REPUGNANT POWER-PEOPLE APPLAUD REPELLENT RELIC OF HISTORY WHILST TITTERING AND CRINGING SICKENINGLY. GOD, SAVAGE THE QUEEN.

http://youtu.be/XwbWAQjvCss

This really makes a man gag: the chumminess, the reverence and the snivelling obeisance. All hail the unelected Head of State! For she’s a jolly good fellow…


—More Motion-sickness

—A pile of rubble, Glasgow, League Cup Final Day

Confessional, from the side of the mouth

 

I live in a house with a cat and some ants. Everyone is sated.

I went to my local church and was refused service. I waved my baggy genitals at the man in the frock. The birds whistled a song of acceptance. God peed himself. Everyone went home.

The record shop is overflowing with films. We need more gun shops that sell heroin. We need more live butchery. We need rock and roll salvation.

Spring is arriving and the days creep into evenings. Buses without headlights, women without tights. See the sun arc higher and higher into the northwest. The comedians are coming to town. Pale footballers redden, the lollipop men blush in glinting afternoons. I know where they hide their glossy magazines.

If I really thought about my life I’d redeem myself. I’d take matters in hand. But I wear blinkers, muffs and a face-mask. I watch the world weaken through yellow eyes.…—More Untruths

—A celebrity, yesterday

Ten Twitter posts I recommend to the attention-starved modern celebrity guaranteed to generate some heat.

 

1. “Michael Jackson fucked me in the mouth when I was thirteen and I enjoyed it.”

2. “Our soldiers are cowards – even the dead ones.”

3. “Killing or maiming children with brown skin is justifiable if it secures energy supplies to liberal democracies.”

4. “All Olympic Games competitors should be shot in the head before each event.”

5. “I wish the Real IRA would blow up Margaret Thatcher’s offspring.”

6. “Anal rape must be permissable if it serves to get Bruce Springsteen to shut the fuck up.”

7. “Religion operates like dysentery. It renders its host incapacitated and is communicated via their consequent torrent of faeces.”

8. “I’ve had sex with both of my parents.” *

9. “I get an erection every time I see a crucifix.”

10. “I just had a brilliant kiwi and apple smoothie. And now I’m going to torture a prostitute.”

* Russell Brand may already have said this, I’m not sure.—More Untruths

My Soul Is Stolen

http://youtu.be/Cmf5DTypcZg—More Motion-sickness

Can’t Let Go Of Her Now

http://youtu.be/QAswTXifo6I—More Motion-sickness

A Man With Nothing To Do

http://youtu.be/IIjDBUl4YnU—More Motion-sickness

You’ll Always Walk Alone

http://youtu.be/-VfStJ2tyFw—More Motion-sickness

Little Stars, Live at Mrs.Craig’s House

http://youtu.be/CNMnSBwQotw—More Motion-sickness

Every Song’s The Same, Live at Mrs.Craig’s House

http://youtu.be/tCh4vBR1Zls—More Motion-sickness

A Man With Nothing to Do

 

The lovers of the world are slaving away

But I do nothing much but breathe

When good men do nothing, it’s true what they say

The devil is rolling up his sleeve

 

Is God, so busy in his time, now doing nothing too?

 

So baby, here I am, waiting for you

A man with nothing to do

 

Let the years go by, let the daylight die

I can’t think of anything to be

The planes in the sky, the lines in the road

Human hands make everything you see

And if you keep busy in your mind do you think you’ll see this through?

 

So baby, here I am, waiting for you

A man with nothing to do

I’m a man with nothing to do

 

I don’t tend the fields, I don’t toil at the sea

So I am passing the time by letting time pass over me

 

So are you so busy in your mind that you can’t feel it too?

 

So baby, here I am, waiting…—More Sword

Anywhere I’m Away from You

 

When I’m away from home I do as the locals do

But baby, now I’m in Rome I can’t remember you

Did you used to cut me down, did you use to bury me?

Praise God for the errors of my memory

 

Whatever I’m coming to I ain’t running home

Cos home is anywhere, anywhere I’m away from you

 

Out on the road you find invisibility

And the beauty of an empty mind is its tranquility

And if the past comes up and dogs my day

I can take it on a little trip and lose it in the empty space

 

Whatever I’m coming to I ain’t running home

Cos home is anywhere, anywhere I’m away from you

 

So, baby if you want me back you don’t have to do a thing

Just stare at the wall as you always do hating everything

And I’ll come flooding back and you can treasure me

With your heart like rock and your mind so black butcher my…—More Sword

At Home Inside Of Me

 

Crows capturing buildings and rats camped in a drain

Fireflies caught and cannoned in the rain

Seams of secret people awaiting the shafts that set them free

They make themselves a home inside of me

 

Armies of children and ghosts of suffragettes

Make merry in the cauldron of my chest

Bodies dumped in ditches and stowaways at sea

They make themselves a home inside of me

They make themselves a home inside of me

 

A fist-fight at a wedding, a killing on the stairs

The brilliant spark at the start of love affairs

Your tenderness’s blessing and your assassin’s accuracy

They make themselves a home inside of me

 —More Sword

You’ll Always Walk Alone

 

Lying asleep at night under the watching ceiling light

Safe in the fortress of your home

Remember you’ll always walk alone

 

When you’re swooning at the sinking sun

With that special girl you string along

And from the shore you throw another stone

Remember you’ll always walk alone

 

Walk alone through your life and into the night

You will always walk alone

 

Arm in arm and hand in hand, tied together with a wedding band

Tethered to the line between the phones

Remember you’ll always walk alone

 

Walk alone through your life and into the night

You will always walk alone

 

And alone every night you walk through my mind

There we go, you and I in tandem all the time

Our cover’s blown, now it’s all talk

How you always walk alone

 

 —More Sword

Can’t Let Go Of Her Now

 

She’s made her mark on me, she’s scarred my memory

Made shallow wounds in the depth of night

Give up my liberty, that’s what she wants from me

Well, I guess I’d care but it feels alright

And if I lose my grip I won’t make it anyhow

So I can’t let go of her now

 

She makes my common sense come out like self-defence

She breaks my patience like a match

And when I snap in half she’ll be the first to laugh

If I’m a base hit, she’s a catch

And if I lose my grip I won’t make it anyhow

So I can’t let go of her now

 

Just don’t tell her I would die if I let her slip away

Let her think I’m resigned

Like those drying clothes just hang onto the line

 

She’s made her mark on me, those little lines you can see

They’re written through me like a poem

She makes a mockery of all I hold life to…—More Sword

The Fight to Be Human

 

I’m not a master of what I survey

To death and disaster I am a slave

But I am the author of the words that I say

Why do I bother – it’s all trash anyway

 

I try to be truthful, or I think that I try

I may not be useful but at least I’m alive

Millions of letters spilled into the hive

All of them worthless except for this line

 

I hate the world they gave me

I hate the world they gave me

 

I stand on a mountain of pitiful prose

My mind is a fountain that pointlessly flows

They give you a trophy if you make the kids scream

But it’s such a joke to me how insipid I’ve been

 

I hate the world they gave me

I hate the world they gave me

 

I dig into my past now, I dig into my wrist

To recapture the last time I felt the knife twist

I kick at the shackles and heave at the…—More Sword

Ready To Be

 

Ready To Be

 

 

Praise heaven, babe, it’s still alive

A good man’s just a great disguise

Look down deep in his eyes you’ll see

And your friends who say I’m bad

Why don’t you tell them all you’ve been had

Why don’t you tell them what I am is what they see

 

Cos I’m ready to be the devil they’ve been seeing in me

 

Look closer it’s still alight

That ain’t a twinkle that you see at night

Ask me again if I think they’re right, you’ll see

 

Cos I’m ready to be the devil they’ve been seeing in me

 

Whatever they’ve been seeing, I know him

He lives between the moments, when I’m an angel in silence

He’s climbing over the railway fence

Trying to dispose of the evidence

Trying to compose it so it all makes sense

 

Trying to get ready to be, ready to be

The devil they’ve been seeing in me

 

 

 —More Sword

The Way That It Falls

 

Life is wonderful, you love the days till you’re dead and gone,

The pleasures lived in the light, but I love the night, the shapes it solves

And the way that it falls, the way that it falls

 

And she loves everyone, so I let her burn in the sun

And then trick her into a fight, cos I love the night, the spills and squalls

And the way that it falls, the way that it falls

 

Falling through the morning, falling through all of space

To wipe the sunlight from her face

Like the shadow falling in this place

 

Life is wonderful, you hog the heat till the fire cools

And you hold on as though it’s your right, and dread the night’s

Enclosing walls

And the way that it falls, the way that it falls

—More Sword

As Long As You Don’t Come Back

 

Well, I’m talking to myself not you so don’t get mad

Cos I need a friend who won’t talk back

And he is letting me finally see some sense

And I know I should be mending fences but why would I do that?

When I won’t feel alone as long as you don’t come back

 

And I know that you’ll be picking through the bones of me

Trying to find a heart of stone

Well, if it’s there throw it at my picture

Cos I know I should be building bridges but why would I do that?

When I won’t feel alone as long as you don’t come back

 

 

Don’t come back, don’t come round crying

Whatever the angle, I ain’t buying

Whatever the accent you’ve been trying

 

 

So I’m talking to myself not you and it ain’t so bad

At least I don’t put myself down

And sometimes I even sound like you

And I know I should be making amends but why would I…—More Sword

Everyone I Love

 

Tonight I’m gonna hurt everyone I love just to see if they love me

I’m gonna run around running off my mouth, be as cruel as I can be

Tonight I’m gonna hurt everyone I love, give my bitter side a little exercise

Let my loathing out for a walkabout, give my jealousy a little company

Tonight I’m gonna hurt everyone I love,

Cos I’m tired of trying to keep this stuff inside of me

 

Tonight I’m gonna say what I never say, I’m taking everybody down

Like Dr. Frankenstein I’ll let the monster walk from the cellar to the town

Tonight I’m gonna say what I never say, every negative I can hit them with,

Every accolade’ll be a hand grenade, let my mission be catastrophe,

Tonight I’m gonna hurt everyone I love,

Cos I wanna wreck what everyone expects from me

 

Tonight I’m gonna hurt everyone I love just to see if they love me

I’m gonna blow apart the phoney…—More Sword

Baby, You Survived

 

Baby, can’t you cry, or is she ain’t letting you?

That eyelash in your eye ain’t what’s upsetting you

Though she’s dead and out of sight

She still throws your shoes across your room at night

And she still says you’re cheap and in your sleep sets the sheets alight

So baby, don’t you cry, she ain’t worth it, and besides,

You’re too old for lullabies

 

So baby, don’t you sink back down that corridor

Take a breath and think what you’ve been running for

Cos she can’t help you now

All she can do is sulk around your house

And show up in your eyes when you’re surprised that you’re happy now

So be glad and proud, cos, baby, you’re allowed

 

And her shadow disappears when you shine a light down the years

And torch that hallway of souvenirs

 

So lately you and I have spoken of marrying

So it’s time to say goodbye to that bag of broken things you’re carrying

Cos this time you…—More Sword

What Is Love For

 

What is love for? Does it wash good people ashore,

Does it keep the wolf from the door, what is love for?

 

What does love do, does it make life worth going through,

Keep you safe from the suicide crew, what does love do?

 

What is love for, who does it help?

A one-eyed king that leads everything straight into hell.

What is love for, what does it change?

Did Joan of Arc drag anyone back from history’s flames?

 

What does love do, does it  favour a fortunate few,

Does it step on the hearts it can’t use, what does love do?

 

What does love make but twenty billion perfect mistakes

Trying to figure what they can take, what does it make?

 

What is love for, who does it help?

A one-eyed king that leads everything straight into hell.

What is love for, what does it change?

Did Joan of Arc drag anyone back from history’s flames?

 

What is love for, what is love for?

What do…—More Sword

Not So Sentimental Now (Currie)

 

Pick up your shit and my shit too

Don’t need a T.V. to stare at or those pretty clothes to glare at

That you never put on anyhow

‘Cos baby, I’m not so sentimental now

 

Out with the old, out with the new

If there’s a trinket worth keeping you’d better get it while I’m sleeping

‘Cos baby, I’m not so sentimental now

 

Don’t think because I loved so hard

I can’t be hard when the hating starts

So take your wounded out

‘Cos I’m not so sentimental now

 

Take everything, take what you see

The vitamins, the drawing pins, the covers you’ve been lying in to me,

Yeh, take a bow

‘Cos baby, I’m not so sentimental now.—More Sword

Walking Through You (Currie)

 

In the evening when you’re blue you will feel me walking through you

When you’re crying, that’s my cue, my reminding walking through you

 

When you’re singing something true I’ll be listening walking through you

And those memories that you lose I can find them walking through you

 

When you dance and your baby’s dancing too

Then I will walk through you

 

In the windows in the views there’s a shadow walking through you

When you’re cold, when you’re cruel, that’s my sorrow walking through you

 

When you wake in the silence of your room

Then I will walk through you

—More Sword

Something In That Mess

 

Sometimes I love you, sometimes I hate you

I know you struggle too, it’s in your nature

‘Cos you and I were never meant to be together

But you took off your dress

And something in that mess got changed forever

 

Some days a breakthrough, some days a breakdown

When I fall out of love you meet me on the way down

‘Cos you and I were never meant to be together

But you took off your dress

And something in that mess got changed forever

 

Forever, stains and scratches written on the leather

And when the sun comes slanting in I swear it’s raining feathers

And I can’t find myself among this stuff we’ve thrown together

‘Cos somewhere here a shirt of mine is twisted in the arms of your sweater

 

Sometimes I love you, sometimes I hate you

I know that you do too, it’s in your nature

‘Cos you and I were never meant to be together

But you took off your dress

And something…—More Sword

If I Ever Loved You

 

 

Baby, I was not the one

I guess you know that now

But I kept you real distracted for a while.

 

I look back and nothing much

Ever comes to mind

Sometimes I can picture half a smile

 

We were thick as thieves

Hung on each others sleeves

Kissing all the time

 

But if I ever loved you shouldn’t I be crying

Shouldn’t I be cracking up

And drinking all the time?

Yeah,if I ever loved you how come I feel alright

How come the nights are so easy

And the mornings look so bright?

 

I try to figure what has gone

I seem to look the same

Maybe there’s a tightness around my eyes

 

Sometimes the evening comes

I think I miss someone

And then I realise

 

That if I ever loved you shouldn’t I be crying

Shouldn’t I be cracking up

And drinking all the time?

Yeah,if I ever loved you how come I feel alright

How come the nights are so easy

And the mornings look so bright?

 

Love it can make your world

Bring…—More Sword

Only Love

 

 

Only love makes killing time so cruel

The hours come and you drag them round with you

When she is gone the whole hangdog house aches

And you hum along to the sound of heartbreaks

You think you hear in every song

 

But only love will make you wait so long

For the little gifts that keep you holding on

A scribbled ring round the town she’s staying in,

The little dent in the bed you’re laying in,

The heady scent she leaves on you

But only love makes killing time so cruel

 

So many things that you must get round to;

A dripping tap, a month’s mail to sort through

If you could just get your mind to clear

But it’s only love and it keeps you waiting here—More Sword

Gold Dust

 

 

The thing that makes your eyes glitter isn’t always gold dust

The wings you think life’s given you they couldn’t lift a bread crust

 

A siren in the sky calls my body home

The last remaining high leaves me lowdown and alone

And maps of where you are can be found in every bar

Where those cosy little homilies hang

 

The thing that makes your eyes glitter isn’t always gold dust

The wings you think life’s given you they couldn’t lift a bread crust

 

The confidence of kings leaches from my hands

Where jupiter did sing a drunken janitor now stands

To figure who you are you look in every single car

Where they stick those tired sideways looks at life

 

The thing that makes your eyes glitter isn’t always gold dust

The wings you think life’s given you they couldn’t lift a bread crust

 

Alone; that ain’t the word

It’s just a groan in the morning nobody ever heard

—More Sword

Out Of My Control

 

 

Once I get my heart back in my hand

I’ll squeeze out every drop of love I can

To rid myself of you, I want with all my soul

But what I want is out of my control

 

All I’d have to do is fool around

Drag out this old carcass on the town

I know how it is done, just shake the dice and roll

But what I want is out of my control

 

Why can’t I free myself, climb out of this hole

Deep inside you have taken hold

I try, try, try but every time I just find

It’s out of my control

 

Twenty planes they leave the runway every day

Taking yet another chance away

I could cut and run, take half what makes me whole

But what I want is out of my control—More Sword

Where Did I Go?

 

 

I loved to hurt you without you ever knowing

I could desert you without you ever seeing me going

 

All the monsters in your nightmares showed

You could see me underneath my cloak –

Do you know, do you know?

Baby, where did I go?

 

 

In the mornings, baby, right before you woke

I would ask things that I never spoke –

Does she know, does she know?

Baby, where did I go?

 

Maybe I was afraid to see you cry

Maybe you didn’t need to cry

Maybe I can tell such a brilliant lie…

 

I loved to hurt you but you never felt a blow

I could kiss you and still you’d never know…

Baby, where did I go?—More Sword

Still In Love

 

 

Lovers leave their traces like jets across the sky

They find in others’  faces lines they recognise

My keepsakes have their places –

At the back of a drawer or slipped between pages and stuck on a shelf

 

But I’m still in love with nothing but myself

 

Yeah, sometimes I remember the way they signed their names

And always in December I feel some kind of shame

The heart it stays so tender –

I reminisce like a hangman wishing his prisoners well

 

But I’m still in love with nothing but myself

 

I know their mothers’ ages

I know all the stories so well

And I know I’ll see their faces in hell

 

So wipe away their traces, blow the dust off from the shelf

‘Cos I’m still in love

With nothing but myself—More Sword

No, Surrender

 

 

Big Macs for the fat, lo-cal wraps for the call centre battery hens,

Japanese snacks for the choice-spoilt citizens, caviar kickbacks for the citadel denizens.

 

Airport shoeshines servicing the suits among the little silver stereos and hand-rolled cheroots,

First class passengers file on last after the scum are packed in with their tax-free loot.

 

Checkout calamity, you’re cheated out of loyalty points, ten more years at this joint you’d be home & dry,

Beggars beat round the cash machines but you just slip between them with the usual lie.

 

Terrible tales of kidnapped kids keep you focused on the family and filling up the fridge,

Neighbourhood watchers shop dole dodgers, stick their semis on the market & start racking up the bids.

 

Should you stand and fight, should you die for what you think is right

So your useless contribution will be remembered?

If you’re asking me I say no, surrender.

 

Constant growth the cancerous cure, a swarming race of profiteers…—More Sword

—At last, something we're good at

Medical Advice

 

 

You can be in love with life without ever noticing the creeping carcinogen of general guilt amassing within. Forgive yourself. It was only drink. You didn’t fuck up the planet. You don’t even own a hairdryer.

 

When you see happy rich people just remember: that’s what you look like to poor people. But that’s no reason not to relish despising them. Or yourself, for that matter.

 

My uncle used to go off to a health farm to drink purer gin. He returned rosy-cheeked and better connected. I suppose it was rehab with a little more leeway.

 

It is a myth that sparkling drinks get you drunk quicker. It is drinking quickly that gets you fucked sooner. Try slamming wine. You become inoperable after a remarkably short time. Probably best reserved for right before they hang you.

 

When entirely sated it is best to sample one more sip just to be absolutely sure.

 

Only drink malt…—More Untruths

To Shit in a Shopping Trolley

It was announced earlier today that the world, hitherto assumed to be royally knackered, is in fact going to shit in a shopping trolley. And now over to Steve for the sport.—More Rants/Slates

Birdsong BBC 1 Sundays in January

Birdshit

 

 

A more ponderous, pretentious and ultimately vapid drama is hard to imagine unless one dared contemplate an adaptation of Barbara Cartland’s “Love Under Fire” directed by Tony Scott and starring, say, that little pillock from Muse.

Nothing in this lavishly ill-conceived dross was even remotely credible. The enigmatically mumbled dialogue was vacuous, the performances monstrously vain, the direction risibly portentous and criminally derivative. Even the score was crass, repetitive and smug.

Essentially a non-stop sequence of face-achingly drawn out close-ups of a freckly shampoo model with girly lips, the whole production resembled an absurd three hour advert for some dreadful bottled stench called, perhaps, Trenchfoot (by Givenchy). In its desperation to milk cheap reactions from the TV audience, Birdsong played every low trick in the manual – gore, guts and cardboard heroics cut with bucolic idylls shot through diaphanous silks and wafting foliage – resulting in nothing less than hardcore emotional pornography.…—More Rants/Slates