he’s got a song that’s
Four words too long
‘Four words too long’ is the four words
Long live the king cause the king is dead

Spring-loaded frontage and dried up pork
Stale bread and old butter
The coffee was lukewarm
The old union man cleared his tray
Cause he was hungry
He looked like an artist with his cigarette
He’d have a word for me when he saw me again
Have it tattooed on his arm
He said “long live the king”
‘cause the king is dead”
He said he’s got a song that’s
Four words too long
‘Four words too long’ is the four words
Long live the king cause the king is dead
He drew another cigarette on his coffee now

Bullshitiaco

I sing with the voice of a donkey
I sing with the lungs of a motorbike
I now a little holiday paradise
And Johnny Rotten is its name

I’m just talking bullshitiaco
I’m talking phobiaister

Name it is Rotten Johnny
You turn the fucking music up
You opened my eyes to the music
Opened my eyes to the music? Yeah, you opened my eyes

I’m just talking bullshitiaco
I’m talking phobiaister

I’ve got a tattooed map of the universe all over my body
I’ve got a mischievous grin
Now Moby Dick does not exist (say it very quietly now)
He’s just a figment of the imagination of Herman
Melville just like I am

I’m just talking bullshitiaco
I’m talking phobiaister
If you don’t get paid you are an ‘ist
Like a communist, a capitalist or an anarchist
If you’re lucky enough to get paid you are an ‘er
Like a worker, like a washer
And a washer is part of a tap
Bullshitiaco

Go Ahead Bikini

Ice cream falls from the sailor’s fist
Sun blots out ink spot fried fish
The tempest flies meet the ocean rise
Transit atom ant and bones through eyes
Hands to boats rocky rock ‘n’ roll
Plastic honours human dead

The race is not to the swift
Nor the battle is to the strong, my dear
Bread is not to the wise
No richness to understanding flies
In the half life he cries

Red dread claw wrathful prison cell door
Words fall up onto the facts
The outlines fuzzed by political crap
The politician squirts out black
Pethedrine injected nation vein
A good soldier never questions asks
Aspirin thoughts in fil-o-fax
Don’t know the anvil breaks the hammer

The race is not to the swift…

So what does fascism mean then, father?
Just shut up and digest your tablet, son
The great masses of the earth disappear
In the black hole dot between here and here
I look and I reveal the world
And nothing will be revealed
I raise my laser gun
Between my eyes I put a sun

The race is not to the swift…

Dead voices spinning in a static sea
Don’t advertise homosexuality
The pen slips slightly into future play
Everyone is acting just like ‘they’

Spin Me Round

You put a scar from my scalp down to my toes
I started wondering what Sting would think of this ear

Then you spin me round
Spin me round the other way

I’ve got the keys to the kingdom
cause I’ve worked my way through college
I’ve got a cool cat brother who fills my mouth with sewerage

Then you spin me round
Spin me round the other way for a while

Yo ho freakin ho!
Oh nikaerf oh oy!

Then you spin me round
Spin me round the other way

Oh it’s a sad film that ends up down on the cutting room floor
I guess you’d just call me an unused song line or a sad film
We’re two exploding toys that lick up the spit out
Ah the brow gun, prow gun
It’s the usual shit that you wear

Then you spin me round
Spin me round the other way

Nonsense Spews From My Song Machine

I said mama
I said mama
Nonsense Spews From My Song Machine
Everything is way out of order
On the one hand
And on the other hand
Cop car whoop like an Indian
Everything is way out of order

Here’s an invisible knot
On an invisible string
It’s not in the kitchen
It’s not in the barn
But it’s sitting out there
In my language field

I said mama
I said mama
Dog star howls at the moon at night
Everything is way out of order
You have an Asiatic grin
Held in place by your nose like a pin
Big blooming, buzzing confusion
Everything is way out of order

Oh the surfer moves to the left
Oh the surfer moves inwards
Molecules of the wave going round
Everything is way out of order

Humbug

I’ve been on strike with the angels
I’ve been in submarine employ
Called a coward here
Hailed a hero there
I’ve been here, there and underwear

I speak very heathenish
In a motley suit on a tame merchant ship
All these ideas spread into fierceness
Oh there’s officers and then there’s the men, sah!

All these bones can be studied
And this skin bag holds water
Elevated, holding on by a shroud
And is this picture proud?
There is a firmness there

And it’s all humbug
Charlie said it is all humbug

It’s the story of Hercules and the whale
And Osirion and the dolphin
Yet I damn it all with facts
For all that

And it’s all humbug
Charlie said it is all humbug

I reckon I’ll heed the calling
And strike the sun that insulted me
If he’s the master
Then I’m your man

Fast Fish

I am a fast fish I’m not a loose fish out of time
Oh a chewing gum saying in everyone’s mouth
That possession is half of the law
Regardless of how that thing came into your possession
They say that its half of the law
Oh but it is often the case that possession
Is the whole of the law
What are the sinews and souls of capital’s serfs?
The republican slaves?
But fast fish
In this case is not possession the whole of the law
Not just half of the law?
You’ve got a bad landlord?
Haven’t we all?
He’s a fast fish – he’s a fast fish
What is the protected villain’s marble mansion with doorplate?
For a waif, what is that but a fast fish?
What is this ruinous discount, mordecai
But a fast fish?
Keep your family from starvation
What is this noble thing but a fast fish?
All the archbishops who save souls in doubt
Steal from the bread and cheese of hundreds of thousands
What is that globular hundred thousand
But a fast fish?
Oh when the Chinese rent collector comes round “shintin”
It’s a fast fish
Oh brother Jonathan , all sex is a fast fish
It’s most of the law
I am a fast fish I’m not a loose fish out of time
I am a fast fish are you a loose fish out of time?

Downhearted Blues

Let yourself fall into my arms this night
As the cloud crawls the mountain side And talk to me about your plans and your fears Turn down that propane light
And let’s kiss all night
Turn up those downhearted blues now

Drop open your mouth and breathe
Cause we’re kissing between the ears
That woman sings every note on my spine
I’m inside myself with a bleeding heart
You can’t beat it every word in its place
She turns this man back into a mouse
And I can smell her dreams of cheese
A crow zig-zags to and fro
Like a slow and final note
Turn up those downhearted blues now

And I dance like it is the first dance again
The music is as fresh as a new strain
And the notes rot holes in your heart
Isn’t it funny how
We start to enjoy this taste of decay
How we lick the cynics lip
India-rubberlike a great ape on the couch
Give me a stick and I’ll beat it out
Like a secret bomb tick-tocking
In the pill box of your brain
Turn up those downhearted blues now

We’ll drag our defects along with us
When our brains burrow down into lust

Never And Always

Lift up your gaze like a guillotine blade
And see the engine blaze
Record or erase this first of days when
We will climb on board
It’s a rocket ship to the future
Of never and always
It’s going from this land here to that
Just like dark age Lou says
His armour peels like a soup can
He’s shaved off all his curls
To the end of the time with time
Never and always
The dark knight discards his spurs
He’s joined the peacemakers
Never and always
Blood rising / blood falling
Like all the water in the world
It’s sexless it’s a new world
It’s the end of time with time
Pumping brain pumping iron
Pumping silence on fire
The eyes shine bright from the skull
Never and always
Give up wind and don’t wail
To the end of the time with time
Never and always
Give up wind and don’t wail
We’ll sail in the ebb and the flow
It’s life’s university
Co-ordinate the visual ‘V’ sign
Never and always
Pumping brain pumping iron
Pumping silence on fire