MAD IN ENGLAND

Here I take the stand
Holding court my scolding thoughts
A clear masterplan
Moulding naught with frozen heart
Down in Albion
Hired hand on given ground
Crown the champion
Take my hand and strike the band

Off to war we go
Seas of slurry, mad in England
Pulp the puppet show
Chips and curry, mad in England

Sound asleep in affluence
Ankle-deep in effluence
Finders, keepers
For mouthbreathers

Green and pleasant land
Lay a wreath for mad in England
Bite the feeding hand
Knackered teeth we’re mad in England
Land of hope and glory
You’ll need a permit, mad in England
Blaze of allegory
You’re welcome to it, mad in England
Nation of inferior
Look out, landlocked, mad in England
Jackboot to posterior
Yes I’m pissed off, mad in England

BUTTERFLY OR BULL

Dog in the garden
Chase bumblebee
No-one scared ’til teeth are bared then blood is guaranteed
Spider in the corner
White web, coal black
A hundred legs, a thousand eggs all hatching to attack

Living or dying
Profound or profane
Thriving, surviving
It all seems the same

Rat in the dustbin
Eats everything
Demonic and bubonic spread from here to Hamelin
Monkey rise the ladder
Baboon on the bars
The higher the vines that monkey climbs
The more we see his arse

Living or dying
Profound or profane
Sinking or flying
It all seems the same

Will I be kind or cruel?
Butterfly or bull?
Tortoiseshell or wool?

Survival of the fittest
Or relic or revenge
What’s the point my friends?

Natural selection, why?
Spread the infection, die
Living or dying? Try
Floundering or flying high

We’re lions and louses
We are baboons in blouses
We’re mongrels and mouses
We’re chimpanzees in trousers

EMERGENCY

Gripped up by a hooligan
Lit up in the morning sun
Leading lives on borrowed time away
Mixed-up minds in mockery
Drain me of my battery
For fifteen mins of supposed wins today

Now nothing here’s just black or white
Sometimes the dark’s where you find light
If all you do is disagree
Well seek and you shall see, emergency

Hypnotised by compromise
Paralysed by futile lies
Another loss for another boss to breathe
Lacerate the feeding hand
Castles built upon the sand
Is it ritual or habitual to be?

Now everything’s not black and white
Like everyone we empathise
So question your reality
‘Cos life’s not binary, emergency

Now everything’s not white or black
Addiction of amnesiac
So who are we to referee?
And who am I to disagree? Emergency

OPINION ADDICTION

Look at me
I’m all that you want to be
I know everything
From not listening

Weep and whine
With sentiments asinine
My violet skin
Tiny violin

Why why oh why
Must you cling to the things you believe that you think
Try, try, try, try
‘Cos the mud that you throw might stink

I got the opinion addiction
Here comes the big reveal
Big shot with opinion addiction
The futile Ferris wheel
I’m trying

All you know
The microscopic echo
Of lacklustre friends
Playing Let’s Pretend

And all I smell
The rising in decibels
And throwing of tropes
Maligned misanthropes

No, no, no, no
What you read in the sheets you assumed was the news
Oh, oh, oh, oh
Well, if thoughts were a sport you’d lose

I got the opinion addiction
Here comes the big reveal
Big shot with opinion addiction
Thinking I really feel
I’m trying

Woo

I got the opinion addiction
Here comes the big reveal
Big shot with opinion addiction
Logic I really feel, okay
Punk rock the opinion addiction
Have that, society
Just block the opinion addiction
Deny the piety
I’m trying

I GOT A GIFT

I got a gift
But the prize came with a price
A throne on a thrift
A poisoned paradise

My chromosome
A mongrel thoroughbred
My head is my home
Red brick, single bed

And the rain comes falling down
And the rain comes falling down
Still the rain keeps falling down
And the rain keeps falling down

I got a gift
A lucid levity
Static but stiff
Insincere sincerity

Dreams jerry built
In comfort lies control
It’s edged with gilt
But still I’m good as gold

And the walls come tumbling down
And the walls come tumbling down
Still the walls keep tumbling down
All the walls keep tumbling down

I got a gift
But it’s not for everyone
And it’s a big ‘if’
If in fact it’s for anyone

But I got a pill
My pistol a poison pen
I need to refill
Time and time and time again

And the world comes crashing down
The whole world comes crashing down
And everything comes crashing down
You and me come crashing down

I got a gift

And the world comes crashing down
And everything comes crashing down
The whole damned world comes crashing down
You and me come crashing down

STOP

Here I am again, hunting for a friend
Cruel curses condescend
Don’t stop ’til you’re at the end
Heavy is the crown, rat race runaround
Fingers in ears and eyes
For cash and compromise
Overdone and under blown, weigh up the scales
That dimming dynamo flips like a domino
Sticks and stones and testosterone
The alpha fail
This ain’t a war you know, it’s just a show

You better stop
And take a little breath
You gotta stop
It’s helpful for your health

So I stopped and looked around, tie up, knuckle down
No cash, no compromise
Idle or idolise
And once again, born to entertain
But this ain’t a TV show, it’s just faux

You see, since 1980 I thought that everybody hated me
Stuck inside, misty-eyed, no exaggeratedly
A moron, one can short of a sixpack
A lowbrow monobrow in an orange anorak
But nothing and nobody could ever seem to phase me
I work damn hard to be this lazy
Don’t require to be a genius
No desire to be a maverick
If there is a God, mate, spare me from being average

You better stop
And take a little breath
You gotta stop
It’s helpful for your health

Choose your friends and choose them wise
Cos someday soon they might sacrifice
Pick when to lead and when to concede
But one simple rule, this you must heed
It’s nice to be nice, no compromise

You better stop
And take a little breath
You gotta stop
It’s helpful for your health
You gotta stop
And shake off the debris
You better not
Or you’ll die in your sleep

I’D RATHER BE ANYWHERE

I’d like to teach the world to go away
The welcome I received has overstayed
Just when I thought I’d found dry land
The cartoon sign appears to say quicksand, so

I’d rather be anywhere other than here in my head

Like
A soggy shed with spiders in
An overflowing chip shop bin
Are choices that seem far more preferable
A nine-volt battery on the tongue
A round of golf with Donald Trump
A house with ‘Live, Laugh, Love’ upon the wall, or
A heatwave up on Mercury
A hangover in a nursery
Club De Katie Hopkins Goes Burlesque
Mary Berry’s Frankenstein
Then Motley Crue on Mastermind
Celebrity Wife Swap with Rosemary West

My heart’s spaghetti western
My head’s Spaghetti Junction
Never ever learn the lesson
The drive to strive is up

I’d rather be anywhere other than here in my head

My heart’s spaghetti western
My head’s Spaghetti Junction
Never ever learn the lesson
The drive to strive is up
Arrive in style unstuck

I’d rather be anywhere other than here in my head

MY FAMILY

My family, my cavalry
We shun reality and ban normality

Everyone is someone
That’s my funny little dream
Cos we knew along
That being cool is free
With our feet on the ground
But our heads up in the trees
A curious company, I know

My family, my cavalry
We shun reality and ban normality

It’s a dream that I dreamt
To cushion those in need
Cos we try represent
A better way to be
On a similar wavelength
But sometimes different frequencies
I love my community, oh yeah

Unusual rules apply
It’s tough enough to exist
Don’t always see eye to eye
But dance as one to stupid riffs
Like this

Everyone has a name
And although life isn’t fair
Until we matter the same
We’ll never get anywhere

My family, my cavalry
We shun reality and ban normality
All this insanity always comforts me
Because banality will be the death of me

My ego is not my amigo

WHY CAN’T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG

Why are bad things happening to good folks?
Why does my car break when I’m already broke?

And as groin reacquaints with knee
That’s serendipity once again

Why oh why oh why are the leaders usually enemies?
Why do we still bow to these errors of heredity?

It’s easier to cheat and swing around your meat
The power trips to rinse and to repeat

Why can’t we all just get along?
Why can’t we all just get along, everybody?
Cos no-one’s right and never wrong
Why can’t we all just get along, everybody?

Why are we still bothered about religion?
Why does anybody care what someone wants to do with their own little bag of bones?

I never was awestruck by baubles, beads or bucks
Cos in a few short years, all this will be dust

Why can’t we all just get along?
Why can’t we all just get along, everybody?
Cos no-one’s right and never wrong
So why can’t we all just get along, everybody?

What’s funny to me, the irony
The dichotomy, when you’ve got nobody
Life ain’t worth living til you’ve got something for which you’d die

Why can’t we all just get along?
Why can’t we all just get along, everybody?
Cos no-one’s right and never wrong
Why can’t we all just get along, everybody?

Why can’t we all just get along?
Why can’t we all just get along, everybody?
We might not solve it in a song
But don’t you wish we all just got along?

HOW

Here we are alone again, the way that I arrived, the way I’ll go
The light went out, the candle snuffed, the fire and fortitude an all-time-low

Histories of mystery suggest there’s usually somebody to blame
Do myself a favour, learn to become my own saviour once again

Faith and dreams split at the seams, now bow down to the king of overthink
Hope’s the one that kills you when your dreams all disappear into the bin

A friend of mine she asked me if I’d miss you once the clouds cleared from the sky
And this is what I told her as I wiped away the tears from my eyes

How can it be possible to miss someone you never really knew?
I never knew
Cos how can it be possible to treat the ones who love you like they do?
Like a fucking fool
Oh man, I never knew you

DEAD MAN WALKING

Beneath the shadowed trees
A footpath so roughly trod
The noose swayed in the breeze
To carry me home to God

This date set in the diary
My sins would be atoned
There would be no enquiry
And soon I would be gone

A quandary at a beauty spot
To reason or to run
My mother cried an awful lot
My father got his gun

I rise above the hearsay
I hide from hyperbole
I’ll sway most any way
But I decline to bend the knee

A player and his higher card
With weathered wherewithal
Duplicity and disregard
So you can have your ball

We’re near the grim conclusion
So here is my two pence
Illusion or delusion
Attack or self-defense

We acquiesce to effloresce
The magpie’s masterstroke
Religion is just guilt enmeshed
With a masquerade of hope

I stand accused and disabused
A dead man walking
I stand confused, I’m black and bruised
A dead man walking
I got the blame but feel no shame
Nobody talking
That waiting game was all a frame
A dead man walking

And now the tree stands lonely
Assertive but arcane
The vultures gathering slowly
To pick at my remains

I’ll camouflage my ugly scars
And dust away my fall
But I’d rather have a broken heart
Than not have one at all