LOVE YOU LIKE A GUN

 

Oh I love you like a gun

Loves the bullet right before its gone

Loves the feeling loves the rush

Loves the little bit of me that’s gone

 

Keep moving, I keep moving on

 

Someone said this would be easier

It’s convenient amnesia

 

You’re a bullet with my name on love

yes a bullet with my name on

Love you like a gun, you like a gun

 

Don’t think don’t think don’t think just part of a wave

 

Dance to the beat of the serpent’s drum

Dance to the beat til the memory’s gone and

Push it down push it down til it won’t come back

Bury her light til it all goes black

And if it never comes just keep dancing to the drum

 

Oh you love me like a rattle snake

Loves the music of the rattling tail

 

We hypnotise

Both you and I

 

Don’t think don’t think don’t think just part of a wave

 

One heart twisting daggers in

Old scars, snakes & ladders in

Two hearts beat together in my chest

Which is best? We go

Three hearts, where to start

When we’re apart

Starts the moment that you run

 

I love you like a gun

 

HUMAN CONTACT

 

On monday night I escaped my cell

A peculiar hell I had built myself

I stumbled out into the high street rush

All I’m craving is a human touch

 

Cos I’ve been trying to get my head screwed tight

Away from people, away from life

I don’t know what kind of world I’m from

But it’s not this one, no it’s not this one, 

 

All I need’s a little

 

Human contact

 

Well I see flesh reacting, I hear skin and bone

I see bodies and bodies and fingers on phones

Digits digitising singing knuckles on ass

I feel like I look out at the world like through glass

 

Until one day our eyes meet and combine

Two bodies, two hosts gracelessly intertwine

There’s something so strange about feeling alive

There’s somebody home and they’re deathly deprived of

 

Human contact

 

I see a hand reach out

I see a leg reach out

I see a limb reach out

But I know it’s nothing to die for

 

Give me your hand reach out

Give me your hand reach out

Give me your hand reach out

Won’t you give me something to die for

 

Something to feel alive 

 

THE ONLY BOY RACER LEFT ON THE ISLAND

 

When I was young I said this town will live in my dust

My father said my boy that life’s not for the likes of us

But the boys in the streets in the fast cars they kept turning heads

I said ‘boy they’re real men, dad, one day I’ll be one of them’

 

The only boy racer left on the island

 

They say you could hear the engine from the mainland, yeah

when I was ten saw the high street heroes speeding round the bend

But those engines got sold when the speed freaks settled down in the south

I guess masculinity’s a pursuit left to the embers of youth

 

The only boy racer left on the island

The lonely joys of holding on

The vines and leaves all gathering on

The only boy racer left on the island

 

No man gets left behind  

SMOKE
 

I watch the smoke untangle 

Itself from your cigarette

I keep my mouth wide open

I’m trying to catch your breath

 

this is a pre-disaster

You’re poring over photographs

I think I know what comes after

But I’m too afraid to ask

 

We’ll quit smoking

After this cigarette

We’ll quit smoking

But I don’t want to yet

 

You won’t come over

And I’ll go to an empty bed

But I think we’re addicted

To more than just the cigarette

 

Of course I received your letter

But I don’t know what it said

I think it reads much better

If it remains unread

 

Cos after I feared your brother

I came to love him too

And although there may be others

I get no rush like you

 

We’ll quit smoking

After this cigarette

We’ll quit smoking

But I don’t want to yet

 

You won’t come over

And I’ll go to an empty bed

But I think we’re addicted

To more than just the cigarette

 

Oh such a strange devotion

I don’t wanna call your bluff

I’m drowning in the strangest ocean

But I don’t wanna call it love

 

Oh such a perfect comedown

From such a perfect day

You rest your head on my shoulder

everything fades away

 

MURMUR

 

There’s a murmur in your heartbeat

I think it says my name

Could you ask its thief 

Exactly what it’s saying

When his head lays on your chest

I hope your heart protests

And maybe tells the brain

 

There’s disruption in the service

Do not adjust your set

The radio keeps playing

The song inside your head

 

The inlaws round for tea

Stop and ask you to repeat

The name that you just said

You try to find peace

You try to find quiet

You run from the truth

Elope with the lie

 

But something’s thumping

Listen to the murmur

I’ve been dead so long 

All I know is how to haunt

 

Dust it hangs from the heart

 

The TV starts to flicker

Your teeth begin to shake

Your eyes roll up inside you

At last observe the brain

 

It’s sparking and it’s burning

There’s a memo from the heart

it reads, it reads, it reads

 

You’re there on the beach

Blood on your hands

You’ve buried the heart

Deep in the sand

 

But something’s thumping

Surrender to the murmur

I’ve been dead so long

All I know is how to haunt

 

I’ve been dancing some kind of 

Staggering waltz

Pull the wall towards me

So I can feel something close

 

Dust it hangs from the heart

 

UNTIL I FOUND A ROSE

 

I was playing in the mud

Until I found a rose

I was somewhere out at sea

Til the light from the lighthouse glowed

 

I owe you more than the money

I owe you more than my life

I was hanging by a thread

Until you cut me loose

I would run from noise and light

Til you shook me and I came to

 

I owe you more than the money

I owe you more than my life

I never told you

You scared off the vultures

I never told you

You scared off the ghosts

Living in my head

That lay lonely in the dirt

That lay lonely in the dirt

Until I found a rose

 

I was fighting tooth and nail

Until you found me bleeding

I was animal and caged

Til you broke in and set me free then

 

I owe you more than the money

I owe you more than my life

I never told you

You scared off the vultures

I never told you

You scared off the ghosts

Living in my head

That lay lonely in the dirt

That lay lonely in the dirt

Until I found a rose

 

SWEET FADING SILVER

 

Drunk in the back of your car again

Laid out upon the back seat again

Just like the old days of spinning around

it’s a whole lot quieter now

It’s a whole lot quieter now

 

Oh, you keep both hands on the wheel as you stare straight ahead

Gone is the stale smoke of fresh cigarettes

Now there’s just kids toys and air fresheners

Gone are the remnants of Jessica

 

Well I know I’m wasted but sweetheart I miss you

I wish you didn’t have to see me like this well

Here’s to the ghost of something to remember

Your dad’s Fiat Punto in sweet fading silver

 

Remember when the car lost a wheel in the snow

the three of us huddled together for warmth

Between the East Midlands Parkway and near Nottingham

But the car it survived then and keeps rolling on

 

As we pull up in silence outside of my house

The car stalls and shudders but the engine still growls

You hide your tattoos, I know this is the end

I know everything changes but can’t we pretend?

 

I know I’m wasted but sweetheart I miss you

I wish you didn’t have to see me like this well

Here’s to the ghost of something to remember

You call it ageing I call it surrender

Hold on to the past cos the future’ll haunt you

Your dad’s Fiat Punto in sweet fading silver

 

Drunk in the back of your car again

Drunk in the back of your car again

 

GOT YOU ON MY SIDE

 

Baby I’m glad that I got you on my side

 

Similar days in similar rooms

Terrible words in terrible moods

 

Baby I’m glad that I got you on my side

You take me for Jekyll and for Hyde

Baby I’m glad that I got you on my side

 

I think I’m losing my friends

Is that supposed to happen?

I sink, I can only see red

Was it something I did?

Was it something I said?

 

Baby I’m glad that I got you on my side

You take me for Jekyll and for Hyde

Baby I’m glad that I got you on my side

 

A HOTEL SONG

 

I’d always wondered why

The Gideons provide

A bible in hotels

 

Until I realised 

The loneliness of life’s

a business in itself

 

So you sing your drunken hymns

You let it out to let it in

Do you feel God

Do you feel God

Or just the air from the machine?

 

The television is watching me

I was a born entertainer, you see

You should’ve seen me at seventeen

But look at me now

 

I was a lover

And then I wasn’t

It’s hard to feel alright

 

Is it convincing

Or something missing

That makes me see the light?

 

Now I sing my dull amens 

The adult life’s to make amends

Do you believe you’re God in jeans

Or were you once just seventeen?

 

The television is watching me

I was a born entertainer, you see

You should’ve seen me at seventeen

But look at me now

 

‘I’m fine, leave me alone’

Goes the story of a million men now

‘I’m fine, leave me alone’

Goes the song of a million men now

I’m fine, I’m fine

 

The television is watching me

I was a born entertainer, you see

You should’ve seen me at seventeen

But look at me now

 

HALL OF FAME

 

Well I crashed into town

Thought i’d give you a call

I’ve been praying that you

Hadn’t faded at all

 

Well you shaved your head

You’ve changed your name

But the eyes, the eyes

The eyes are the same

 

As they were when the wolves

Raised your heart like a son

Oh the cities we raised!

the battles we won!

 

But our medals are lost

Or they're covered in rust

but who remembers us?

 

Someone calls your name

Someone calls for you

Someone calls your name

But those words mean less than they used to do

 

When the waves go still

Will you be backstage?

 

If i give up the fight

Then i'll hold onto ghosts

They’re around to console me

When i need it the most

 

You tell me i’m holding

My past by the throat

But i saw the photos

You keep in your coat

 

A feeling ago

We were turned into stone

Watching repeats

From an old tv show

 

See i live in the moment,

I live in the moment

It’s just not this one

 

When the waves go still, will you be backstage

When the waves go still, 

Will you drown, will you drown, will you drown, 

Will you drown with me?

 

And she runs, and she runs

Don't you know who I was?

Who I am, who I was?

If you still loved me would you see me hanging in your hall of fame

 

27

 

You said it’s not you it’s me

With a revolver in my teeth

But you turned away instead

Threw the gun upon the bed

And we left in separate cars

You told me to pretend

I could taste life on the air

Despite the absence of an end 

 

After years of drink and dance

And wild well-publicised romances

Oh you should have killed me

When you had the chance

 

It lingers like a dream

It lingers like a dream

All my well-thought through retorts

All my last laugh movie scenes

Just one thing before I go [My love, mon beau]

One more thing before i leave [Exit, c’est chic]

Failed assassin you should know [My heart still goes]

One more trick inside my sleeve

 

When you’re lying in your deathbed

I hope I appear in your head

Baby I’ll be dead by then

I burned out at 27

After years of drink and dance

And wild well-publicised romances

Oh you should have killed me

When you had the chance

You really should have killed me when you had the chance

 

My heart is still beating

But it feels like an elevator trapped between floors

My lungs are still breathing

Like the airbags in the crashing of an empty car

 

And you’ll live to see your name

Published in my scathing memoirs

And you’ll live to rue the failure

Of not crushing all of my heart

Why don’t you come back and finish off the job?

 

HOSTAGES

 

I don’t wanna say goodbye like this 

I’m watching as your face begins to fade

The last six months are waiting with its engine on

Our ugly rebounds waiting in their caves

 

So meet me on the bridge

We’ll hand over our hostages

A fake silver ring

Your books in foreign languages

You can keep the coat

It looks better on you

Anyway i’m fine

I guess the cold’s a state of mind

 

Two lovers met

Two strangers left

 

You say I’m dead on the inside

Babe I’ve known that for a while

And It wasn’t like you liked me

For my sunny views on life

Oh I’m dead on the inside

Babe I’ve known that all along 

Any time I tried to love you

I got it wrong

 

So meet me on the bridge

We’ll hand over our hostages

Your dad’s broken watch

A letter to your old address

 

You just stay so cool

It looks better on you

Anyway I’m fine

I guess alone’s a state of mind

 

So meet me on the bridge 

We’ll hand over our hostages

We’ll shed our skin

And fade into acquaintances

 

This is how we die

Become just you and I

You turn round and smile

One final time

You were just a state of mind

 

And Two lovers met

Two strangers left

 

PIGS

 

Such a beautiful day

To sit in the dark

While the world turns away

 

Why sit in the sun

When you could be away

From everyone

 

Why she broke my heart

I’ll never know

Now she’s outside

That’s where I never go

I’ll stay in here

I won’t say much

Just watching screens

Staring pages down 

 

Such a beautiful day

To sit in the dark

While the world turns away

 

Pigs fly in the world

Pigs land the job

Pigs get the girl

 

Nothing left to do right

So pull out of the race

Turn off the light

 

Such a beautiful day

To sit in the dark

While the world turns away