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Last of the Analogue Age

by A Lazarus Soul

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1.
Midday Class 07:22
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.
2.
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………
3.
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
4.
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.
5.
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
6.
Last Seen 05:26
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
7.
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
8.
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….

about

Songs by Brian Brannigan

Music by Julie Bienvenu, Joe Chester & Anton Hegarty.

Recorded in Patrician College (1967 - 2014), Finglas

& the Living Room, Dublin.

Produced by Joe Chester,

except Ghettoblaster, recorded by Joe Chester, Mixed by Daniel Boyle & Lee Scratch Perry

Artwork by Darragh Nolan.

Front cover photo, Magpie, Richie & Matt by Pat Barry.

Back cover Sundaze 2 by Steve McCann.

Black dog by Alan Dunne.

Mastered by JJ Golden @ Golden Mastering California.

credits

released October 17, 2014

Anton Hegarty - Bass
Joe Chester - Guitars
Julie Bienvenu - Drums
Brian Brannigan - Vocals

license

all rights reserved

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