Diseases of England
Not Alone
Songs For Swinging Lovers
Europe
I lost my teeth on the edge of a glass
And it’s fun while it lasts and it lasts and it lasts
I am drunken style and inherited class
I am queen at the bar, I am kept for the farce
And the water laps at the harbourside
And these salon walls are petrified
And we’re drunk on style and inherited class
And these salon walls were built to last
So sit with me and we’ll raise a glass
To Europe
I fix my eye on the turn of a thigh
I could trace your life in a sneer and a sigh
I am antique lace under musée glass
I am grey-haired chests in push up bras
And the water laps at the harborside
And these cafe walls are petrified
And we’re antique lace under mottled glass
And these cafe walls were built to last
So sit with me and we’ll raise a glass
To Europe
I can write my name in my father’s hand
I can see your souls, I can understand
I can dress myself, I can see you pass
I can lick my lips I can slap your arse
And the water laps at the harborside
And these hatreds are petrified
We can dress ourselves, we can see you pass
And these hatreds were built to last
So sit with me and we’ll raise a glass
To Europe.
And the water laps at the harborside
Our violences codified
We are old, perverted suicides
We are condoms washed in the harbor tide
So sit with me and we’ll toast the pride
Of Europe
Europe
Your Money
Look at you
Look at your hair
Look at you
Look at you, mein Herr
Look at you
You’re looking utterly seamless
Like an actor playing a genius
Look at you
Look at your luck
At the girl you don’t love
And the wife you don’t fuck
Look at you
Look at what you’ve bought
With all that hard, hard work
And all that financial support
And I loathe and resent
Every dream I’ve dreamt
And I’ve nothing but contempt for your money
I can’t access or save
Any gifts you gave
And I’ve nothing to offer your money
Your money
Your money
Your money
Oh oh oh
Ungh ungh ungh ungh ungh
Ah.
Look at me
Look at me begging
Look at me
I’m craven, feral and begging
Look at me
With all my clever ideas
And my bottled up anger and irrational fears
Look at me
Look upon my works
You could stick a label on them
You could sell them as merch
Look at your victory
I’ll betray anyone
Do it to Julia
Do it to Julia
I loathe and resent
Every dream I’ve dreamt
And I’ve nothing but contempt for your money
I can’t access or save
Any gifts you gave
And I’ve nothing to offer your money
Your money
Your money
Your money
Oh lay me down and take me, baby
I will do anything just save me
A place beside you at your table
And ungh ungh ungh ungh ungh
Ah.
The mediocre
Have an interest in promoting the mediocre
But I will find you out
I will find you out
I will find you out
I will find you out
We Love You, Tania
Patty drive the car, drive the car into the city
We run guns to the savages you’ve seen in magazines
It’s the summers without love, it’s the grind of the seventies
It’s the sickness of America where nobody is clean
Patty, your daddy, well he’s richer than anyone
He’s richer than everyone in this whole stinking world
Ain’t it pretty in the city when you’re nothing like anyone
When you’re other to everyone
You’re a valuable girl
Patty shoot the gun, shoot the gun at the enemy
It’s monochrome in scarlett, it’s your cheekbones it’s your age
It’s the other side of style, it’s the era of publicity
A war in silhouette and lines, inscribed upon a page
Patty, your daddy, well he’s richer than anyone
He’s richer than everyone in this whole stinking world
Ain’t it pretty in the city when you’re nothing like anyone
When you’re other to everyone
You’re a valuable girl.
Patty take the stand
Take the stand before the jury
It’s perfectly explicable
It’s packaged and it’s sold
You’re as free as free can be
You are free to doubt in liberty
Oh darling deadly innocence
How cruelly bites the cold
Patty, your daddy, well he’s richer than anyone
He’s richer than everyone in this whole stinking world
Ain’t it pretty in the city when you’re nothing like anyone
When you’re other to everyone
You’re a valuable girl.
Ill
You got sweetheart and you got precious
You’ve got starlight and pretty wishes
You’ve got
Sisters who sing on the radio
And vessels to possess on the radio
Your sex is a sickness yeah
your sex is a sickness
And you’ve got time
Yeah you’ve got time to lose
You’ll never take enough of those pills
You’re too clever to be mentally ill
You’ll never fashion your damaged soul
You’re too clever to lose control
You got doctors and you got stitches
You’ve got lovers and you got well-wishers
You got
Vapid love in a couplet
Two-thousand words and a side-bar
Your sickness is your shibboleth
Your sex is your sickness
And you’ve got time
Yeah you’ve got time to lose
You’ll never take enough of those pills
You’re too clever to be mentally ill
You’ll never fashion your damaged soul
You’re too clever to lose control
This is such a tiny world.
Flesh
Hey girls let’s see if we can bring out
the rapists in the new men
Hey girls it’s the comfort of
the only halfway human
The power bought for the clawing self
in the serpents subtle deals
It may be fleeting but
my god, the way it feels
And I love you, whoever you are, yeah, I love you.
Hey girls we’re almost there
so we might as well stop swimming
Hey girls, ain’t you heard we’re more concerned
about the hegemony, than the women
Hey girls pull it down, there’s money,
c’mon babe, just a little
Pull it down, stick it out, open up,
just a little babe, just a little baby
Hey doc take your knife to me,
scar my snatch into a smile
Strip me and dissect me,
milk my tears and tap my bile
Hey doc can you take my skin
and melt it into plastic
Beauty isn’t truth, it’s just youth,
and it’s adaptive and it’s elastic…
And I love you, whoever you are, yeah, I love you.
Hey girls, we’re all the same, aren’t we
Hey girls, we’re all the same, aren’t we.
Savages
The flame in your eye could burn the world if it were to escape
And the love in your heart is the kind of love they write epic verse about
And darlin’ you know,
You know that you’re better than this
Darlin’ you know,
You know you are better than this
But we are ash and we are books
Coffee-stained and overlooked
We are ornamental swords
Forged for the peace after the war
And the world has no need
of the songs than we sang
We are savages, you and I, and we will
Hang, hang, hang.
The tear on your cheek will fall ignored by the suckers to fake romance
And the hope in your heart will be dashed on the shore of this deadly island
Darling you know
That there’s no place for us
We’ll build and we’ll sweat
But there’s no place for us
No Ithaca no home
We are Greeks in the age of Rome
With no right to criticise
The happily dull, to Grecian eyes
And the world has no need
of the songs that we sang
We are savages, you and I, and we will
Hang, hang, hang.
The sweat on your brow shall be disdained, shunned and deodorized
And the will of your heart shall spoil in the heat of a new world
And darlin you know
You know we’re better unheard
Darlin you know
You know we’re better unserved
The Brave new futures we have seen
Filled with beautiful machines
Greener pastures, clearer skies
And not one such as you or I
As the dust shall settle sweetly
on the songs that we sang
We are savages you and I,
And we will Hang, hang, hang
Hang, Hang, Hang.
Roses
I breached the border of your home
And everything looked as it should have done
Candle flame flickers, and books unread
Round the crystal kept keep of an unmade bed
Flowers cut to shrivel and die
Like romance does and we both know why
With an artful flutter, as if on cue
A gentle breeze brings the scent of you
I’m older than god and i live in your town
You should raise up what you can’t put down
Those books that you pose with are more than antiques
When you search in the dark you should fear what you seek
Pallid in moonlight, your shimmering skin
Is mine to caress, you invited me in
The delicate architecture of your throat
Arks weakly away as my hands approach
Do you bleed diamonds
Do you bleed rubies
Do you bleed roses
A broken kiss, and an aching sigh
Like the half-heard end of a lullaby
A whispering chorus and a stifled moan
The jarring vibration of knife on bone
The stark composition of essence and parts
I gathered your limbs for a final dance
A silent waltz to your songs unsung
As the life-blood seeps from your punctured lung
Do you bleed diamonds
Do you bleed rubies
Do you bleed roses
You bleed diamonds
You bleed rubies
You bleed roses.
Sympathy For The Devil
The country I was born in it has honeysuckle air
The scented breeze caresses girls with haybell-yellow hair
The satisfied and misty-eyed make sport and merry there
I will meet you at the border in the morning
The land I left is full of love and radiant in spring
The songs are sweet and sollemn there and everyone can sing
I could have bought you roses, could have bought you anything
I will meet you at the border in the morning
The country I was born in it created me compelled
But all reason is retrospective love, I just rebel
Hang heaven we can build a better war for us in Hell
I’ll meet you at the border in the morning
I’ve loved you like a clinging fist above the clawing sea
I’ve cut you with a whip barbed with a thousand cruelties
‘m sorry that i met you and i’m begging darling please
Come meet me at the border in the morning
And oh this world’s got nothing in it
No, No, No
And oh this world’s got nothing in it
No, No, No
Your eyes are bright like polished jewels and they cry like razored skin
I would see your will erased, transfigured into sin
I would rip you into pieces and re-build you from within
I will meet you at the border in the morning
Sing poets and sing singers at the alter of the straight
Of better days, happy fields, other shit we hate
Lets go into the darkness love and close our eyes and wait
We are heading for the border in the morning
We are heading for the border in the morning.
Be Afraid Of Your Parents
It’s been a marvellous party with marvellous guests
We been discussing the decline of the decadent west
Over nibbles and wine we are disarmed and impressed
by the charming men in uniform
It’s been a wonderful evening we’ve exchanged our views
How the zionists doesn’t mean the jews
At no single step did we feel confused
By the charming men in uniform
Be afraid of your parents
Be afraid of their clever friends
I’ve read this book before
and darlin i can tell you how it ends
be afraid of the line they teach you,
be afraid of the way it goes
You be amazed at what you can raise
to something everybody knows
we’ve read our jacques derrida our michel foucault
we’ve averted our eyes from the atrocity show
it’s better to beat up on the devil that you know
say the charming men in uniform
give praise to the empty heaven above
i reject the sword and embrace the dove
i see the world suffused with love
and the charming men in uniform
Be afraid of your parents
Be afraid of their clever friends
I’ve read this book before
and darlin i can tell you how it ends
be afraid of the line they teach you,
be afraid of the way it goes
You be amazed at what you can raise
to something everybody knows
Be afraid of your parents
Be afraid of their clever friends
I’ve read this book before
And honey i can tell you how it ends
Be afraid of the line they teach you
Be afraid of the way it goes
You’d be amazed at what you can raise to something everybody knows.
Jerusalem
In a compound on the edge of town
Security to keep the outside out
You and your friends have been discussing how
It seems rebellious to vote conservative now
And your mind’s so sharp
And your eyes so bright
You shine in love, you are born annointed
You mean so well
And you’ll hurt so hard
When you come to be disappointed
But I am never going home again
And I will build Jerusalem
Don’t know about us, but I know about Them
And we will build Jerusalem
Jerusalem.
You know exactly how clever sounds
The soft consonants and rounded vowels
You know the land that your labour’s earned
Your hypotheses have been confirmed
We all love the smiths
And we dig the clash
But the smell of leather is intoxicating
We’re all brilliant minds
We’re genii
We excel at drama and formal debating
But I am never going home again
And I will build Jerusalem
Don’t know about us, but I know about Them
And we will build Jerusalem
Jerusalem.
You can take your burning gold
You can take your swords and spears
You can take your lamb of god
You can take these deadly years
You can win and win
And win again
The dice are loaded you’ll never miss
But you can’t build
Jerusalem
Cause you don’t know what building is.
Anthem For Doomed Youth
You’re howling, abyss-eyed and broken
You’re perverted and gracefully drunk
But there’s nobody left in the west these days
Wronged enough to be a punk
Doomed youth, you’re so beautiful
You never learned to be suspicious
of the stones that look too precious to be true
Like you, Doomed Youth.
The spit at the edge of your mouth
The stain at the crotch of your jeans
The three-inch bruise at the crook of your arm
that in the right light looks like jesus
The smirk you can’t hide when you cry
The care in the knot of your tie
It’s really not that hard to stay alive
When you’re twenty-five
Oh, Doomed Youth
Doomed youth.
Your party and your revolution
Your grand designs and adorable dreams
Your silverless palms and your list of demands
For concessions the world doesn’t need
Doomed youth, you’re too beautiful
All these simplicities that you know they can’t see
Like you can do, doomed youth
And everything’s different lately
And it’s all exactly the same
We know secrets and songs and temptation
We know how things burn when you don’t watch the flame
And the colours are hazy and fading
The ideas given way to the names
We are miners no more, never torn by a war
Neither starving, nor struggling, nor credibly poor
Oh, Doomed Youth
Doomed youth.
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