Live Fast Die Old I bought my soul back from the devil, and now I’m keeping it all to myself. I’m checking myself out of the program, because I know what’s best for my health. So why live the dream like you’re running out of sleep? I’m not playing to pass time, I’m playing for keeps. We only just started and you’re throwing the fight. You’d rather burn out than fade away? Well why not both, I plan to stay. So let’s do this once and let’s do it right. I used to act like none of this mattered, I used to say that I didn’t care, that we wouldn’t be doing this forever, but the truth is that I was just scared. So you put up a front to protect yourself, but if we’re down on the floor, why get back on the shelf? You can’t change your outfit now the night has begun. But we’ve still got the fuel, we still have the fire, so me and you, Jay, let’s never retire, let’s keep on making mistakes till we’re done. I’m going to live fast and I’m going to die old, I’m going to end my days in a house with high windows on the quiet shores in the South-West. So you sort the tunes and I’ll bring the beers, and on my seventieth birthday I’ll see you right here, and together we’ll watch the sun set. There’s no one in my coffin, there’s nothing in my grave, I’m tired of being damned, I’d rather be saved, and we can never sell out because we never bought in, and if they build it back up, then we’ll swing back through town and burn the whole thing down again. It won’t last so be bold, choose your path, show soul, live fast and die old. Try This At Home Let’s inherit the earth, because no one else is taking it. Come on, do your worst, before the moment’s passed. In bedrooms across England, and all the Western world, there’s posters and there’s magazines but the music isn’t ours. Because we write love songs in C, we do politics in G, we sing songs about our friends in E minor. So tear down the stars now and take up your guitars: come on folks and try this at home. Let’s stop waiting around for someone to patronize us. Let’s hammer out a sound that speaks of where we’ve been. Forget about the haircuts, the stupid skinny jeans, the stampedes and the irony, the media-fed scenes. Because the only thing that punk rock should ever really mean is not sitting round and waiting for the lights to go green, and not thinking that you’re better because you’re stood up on a stage. If you’re oh so fucking different then who cares what you have to say? And there’s no such thing as rock stars, there’s just people who play music, and some of them are just like us, and some of them are dicks. So quick, turn off your stereo, pick up that pen and paper, you could do much better than some half-arsed skinny English country singer. Dan’s Song Me and my friend Dan are going to get some beers and then we're going to go down to the park and drink them there. We'll bask out in the sun, bring a guitar and play some songs, call up our friends and invite them out to share what might be the last weekend of the summer, because September's getting colder as it goes. And we haven't done enough of this simple kind of stuff this year. It's clear we're getting older and it shows. Work weeks make us weary now and school's a distant memory and it's easy to ask questions of ourselves, like: where it is we're going now and what we have to show for all the sunny days shut up in the shells of expectations of our ultimate directions, and the stations that we should have reached by now, when we haven't read the script and our tender wings are clipped, and we're scared we might be letting someone down. So we listen to these heartbreak songs when nothing's really wrong, and we smile when we're asked and say we're fine. But we're drifting through our middle days, creeping into middle age, setting in our ways... But now it's time to decide, now it's time to draw a line in the sand and ask what's more important than days like today? So grab some beers, call your friends and meet us here, in the summer park with me and my friend Dan. Poetry Of The Deed They're coming out of the walls, they're coming up through the streets, they're quicksilver wracked by some invisible beat. Right outside of your door the very stones come alive. They are the spring in the step, the distant look in the eyes. Put your Baudelaire away and come outside and play. Me and all my friends are poets of the deed, we're exactly what this country needs. We scratch until we're drunk, we drink until we bleed. We are what we believe. Pentameter in attack, iambic pulse in the veins, free verse powered of the street light mains, an Iliad played out without a shadow of doubt between the end of the club and the sun coming out. Leave Kerouac at his desk, we have romance in our risks. And here's what we believe: before we get bored, let's be inspired, let's ignore the applause and set the theatre on fire, fight every war like the drunks in the choir, put our art where our mouths are: Poetry of the deed. So enough with words and technical theses, let’s grab life by the throat and live it to pieces. We can choose, we can change, and if we don't, we're just afraid of living life like we're loved and in love and alive to all the things we could be if we just believed that life is too short to be lived without poetry. If you've got soul darling now come on and show it me. But life is too long to just sing the one song, so we'll burn like a beacon and then we'll be gone. Isabel So now the years are rolling by, and it’s not long since you and I could have been train drivers and astronauts. And now we’re stuck in furnished ruts, but yet the thing that really cuts is that we can’t remember how we got caught. Filtered air, computer screens, muffled sighs and might-have-beens – count your blessings, then breathe, and count to ten. And though it doesn’t often show, we are scared because we know our forefathers were famers and fishermen. And so the world has changed, worse or better’s hard to tell, but my hope remains within the arms of Isabel. So now our calloused hands once told a story honest as it’s old of sowing seeds and setting sail. But now our hands are soft and weak and working seven days a week at these salvation schemes that are bound to fail. And I’ll admit that I am scared of what I don’t understand. But darling, if you’re there, gentle voice and soothing hands, to quiet my despair, to shore up all my plans, darling, if you’re there... And so the world has changed, and I must change as well. The machines we’ve made will damn us into hell. And the time will come when all must save themselves. I will save my soul in the arms of Isabel. The Fastest Way Back Home I should have seen you were coming, I should have been prepared. After all, getting half of what you wish for isn't so rare. But still I wasn't ready, you took my by surprise, you brought a light to my dark like a word from the wise. We fell in love in the summer, when the skies were clear, but I'm still wearing my coat from winter last year. I need to set my house in order, confess and cover my sins. I need to make a home for you before inviting you in. Weather wears the mountains right down into the sea, so I will stand in the rain until I am clean. Rivers carve the country, a landscape shaped by a stream, so I will swim in the river as long as you need. Darling oh my darling you know that everything that I do is to try and make me good enough for you. Darling oh my darling you know that everywhere that I go, I'm just trying to find the fastest way back home. Sons Of Liberty Once an honest man could go from sunrise to its set without encountering agents of his state or government. But a sorry cloud of tyranny has fallen across the land, brought on by the hollow men, who did not understand that for centuries our forefathers have fought and often died to keep themselves unto themselves, to fight the rising tide, and that if in the smallest battles we surrender to the state, we enter in a darkness whence we never shall escape. Watt Tyler led the people in 1381 to meet the king at Smithfield and issue this demand: that Winchester’s should be the only law across the land, the law of old King Alfred’s time, of free and honest men. Because the people then they understood what we have since forgot: that governments will only work for their own benefit. And I’d rather stand up naked against the elements alone than give the hollow men the right to enter in my home. When they raise their hands up our lives to possess, to know our souls, to drag us down, we’ll resist. Stand up sons of liberty and fight for what you own. Stand up sons of liberty and fight, fight for your homes. So if ever a man should ask you for your business, or your name, tell him to go and fuck himself, tell his friends to do the same. Because a man who’d trade his liberty for a safe and dreamless sleep doesn’t deserve the both of them, and neither shall he keep. The Road To the east, to the east, the road beneath my feet. To the west, to the west, I haven’t got there yet. To the north, to the north, never to be caught. To the south, to the south, my time is running out. Ever since my childhood I've been scared, I've been afraid, of being trapped by circumstance, of staying in one place, and so I always keep a small bag full of clothes carefully stored, somewhere secret, somewhere safe, somewhere close to the door. Well I’ve travelled many countries, washed my feet in many seas, I've drank with grifters in Vienna and with punks in old DC, and I've driven across deserts, driven by the irony that only being shackled to the road could ever I be free. I've felt old before my time but now I keep the age away by burning up the miles and by filling up my days. And the nights, a thousand nights I've played, a thousand more to go, before I take a breath, and steel myself for the next one thousand shows. So saddle up your horses and keep your powder dry, because the truth is you won't be here long, soon you're going to die. So to the heart, to the heart, there's no time for you to waste, and you won't find your precious answers by staying in one place, by giving up the chase. I face the horizon, everywhere I go. I face the horizon, the horizon is my home. Faithful Son Meet me on the edges of this city, meet me where the underground runs out. Bring a picnic blanket and your pity, a pen and paper, so I can write things down. Mother, oh dear mother, I wasn’t joking when I said that I plan to keep doing this until the day I’m dead. And I’m not a mirror for you when you were young, but I still remain your faithful only son. Lately I’ve been feeling kind of fragile, lately I’ve been feeling all worn out. What would any of us do if all the dreams we had came true? What would there be left to dream about? Father, oh dear father, I’m not trying to reject the values that you held like winning cards up to your chest. And I can’t just do the things you wished you’d done, but I still remain your faithful only son. The city seems so still, looking down from Highgate Hill. There’s nothing left for us to say: you taught me everything I know. You wouldn’t miss me if I stay, you’d never see me if I go. This is no confession now, this is who I am. You made me in your image so you have to understand that I did my best as told and so have become your loving and your faithful only son. Richard Divine Richard Divine made up his mind to take the last few steps to the bathroom door from his bedroom floor and to lock himself in. Steady young hands, meticulous plans, disposable razors and a blisterpack filled with strong sleeping pills, and a bath of hot water. He carefully wrote a funerary note on his best writing paper to set out the facts, and sealed it with wax, and left it in the kitchen. He left it out so his parents would know what there was waiting for them: pale cold skin and blood seeping in to the landing carpet. He said he’s not for sale, said that he felt hounded, crowded and surrounded by this life he didn’t choose. But everybody plays this game on a daily basis. They’re not heroes, they’re survivors, and it’s not Shakespearian if they lose. So do what you want, do what the voices tell you, but don’t ever say that we didn’t warn you. He said he’s not for sale, but he bought into his failure. He’s telling tales that hammer nails right into open palms. A martyr in reverse, he’s best at being worst, the rest of us are cursed but we keep calm and we carry on. So Richard, here it is: none of us are blameless, huddled here like strangers, shameless in our lists of all the changes we say we need. But I think that you knew that, you can’t pretend it’s news that when you cut yourself you’ll bleed. Sunday Nights Sunday nights are slow surrender. It never lasts and we never learn. We can still make this one to remember. It’s Sunday night and we’ve time to burn. Tomorrow morning can wait its turn. So charge your glasses and raise a toast to the memory gained, to the sleep that we lost. Another weekend run to ground, another passing coat of red painted across our town. Work is shallow, cuts are deep, but who would waste two days respite? You can’t catch up on sleep. So here we are, last chance saloon, the ticking clock and a slow defeat, it’ll all be over soon. Once more friends unto the breach, bleary-eyed, the stuff of dreams always slips out of reach. Defiance dressed in crumpled clothes, protest played out with a headache, starting late and going slow. So though we know we have to be here, we have tasted freer air, so we don’t have to care. All our days will fade away in hazy nights and clear mistakes. So here’s to us and needs that must. Let’s raise a toast for one last boast because it’s Sunday night and we’ve time to burn. Tomorrow morning can wait its turn. Our Lady Of The Campfires Tonight is her night, and the city holds is breath, caught twixt life and death, as she rolls in from the suburbs, the garrison flees and the city will burn. Corinna rides like Boadicea tonight. London town trembles at the sight. Because tonight is her night. And the youth course through the streets to lay down at her feet, and she runs a regal eye to choose who lives and decide who dies. Corinna rides like Boadicea tonight. The fearful crowds part ways without a fight. Corinna rides like Boadicea tonight. London town trembles at the sight. She keeps her counsel, smiles when she speaks now, from ear to ear. She’s getting married, or so they tell me, when the spring is here. She hums a tune from a song she knows from warm summers past, a song that was sung by kids around campfires in the quiet southwest. Journey Of The Magi Moses was old, a chill in his bones. Falling apart, he knew in his heart that his time had come. As he lay in his tent in the hot desert sands, he smiled at how he would never see his promised land. He sang "I could have lived and died an Egyptian prince, I could have played safe, but in the end the journey's brought joys that outweigh the pain." Odysseus sat tired and alone. He'd always held out against all the doubts that he would come home. But now he was here, his soul felt estranged. His wife and his dog, his son and his Gods, everything changed. He sang "I could have stayed and ruled as an Ithican prince, I could've played safe. But in the end the journey's brought joys that outweigh the pain." Balthazar rode for seven long years, eastwards and far, he followed his star, and it brought him here. To a stable in ruins in some backwater town, to a virgin defiled, no king but a child, too small for a crown. He sang "I could have lived with my Gods as a Persian prince, I could've played safe, but in the end the journey's brought joys that outweigh the pain." Paupers and kings, princes and thieves, singers of songs, righters of wrongs, be what you believe. So saddle your horse and shoulder your load, burst at the seams, be what you dream, and take to the road.