Nailed (Single Mix)
Lyrics by Simon Jones
Music by AATT
Check suit in the breeze
of the loosening tide.
Crossing bridge McGovern,
where the greasy river slides.
Can feel the release
as I'm moving inside.
Mirror valley shiver,
walking through the flickered lights.
Clear, bright alone.
Not looking backwards in my house of fear.
Clear, bright alone.
Not looking backwards in my house of fear.
Can float in the stream
of the luminous night.
Where the seas of laughter,
flash beneath the city sky.
Metropolis deep
Sad and wonderous sigh.
I'll love you forever,
walking through the flickered lights.
Clear, bright alone.
Not looking backwards in my house of fear.
Clear, bright alone.
Not looking backwards in my house of fear.
Ill Omen II
Lyrics by Simon Jones
Music by AATT
It's June and I see the woods,
The quiet pools,
The glades and blue hollows...
But all the woods were wound with sorrow,
So don't stop, clatter on...
But I said, "Come on, come on,"
As doors swing open into lazy gardens.
"Come on, come on.
Never stop, clatter on."
And I see the perfect wife,
I can almost smell her apple breath,
and her milky dress.
She says, "Come on, come on,
This is Love, don't go on."
But I said, "Come on, come on,
My iron horse."
I swoon past the pearly rooms,
and staggered roofs...
He waits for tomorrow.
I saw his lips were mouthing, "Follow...
this is Love, don't go on."
But I said, "Come on, come on,
My iron horse, my train,
my ghost companion.
Come on, come on,
This is Love, don't go on."
But I said, "Come on, come on."
My iron horse.
And the June woods, and the quiet pools,
and the doors swing open into lazy gardens,
The iron horse pumps its steam-screaming whistle...
The Great Alone
Lyrics by Simon Jones
Music by AATT
Camavenny street and the moon that fled, and the piano
fell, "Let's have a drink." Flopping down like fool in your
buckskin shirt. And I saw him away clutching the keys,
talon handed -- my God! Were you ever out in the Great
Alone when the moon was clear?
And the icy mountains fell and the silence you could
almost hear. With the howl of the timber wolf you camped
there in the cold half dead, thinking stark dead-world
clean mad for the buck called gold. While the high
overhead, green, yellow, and the red, the North Light swept
in bars -- You've had a heart the music meant... Hunger
night and stars. And her lips went into a kind of grin,
and spoke and he was so calm and the voice said, "You
don't know me."
On a sudden music change you're soft and scarce but you
feel that life can be looted clean and someone's stolen
the woman you loved that you loved was the devil's lie.
That your guts were gone and the best was for you to
crawl away and die. And the crowning heart and the cry
despair and the thrills you though, I thought you were there.
"I guess you'll make it spread in misery," said Dan McGrew.
The music almost died away...
She burnt like a leant-up flood.
And it seemed to say, "Replay, replay," and my eyes were
blind with blood, and I thought she came back, ancient
wrong. And it stung like a frozen lash, and the lust awoke
and said, "Kill, kill..." Then the music stopped with a
crash, and the stranger turned, in his eyes they burned
in the most peculiar way. "Boys, you don't know me,"
she'd say. "Boy's, you don't know me," she'd say...
Strange fool. Strange fool...
Paradiso
Lyrics by Simon Jones
Music by AATT
Night falls on Paradiso's dawn,
And the halos glow around the town
Their soft delight.
Beneath the bridges sigh,
they take me in their arms and hold me tight.
Light pours from a swinging door,
And a trumpet comes sliding throught the calm
and carefree night.
Beneath the bridges sigh,
they take me in their arms and hold me tight.
Cold Paradiso night,
Take me in your arms and hold me tight...
Take me in your arms and hold me tight.
The broken-up alleys dream,
and from a hotel room a woman screams.
The Obvious
Lyrics by Simon Jones
Music by AATT
A figure of Pawschien walking ahead of me in the heat-haze.
Jacket over his shoulder, in the Sunday dockside quiet.
Cavernous empty warehouses
blowing metal thunder and contorting under the sun.
And the bay beaten like a feline coat of steel.
He stumbles in the sand on Slater's beach,
and turns smiling.
He's a plain guy, black hair down like a thatch,
white teeth glistening, black eyes smiling.
Born in the old town, grew up in the streets.
Know nothing of his past, but I have a vision of him
younger, with a desperate face,
blade jumping in his hand like a snakeknife.
Don't know where that comes from...
I follow him.
His hometown was built wooden and tall, and as the
dusk fell, the streets became paths in a forest;
Lightbulbs swinging in the fluted air of Aviary Hill.
Great cages alive with honey-colored birds and song
like a warbled sadness of a lullaby.
Walking on a thousand years of eggshells.
I take a draught of beer from a cold glass and look
around the room:
Pawschien talking with brothers...
The men have self-made tatooed grids on their forearms
in which there are sanskrit letters.
They tell me all that they know is the obvious,
and that if I stay with them, then maybe I will
learn it, too.
Suede-head girls with grey eyes and clear skin;
One has a crescent scar on her cheekbone, and she
looks at me with an air of smiling anticipation,
as if she's expecting me to recognise her at any second.
Something turns inside me like a tickling thirst...
Others are watching me, too, same expression,
Then look away, laughing, shaking heads...
It's okay. You'll remember.
Back in the dark streets the scent of the human night seems
to hold me.
Steps muted by onion skins.
Old women sleep curled in the roots of houses,
coiled around bales and bundles of fresh herbs
and babies.
Walking in the wooden tunnels out of town, all I can
think is, "Remember your way back here."
As in the darkness, all has vanished.
"Remember your way back here.
Remember.
Remember your way back here." It's all I can think.
Thank you.
Slow Pulse Boy
Lyrics by Simon Jones
Music by AATT
Somewhere the blast furnace explodes...
plumes of amber in the night sky.
Each explosion bounces,
from horizon to horizon.
From horizon...to horizon.
And for a while,
The slow pulse boy, he stood by the window.
And let the fire sink into his skin.
Again all was still...
But for the empty tin, rolling up and down the gutter,
on the breeze.
Then we were standing very close.
I can live in the space between his heartbeats.
Outside, the furnace erupts again,
and dark red rivers filled our veins with frenzy.
We could tear out the floors, and find all the things
we'd ever lost.
And the fire burns in our jack boots...
So we chase the explosions,
From horizon, to horizon.
Wrap ourselves around the distance, for
as long as we can hold.
Somewhere a girl is singing.
And there is calm in the air,
but there is greater calm than I can bear.
Tomorrow the sun shines.
