1. |
Gumshoes On Ice!
01:48
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/// Two pirates are marooned on a floating piece of ice ///
Don't think about it
Don't look down
Don't move a muscle
Wait it out
But I shiver when you're finding my hand
You keep me on ice
Oh dear
Here I am
Well damn the ocean
And damn the crew
You're pretty lucky
I don't god damn you
There's a quiver to the shadow below
Tell me skipper, do I wanna know?
You keep me on ice
Oh dear
Here I am
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2. |
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/// An infested stowaway is murdered on the cargo deck ///
Shiver me timbers, I can't feel my fingers
For the dagger through my neck
And the last thing I saw was a beetle as it bore
Through the rotting cedar deck
And the throbbing palms of the caught-off guard
Stood the barrel and barred the door
Sized up the jetsam-due empty chest
And the stranger on the floor
Puts up a fight, but his tooth-picking knife
Comes lacerating free
And instead of blood comes a measured flood
Of the bugs escaping me
With flies dispersed and lice up his shirt
The mites begin to feed
I'm scrambled to the chest, locked up and left
As his barnacled tongue bleeds
The Bountiful creaks, the bow wood leaks
We're half a week too late
So dump the chests and turn her west
We'll save their eyes her fate
Overboard, I join the chorus
Of the anchored and the drowned
So come on down, explore the deep sea floor
There's treasure to be found!
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3. |
Mr Murdoch
02:58
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/// A personified affliction mocks you for the futures you won't have ///
I am the bullet in your teeth
Too far away for c'est-la-vie's
Too close to ever live at ease
And I am the scorches on your tongue
Forcing stories poorly sung
Of living slow and dying young
You found me
Oh how far you've fallen to obscurity
Well he's not gonna look for you no more
So say goodbye to Mr Murdoch
He's fulfilling other fates
Cause nothing comes to those who wait
You curse every god that you can think of
But no-ones gonna give a damn
Cause I'm the only one who hears it when you cry
I'm lucid dreaming all your dreams
Designing stitched-up little nightmares
Like a ransom made of magazines
I'd tell your friends you were away
The courtesy of asking fades
When all your answers never change
And where was he
On those days of failing antigravity
Spent in the shedded skin he left behind?
<chorus>
He's gone beyond!
<chorus>
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4. |
Big If (Not Big Enough)
02:08
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/// A doomsday prepper doesn't believe in doomsday, but is chronically unwilling to risk the possibility ///
It's not, but if it's true
Death sends a comet
That's awful rough for you
But I'll be sitting pretty 'neath the city
A lifetime of supplies
A lifetime of watching
All the space that hides between the stars
I will not be caught off guard
It's not, but if it's true
The changeling invasion
I can see it through
A mile radius, no faces
No-one coming close
No invitations
I know what other people really are
I will not be caught off guard
And I will know the coming flood
When I feel the flowing of my blood
And a chokehold on my breath
Buckshot stars and a moonlit scythe
If it ain't living at least it's life
If only sudden death
Oh, how does anybody do anything?
But if we're going down
The wind will sing my rubber ring to ground
And the cold won't reach my heart
I will not be caught off guard
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5. |
Can't Stay Mad
01:54
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/// A dangerous man decides to adjust his temper, one way or the other ///
Couldn't kill you if I tried
And god knows I've tried
You know a man like me is desperate to
But I can't stay mad at you
Make no mistake
Or something's gonna break
But every day I get this changing point of view
Then I can't stay mad at you
I'm trying to be a bigger man
I used to be real mean
A lout, a libertine
I believed in my volition, I still do
Yet I can't stay mad at you
Your average guy
Bleeds like cherry pie
And you have got a beauty in you too
I just can't stay mad at you
I'm trying to be a bigger man
I'm explaining all the shaking in your hands
You speak in tics that I don't care to understand
I make suggestions, I would never make demands
What kind of man would I be, what kind of man?
It's hard to complain
But I think I'll find a way
You'd make me feel I'm strong enough for two
Now I can't stay mad at you
I'm trying to be a bigger man
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6. |
Freddie Foothold
02:29
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/// Mr Perfect has a climbing accident ///
Hey Freddie, did you save the baseball team?
A run walking and a kiss from Norma Jean?
You get carried 'cross the campus
Knowing no-one's out to get you
Well whaddya know?
Hey Freddie did you come when nature called?
Pack a paddle, go and chase a waterfall?
Good looking out over the vista
Is that gaia getting closer?
Well whaddya know?
There goes your foothold
There goes your breath
There goes your body
There goes the rest
Hey Freddie, did you find some time alone?
Free the ranger and the green'll stain his bones
Head thrumming, legs numbing
Stainless nerves are finally melting, melting
Well whaddya know?
Hey Freddie, well you might've told a friend
You watch a chopper cross the sky from end to end
You deserved to never know
When no-one's out to get you
Well whaddya know?
There goes your foothold
There goes your breath
There goes your body
There goes the rest
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7. |
The Dreadnought's Theme
00:29
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/// A sea shanty about The Dreadnought, a fabled sea monster ///
Endless is the ocean and relentless is the wind
Distant is the moonlight and it stretches ever thin
We bottle the day, think not of the way
The waves grow ever steep
Rest if you are able, but the Dreadnought never sleeps!
Dreadnought, Dreadnought, deeper than the deep
Rest if you are able, but the Dreadnought never sleeps!
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8. |
Reunion Tour
03:19
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/// An aging rockstar needs the money ///
I take care of hotel rooms now
Cause buddy, I'll be here all week
Can I pay with my integrity?
This fungal life, it's clung to me
Rolling down my peak
Made me scenery, made me legacy
Hammering the high life
Has nailed me to the floor
Well I don't like music anymore!
Hell's a reunion tour!
The backup's always better than me
Hungrier than me, nicer than me
And these pricks I prayed I'd never see again
Oh wishful thinkers, come lend a hand
Shriveled and severed to me
To carry me out to sea and then back again (heave ho!)
Off the stage there's silence
And on the stage there's more
Cause I don't like music anymore!
I'll die on reunion tour!
Well didn't I pay through the pages of tell-all books?
Car radios atop moonlit overlooks
You make me sign my name in horror
But didn't I pay when I played in those anti-prom memories?
The learning guitar to our melodies
You can choke on that biro cause I owe you nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing!
No more classics now, here's the newer stuff
Here's what comes to pass when you're not living fast enough
To die of natural causes
Like rock and roll before
Til I don't like music anymore!
A forever reunion tour!
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9. |
Bookshopping
03:03
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/// A song about places, none of which are home ///
A castle town is a royal ground now paved
With every cobble like a little grave
Tracing the shapes of dark age battleplans
It moves to sing, but the wind can only wail
The bellringer only knows his scales
I hold his scripture in erratic hands
And every word's an anagram
When you've found what you're looking for
You don't speak the language anymore
And sat like statues the old chess masters say
"You should see it on a snowy day
The kids slip and faceplant like a king resigns"
Crowd's powerwalk these routes as if we know them
Far too far to make it home
High street-to-street, I read the welcome signs
I've lost the will to recognize
When you've found what you're looking for
You don't speak the language anymore
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10. |
The Basement
02:07
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/// An upper-class dinner party flies off the rails ///
The dinner's been in disarray
Since I uncorked the cabernet
The neighbours' behaviour it ain't so passive no more
The mayor is scaring the pastor's kids
With his neverending laughing fit
The dean is leaving if we aren't gonna get him a straw
With manic smiles and segues
I pretend to keep the thread
There's a pool of blood in the basement
Staining the concrete red
The dean's got a sleeve full of silverware
The mayor's trying to arm wrestle all who dare
The neighbours engagement crumbles over cherry, pie
"Well I've been sleeping with your mistress too
And she says it's better than it is with you"
The pastor snaps a platter with a battlecry
The rare occasion glassware
Goes sailing past my head
There's a pool of blood in the basement
Staining the concrete red
We sip chablis in silence
And wish that we were dead
There's a pool of blood in the basement
Staining the concrete red
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11. |
Defeatists
03:11
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/// A villain with an "every man is for himself" mentality realizes he can find victory through the suffering of others ///
I'll be free as a dreaming american
Flag upon the peak of health
Hope you hate the taste of the medicine
Knowing how you cheat yourself
What I need is a meaner face
To adore the distortion before it breaks
So go ahead and take my money!
Change ain't funding the masterplan
Go ahead and take my status
Hey, what does it matter to me?
I'm a noose cutting loose, I am severance
Toughen up a tick or two
Just as well, go to hell, make it elegant
Suffer like it's fitting you
Never seen a real saint
It ain't what I got, it's what you ain't
<chorus>
The day you get wise to the ways that your ties are your chains
You'll let go of your mind until only the primal remains
And free as a con you'll be beating up god on the street
Hot blood on the lips, it ain't suffering, it's defeat!
<chorus>
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12. |
Litter
01:23
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/// Someone blind is given the task of drowning unwanted kittens. A true story ///
Bring me your litter, and I'll surry on
Down to the river, basket on each arm
I was not born of vision, but I'm seeing through this vow
When you can't bear to look I swear that I will stare it down
You wanted helpful and so I am helpful
You want remorseless and so - well I'm getting there
And when I hear them and then I don't hear them no more
Do you see me?
So bring me your litter, and I'll whistle down
Down to the river, drowning out the sound
Life on earth's a gamble and you're lucky if it's home
But if we go together then we'll never live alone
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13. |
Detritus Blues
02:52
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/// A rotting pirate finds delirious freedom in decay ///
Drifting tenderly ashore
I was desperate for a lord
Tough enough to brutally
Break me, break me, on their knee
And deep in every grain of sand
I could feel a veiny hand
Tracing up and down my soles
To paint me, paint it black as mold
And as I stumbled I felt
Free
In a way
To re-decay
Coalesce
Into something less
Well at least
There's always peace
Father make a bed
Your son is coming home!
Sickness sitting on my skin
Bleeding from the outside in
Soak the tissue, watch it break
It was peeling, peeling flake by flake
And somewhere briny, thick with tar
Pumped a dry, infested heart
And all my blood was running rife
Teeming, teeming with new life
And when I crumble, set them
<chorus>
Reaching the beach
At the galleon's clarion call
I'm part of the cargo
Now haul me, store me
I will get out your hair
Dreadnought, Dreadnought, take me there!
<chorus>
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14. |
Sleep Without The Dreams
02:58
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/// A party-goer is overwhelmed with disillusionment ///
A deaf disco dancer does the hustle offbeat
In a rusted roller rink
And every cover band is a backup plan
Just trying to stay in sync
I'm eating fake pizza and drinking kid wine
I'm sober to a fault
And all I wanna be is where my heart can't see
The chlorine in the salt
I always beat the traffic
Can't dance on broken heels
A tapestry of neon
Deflects off spinning wheels
It's always as it seems
Just sleep without the dreams
Waiting on the wire
But lord, I'm tired
There's a singing voice clipping on the radio
Butchering 'all things must pass'
A stuttered street lamp strikes the spelling bee champ
Who man's the diesel gas
I'm flipping over pillows, I'm a wall away
I pretend I didn't hear
The neighbors and their friends sing "it isn't the end
It's a happy new year"
Someone ought to tell them
But I've not got the gut
I'm a battered beetle
Pumping perfect blood
Oh god it's as it seems
Just sleep without the dreams
Waiting on the wire
But lord, I'm tired
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15. |
Dreadnought, Dreadnought
05:25
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/// A marooned pirate is driven insane by heat, bitterness and sea-monster-centric paranoia ///
This world will leave you behind
Sand in your mouth and sun in your eyes
As the ship shrinks under the horizon line
This world will leave you behind
The monster sees it's chance
It sings the song, you dance the dance
You'll be stroking at the ocean with an olive branch
As the monster sees it's chance
Dreadnought, Dreadnought
Waiting in the shadows down below
Dreadnought, Dreadnought
Tell me skipper, do I wanna know?
The world is only blue
The sand was an oasis too
The horizon's where the sea gets through
The world is only blue
The sun is getting old
Still firing clay in broken molds
But even blazing trails go cold
The sun is getting old
Dreadnought, Dreadnought
Leave me here to wither if I may
Dreadnought, Dreadnought
Would I miss it if you looked away?
The worst is yet to come
I feel it like I feel what's numb
Can't play it down by playing dumb
The worst is yet to come
In time we all submit
They gave us a world that turns on a spit
And expected us to sleep in it
In time we all submit
Dreadnought, Dreadnought
It's meditate or take one to the head
Dreadnought, Dreadnought
I know you're awake, so strike me dead!
And I wanted to steer a battleship
I wanted to feel the cannons hit
I wanted to see the navy drown
And I wanted to hold the moulding back
I wanted to have my skin intact
I wanted to keep my stomach down
And I wanted to deal in killing cuts
I wanted to die in villain's blood
I wanted to run a monster through, one like you!
Dreadnought, Dreadnought
Every other moment is a bore
Dreadnought, Dreadnought
But I don't do much screaming anymore
Dreadnought, Dreadnought
Someone ought to close those eyes for good
Dreadnought, Dreadnought
The fella in the water says I could
Dreadnought, Dreadnought
I am gonna live to see you die
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Gumshoes Birmingham, UK
Homespun indie pop about eccentrics, losers and fools.
Project of Sam Sparks. Please email me!
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