1. |
Midday Class
07:22
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The Midday Class
• Like a hangover dense as a city smog , followed me like a big black dog
I couldn’t face them on the floor so I spent the morning in the bog
Felt like a century long sixteen years, since we lifted Sam up by the big ears
When the foreman wrapped upon the door, I swore I wouldn’t drink for sixteen more
His face looked like someone had died, the news had broken when we arrived
The young ones hearts had hit the floor, our jobs were off to Bangalore
There was two weeks statutory pay, two flat weeks for every year
As the bills clog up the letter box, that won’t take long to disappear
Drunk as a rule, propped on the tall stool, the first one here to leave the last
But I’m back on song, back where I belong, once again among the Midday Class.
• In the neighbourhood there was nothing doing, with a job as rare as the sun in June
So we smoked some puff & cards were played, sold socks & jocks & razor blades.
See when times are tough, they are at their peak in the underground economy
When middle Ireland is in decline, the fakes as good as genuine
So we’re poor unkempt but we’re tax exempt, our labour days are long since past
with self-esteem sold by the glass when you move among the Midday Class.
• Those Europeans are a sneaky shower, wrestled away the reins of power
They’ll be implementing tax galore 'til we’re back to days of half a door
There is no room in the dole queues while at the polling stations there are but few
When once we fought with hurls & tools to defend the right to our home rule
So were no-one’s slaves, we are an enclave, autonomy from a silver flask
Through the civil shackles cleanly pass, the tattooed limbs of the Midday Class.
• Now our way of life good folks resent in the courthouse of public sentiment
'til on the road to Damascus, they’re gunned down, moments after enlightenment
You break your back to pay your stamps, you live your life out like a tramp
Believing you’ll get your fair share & the hounds believes he’ll catch the hare.
Come join the unwaged, leave your debts unpaid, see the world through amber glass
Let you burden ease into a dizzy gaze, in an afternoon with the Midday Class.
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2. |
The Future's Not Ours
04:29
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The Futures not ours
I was the youngest of nine children in a pebble dashed and brown
Loud & over crowded, level entry two up, two down
My Father worked to feed his family and in all weathers he went
to work at 5a.m & he worked every hour God sent
My Mother was a strong willed woman, tried to keep us off the street
But the deterrent of parental guilt, it never worked on me
When I was just a little boy, I asked he what I’d grow to be
She said if you don’t change your ways, you’ll end up in that factory
I never did,
I never answered as a kid, what I’d like to be when I grew up a general operative
Haunted by lost opportunities, all their hopes that I have killed
Ah the pain, the realisation, I’m almost forty & unskilled
My life is a catalogue of addiction, interspersed with my minor convictions
But I’m still here drinking on the same corner you know
The same weather beaten face that stood here twenty years ago
They will claim that Jesus answered all their candles & their prayers
That’s why I never got promoted to the league of the big players.
One day everyone was loaded, everyone was doing great
But the silver plates transformed this place into a desolate landscape
I never did,
I never answered as a kid, what I’d like to be when I grew up a general operative
What I’d like to be when I grew up, a general operative
Not a brother, not a sister utters a word in my defense
Now my only source of comfort is 3.7 per cent
I stumble through these streets stinking of cider
to this world I’m forever the outsider, the black sheep.
The futures not ours………
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3. |
We Know Where You Live
04:56
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We Know Where You Live
So this is where it all went wrong, but these are the streets where I belong
We kissed our girls behind those prefabs ,by the way they ended up in rehab
Where are the Deanstown corner boys, dead or on the inside?
Was it the council or Gepetto that turned the Dunsink dump into a meadow?
We made a pact in shorts and vests, on the border between south & west
No man’s land was in those fields, where the threat to us was real,
If we ever dared
Our love of life illuminates this lonely cityscapes
Until the plywood comes off of the windows
There is no-one we can trust but the night belongs to us
We'll survive because we only listen to our man on the inside
Was it the planning of an ass or the cunning play to cage the working class
Was It’s the tracksuit or stiletto that turned this neighbourhood into a ghetto
But revolution wasn’t on our lips, will be known as Generation Zip
Is the road out here far too steep
Or do we find it much more comfortable as the foot of the heap
Our love of life illuminates these lonely cityscapes
But whilst were looking at the stars through the ceiling
There is no-one we can trust but the knife belongs to us
We'll survive because we only listen to our man on the inside
You say the system hasn’t got a cent to give
but we know where you live, we know where you live
You cover up the paper trails, the off-shore tales with yet another fib
but we know where you live, we know where you live
You say we all must bear the pain unapologetically and glib
but we know where you live,
Our love of life illuminates these lonely cityscapes
but whilst away is the only thing worth stealing
We may be forced to travel far
Where there is no-one we can trust but the knife belongs to us
We'll survive because we only listen to our man on the inside
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4. |
Mercury Hit A High
03:55
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Mercury Hit A High
Feel the waves of love crashing down upon your soul.
Feel a swell of pride for a love that you might never know.
Could it heal the wounds of regret, forever letting her hand go
Is it never over
Every day in your arms was an honour
Mercury hit a high that summer
Everyday there’s a ray that pierce her armour
& she prays that the waves of your life are calmer
Your little charmer
Feel the waves of light, isn’t that the cruelest juxtapose
The sun is sinking in your eyes as our dawn broke on this lonely road
She can’t revive that way of life but it’s etched in her genetic code
so it’s never over
Every day in our arms is an honour,
Mercury hit a high this summer,
She is safe in a place where the cross can’t harm her
& she prays that the snakes of your life are calmer
Your little charmer
If they lost a pin in the Vatican, they would send a search party in
But your baby’s somewhere in the world & she can’t tell you that she’s safe
But there’s a real desire to survive that I know she’s inherited from you
& when we look into those young, wide eyes we catch a glimpse of you
Everyday keeps the black dog away it’s a goner,
Mercury hit a high that summer
She is grace and her smile is a great disarmer
& she prays that the snakes of your life is calmer.
Your little charmer.
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5. |
This Divided Kingdom
04:53
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This Divided Kingdom
This smoke stained decor hasn’t been changed for 30 years
Amongst show band memorabilia & empty cans of Russian beer
Pictures of my sweetheart still hang upon these shabby walls
But she is just a shadow in this grey suburban sprawl
This use to be our castle but now it’s dusty dark and damp
All the windows smashed and the doors & sills are rotten
The cheques we sent back fueled their economy
But the emerald isle has forsaken & forgotten us
Coming here was our biggest mistake
Caught in a loop & we cannot go forward
Lost is a memory of her embrace
Praying better days are coming fast towards us
Once we were in such demand on these sites around the city
when we were handsome & our bodies were much stronger
but now we are a by-product of this divided kingdom
Now our backs are broke and we can work no longer
Coming here was our fatal mistake
every day perpetual torture
lost in a memory of yesterday
praying better days are coming fast towards us
And now the only way we can ever catch that boat
is if they send us back in a wooden overcoat
Coming here was our only mistake
Caught in a loop and we cannot go forward
Lost in a memory of her embrace
Praying better days are coming fast toward us
Praying better days are coming fast towards us
Praying better days are just around the corner
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6. |
Last Seen
05:26
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Last Seen
Framed innocent still, smiling from the windowsill
A shoebox of looms, still smells faintly of her perfume
Her hair in the brush, a bedroom that’s never been touched
Where she used to dream, it’s now over 17 years since she was last seen
Give her siblings peace, give them a place to grieve, tell them what you know
Do you recognize a fraction of a lie in someone’s false alibi
Is the black eye disguised in your domestic life, is something not sitting right
Young girl last seen, in a white shirt & blue jeans
Young last seen hitching to better life.
Stolen from the curb, lunchtime in a leafy suburb
A nation was stunned, a Mother couldn’t bury her son
The efforts of the police, Lord Jesus how they over reach
When the body could still be somewhere in a bog in Kildare or the south Dublin hills
Let them have one day, give them a place to pray, tell them what you saw
Does the truth reveal, a mere infidelity by placing you at the scene
More than a surmise, the dying of the light in his eyes since that said night
Young boy last seen in a cinereous grey uniform
Young boy who stood on the precipice of adulthood
The road to Killakee, are you a highway to another world
Through the gap along military road
Is there a secret you long to expose
Is it buried in the garden of Wicklow
Are they buried in the heart of Wicklow
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7. |
Ghettoblaster
05:17
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Ghettoblaster
Low muffled rumble as the bag man stumbles
Out of bed to the safety of a place where no-one goes
As hotwired hoppers & the blades from the choppers
Cuts the night into ribbons where they’ve all feather light fingers
Secret sound, Secret sound
With the force that would break a horses spirit
A decision was made that would crush communities
To them your just traffic, in the wrong demographic
And there’s no-one wants to wage middle aged, feather light fingers
Secret sound
Secret sound
This is sound of the cold hearted truth
This is sound of the disaffected youth
This is the sound of a mother trying as she slips below the poverty line
This is the sound of the lost and the beat
The broken bones as they crawl along the street
This is the sound you never wanted to meet
The secret sound of the city
Through the weeds & stingers glides the midnight singers
& the sodium dances to the ballad of the employed
The smell of burning tyres in October street fires
Be extinguished by the morning but the smell of rubber lingers
Secret sound, Secret sound
This is chorus of mongrels that bark
A rusty swing in neglected urban park
The midnight laughter of the lost boys that breeds
Fear into the hearts that are dying to leave
This is the wind through the abandoned estates
This is the sound of regeneration fail.
It keeps us lucid but it never abates
The secret sound of the city
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8. |
Last Of The Analogue Age
06:44
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The Last of the Analogue Age
The junk it yellows our complexion, the Liffey spray our aftershave
You see us hanging on the boardwalk against the cold light of day
Consumer eyes that looks right through us when we ask them for spare change
They despise our twisted faces when we've got gold dust in our veins
We’re not alive, we’re day dreaming, we drop like flies, and nobody’s grieving
We go for days without breathing
In anything that would resemble air and everything we find we share
A curse it fell upon this land & put bayonet to balloon
High streets fell to disrepair, buildings to tenamental ruins
We’re just threading water, drinking under Butt bridge after dark
We are the lost boys of Temple Street West, high on a bench in Croppies park
It’s an ideal, not a uniform, our way of life a consequence
Of being raised in no hope places, the great social experiment
A maze of young unmarried mothers, with one way in and no exit
You get the labour exchange lifers, our dead friends tattooed on our wrists
Through jobless nights we’re not sleeping
Through life’s red lights, we are creeping
Park bench prose our only reading
When there’ no plan to get us out of here
Another can will make it disappear
A curse it gripped this island
While you were float in the parade
Now everyone is acting like it is1848
But were still standing by the flag albeit blowing in the shade
We are the lost boys of Marlborough Street
Lit by the light of the arcades
We’re not alive, were day dreaming
We drop like flies, nobody’s grieving…
Looking for hidden treasure in the public coffers
In uncertain times, we are the only constant you’ll be offered
Bathed in the light of the arcade
We are the last of the analogue age
State sponsored wasted days
We are the last of the analogue age
Never made minimum wage
We are the last of the analogue age
Low-rise, low rent, low immune brigade
Lit by the light, lit up by the light of the arcade
We're not alive, we're day dreaming….
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