Lyrics to each song, in the order of the original release they appeared on.

This page is incomplete but always being updated. Get in touch if I’ve missed anything.

2026

‘Chapel II’

Album

Released May 2026 / CD-r & digital / WR094

i was born in a valley i kind of fell into it like my father before me we don’t have the stones for this but i made a hero of the scarecrow i came to know who was passive and static and who took a martyr’s pose christ like and pecked upon crying oh lord where d’ya go mind shut to the wide sky a veil of crows i was born in a valley a shortstop in the company of men who were giants above me players and betrayers of friends writers and painters exiled and far from home we were boys with toys fighting over the microphone and we sang for our supper and we loved to eat on the hoof and we sank pints of porter and i murdered the muse i was born in a valley and we learned to swim in the spring then the snow paid a visit and silenced everything and the stream shrunk suddenly and the ice did creak and the children are born brave and the adults grow meek and if you’re going in get in and if you’re not then make way lessons of life can be learned in a day i was born in a valley a day’s ride south from here where the people have the queen’s tongue and the devil’s ear where your home is your own and not of the sea and no tides turn and no sirens sing far from the town two roads up one road down and we all have roots and we can’t get out i was born in a valley and i never climbed that mountain but a hill has a shadow and every morning it leaves my house and it creeps to the coal shed and hangs out there all day down with it’s own kin gossiping the hours away in the evening it comes back to bed it lies down where i lie feeding songs to my head til the morning light

2025

‘Valley’

Album

Released March 2025 / CD-r & digital / WR093

i saw you walk into the waves like you didn’t want to wait left your family on the shore where you thought that they’d be safe but the sky is full of flames and there is oil on the sea and you were never so tired and you were never so free oh how well the swell is the measure of a man we watched you throw it all away and we never got to say how it was never yours to keep and now it is no man’s grief and the sky is full of flames and there is oil on the sea and the light hits the water and what a flash what a scene oh how well the swell is the measure of a man is there sand under foot or are the rocks below you did you ever dream of bliss with your hands full of fists and the sky is full of flames and there is oil on the sea you think the end is nigh and that it burns like this oh how well the swell is the measure of a man you built a wall where there was water you threw bricks into the stream you act like life is final and that your work can be complete still the sky is full of flames and there is oil on the sea and no man is an island and every one one day has to leave oh how well the swell is the measure of a man
we could make the smoke before the fire we found the flame before the spark you think you’ve seen it all and then chaos comes to call now you don’t know who you are well i rode away through the paddock far from the family farm i had a pain in my gut that would not give up but you were on my arm anywhere i run to everything i undo every wall will fall down throw me out of this town oh so fine my what a life everything all the time we dump our troubles upon the troubled and we don’t get to choose our ends helpless in the air upside down and scared we’re not here to make new friends and i have sung it upon the water but the waves just slung it right back i left brighton with the boys and in berlin fought for toys then the north sea made the man anywhere i run to everything i undo every wall will fall down throw me out of this town oh so fine my what a life everything all the time
fuck the fear that kills the joy eat the rich and feed the poor throw the game and fix the fight know the how but not the why you think you’re clear they’ll have you yet you fear the worst that’s what you get it’s you they want don’t make a show but take me with you when you go for every breath you give is lost and every song you sing has gone the frost is fine upon the flowers the dog wakes up at ungodly hours your father left the fields to rot the crows flew in and took the lot i heard you fixed your travel home take me with you when you go now i’ve been by your side forever we’ve seen the worst of wicked weather we carried the cradle to the crown and now it’s time to hand it down keep an eye on the door i’ll pour the whiskey on the floor overboard and undertow take me with you when you go
on a balcony the gale blows the light flips and all aglow birds are blasted thrown about the sky i hold your arms you take my hands hit the deck and lay there flat all around all is loud unhinged and wild was a carousel a holy hell a calamity a poisoned well something dropped from high and ploughed the place apart it took it’s time it moved like light it threw itself into a fight looking back none of us stood a chance and when the last of the wind had gone spent it all and blown it’s lungs away our small house stood alone and on a buckled broken olive tree the limbs are twisted we were beneath crow comes back in black to cackle to sit and judge us all to laugh
when the lovebirds are lonesome that’s when i know things are hopeless and if the calls fall quiet it’s just cause i have started to sing i never knew you only in the way that you were never lonely but people get hurt more often when they’re not alone it takes a thousand cuts to get the job done we got a slow rain falling and soon there’ll be a low grey storm here and we could head to the pink house and shelter there for the night but i lost the door key when you told me to get down on my knees but we both lost something, can you taste the blood it takes a thousand cuts to get the job done a thousand cuts to get the job done to the end and when you get there start again when i was fourteen i had the feeling that i needed more things so i went to the market and i stole what i couldn’t afford and it’s easy taking if you don’t need to make it if you never swung an axe onto your thumb it takes a thousand cuts to get the job done so then the doctor came by late and lazy and halfway high he’s been drinking all day and full of himself and more and he cares little for women but he’s not blind to colour he works in the dark on the nip and the tuck it takes a thousand cuts to get the job done a thousand cuts to get the job done to the end and when you get there start again and thomas was beaten at borstal and ended his days in broadmoor the years in between were brutal and built from bricks but he spent a lifetime writing down anything he heard that was kind he left a few golden words scratched into his bunk it takes a thousand cuts to get the job done so start it over throw it out and start it over in on the four and together we’ll begin anew and we got our own thing like everybody got their own thing it’s not perfect but doesn’t hurt too much it takes a thousand cuts to get the job done a thousand cuts to get the job done to the end and when you get there start again
well we all have a place to which we will not deliver the boat sinks fast but i’ll not go with her chaos and commotion and i’m cold in the crows nest marked for a thief friend to no men but now bold land ho news travels fast sent down from the mast below land ho look yonder at whatever comes after the flood and me dry as a bone up here i took two from 3 and i left them with little a rock and a hard place me in the middle flatlands lowlands murderous mud fear the black planet rivers of blood the waters rising slow land ho tie your children to the spars hold tight to their arms or they’ll go land ho the waves like graves a restless place lay your burden down to the deep it was told to the tides it was sent to the sea it was a song from the rooftops underneath me the word was the name and the name was the word from the bow to the stern the cries were heard land ho land ho you can believe what you like but that don’t make it right no go land ho things took a bad turn when the books got burnt and the lessons all were lost
when the firemen came all the heat went out we couldn’t be further from the mess we knew before but the blame falls hard when the shouting starts are we gonna live like this until we’re dead and gone well count me in you said you’ll leave here soon and that’s all on you if i had my way you’d never go and we’d forever carry on feeding the flames watching from the shadows while the men work on fighting their fires visiting verdunn in the spring time sun and the hound meets the hound and they play away and the bomb holes are flooded water dark and swampy with no idea of all that had fallen here before he jumps right in like a pig in shit he is a happy hound how the feelings don’t dull they don’t find their way out and your touch isn’t cold and words only fail so hold me hold me like you used to do and the wires won’t break no one’s gonna let you fall the chair by the bed the room is as it always was so sit with me sit with me like you used to do clouds in the valley trees tall behind us clouds in the valley trees tall behind us on a hillside on a hillside with a storm coming slow look out to the rain wait for the thunder time to go having sung gone good and going under leave me leave me like you never would do
how the feelings don’t dull they don’t find their way out and your touch isn’t cold and words only fail so hold me hold me like you used to do and the wires won’t break no one’s gonna let you fall the chair by the bed the room is as it always was so sit with me sit with me like you used to do clouds in the valley trees tall behind us clouds in the valley trees tall behind us on a hillside on a hillside with a storm coming slow look out to the rain wait for the thunder time to go having sung gone good and going under leave me leave me like you never would do

2024

‘Take Me With You When You Go’

EP / Patreon & Bandcamp subscription volume 44

Released April 2024 / CD-r & digital / no catalogue number

fuck the fear that kills the joy eat the rich and feed the poor throw the game and fix the fight learn the how but not the why you think you’re clear they’ll have you yet you fear the worst that’s what you get it’s you they want don’t make a show but take me with you when you go for every breath you take is lost and every song you sang has gone the frost is fine upon the flowers the dog wakes up at ungodly hours your father left the fields to rot the crows flew in and took the lot i heard you fixed your travel home take me with you when you go now i’ve been by your side forever we’ve seen the worst of wicked weather we carried the cradle to the crown and now it’s time to hand it down keep an eye on the door i’ll pour the whiskey on the floor overboard and undertow take me with you when you go

2023

‘Hound’

Album

Released July 2023 / CD-r & digital / WR091

i would walk through the night just to fall through the ice i would toss out every tooth every bone i have brushes for hands i got shovels for feet it’s not easy to be happy at home you found things that i’ve lost yes, i stole more than i got there were gardens not grown and unloved i have wasted years tasted tears but felt the goodness in every one we were spun in the night and were done by first light now my eyes operate at half speed did i ever fight fires did i ever cut wires only swallowed when i needed to breathe how the way that we woke in a state half broke how the wind whipped itself into a god how the channel took a man and turned him into sand with the capacity to be more than he was there is trouble on the way we can leave we can stay hear the low rumble the moan but grief dies slow feed greed and it grows i’ve become bothersome i have grown old i take a bite from the bread make it right in my head spend an hour without your memory it’s not a pleasure to plead it’s not a joy to be in need of the essentials we cannot even see how the whole state shakes everything has to break how the whole state shakes at the end of the days at the end of the days at the end of the days the end of the days
to believe there’s a whole other way and not just what we’ve got some method with meaning and grace like a swim or a song to trust there’s still lessons to learn and that the day is not done well we were there when the school loudly blew apart with a crash and then a thump here in this western field a coronation oak ageless and stateless and grand and wondrously alone at home to be safe without running away to be calm without a care when the clouds crowd and downpour threatens and thick grows the air with metal on the tongue and a charge to the skin when the branches shake their fists to the heavens and then the heavens weep here in this western field a coronation oak ageless and stateless and grand and wondrously alone at home family and friends and fine folk sounds and men my beloved companion a last walk before bed lazily down the lane the whole valley sighs trees tremble with the chirping birds singing goodnight here in this western field a coronation oak ageless and stateless and grand and wondrously alone at home
when the fog lies on the water and the rain falls on the land and the day is a dog and the morning moans and i wake with a spade in my hand and there are hours before the family arrive but the hole will not dig itself and so it’s off to the chapel with a belly full of nothing sometimes you got to tighten the belt and a cold wind is an honest wind when it brings the sleet and the snow and i look long and hard but the clay remains dark there’s no light at the bottom of this hole it wasn’t always such a dead end job when we started there was gold in the hills and we all rushed to claim a piece of the dirt yes we were hungry for our fill but the good days grew old the way that bad days do and twilight comes to them all there are lessons to learn if you have years enough and some things that are forever lost now you can’t see the shine for the soil you can’t make wood from the smoke and i look long and hard but the clay remains dark there’s no light at the bottom of this hole and there are finches in the willow i hear woodpeckers beating on bark if there’s a way out from here i pray that it’s near for the digging only leads to the dark there’s no light at the bottom of this hole
when the moon showed its dark side and still it shined bright when i had missed the boat that would carry me home and so i tried hunting i wandered through the meadows where the wild things go and i looked for a trace of where she might have slept and from where she might have left won’t be found by looking i walked to the southern rocks where we threw all our clothes off i hoped that perhaps she swam there still liquid and white and languid and fine there were two boys fishing i told them my wife was missing so we searched the shallows wet to our waists but what’s away to the waves won’t be found by looking it was only a moment and how i did throw it if they’re coming tomorrow i’ll make haste today and be swift on my way be swift on my way down to the beach house where the wind blew the fires out i pulled up the floorboards shone a torch up the chimney a starling’s nest but happiness won’t be found by looking oh the mornings can be dreadful when winter won’t wait i had a place i dug a hole i was set i was well prepared but chaos cuts corners and it comes so cruelly kindness is a kick goodness is gone all the memories got lost and won’t be found by looking and when the cold brings the toothache and the snow brings the colic and your footprints are skipping across the moors peaty and shining and the moon falls into the hills and no one is watching to be alone without you the black and the blue yes your touch left a bruise that won’t be found by looking
for to see mad tom of bedlam ten thousand miles of bad roads she travels on dirty toes maudlin goes to save her shoes from gravel her hands have murdered murdered giants and up her sleeves long knives she carries and she cuts pies from children’s thighs and feeds them nightly to the fairies the spirits white white as lightening would on her travels travels guide her and the stars would shake and the heavens break if ever anyone were to smite her oh she would wreck the man in the moon set upon him turn him to powder and beat a mad song upon his dome and there would howl no demon louder she says drink to bedlam drink to mad tom go fill the barrels with all the seas she’ll drink it all well brewed with gall and when she’s drunk well then she’ll quarrel bonny boys bonny mad boys bedlam boys are bonny
at depths i can barely fathom down beneath and below i forget sometimes there’s a home it’s there that you hound me in the branches and in the leaves and then suddenly on my knees looking up at the sycamore tree it’s there right there that you hound me stepping into virginia lake and it’s murder below my waist and i concentrate on the pain and the sensation it’s you again you hound me in the meadows and in the glen we rode a fine mile and then i called and you didn’t return but now you hound me
one day the rain’s gonna come and your thumb be plum out of luck cause this wall won’t stand always here come the flood and the waves dumb son you follow the gun find something wonderful and kill it the cold snap the grim north wind the bad blood coming home again white line on the right side and i know you’re never gonna change your mind dumb son you follow the gun find something wonderful and kill it you’re not welcome with your foot in the door you look better with your face on the floor everyone’s gonna have to pull their weight damn heavy damn straight dumb son you follow the gun find something wonderful and kill it but in time the good will out like a right light at sundown call your boys down from the trees and stop sobbing into the sea dumb son you follow the gun find something wonderful and kill it you spill blood and keep love on the run find something wonderful and kill it it’s cut up swallowed and gone find something wonderful and kill it it’s over you do what you done find something wonderful and kill it
it was always the kindness and never the cold but always the walking and the never the home and when gathering firewood the birds complained we were taking from them to heat our place but now the house is a fine house and it’s warm and it’s dry and we want for nothing and above only sky and the dream isn’t done yet no no one awakes and we’re not now without and never again it was always the thinking and never the said and we always want more never the less always the thunder never the flash but when you threw out the bucket the river came back

2022

‘You Were Somewhere, You Thought You Were Nowhere’

Single

Released October 2022 / Digital / No catalogue number

so as the night falls low upon the valley come the coal men carrying the smoke and as they walk down you give everyone a blessing as they walk down you’re sure to let them know that as they go below they are thought of out of sight in the mine but not forgotten for you have hidden here underneath the red barns and here you stay where the sirens do not sing you got a safe place far from the border no trouble no smoke upon the wind far away the same day good people do struggle out of sight in the mine not yet forgotten trees all asunder sheltering and sullen no one reads maps we’ve had years being lost you say you found a road out well no one needs to know that you been wrong so many times where’s it gonna stop you were somewhere you thought you were nowhere you burnt it down out of sight in the mine half forgotten and if you ever hear a bell toll out beyond the obelisk grab what you can carry and forget about the rest i’m almost through the field you’re still looking for the documents i got half of the harvest got a fistful of bread you were somewhere you thought you were nowhere you burnt it down out of sight in the mine soon forgotten you are a child of the cloth and you’ve rarely been truthful you can only be yourself when you’re wearing a mask you got no love for people and the feeling is mutual you been looking for that coal dust down in the dark you were somewhere you thought you were nowhere you burnt it down out of sight in the mine as if forgotten it’s in the water the rainfall the river you picked it up and it poured away you say you like to live alone how do you like to feel at home underneath the channel in the wet mud and clay you were somewhere you thought you were nowhere you burnt it down out of sight in the mine nearly forgotten i’m not my father and you’re not your mother our weight is all our own we have never been more than we can carry and we got to measure everything in muscle and bone and in coal alone there is a blackness out of sight in the mine almost forgotten you leave the barn and right away it’s dark inside you take the light the moment you are gone and from here on the hillside the cries from the coach road a noise like boys travels far from home you were somewhere you thought you were nowhere you burnt it down out of sight in the mine forgotten

‘Leave Well Alone’

Album

Released June 2022 / CD-r & digital / WR089

so it opens up again we’re no closer to the end and it’s like never left or as if we never met i’ve cut some corners here and i see the sea but there are mixed messages from the ministry everyone stay everyone go everyone get out quick pick up sticks throw away sticks everyone get out quick there are no answers in the books we have a map but here are dragons and i wouldn’t if i could a life unravelled as the telegram wires sing a change is gonna come and death is on the wind it could have started better but at least the end comes fast but there are sirens in the belfry and chaos in the heart
first thought best thought and gone quick no stars moon full of oil got to keep up with the praying that one night the heavens will fall first thought best thought and gone quick a mouth to kiss and to tell small men are dangerous drinkers keep the bottle on the top shelf first thought best thought and gone quick nobody move nobody gets hurt cold snap cut clean and frostbite snow joke brighton burns first thought best thought and gone quick don’t take your secrets to town bright lights big city it’s not enough well it is now
no one promised more than this be glad to get away they threw our books into the sea and we left them to the waves and as the night falls the cries and calls tell us each of us are not alone none of us alone we been so long away from away from any kind of place anyone should call a home so the way is open wide ahead but the mines lay in the streets and no one here is breaking bread without kicking in the teeth measure a man by what he holds in his hands copper pennies chalk and cheese hot coals and snow we been so long away from away from any kind of place anyone should call a home and you can lie your way through the black and the blue and you can turn the other cheek they say the only way is the lonely way and that the gentle man is weak but it’s been a thousand days what a fucking waste take your superstition boys and build yourself a throne we been so long away from away from any kind of place anyone should call a home it’s true they did not teach me kindness i say they did not speak in tongues but they threw a spark into the oil and i went off like a drum burn the studio down make your mothers proud boys make your mothers proud we been so long away from away from any kind of place anyone should call a home
sometimes i wake with the birds and sometimes with the thunder but they both work the same and drag me back under but out in the fields and out in the meadows i did have my fill now let’s see where the wind blows there’s always a fool there doesn’t have to be a follower i’m not the sharpest tool i don’t deserve to even know of her don’t hold on to the moment if it’s tired then let it go if it’s kind give it time when it’s good leave it well alone somehow the winter got lost and the snow never fell on us i never said that i could but it seems now well i must there is rain on the way it’s been a long time coming but the dogs have our trail and we will never stop running don’t hold on to the moment if it’s tired then let it go if it’s kind give it time when it’s good leave it well alone
the boys are on the run again fathers on the lam they know not where they’re headed they never had a plan they heard about the coal mine they heard about the gas canary sang one last song everything went black there’s water in the basement children on the rooftop they all see the signs and they are never coming down now there is smoke over sunny bank coughing in the copse show me something beautiful that can’t get lost the bed is made for both of us i’m fine on the floor i haven’t touched a drop in months i sleep upon the straw if the work goes well again get it while you can think of me on shore leave but don’t look back there are a thousand days beyond here and we got to stumble through them all step outside and hold your breath fog is gonna fall the stuffing in the tired lung the cotton in the mouth all the words i ever wrote all the clumsy sounds rushing in with open arms never being met guest rooms are empty cells and everyone has left now i remember 17 your teeth upon my wrist prison time is easy time i could do it in my sleep the way the clouds are gathering there is an army in the sky flood is gonna fuck us up dry is gonna die there will never be an end to this better days are lost you fathers are a failure and the best of them are gone

‘Five New Songs’

EP / Patreon & Bandcamp subscription volume 21

Released February 2022 / CD-r & digital / no catalogue number

so how’s this gonna sit with the father when is the brother ever coming home we’ve had no word from the mother i say we do what we do and don’t answer the phone where was her horse when you found it we all get chances we never want the advice is to ignore the law this is how you make it what it is not well we drove all night and we rowed all day till we came to the farm where we could stay you hate the landlady your lovers have left seems a good place to start over again there’s no chance for good luck you play for the win i play for the loss and you act like the game isn’t fixed this is how you make it what it is not how your hands did cup and i drank you up your lips sat sullen and left me dumb i was as out of breath and laying low and my word your pitch and your roll there on your back dressed for attack jodhpurs, boots, riding crop lying still and through your teeth this is how you make it what it is notnow i got the january blues the north wind blows the cat runs away and the wet dog knows how the meat clings tight to the bone and how you cannot escape sleeping alone always bring the big guns and don’t be afraid to give all that you got they way you tell it this is how you make it what it is not
everyone everyone get a hold of yourselves get too attached and you’ll see what you have nothing nothing just a cry in the dark just a shout at the wall and a fading mark where the field meets the tree line at the turn of the day when the blue lights glows and the family wake there is smoke in the valley and a smell in the air they have burnt all the books and buried them there so look out kids look out kids do you see what they do and do you see what they did look out kids look out kids they are stealing your secrets and selling them back to you the redcoats the redcoats make a noise when it suits they are scared of the city they are sure scared of you and they holler and cheer and gallop about and they fill the forest with their dogs and their shouts so we run away run away and get underground hold on to the cubs and make not a sound tornados at twilight rainstorm at dawn and when it’s gone it leaves nothing at all
when the waters will recede i pray i get to see the pull upon the lands the draining of the deep there once was a time when your hand fell into mine it was so overwhelming i lost my mind and here are the pieces and i gather them up again here are the pieces take them home with me but from here upon the hill where everything is still i get a view of all the valley a view of all the fields and now the birds make their escape high above the waves they caw down to me yelling me to stay why not stay here they caw down to me the crows and starlings why not stay here in spite of everything growing darker seventeen coal black birds they cough as i watch them seventeen black birds they cough out your name cough again cough and leave laughing at that part of the night when the shadows grow bright my fear of the dark is no friend of your heart i watch the flock fly high above the sea turn tail north coast far from me and they’ve gone again they have gone again gone again find a way and simply stay
well the day begins the sun hits and all sky aglow away from the fireside the men rose and spoke and all asleep are woken now and slowly alive out goes the darkness and in comes the light bells toll and hell no there’s always more to lose i wait here like a spare prick at your wedding with wet shoes lesson lost and friends forgot and the river running black day barely started and out of whack here comes the fireman and here comes the nurse here comes the rub here comes the hurt well there goes your father and there goes the judge in goes the needle and out comes the blood now i’ve white noise for dreaming salt water for food i don’t believe what they’re telling me and i don’t like what they do how is the water there and how blows the wind i wish to lie where you lie down more than anything i thought my hands were capable and i thought my taste was cheap i held my hat when i met with them and now i’m in it deep the moon is high and wide and white and the day won and done pop goes the weasel here comes your son
two years in the city of horses and men in a town without pity and fresh out of friends i once knew the lowlands i once held the day and i worked hard to lose it to throw it away i said i once knew the lowlands the marshes the lakes the high wide sky and the wind on my face they were god given days now the devil’s in the waste i look for something holy or to just get away the train runs fast but the river runs faster slick thick and wild dark getting darker see how it goes hear now how it flows on

2021

‘Work With This’

Album

Released July 2021 / CD-r & digital / WR085

take last year and drown it deep we need no other days but these pick up minutes here and there count them up with the utmost care i can work i can work with this it’s hardly half the dream we had and i’ve little left that leaves you glad my hip don’t skip or swing or sway and my fingers fail to play the way but we can work we can work with this
i am the fortune son the fortunate son but i am a careless one i been around the world fallen for the girl i am a careless one well there was such a fine time such a fine time many moons ago but i did turn away from love left it with a shrug many moons ago i said can’t it wait until later i was tired and ungrateful and a stranger to you then but i put some miles in between what i done and what i been a stranger to you then and i follow airships i follow fire engines i am running blind smoke floods from the roof my complete field of view i am running blind and these things that you pursue the things will always hurt you the wanting leaves a mark the bite upon the skin like mining for tin the wanting leaves a mark but we move in circles headless and shirtless like a chicken in the yard when the blade meets the neck senseless and wet like a chicken in the yard take a glass to the morning to the new day the dawning with the shame and the pain i chuck it down to drown in her a clumsy kind of thirst the shame and the pain but i am good to the bad boys good to the bad boys piss upon their flames lord the night is still ablaze and won’t give up for days piss upon the flames
we left the law and misfortune behind and we were long gone before they put it right and we were always what you could call close and now i hang on to you like flesh on a bone and you are more than welcome around here i’ve watched the back door for more than three years with a rifle and a suitcase of books you never will but you should know that you could when every clumsy and unwelcome knock well that’s me fumbling at the lock i have a dream of the night that we met when i was so sick but you let me in yet you pulled me in yes and now this is a calling a call to your arms they fill up tankers with buckets of men set em loose on the blue ocean and none of em know the shape of the plan the method in the madness the lies of the land they got enough dirt to cover their tracks but too much to ever go back this is the sale of the century the worst deal that we’ll ever need it’s rotten but we settle for it still this is a calling a call to your arms how bad do things have to get for a man to change what he is i’m on the square and the market is gone we made a ghost town pale and wan and some nights when it’s especially black i imagine that i could write you right back if i were a poet of prayer or of song that you would listen hear it and sing along this is a calling a call to your arms
when all the boats had left and the harbour was still again and the gulls built their messy nest on your window ledge facing the southern sea beyond the streets beyond hove beach and from the moment that winter was through we swam until our lips were blue i remember a fine time it wasn’t yours and it wasn’t mine and we shared a tiny house where we threw all the baggage out but the wind did blow it brought the sea crashing close and it rattled the window panes and it swept our birds away but in fairness i was a dozen times careless now it’s no longer all those little things now its one catastrophe but we tumbled on and before we knew it the year had gone and we had small tales to tell hove beach and egg shells when all the boats had left and the harbour was still again a pair on the wing billy and deedee
there is a house in a northern state and i lived there once for a handful of days now the owners are all gone there’s no work for anyone and the winter is so long we only lose what we cannot use and the money won’t find it’s own way home and was there ever a better plan take useless or nothing the choice we’ve had fortune falls and climbs again fortune falls yes and when luck is cruelty on the wind the fine weather comes and brings it in she sent a letter and it found it’s way i was deep in the south without a place when the word came there’s a job up here come quick if you can come at all so i left at six o clock with a northbound boat from the southampton dock there was a train but it cost the earth and i only had time and so i spent it at sea i was down with the diesel drums the mud of the oil thick on my lungs and a noise like hell itself no words could be heard if i had words to tell and i’ve grown softer without you withered into old age whilst you bloomed impossible memories shake me senseless i’m just trying to get on well time waits for no man and you can’t catch a break without fishing for it how well have i wasted days gathered them up and thrown to the waves up in the crows nest looking for land the gods smile down as they slice up the lamb heaven’s a harbour for the faithful crew you good for nothings get what’s coming for you and when the coast finally showed its face with a crooked yellow smile but a welcoming place well i try to be happy too but it’s taken so long to get halfway to you i am forgotten i’m a ghost on the island six sheets to the wind and i walk like i’m still at sea for seven days straight i’m weak at the knees i’m distracted to disarray still miles south still miles away bury my shoes here follow with feet legs and the rest ever got lost ever been found ever spent the winter homeward bound i am weary from water the dirge of the deep and i fear that the girl she got the best of me fortune falls and climbs again fortune falls yes and when luck is cruelty on the wind the fine weather comes and brings it in
i am back here at the track into the forest cause you need never be the last one to leave we all fall sometimes we got to put it behind or walk the last on our knees so i tell it where it might just do some good stop shouting to the cold bloodied trees the only spirits i trust are of fluid and such they’re at the the bottom of the barrel with me i tried to get a good idea of the coastline it’s just an island when you look from the beach now i’ve studied this land from the ocean side i don’t believe everything that i see but by the highlands the hills and the heather when we were younger i surely cared less when we were dirt poor together how could i ever grow tired of your loveliness i don’t know how the meanness got in me or what hope for hope now you’re gone i lost somehow a reason for learning and for looking and for keeping my eye on the world now i only borrow money from strangers and never trust a man with a plan i see a hole in the ground then i look in and down therein lies all that i have so i am back at the track into the forest at the cross five miles from the town you wanna be a good man tread lightly on the land and keep from keeping it down now only the lonely will follow and only the lowlands hold water you are not a climber of the mountains but you remain my north til the end
well we walked out west to follow the sun down and the rain dropping fast it felt like the fallout and it is one after two and the family long gone and you walk in the room and you ask where has he gone well he is out with the dogs and he is out with the cattle he said he hasn’t the stomach to charge into battle and when the light breathes its last and the wind comes with menace and it sucks the air out and life is measured in pennies and what’s worthwhile got lost and so the company switches one moment we’re with children and the next with witches and how the game does grow when the hounds are kept in and how your family ran amok and you so happily let them well we have done what we’ve done and though it’s little to be proud off and the end seems so close and with it the ground calls so with a limp for a leg and one tired and one good eye i smile at the memory and wish it a goodnight

2020

‘The Ghost Is The Only One That Beats My Drum’

Album

Released December 2020 / CD-r & digital / WR083

the day it broke and fell to night left when things were going right now i got to start again find a way to make amends the chapel house the waterfall the early run the slow walk i woke you like a cold call say it aint so there’s no such time as the right time we bleed the best out of what we have not got i hoped we wouldn’t come undone i wished for something helpful but the options here are limited we make our own fun there’s water in the basement the lake is dry the horse is spent there’s fire on the sunny bank smoke high as chimney stacks the factory breathed it’s last coughed out our fathers it used em up like kindling and burnt them alive there’s no black sheep in the family the flock is lost and we’re all on our knees i only hope the landing’s soft after such a sudden drop the options here are limited we make our own fun so i wrote a list to make it clear the sum of all i hold dear it’s less than i hoped but more than i need i watched the tree lose it’s roots i saw the deeds that good men do i don’t know weeds from women but i know what i like we break the bread with an eye on the door we eat like kings from the kitchen floor we came from nothing now to this we don’t care where the exit is the options here are limited we make our own fun there’s a hill that the children climb and then we look for them by torchlight search parties every week it’s regular and we’re good at it once a month the post arrives with parcels from our ex wives that carry like dynamite stand well back twelve nights not a drop to drink it’s enough to bring a man to think how the crimes i never mention hound me for my attention the options here are limited we make our own fun well the talking started with the dusk the whispers with the setting sun the shouting when the night came when no one could be seen the writing was on the city wall they’ll come for you they come for all you want a safe passage take a leap into the dark we've no magnetic north anymore the compass spins flings itself upon the law and if you’re here for happiness perhaps expected more from this the options here are limited we make our own fun
at thirteen miles the engines stopped the holy wind from the sails dropped we looked north if more would come the sky grew grey the clouds did hum the water turned an inky mess i thought of you and all i’d left and how the boat was not a home and how did it ever stay afloat below the walls upon the beach i coughed a gallon from the deep i left a dirty puddle there half chewed photographs and hair autumn leaves and a velvet rope a ticket stub an erotic poem heaven punishes desires oh lord i’ve served some time the morning clears as the slow fog moves i think of the hounds and their running to you the air full with urgent cries slow hellos quick goodbyes if there’s something from turning away i've yet to see it the regret never fades how it keeps the mind awake and how it wakes it every day coastline at brutal light fishing boats set for a fight schooners stuffed with armed men dawn came the illusion went if there was ever any doubt we could peacefully work it out see the thousands hit the waves heavy loaded blind and brave how all our troubles went away how all our worries came to stay how every lover never dies how can another ever come alive how the ocean is just like heaven how they believe all you tell em how when hope has lost it’s way something hopeful takes it’s place it’s in the beach it’s in the sand how the blood does all it can and how the bucket takes the man he fills it up and leaves the land how we swam across the bay how i pissed it all away and how your chest became a treasure how i miss you more than ever
we were well away we were slower than before you told some lies i know i’ve told more it defies belief it’s a sad and sorry state you put your trust in one they walk a crooked way it was early june and the birds sang from the trees we sat below and ate well from their leaves there comes a time when i will throw all this away just like i did before just like i will again poppy seeds and the scent of cut hay the fields are steaming a deep green grey i take a bottle and walk into the woods like i always do like you like me to but at four-o-clock there is a knocking at the gate two from the city austere and straight normally i would not take any call but something’s different here something unavoidable well, comes the welcome we sit they rather stand they give it to us right away but there's blood on their hands and we all see it at the same time too late and there’s the window we do not hesitate and on to the wall running blind and bold and we get to the wall and the wall does explode and the stones fly the sky and arc under clouds and all that goes up another moment comes down
they told me before they can tell me again there is no one underneath the stairs but i hear them talking and i know not why people got to mislead people got to lie down down down well the wise ones know but the dumb ones tell it there are no laws but the laws they selling the writings on the wall scratches on the trees we were never here there’s nothing more to see get down down down no i’m not done yet i am eating slow how you wanna die boys, how you wanna go with a rat-a-tat-tat or a short sharp shock are you gonna jump or are you gonna drop down down down i’d rather take my time try to do it right a fall is always closer if you’re scared of heights just a step away just a slip of the wrist give it to me good and quick shoot it from the hip put me down down down well they have pockets full of teeth and they fold all the bills they love a good old lynching them folks on the hill when the geese don’t go and no snow remains it’s been winter long enough but still the shit rains down down down
as the last of the light finds it’s way home and as the last of what’s kind finds it’s coat i keep one eye wide for your return like our hound would wait for the door we always boasted we were bomb proof but we never saw such planes in the sky and as we carried our heads with the chin up we met them and they rose slow filling our eyes you have a ticket to london so burn it you have a suitcase and you fill it with books with stockings and ropes and a promise that you’ll send for me sometime when the weather is good i do not help myself i take it all and then steal what is left i am irrational and forever hungry for trouble i seem to carry the weight of two women oh woe betide me when you are happy the good part of me dies and there is little left for the winter i got to take it one bite at a time and there are no ghosts but you are ghostly and i see but still cannot believe all the creatures that fly or swim oceans wide they are strangers to each other and me i do not help myself i take it all and then steal what is left there is greed in men a need in them to go forth and multiply and little else oh woe betide me when you are happy the good part of me dies there is little left for the winter i got to take it one bite at a time go jericho and tell what you know the children are sharpening their knives and there are boys marching on whitehall and they are young enough to know what is true and what is right i wouldn’t know a good idea if it bit me and i write this with a distracted mind if i was ever once smart that minute has passed overstated and left behind oh woe betide me when you are happy the good part of me dies there is little left for the winter i got to take it one bite at a time
the smoke is always a warning is always just half the fun so come find the fire come see the damage done i drank for three weeks straight and then i switched to the crooked stuff and it helps somewhat not quite and not nearly enough i turned the house on it’s side and i lay down where the chimney once stood and with one eye wide i watch the earth move i am all out of chances and i’ve never been a gambling man there’s no fire escape get out while you still can and get clear of meget out and get clear of me with your back to the west and your face to the dawn good men are seldom and cheap men are bought so you click your heels twice once more and away you fly tiptoed and gone a trick of the light that’s how you get clear of me click, clack, clear of me i stuffed the books in the tree but i swallowed the letters we wrote your desires for me the promises i broke now they stick in my throat i do confess i choke keep your distance stay at home and get clear of me wash your hands and get clear of me
i took the corners and got there first i ran barefoot it barely hurt a little blood on the road never hurt a soul footprints to follow me home i was stitched up and wound up and more i was turned away at the door i never had a name that could help in anyway and one time too many changed on the first day i studied the clouds on the second they chucked it all down on the third it got worse on the fourth it burst and the fifth or the sixth i drowned and the seventh day it went blue and i was still somehow on the move she said i like how you go but there’s something you should know that the leaving is the hardest thing to lose so if you ever find yourself lost took a wrong turn or was spun like a top make a mark in the street with both of your feet build a place for the running to stop
i was born into this it is what it is a cowardly good for nothing streak of piss with a lazy eye and a careless tongue and nowhere to hide and nowhere to run well i believed in luck but i been losing faith and the shadows always lit the way i heard about the father and i’ve heard about the son but the ghost is the only one that beats my drum i complained to the chef and i fought with the cook i stole from the boss yeah i grabbed what i could the priest was never far from my home on her tiptoes with a cross on a rope so i took the accusations and i bargained for the plea i gave up every shred of decency i understand the charges lord i did what i done but the ghost is the only one that beats my drum i lost so many friends but there's always an end i’ll fix it for now but i cannot make amends i’ve slept where i should not we’ve all been there a room with a view but without a care but if i just lay quiet they may pass me by if i don’t speak up turn the blind eye dogs come in for the kill and are out for blood but the ghost is the only one that beats my drum now the rain don’t spit and the wind don’t blow the cards don’t care where the money goes the pistol don’t point and the trees don’t bark but there’s more to be seen out after dark but i had my fill now i live without i long ago tore the old walls down the stones lay about like ammunition but the ghost is the only one that beats my drum there is one to the left and two to the right there’s no room for me i’ll be outside i’ve not read well or deep or wide and i’ll regret all that til the day i die i try to go with grace and dignity with both eyes bright and clear to see not with smoke in the throat or a gun at the lung the ghost is the only one that beats my drum

‘Bottle The Grief’

Album

Released May 2020 / CD-r & digital / WR079

from the willows by the weir she fell in and i found her near she went low and so made a new home below the water brought her here i never left and i never arrived i been here the whole time and i watch as what floats carried by river flow and i take what i take to be mine we would climb up to the house on the hill five miles from the town with one room above for the making of love and the other for the tearing it down i never said no to anything but there was nothing to which i could agree and in the ways of the heart i’ve never been smart well we make my own bed when we sleep now the rain falls on amber shore i can’t keep track of the days anymore i was roped into this it is hat it is nothing less and nothing more
well i wake up too late to set the traps and i fear the fine time passed me by the sun is so high the sky so bright i need the kindness and the cover of the night i felt that no one could ever do this to me and i hung around the place like a dog i would chase every stick i would eat my own shit and sleep any dry place there was i was silent and strange creeping down to the grange there were lunch hares down there to hunt the game remains little has changed i play away but the fun is all done and slow go the dark days quick goes the light slow go the dark days quick goes the light there were problems with the ink the bottles i would drink syrupy indian black it could not last so one morning last march my privileges were cut back i got lost in the copse we’ve got guests at the lodge they let me out every third afternoon i used to wait for the wren i won’t hear her again and the dish ran away with the spoon and slow go the dark days quick goes the light slow go the dark days quick goes the light do not carry your past from bar to bar do not look for the sense in a bird song she was with me completely long gone and deeply i am an old so and so and slow go the dark days quick goes the light slow go the dark days quick goes the light
the mistake was to make a character of the wild to turn it to a thing i could bend to my whim to name a beast, fowl or fish to train a finch how not to sing i would take and never make only take a liberty i said the woods are your own but the trees belong to me the mistake was to make a character of the wild i thought my clumsy hands could somehow handle it to gather up her hair and breathe it in to lay it there upon my bare skin she was never less than cruel but the pleasure was always kind she said the days are yours alone but your nights are mine well i threw my shoes away walked five miles in a day i took my medicine and your letters to the lake i mean i feel ok but that’s not saying much at all the golden days gone like honeybees in the snow and the writing and the words and the songs i often sing have yet to move me half as much as what a touch can bring yes the mistake was to make a character of the wild i took the hare by the legs snatched it from the hedge i gave a dog a home it didn’t get to choose it’s own i looked into the mouth of every horse i sat upon i rode to the beach and i looked out at the sea sea did it’s thing with or without me
the shells fell like bones the boys sunk like stones they never been so lost they never yet left home they fall into the paddock into the corn something gets buried but something gets born the winds brought the smoke and the banks brought the fire we thought the floods were enough but the waves raised it higher this land isn’t cruel but older than time this land that we rule is the last of its kind
well there once were clouds and they gathered above us and as we walked down boot hill they dropped upon us and at the cry of the church bells all the ravens gave it hell a murderous symphony oh the noise does fuck with me a carrion call but when the north wind blows the crows don’t stand a chance and we see carnage treetops shredded a crowd of skeletons sticks for a forest and the fog on the ground thigh high and liquid and we wade a mile well we get really nowhere and our voices are muffled and only talk of trouble i left the town on a whim thoughtless and carefree now every six steps those birds they caw at me a carrion call when the wagons came the locusts landed and for a week they fell about like they fucking owned the place oh they burn your barn they steal your chickens they pollute the paddock and then make you buy it back and they paint your sheep and pour ink into the milk and black wash the stables they turn the daylight off they say it’s for your own good and you’ll thank us later and the truth hurts it’s true but still we give it to you a carrion call and so i say it once and then let’s speak of it no more if the night is really here then let us disappear bottle the grief i walk an hour on my knees get nowhere quicker get it over with get good and gone get it so you can see it the coal the wet tar the gap between the stars it’s not a cry for help when it’s something no one can change it’s a yell into the deep well it’s a shout out for nothing it’s a carrion call
when i was half alive i shut my eyes and gave up the good that you’d shown i turned my back back to the sun and threw the damn thing home i caught her scent and in an instant it filled my troubled dome i been a dumb son mum no more to be done but bury me and hope i grow in the rushes and in the hollows in the cottage under the stairs i was a younger man sitting on my hands my plans so grand back then now i shuffle to the kitchen and i seek out the softest chair the warmest cosiest corner and settle into song again i got lost away from the river confused i wouldn’t say scared and i sat beside an empty post office with letters and cards prepared a dozen policemen patrolling by i didn’t catch the eye of any one when your head is built the way mine is it doesn’t pay to keep it up and the light seemed to leave quicker than before i didn’t wait to get out of there i stole a glimpse and then bottled it day done dusted dead i could hear the angelus chiming but i could not tell from where but if i find a way i’ll make my way to yell at the bells again well at black water bridge she floated beneath her frock flashed in the silvery deep it was a parachute of bone and blue open and billowing her coal dust hair her eyes wide and scared i crossed myself and did run yes i turned away when it was easy to stay and be true at least for once there is a songbird at the window and the little one sleeps at my feet i have an eye on the door but i don’t know what for i have more than i could ever need and somewhere out there the winds are growing and will push the storm upon oh this week between the years is dark and strange and long
well how your legs wrap around as i slowly go down and your knees on my cheeks and my hands on your feet and your grip on my hair and your grip on my neck well i hold you there so wet warm and bare and how you’re stronger than me with my thumb ‘tween your teeth and we fold culinary salted and sweet that’s how your fingertips taste and your sweat on my face til i’ve no chances left til all i’ve earned has been spent
who was here before and did not ignore who would follow but instead thought ahead and was kind to each and all well i was helped on my way and come what may i have this to show it was a simple thing to offer to me this rope well amongst the fires out with the liars where the ash rains down and all below is smothered and chokes and soon to drown while the crows fly rings and from their wings they see prison paint grey the flakes remain upon my skin it was hand over hand it was pull what you can with the back that you have lean into it boys don’t think of the lives you could have had all of it went all of it spent so quick it goes now we’re tied to the mast fixed up fast with ship rope but that burns and it hurts and it kicks and it rips with a vicious speed takes fingers sometimes does not care to mind what is put between oh the pace of the thing the taking of skin the sudden sear once coiled and slow but jumps up in smoke and disappears slip it on like a ring now we’re tighter than kin i call you the wife there is fog for miles it blots out the sky and swallows light and they told me get out of the house but i don’t know how or even where to go it tried it once that was one time too much and now the rope it pulls tight so it fits paints wild red lips upon my skin a snake around my neck with an angry head that spits i count the crows at roost i have blood in my shoes i am beaten time to pocket the hands get out in the land and meet it i count the crows at roost i have blood in my shoes lord i am beaten time to pocket the hands get out in the land and meet it

2019

‘A Day’

Album

Released July 2019 / CD-r & digital / WR076

well i was left with the salt i was left to the dying and this has all been my fault but believe me i’m trying but i am cut to the bone and the pain is like freezing and i do what i can but it don't stop the bleeding the wound grows wide the shape of a smile made in a second but there for a lifetime i could stitch it with silk if you could clean me a needle and we drink mother's milk but it don't stop the bleeding i walked to the west i followed the sun down i took a lover for a friend and i soon turned her out and my joke of a job it stops me getting greedy and it lightens the load but it don't stop the bleeding when you think it's enough but it's barely started and the pain doesn't leave just because the arm did i suck in what there is and it's almost like breathing but it's less than a lungful and it don't stop the bleeding
so you built up fences from bamboo and you press leaves into the soil and in this way a room grows from the ground underneath you left here full of philosophy and of course there is a use and a need but won’t you come home cause you are more needed here there yawns a hole where my pocket should be so of course i lost the keys the papers you signed a legally binding declaration of love you pulled your dress above your thighs when the tide flowed dangerously high oh won’t you come home cause you are more needed here i remember you underwater and i remember you in the snow your legs flashed apart and i gasped in the cable car we swung in i remember your grip on my neck your mouth hungry and wet won’t you come home cause you are more needed here tonight the trees shake their branches madly and they scare all the ravens away so it is with me blind barking bothering you with my fingernails bloody and fierce and our story book spotted with tears won’t you come home cause you are more needed here
here’s the boys by the fireside all the troubles of the day behind all gone weird scenes and the road was long but all the trouble behind i never learned cause i never asked i hit the ground it all happened so fast lights out not a second too soon hit the ground for good i hit the ground for good all this time we never knew how we would ever make it to the home where we would end our days well now we know how we won’t and how we don’t and here’s the tracks our horses made them’s the breaks that gave us away these days people ride alone a smaller target to show i never learned cause i never asked the way your heart would fill my glass the way your words would wrap around my neck my suit my hand-me-downs all this time we never knew how we would ever make it to the home where we would end our days well now we know how we won’t and how we don’t
the streets shine and shriek so loud with the sleet and the snow soaking the ground i followed the stream cause it carried the trail it ran down through the town and then took it away they brought me boxes tools and machines with copper and wires and signals within her breath was inside but it left when i spoke and it answered nothing and gave up the ghost the streets have stories but they won’t tell em up they were born out of digging and shovelling mud but you see a hole you got to look right in down to the roots to the spark and to the seed and if they never prove it it’s like i didn’t do it what they call the truth I call what’s hidden i was born and we moved i can’t call it a home home is the place where they bury your bones the streets in the night barren and useless a waste of space cold and brutal and i saw a chance to get away from here to forget about england forget the whole year but it’s the springtime and it’s snowing and my lady writes take the money and run and stay out of sight tell this to no one i’ll send word when it’s safe tread a small footprint and lay low away and if they never prove it it’s like i didn’t do it what they call the truth I call what’s hidden i was born and we moved i don’t call it a home home is the place where they bury your bones
it starts right here behind the frown behind the tears and we’re fearless fast and funny from the first there are shadows from the sun i put a flame to every one and then i burn them all away there falls the night you are the day how to begin it so it stays light the blue touch paper then step back i watch the skies for signs of life and every night you keep me awake but you are the map i am the pin and i am stuck happily in i ran for so long i came back around you hum along, it’s just a song and this is how we’ll get on there’s nothing to it i sit and watch the square and all the people there and from your bed it’s rooftops and hawks at flight you’ve got my hand now take my word it’s you and the birds every night
they take the water from the ocean to drown us and from the trees they chop wood for to burn us and in the earth below they will bury us underground and what you fear to be the end comes around where there’s smoke there was fire now extinguished or else a spark is lit and just beginning it gives a voice to a flame and it’s a hungry sound and what you fear to be the end comes around i’ll take the days over the nights anytime my shadow is short when the sun is high the older i get the more impossible is the town and what you fear to be the end comes around we were once lost at sea and no one missed us we took the time to sit quiet and just listen the waves sung their song, a terrifying shout and what you fear to be the end comes around and my father played his part to the last he thought a man could be heroic, humbly hard you can act how you like the curtain will drop down and what you fear to be the end comes around
we were not born to worry but i have fear like a fish wide eyed and panicky and forever hiding from things and so i cling on to the book the coat and the rope it’s not the best of me you took but it’s the song in the throat it’s not my kindness you left with not my smile you stole it’s the wicked way westward it’s the lope and the roll it’s the swing in the step it’s the gulping it down it’s the waist and the cleft it’s my thumb to your pout now comes the knock at the door now it is dark now comes the rumbling thundering the peculiar part did they see you walk here will they find it all out were you followed my dear - no - well, how do you know i have the scent of your skin on my fingertips i keep it well hid but there’s no mistaking it it’s forensic and true i keep traces of you close by through and through and you always knew you always knew the knot and the groove the black and the blue and the high hard shoes your footprints are there like oil on my stairs i watch my step but it’s the falling yes the slip and the dive the tumble from high i give up a sigh this is the part that i like the scene of the thing the leaping of limbs how we move through the night how we frolic so fine and there’s music in the wires and a building of fires opening the blinds and the closing of eyes and it’s the generous game we give more than we take i called and you came let’s call this a day
you are my i will wait for you you are my let’s walk together you are my come to me love you are my where should we drive away to you count the days and suddenly there’s no more days in-between and maybe the simplicity has never been so dear to me now the blinds go down on the dead day the sound of the street dissipates and i’ve lost my hands in the darkness but we’re invisible and nothing can find us i reach for your thighs and silently you’re there i mean here beside me and you whisper just lay quietly and somehow i can do that finally

2018

‘Woe’

Album

Released August 2018 / CD-r & digital / WR074

i got my hands on your shoulders and the cold isn’t cold now and as the rain chucks it all down my fingers cling on and i gather your hair up and i breathe it all in and it’s dark and it’s heavy and we're tangled and soaked and every short breath and every tight grip is a piece of the story is a part of the song oh that you were my true love oh that you were my young wife and that the heavens would open and drown us tonight
i didn’t think before i opened up i didn’t think i’ve not been thinking much now you got questions boys that’s fair enough you wanna pull some teeth gotta get things done the day was dark the night was long the wind was whipping up a wicked song deep december sheets of ice a sliding star the farm alight well i came to buy but i was told to sell so i went to court cause i needed help i went to court and i lost my nerve it’s fair to say we’re not on the best of terms men in corners they start fires men in corners they are hungry liars we set a place what were we thinking of give em knives they’re gonna cut things up show a hand they’ll cut it off i just came to thee for to rest a while i never dreamed that id be pressed to fight i’ve not got much no mouths to feed sometimes you want sometimes you need give an inch they take a mountainside tell em stay they sail oceans wide raise a glass they leave you high and dry steal a glance they pluck out eyes men in corners they start fires men in corners they are hungry liars we set a place what were we thinking of give em knives they’re gonna cut things up show a hand they’ll cut it off they plugged me with wires gold green and copper blue they scrubbed my eyes tears fell like parachutes they bled the best of me wide away they took desperate measures of volume and weight they took teeth they took hair they looked for kindness it wasn’t there they will not stop they’ll never have their fill they started early they work there still men in corners they start fires men in corners they are hungry liars we set a place what were we thinking of give em knives they’re gonna cut things up show a hand they’ll cut it off
so i pulled all the leaves down from the trees i gathered them up and took them with me and the night came on and the day getting gone and you are well on your way so here comes the song we were forever alight and never without it was blow winds blow and scream and shout and i stood up straight thought i could handle it all but you are built for the mountains and i’m built for the fall these days i know we cannot win my head loses face and my compass spins and immediately we become strangers again we got to make each other got to make each other anew and from the london docks to the water well you are the source and the cause of the ocean swell you are weighted at rest and as steam on the move you are fearless on tiptoes clumsy and true well i stumble on my feet but i run on my knees you have a tongue that can cut and fingers that bleed i am childless aimless without and behind you are the peach and the plum and the thorn in my side these days i know we cannot win my head loses face my compass spins and immediately we become strangers again we got to make each other got to make each other anew now there’s not much to lose down here in the mire there’s nothing cowardly about having to hide there ain’t nothing new in the shape of the song and there’s nothing to see here girls move along you wrote you’d be here in time you were hours late you said i’ll see you tonight you were gone for days i should be used to the silence the holding of breath but it hasn’t to be honest got easier yet and hearne the hunter still haunts the old woods he had a home in the oak and we slept there too and you clung on close and you whispered to my skin all the ways you would take it and pull it in by now the fighting has stopped and the birds have returned they settle themselves on the yew and the birch the fields turn soft it’s almost spring we got to wait and see what the warm weather brings
so if god moves on the water the devil moves on the land and there ain’t no such thing as angels with wings only demons on the ground the stuff that dreams are made of the hopes and the promises made may they all go to hell well we dragged that boat up the coast before the tide came in but the water wants what the water wants and one should not fight with it and as the rain fell fast as the waves came hard my hopes and my promises made yeah they all went to hell but if you give me an inch i will dive in deep and i need not rise for air i believe my breath will not leave me in death but will swell my shell under there but youth seemed to vanish as quick as it came and nine months later i don’t know my face at all cut the ropes i am slipping and if i’m going i cannot hold on don’t stop, it hurts my love i do you don't i do you don't but every minute of every day we get a chance to do what’s right and there’s no confusion it is clear and it is cold it is cut and it is black and it is white and we all hope to fall with the butter side up and we cling to this thing we believe called luck and his father yes every minute of every day the question is what’s right but i seize the bad with both of my hands and i squeeze out all the life and the choke sounds to me like a joke so as it coughs well i just scoff it all away cut the ropes i am slipping and if i’m going well i cannot hold on don’t stop, it hurts my love i do you don't i do you don't oh say what you will i will stay around still please keep me within reach there is something they call the spark of life i only know where the darkness is and the missing is the thing that kills me if you were really gone it could be easier to be without cut the ropes i am slipping and if i’m going i cannot hold on don’t stop, it hurts my love i do you don't i do you don't
i saw fourteen tall black flags on the western road and there was no one left there was nowhere else to go so we walked back to the horses to turn around and you were fine and light we were leaves upon the ground but there are bullies and bastards and broadswords let’s get gone i know you’re not one to run but the cause was never more lost and red stars like embers low in the ash filled sky they fall on our skin and they burn some oh my life woe, woe, woe, woe, woe woe, woe, woe, woe, woe and the rain came pouring down and the dark clouds seemed to frown and the rain came pouring down on me smoke and steam in the scottish evening the northern line the train above the water a coal black night beautiful railway bridge of the silvery tay gives it up with a groan and it’s gone and suddenly away at pluck the crow point the planks on the pebble beach how simple sometimes to lose such a powerful thing and i never took your love to heart i never believed that one so young and wise could fall for me woe, woe, woe, woe, woe woe, woe, woe, woe, woe and the rain came pouring down and the dark clouds seemed to frown and the rain came pouring down on me tonight the stables roll as the foals within them dream yeah they breathe in deep through hay and straw and sleep and i was on the air i was blown and i’ve come to rest on your waist, your hips, your cheeks your delicate chest and you sigh i move I try to be true i swear the beast from the east can cut and rub me bare but in the shade of your sun my one i'll worry less yeah man up boy be brave and blame thyself woe, woe, woe, woe, woe woe, woe, woe, woe, woe and the rain came pouring down and the dark clouds seemed to frown and the rain came pouring down on me fourteen tall black flags on the western road braids and books and woe woe woe woe woe now a shadow falls slow upon my heart oh my days i never knew it so dark oh that you were my true love
there are boats there are boats there on the mountain side there’s a fire and there’s a fire on the shoreline i never did it i never did it i never lit the match i didn’t start this fight but i’ll bring it back holy holy holy holy trouble no more that lake there at the top i know is miles wide and she threw off her dress and she stood so fine there is a need i got it too we want to jump right in well i did it and it’s true i jumped right in holy holy holy holy trouble no more but there’s a question there’s a question on the lips of my my lover she asks me to run and hide i take a room i make it new somehow start again and there’s a place here for you plans and promises holy holy holy holy trouble no more my north my lord how the snow does fall upon the sea and everything that fell before no vessels can there upon the billows ride nor well placed oars the heavy waves divide holy holy holy holy trouble no more
the fog has not lifted and the birds do not sing they settle on the branches but they don’t say a thing and this used to be green fields where the stroudwater runs but ten thousand boots have churned it to mud and if my letters reach you if the parcels get through well i hope they bring some sort of comfort for you but i’m too scared to ask too frightened to say do you think that you’ll make it do you see a way cause the fog has not lifted the sea out of sight it’s sits there somewhere in the thickness and white and i walk on wet stones i have salt on my lips and it’s as if you were with me it’s as if you were here yeah it’s as if i had listened it’s as if i had been kind it’s as if i could have known how this would wreck me in time should get to some cover hear a whistle and a cry and there’s a ringing in my ears and there's smoke in my eyes the fog has not lifted it presses on the ground so i wait for an answer a signal a sound but the sky stays soupy and the wind does not blow the air hangs cold with slow falling snow and my way home is unclear my footprints fade and i know not now from whence i came no i know not the hour no i know not the place i have written and waited and wasted the days
well the guests left early today cause i was silent and sullen and strange i know i wasn’t made to flatter and if we ever get to berlin again remind me to care less those reliable friends i can count them on one hand i know, i know how this happened i know, i know how this happened our shoes are caked with dirt cause we walked to the end of the earth and back again but it really doesn’t feel flat and your dresses are perfumed and wet and i loved to pull you out of them we did lay down like nothing else mattered and i know, i know how this happened i know, i know how this happened and if i ever want a good night’s sleep i got to get you out of my dreams change the train and drop off the baggage cause you are present in every breath as the morning comes creeping in nothing works you are missed and happy and i know, i know how this happened i know, i know how this happened

‘When I Was Single’

EP

Released July 2018 / Digital / No catalogue number

when i was single my pockets would jingle and i wish i was single again but i married me a wife and she's the pest of my life and i wish i was single again i spent all of my money on a very cheap ring and then she and the goldsmith had a mighty fine fling and i wish i was single again but then my wife she got sick and i prayed that it was quick so that i could be single again and sure enough my wife she died and i laughed until i cried to think i was single again but i married me another and she's the devil's grandmother and i wish i was single again well she did beat me and bang me and she swore she would hang me and i wish i was single again and she looked for a rope and she found herself a rope she found herself a rope and she greased it with soap and i wish i was single again and then she searched for a chair and she found herself a chair she found herself a chair just to kick from under me there and i wish i was single again and then she searched for a tree and she found herself a tree she found herself a tree from which to string me oh to be single again but the branch it did break and my neck did escape and i was single again so young men take a warning from this be good to the first cause the last is much worse oh to be single again be good to the first cause the last is much worse oh to be single again be good to the first cause the last is much worse oh stay single men

2017

‘Understudy’

Album

Released December 2017 / CD-r & digital / WR072

i’ll throw my self into the river you better believe i would sell my liver if i could just for one night lay with her and come joyfully back home she said some bright day who knows how long all different people gonna get along i need a little hope to carry on until i make it home well i pray you are right but my heart don’t know how the blood that it pumps it jumps and it flows it seems to have a mother fucking mind of it’s own and cares not to clot back home and they put men in the soil they put men in the ground all the able bodied boys have been thrown out of town you look for them there they can’t be found they're never coming home and oh me oh my i loved her so it broke my heart just to see her go and where she got to god only knows but i pray she makes it a home well my legs don’t leap and my voice is spent i live hand to mouth step by step my throat is dry and my eyes are wet and i can’t see a way back home so i make like a monkey i swallow a wrench i chuck myself into the dirty old thames i’ve had it up to here with this world of men i can’t call this place my home
includes lyrics from ‘Johny Has Gone For A Soldier’ from Best Loved American Folk Songs, collected and arranged by John A and Alan Lomax, 1947.
oh it is long after two and we’re left here to do all of the things they couldn’t finish or lose and there’s a fire and boys we just shovel we just shovel it on i used to worry about how my hair would fall out how my bones would complain and rattle about we may be low but we will be lowered into the dirt into the earth and these are desperate days but here lies a way i do declare my understudy i will follow you and if you see and i don’t well then please let me know if you can help or in any way save the show the disaster the mess of a plan drawn up and rolled up with the heaviest of hands and outside the world it doesn't even stutter the mark of a man not measured by another nothing changes it all remains it all stays it all stays it all stays the same these are desperate days but here lies a way i do declare my understudy i will follow you those kids are wide awake but dreaming still out on the town and in for the kill but those nights they did take their toll and i am paying still these are desperate days but here lies a way i do declare my understudy i will follow you
up red oak and down salt water every man gonna lose his daughter hey black-eyed susie you been gone so long susie won’t you wait black-eyed susie went huckleberry picking the boys got drunk and susie took a licking hey black-eyed susie trouble gonna find you soon enough won’t you wait some got rude and some got boozy none went home with black-eyed susie hey black-eyed susie you’re a fine one black-eyed susie won’t you wait black-eyed susie about half grown jumps on the boys like a dog on a bone hey black-eyed susie you got to catch them all don’t you susie won’t you wait but black-eyed susie is as cute as a daisy if i don’t pluck her boys i’ll go crazy hey black-eyed susie i’m not like all the others won’t you wait when i asked her to be my wife she came at me with an oyster knife hey black-eyed susie we can talk about the details later won’t you wait she plugged me through like we was making rain now the dogs come a licking round where i lay hey black-eyed susie you’re gonna leave me here all a-leaky won’t you wait hey black-eyed susie don’t leave me here all a-leaky won’t you wait
Includes lyrics from ‘Black-eyed Susie’ from Best Loved American Folk Songs, collected and arranged by John A and Alan Lomax, 1947
what you gonna do when your luck runs out bold boy what you gonna do when your luck runs out bold boy what you gonna do when your luck runs out grab me a bottle and drink it on down be a bold boy what you gonna do when the bottle runs out bold boy what you gonna do when the bottle runs out bold boy what you gonna do when the bottle runs out chase these girls all over town and be a bold boy what are you gonna do when your shoes give out bold boy what are you gonna do when your shoes give out bold boy when my shoes give out i’m gonna get off the street take an old chair and get off my feet be a bold boy what you gonna do when the chair gives out bold boy what you gonna do when the chair gives out bold boy well i got no bottle no chair no shoes i’ll lay on my bed with my head in the blues be a bold boy all the pistol shots go bang bang bang in the morning all the pistol shots go bang bang bang in the evening all the pistol shots go bang bang bang i’ll keep on sleeping give a good god damn i’m a bold boy
includes lyrics from ‘Sweet Thing’ from Best Loved American Folk Songs, collected and arranged by John A and Alan Lomax, 1947.
when i met you on the platform you were out of your mind we were weary and worse for wear and the day had been hard and the march left us scarred and our legs and our heads bruised and bare but here i go trying again though i failed before i tread towards a gentler day but as the blood bleeds out from my foot in your door hope limps away well he fought for the dark and then he fought for the light and he brought home a dozen dead men he dumped all that was good into the deep north sea and then carried the crap back to kent but let’s sing it once more for the wives on the shore sing it once more like they say but as this blood floods out there can be no doubt hope limps away and the great clouds are a-calling and the rain starts a-falling and we’re spineless and thoughtless tonight and we turn the other cheek afraid of what we might see there is nothing like kindness in sight and so with one apple lost might as well throw the whole lot might as well give up and roll it over today i always walked when i could run but i’ve had me some fun hope limps away there is a red tailed kite there is a kestrel in flight there are hawks hunting on high and i see it with my own eyes this world can be so fine if i keep my chin up to the sky but if i laugh then it hurts and when we drink it’s worse and when i play you only complain if i was born to succeed i am failing indeed hope limps away
bad news has come to town bad news is carried some say my love is dead and some say she’s married as i was pondering this well i took to weeping they stole my love away while i was sleeping i could have been stayed at home i could have remained in england but i got the urge to roam i had the need to leave there and i never said goodbye and i never said i’ll see you and now my love is lost while i was sleeping so little did i think so little did i wonder that the storm was so close the clouds so full of thunder i drank until i slept and i didn’t wake for dreaming and the nightmare came to stay while i was sleeping
includes lyrics from ‘Brave Wolfe’ from Best Loved American Folk Songs, collected and arranged by John A and Alan Lomax, 1947.
well shorty george he was no friend of mine shorty george no friend of mine taking all the women and leaving all the men behind some are born to sin and some are born to pray he said you can’t kill me i was born this way to take all the women and leave all the men behind and he was strung up by his neck but happy to tell how he beat on their heads like a clapper on a bell taking all the women leaving all the men behind well the doctor told me it’s your wife come quick cause i've had shot horses half as sick taking all the women and leaving all the men behind and so i ran through the house like a hen without a head i would have murdered george all over again for taking all the women and for leaving all the men behind how can you blame a poor man like me for crying when his lady ain’t dead but surely dying taking all the women and leaving all the men behind i followed them all to the burying ground i never knew how much i loved her til they laid her down taking all the women leaving all the men behind so people keep the ones you care about close and don’t go dancing on the graves of ghosts taking all the women and leaving all the men behind and there are dark days a-coming i won’t see them again the fields are on fire high winds on the way taking all the women leaving all the men behind
includes lyrics from ‘Shorty George’ from Best Loved American Folk Songs, collected and arranged by John A and Alan Lomax, 1947.
we were out on the lake we were sunburnt and dazed it was not like we planned it we were as thick as thieves we took more than we needed and we were caught red handed suddenly the heavens did roar and the rain it did fall and we were washed well away above then below and down we did go into the great virginia lake to the south we had fled where it’s safe they said where it’s too hot for fighting and with a dozen promises of the welcome we’d get from the friends we would find there and the horses we rode did us proud with the load they never once complained blacks and bays dapples and greys into the great virginia lake i tell you what went wrong it all went to the dogs for no good reason oh the greed of a man can get out of hand and there can be no pleasing yes we took and we took a cretin and a crook and we were never the same we were stuffed and ashamed and we dumped all the waste into the great virginia lake

‘Do Not Walk Under Wing’

Album

Released May 2017 / CD-r & digital / WR069

we were seven miles clear of the western pier when the wood turned to charcoal overnight and the smoke sat still on the ocean's hills above the bones of the dancehall bare and bright when the land meets the sea well you tell me where should we go you got an idea of anywhere better let’s hear it let’s go and the pine boards litter the water’s edge and we combed that beach for an hour picking up pieces with a mind for a fire but the dark clouds were cooking up a shower we had been here for a year and the winter was just showing up and the snow on the salt waves the quiet the slow loss of love the pier in the sea a skeleton white in the shallows bleak on the beach a dying thing brighton gallows you limp and you laugh and you hit me so hard but now you're just a bruise on my skin and it’s fading each day i didn’t scrub it away it’s just an echo of a shout and so thin we had the whole thing right there but it’s just water and air what we done and i try to stay bright always turn with a smile wish me luck you say don’t be so sad this is surely as bad as it could get yeah that’s lovely and hopeful but you have not heard what’s next the pier in the sea a skeleton white in the shallows bleak on the beach a dying thing brighton gallows
well i woke up with the scream of steam the rattle the clack the iron machine if there could ever be anything as mean as a man it is rolling down the tracks we measured the weeks with a yard of rope a slip of winter a flake of soap i live a mile from here it might as well be a month i walk these days on my knees and we looked for signs in the old tea leaves the english breakfast the darjeeling i was born to be stubborn that’s what i heard well i don’t believe a word and across the border to who knows where they take me hunting but i don’t care the game is only pain without you i play i cheat i lose if there could ever be anything as mean as a man please hold the door i’m as slow as snow john finn’s cottage is riddled with ghosts and save a little space at the fireplace dad and share a bottle with me coal in the cellar and a house of leaves and i dreamed you sleeping next to me one of these days we’ll wake with a smile and laugh at what we did but the line runs clear to your town dear still singing sharp and clear and a fight can never ever really be won by tooth or claw or tommy gun
this is what it is and all that it brings and i try to not get too attached to anything but i simply miss your face in the still of the night and the beacon of that and all that is right i don’t miss not knowing where all the stones will land i don’t miss not holding so many stones in my hand but i do miss the sky and the filling of it with all that we threw and all that we hit i don’t miss the times you lashed out at me and i don’t miss the names you slung at my feet but i do miss the stroke of your hand on my cheek and i know all the times i deserved everything i don’t miss the waiting or the knock at the door one eye on the window one knee on the floor it’s not what we planned and it is what it is but i could live without the leaving or what's left of it
if i have to walk all the way to england with the torches burning and her hard words repeating you are not needed anymore i’ve nothing for you here when the snow starts to thaw and we see what’s underneath in the european streets that were built to last forever i never thought we’d be so lost and so together you are not needed anymore i’ve nothing for you here when the snow starts to thaw and we see what’s underneath well i breathed it in and now it’s fixed and won’t come undone sharp and mean and stitched upon my cold lung you are not needed anymore i’ve nothing for you here when the snow starts to thaw and we see what’s underneath in the avenues where the state sits upon it’s history she told me run along fool your days are seeming thin to me you are not needed anymore i’ve nothing for you here when the snow starts to thaw and we see what’s underneath well i was good to you and sometimes it would be fair to say you were useful too but that’s not how it is today you are not needed anymore i’ve nothing for you here when the snow starts to thaw and we see what’s underneath underneath the shirts beneath the coats and old suits in tattooed words over scars and stains and bruises you are not needed anymore there’s nothing for you here when the snow starts to thaw and we see what’s underneath
we walked down from the northampton streets to the southampton docks and we spent good years in between and now i look for my friends in the ends of the earth in the heart in the liver in the spleen when the letter arrived and all the bells rang out and you followed your father to war like he went after his dad now they're both buried below i don’t know what you followed them for and the coal was carried above as the clouds they fell in the night all the men blackfaced from the dust lay still in the light in this thing they call a working life well we're gonna a new story if this is ever gonna work and we had better both be straight with the lies that handful of pennies you say you found in my coat well no one believes they were mine no one is laughing when the roof falls in and charity did not start at home way down in the pit where the fresh air don’t get everyone digging alone and the coal was carried above as the clouds they fell in the night all the men blackface from the dust they lay still in the light in this thing they call a working life
when i get the chance i will fall hard i'll climb the southern wall and jump off fast cause there seems no way to stay alone i’m getting deafened by the bells that call me home and you told me go and leave this hole i put it in my book and i took it to the road and it’s no great shakes we only changed in the days before the waves came the river side the snow on leaves the rocks are pushing hard against the fallen trees there is no reason to this fight no it is low and grey and loud and full of spite and all the ones i ever missed they are not looking fondly down on all of this so don’t waste your time with looking up no it is down you need to be to stay in touch but i think the space in between us it ain’t nothing it ain’t nothing we can’t lose i said the space in between us it ain’t nothing it ain’t nothing we can’t lose now i’m not myself when i’m alone i am a stranger to the flesh and to the bone there is no sense to the shape it is only what the foreign objects make and every ghost i’ve ever seen says the same sad words right back at me how the life got away it took it's leave and left me here in this state and the space in between us it ain’t nothing it ain’t nothing we can’t lose i said the space in between us it ain’t nothing it ain’t nothing we can’t lose
there was a murmur underneath way down in the deep and the whistle blew long and low and a rumble of earth then a roar of dirt as the soil broke through the snow and the thought at once was what have we done and where to go we all try our best but it’s less than useless no one gets home and with a belly of stones that rattle and groan and a sickness that will not wait it has it’s teeth at my feet it is chomping at the bit and it is loping galloping straight your face fills my eyes so bright in my mind pale and bold we both try our best but it’s less than useless no one gets home i have your name in my throat but we're painfully slow i do not have the legs for to flee and now the buckling barrow breaks open with a sound and it lights up the sky with screams and it is louder than bombs a hell of a song go on alone i have tried my best but its less than useless no one gets home and on the baltic sea or the coast of italy i’ve been dreaming of not waking up i slept under your stairs but it didn’t help there no i’m haunted by the noises above the back and the forth the spit and the polish the trouble the to and the fro i have done my best but it’s less than useless no one gets home
don’t leave just yet for the fires they still burn if i’ve learned anything if i’ve listened to just one word take your time it is all that we work for don’t be denied of all that is worthwhile i been wasting away with the sitting and the staring the maybe someday the just past caring don’t entertain idiots don’t sing to the front row if the feeling is not there just go do not walk under wing don’t crawl under covers don’t hide where we’ve been we’ve been living as lovers we have burned all the bridges all gone we have slipped from the moorings too soon we have greased all the ropes all gone we have ignored all the warnings too soon well we wintered in the south but now spring is coming it was fight or flight and we went with the running i watched him fall into the dark thames all gone as i ran for my life too soon i heard him dragged out and laughing all gone it was the last of our young nights too soon and if we believed anything we would weld the doors together we would tie down the hatches and live forever in the cellar take the stones from the floor all gone and plant supplies for a lifetime too soon sleep on straw all gone never need sunlight too soon take our names off the door we left there months back i cannot walk past or look lovingly up at i brought shame to our house all gone i led the cretin right in too soon and he sat at our table all gone and he laughed while we were fighting too soon i toyed dumbly with ruin as if nothing could harm me one eye on the door one eye on the dark deed and i didn’t read your poems all gone and i didn’t hear you sing too soon you were a bird in a cage all gone i was out on the wing too soon
well if the water cannot drown me though the weight of the waves surround me if you can hold me will you hold me lead me all the way down and show me we swam downstream to the ocean from the lake where we threw all our clothes in under rainfall with a skin full and with your dark eyes wide you went down slow and we swam a little song and as the winds grow well we don’t know where the sails will take the old boat but we float on though it feels wrong no notion where the land has gone we swam a little song

2016

‘Turn Your Back On The Crown’

‘Five Miles Down The Lane’

EP

Released September 2016 / CD-r & digital / WR067

i would always lose it all at the track but scrape enough to make my way back i’ve been gambling for food and a bed it’s not funny and the odds are not fair and when the fortune took flight with the crows i climbed trees and followed them home and i’m so lucky to have made it this far i got no idea but i know it can’t last you slept on trains when we fled to the north we left switzerland in a hell of a storm and i don’t know when i’ll ever head south i got a month until the money runs out every bed smaller than the one before until in kreuzberg we slept on the floor and these three weeks we’ve been keeping so close and now this distance and i wake like a ghost and as the rain dropped the river grew mean and the channel took willows on the wing no it cared not for the place of a thing nothing is fixed and it’s all to the wind but there’s a crossing there’s a border ahead we’ll ride boats and i’ll talk you to death and if the clouds keep on chucking it down well the water rises and i’ll shut my mouth did you talk to the goats and to the sheep did we walk out for an hour to the sea and do you find me at times in your room where i dream of your fine thighs in bloom did you catch me humming these notes did you say there is a man i could know well you grabbed me and we rode along and we wrote down the words for this song ride away from the winter cold turn over hard ground run through the summer fields turn your back on the crown
the moment i wake up the shadows they take up the morning light fights but it won’t beat the dark and the winter wind blows and the windows won’t close and this is only november this is just the start of it all so you wrote about me coming and i spoke about runningaway to your boat where it waits in the dry dock and it’s sad to see the hull beneath where there could be waves and fishes and mystery bluey-green water hissing with bubbles the weight of the fathoms pressing down from above us and colder than death and wider than sky no place for us brother we better stay dry stick to the road beware of the moon they’ll find you in pieces if you don’t get home soon but i could live in the harbour watching the cargo dreaming up stories of sailors and stowaways stinking of gin and happy and thin and never again speak about going away just set up my chair my stash on the table my write it all down book my lies and my fables the list of lovers i never met in the daylight under dark covers it was lust at first sight stick to the road beware of the moon they’ll find you in pieces if you don’t get home soon there is a path from the cliff edge goes to the sea it runs straight down it’s quick but it’s steep and you call it a short cut but i call it a leap it will cut it short sure but it’s not for me
we are lying on stones our bellies to the sun learning how to breathe underwater do you think i am an authority on this kind of thing or do you not but do you think that i oughta there is so little left of the man that you met he’s like the flick of the match after lighting not given a glance, or half a chance to be struck again and make fire here but what there is in a shout can push the air out and i struggle for breath as if dying it is a stupid man who won’t keep calm when he can and who loses his nerve without trying count twenty in and thirty out count the breaths as they kiss on your mouth sunlight through trees train window at speed i always dream about leaving the south and in the darkest of days when i look at your face and it is wild and wet and streaming tears from your eyes heavy and wide and resting and packing and leaving it is no way to live it should not fit it should never have become a habit please let’s throw it all out with a happy shout disregard and move on and let’s have it
so they paid me off with a crooked piece of gold and now i got me this here lump in my throat yes i am down where the lucky men go i got a skinful i got you let’s hit the road well i found a square of dirt clear of leaves and weeds i got a bone in my leg will you dance with me you got smokes i got the bottle let’s make a team they got the guns but we got the numbers me and thee and when we left st francis we didn’t have to walk no we were carried by three brothers who stood tall and they were solemn they were silent but they knew it all and we were just two wounded birds sad and small and when the cuckoo got his claws into our house all the bailiffs in the world couldn't get him out he’s not to blame it’s just his way and it’s not unfair mean or strange but there was nowhere left for us to go but down and if you build it they will come i keep my good eye on the door we were the boys who had everything i was so quick to lose it all but is that ocean look how they sky is clear ahead i can see it as we’re coming round the bend yeah we'll be safe soon my fair feathered friend take a break here to draw out the end we could all use a quiet place in which to sleep and i’m a simple man no need to be smart with me there will come a time when all of this will cease to be empty beds empty chairs me and thee i think we are close enough to make the boat in time so set your troubles down and lay em next to mine breathe that sea air deep we’re doing fine we could almost believe every lie when i was young i wanted to run into the trees i sat and watched paint dry i wasted weeks now you got the smokes i got the bottle we make a team they got the guns but we got the numbers me and thee
i rode out for supplies the first afternoon that was five weeks ago i’ve still plenty of food i woke in the night having slept through the day that’s how it goes when you go away your friends came by to ask where you went i was under the table until they left most of the time i have less to say / a lot of the time i have little to say that’s how it goes when you go away your clothes on the floor where you last let them fall i lay down there where it’s comfortable i have a regular heartbeat but lately it’s strange that’s how it goes when you go away there are noises in the cottage a light in the loft i turned it on yesterday when i woke up it’s off i start to think i am not alone in this place that’s how it goes when you go away
every minute like every hour lose a little more every day i cut the corners off walking home these weeks get a little back get a little back somehow i hear the good boys are back on the town i know that shore leave is hard to earn they try to fit it all into two days and then sleep it off somehow sleep it off somehow i think the men are all out to get me i know they wont leave a stone unturned i always got one eye on the glasshouse keep away somehow keep away somehow and when the day is done all the corporals sing a long song and when their song is sung well the train is late and it will not wait for no man’s son i count the friends that are leaving early i know we all got a bone to pick i never felt so let down and stood up walk it off somehow walk it off somehow i know the women wont work for nothing i heard they all got it in for me i guess i’ve never been what you’d call honest fob it off somehow fob it off somehow and when the day is done all the corporals sing a long song and when their song is sung well the train is late and it will not wait for no man’s son i wake at four i had a shift at three no one even tried to get me up they speak about me like i’m already awol shadow of a man just a shadow of a man i am
well you can fight all you like you won’t keep her afloat she will buckle, she will turn, she will sink like a stone and we both watch her go, no recovery here the thing about the night is we all disappear cause you can look for an answer you can measure the rules the how and the why well what else should we do i tooka long hard look at the ocean today and without any emotion i am carried away to where the lake meets the sea and the water turns thick to where we stopped for supplies but there was nothing to drink and you had questions i didn’t answer about the plans we could make and when the rescue would happen that would come and save the day but have we ever been this hungry have we ever been so low so thirsty we’ll pour salt water down throats well i swallow words, breathe the night, someone rings the bell they call the flock in from the fields and send them all down to hell and later i pick up my feet and i drag myself away i’m not a natural born swimmer but i float just the same and what i know about the sea i can say in a song what i tell of the ocean is only so long like if you scoop a cup out then the whole level goes down i saw half a man washed up like a stuffed leather bag i saw a piece of our boat that i could reach on the bed but it’s twenty fathoms down and no way up from there now the morning comes glowing all wet and alive and the sails are showing so distant and fine and the diamond of their canvas cuts holes in the blue and tiny triangles of light push themselves brightly through

EP

Released February 2016 / CD-r & digital / no catalogue number

i believe there is a witch in the house she’s married to your brother and she will turn him out she don’t appear with no black cat she don’t cook up a spell but she cusses and curses us all down to hell we’re all going to hell now i know i’m scared but they are still after me jonathan and simon and the whole company they send letters, they send thick envelopes stuffed to the gills with threats on my throat and they demanded that i come down and fight well id rather give my right arm to run and hide its better the devil i don’t know another land but this here is the one that breaks a much better man at least a better man than me and with the black hills above and the new town below five miles down the lane we spilled our own blood and we swallowed our tongues and we spoke not of women no we only feared witches i fell on my flat feet, the clouds came undone we lost a high mile of good ground to the flood we lost the red barn, the black barn the tree but your father lost a daughter when you married me i slept in the cottage i slung the paintings on the fire we still got the sky i cried we still got the sky yeah i got more than a little out of shape and you can’t make a man from sand and clay anymore and with the black hills above and the new town below five miles down the lane we spilled our own blood and we swallowed our tongues and we spoke not of women no we only feared witches that winter went slow we had nowhere to go the roof fell in with the weight of the snow the end came fast we never stood a chance you look for a way out and then there you are
i dreamed we were out in the meadow we were down by the brook we were deep in the bush we were lost and how these mornings start suddenly out of the dark and from there we just run to keep up and they’ve given us two weeks to get back at them well we’ve the money it’s not really about that there’s so much at stake these desperate days and we’ve stolen more than we could pay back and this is not a new year and that was not a merry christmas and this is not a clean slate, there’s no page to turn over it is a day away and done and gone done and gone and there’s no shame in a song they said the point about moving is getting somewhere but the destination has not made itself known and maybe we’ve nowhere to settle down but i need a chair you need a bed we got a home and you will ask where i come from and i will say i don’t know and you will ask well where was i born and i am thinking about england and ireland and wales and sweetpea and kaypher and them all and this is not a new year and that was not a merry christmas and this is not a clean slate, there’s no page to turn over it is a day away and done and gone done and gone and there’s no shame in a song

‘The North EP’

we got the orders move the line seventeen miles north but i cannot see the night lights so once again down to the beach and once again we walk the sands until we lose track of the way home well you got yours and i got mine but we know not where they are and we do not try to find them a black sheep an only child a thinker and a crook but every story needs a villain and every rope needs a throat we were warned watch where we walk and we were told about the tide there were beacons on the beach but up here the world is flat and it plays tricks on the mind and we were looking to get lost and in the north that’s what we got it’s only loud if it makes you deaf it only hurts when i laugh it only cries when it’s hungry it only sleeps when you’re awake it only rattles when it shakes it’s only perfect when it’s broken cause that when the pieces fit she said if you want a quiet life go find another wife go looking in the shallows there’s no place like the north to look down upon the south and if you’re wanting to get lost well up here that’s what we got we weren’t prepared for all the heat we were dressed for a storm it never came we just got naked across the dunes with burning feet shoulders thighs and all umbrella brought forgotten wasted we were parched high and dry this dream is not a lie it’s something from the night a story that we’re writing and it’s easy with a smile to find a place to hide and if you’re looking to get lost in the north that’s what we got
well there is a world outside that i never care to see again cause i went there once and that was one time too many and you can read me stories and how good it is to talk and you can show me photographs of all the places we could walk but it’s never gonna happen and from my chair right there i can see the garden trees the blackbird rustling through the ivy leaves and somedays we find him sitting on the kitchen table and he flies out in a panic and i would follow if i were able but it’s never gonna happen so take my skis when you leave and will you throw them into the sea give my best to fred when you meet him in the street there are trains to be late and kind people i have yet to upset and there’s a wide world of hate just waiting for a crack at my head but it’s never gonna happen
well i could not pack my bags as fast as you wanted and i did not burn all my books upon your stove but as sure as the night is mine i will return some other time with a rucksack full of tools to make it right it is thirty below tonight and the camp is quiet and all the dogs are silent in their sleep no storm is getting near but the wind and the frost cut clear and i will not last another night outside so with the blade i slice a length of tent fast open and with soft steps i creep like a creep inside and i see well enough to stitch so i sew it so it sticks and i’m filling my bottle up when they rush in they say get out of here and with a leap i throw my clothes on they say get out of here for we know not who you are but i say we been three weeks on the trail and before that a month in jail it seems you cretins are quick to forget when times are hard so good people if you are listening keep your shirts on and do not try to understand what you can not know for someday and it won’t be long we’ll be singing a different song about the year the winter left without taking the snow

Album

Released May 2016 / CD-r & digital / WR064

2015

‘The Good Men’

Album

Released April 2015 / CD-r & digital / WR060

well we did what we could to save matthew but robert we lost and i do what i can but these days i don’t do a lot when i walk out at night the cold the cold hits my throat and you ask where i go to well i don’t know i don’t know i don’t
we were all born in a barn we left the door to our hearts wide open and some were built to do harm to take and to scrape and leave broken and while the rest of us slept and would wake still tired and uncertain there were voices downstairs that barked out words hard and hurtful it wasn’t always like this and the change when it came was devastating the lungs abandoned air sucked out suffocating here come the dark days put the clocks back and get ready here comes the slate grey the coal black the blues get ready and we try to be good men each day but good men wouldn’t do things this way there is a straight path i think we could take but good men won’t leave here today and some grow to walk tall to lead and be seen and to follow while others will steal and get stuck in and core and leave hollow now there is no way to turn back the lane it is narrow and runs downhill and when were gone we are gone and nowhere and everywhere landfill and we try to be good men each day but good men wouldn`t do things this way there is a straight path i think we could take yeah but good men won’t leave here today i know the game is the same no matter how we play and we lie and we cheat and we lose either way so we keep our chins up and we sing when we pray and good men sure won’t be leaving today now you people pick up pitchforks there’s a chance to shake them coming on get a little unruly and act like you know right from wrong all these songs i have made feel like scratches counting days on the walls of my cell yeah this has gone on long enough and it’s true i have not done well still we try to be good men each day but good men wouldn’t do things this way and there is a straight path i think we could take yeah but good men won’t leave here today but if you ever get lost and you ever want found send word to me and i’ll follow you down there’s no room at the top we are all here below but a home is a home is a home is a home is a home is a home
well she told me to come down right away so boys i did run i left the house before any light of day and the town before noon and i only slowed when the wheels fell off and the driver took sick and we lost an hour then but it felt like a week so anyway out from the highlands and down to the swamp where everything’s overflowing and the earth is a bog and the smell of the soil is rich with dark whiskey and it’s young and full of cum and it’s fine and it’s free and she said don’t make promises don’t make any plans don’t buy anything you can’t hold in your hands keep one eye open when you’re holding the gun don’t say no when it’s yes that you want so we pile up the firewood and we wait for the cold we save every penny and then wait to grow old but the big bad wolf still knows exactly where i live and he’s huffing and he’s puffing and he will blow the house in and he tells me don’t make promises don’t make any plans don’t buy anything you can’t hold in your hands and keep one eye open when you’re holding the gun and don’t say no when it’s yes that you want and i was found but now i’m lost this didn’t change anything i sang it all out and then i let it ring but i can’t recapture youth by laying down with her and that’s not something i knew no that i had to learn and it goes don’t make promises don’t make any plans don’t buy anything you can’t hold in your hands and keep one eye open when you’re holding the gun and don’t say no when it’s yes that you want
we were well away we fell away now don’t look down all the days we said were far ahead well here they come now and at the north coast i miss you most now i’m rolling south wash the scent off my breath gone half the way down all these trips i do no parachute the carelessness when i try to be fine to thee it’s oh such a mess but did you hear the fighting cause all along the line there are torches we got to put the fires out keep the flames from the horses and i have swung beneath high beams of oak trees and spruce in the miles wide countryside so far from you but oh my lady dont blame me for this sudden storm for i promise thee honestly i do you no wrong but did you hear the fighting all along the line there are torches we got to put the fires out now and keep the flames from the horses and when morning comes in winter sun please take my hand kiss my fingers clean and i’ll vow to be a simpler man
i didn’t see the plane when it hit the lake i only felt the waves that it made and with the line drawing near it’s high time to get out of here to somewhere dry and somewhere safe i haven’t written home in a month i guess by now you think i’m done but ever since i’ve been away it get’s harder every day to find the words to tell enough now your brother says he’s in need of help and your mother wants it all for herself well your kindness flows on out but there’s only so much to go about and we need a little for ourselves now all the men are deaf and all the women dumb and all the boys are making stories up they say the captain fell in love with a lady like a dove and the girls all know how that one goes and i was in the north before the fall i left before the snow and all and up there the ground is tough and they bury them standing up so the heads are showing when it thaws
on the faraway field where we fell and were healed by the light of the sun as it rose over the hills when the day was new and a chance to lose the dead skin and it was thick on my lips my fingers my hips and at the top of my legs where two rarely meet in the words we often heard whispered or purred before us well i remember a week where i forgot myself in hospital beds and the attics of girls confused in amsterdam laughing and lost who knows where in a dozen dutch towns i fumbled about i rode a tram all morning on the promise of a pout and yet the bells on the tower were counting the hours before us and when i left they forgot me right away but i think of them still some days all this from when i was first here before you and yours my dear she had tattoos of plants and tattoos of poems all down her arms the ink overflowing she gave me a choice it was ride or stay behind i didn’t answer and all the night i was dragged i was drugged i was led she was a giant it’s true and she left me for dead and when i swam in her bath i found fresh bruises scars everywhere and when i left she forgot me right away but i think of her still some days all this from when i was first here before you and yours my dear i needed somewhere to stay and he offered me a place but i waited for an hour outside in the rain he didn’t give any reason except to say that he was always late and i had brought us some food it was the least i could do but he asked me to eat it alone in my room said it would stink out the house and he that always went out to eat so he did and when i left he forgot me right away but i think of him still some days and all this from when i was first here before you and yours my dear i hoped we were finished she said we were through i thought i was safe but there was more to lose was a room was a bed there was the book of the dead i wouldn’t call it home she put the pieces in place then threw a match to the lot i got out through her window and on to rooftops the past got burned and all that i learned was before us and when i left she forgot me right away but i think of her still some days all this from when i was first here before you and yours my dear many wheels turned all away from her i dreamed of hollow tipped bullets the briar the burr the train tracks shone i rode happily along and away you see i’m easily led by the breeze of a leg and i’m less than honest with the lies that i’ve said and maybe this too doesn’t help what’s true before us when i left they forgot me right away but i think of them still some days all this from when i was first here before you and yours my dear
now all the boys are deep deep down and all the guns are gone to ground when you’re halfway out you’re halfway home but it feels to me you’re half below i hope you make it you wrote to tell me don’t come back i don’t know what to do about that i wish that we could talk as friends maybe save the little left but i hope you make it they locked the gates the powers off spring is coming winter’s done if you could you would i know that much i send you songs and i wish you luck and i hope you make it
maybe these days are the last of days maybe it’s time to turn in without all the drama the trouble the strife before the black hole does its thing they took one from everyone and two from most they took three when they had time to look they turned this town into nowt did they leave anything something worth holding on to well hold on too we got no time to lose have to eat on the hoof and catch forty winks when we can across the blue fields with fire and steel we are stumbling grumbling men turn your back to the sun and come see what they done there is a low slow fear on the rise and you told me take care but see what’s under there where the wound stays wet and wide but we cant hide inside i don’t know what to say can you make it ok do you want me to slow down and help we had a well full of tears between us dear and more than enough for ourselves so take cover in the bed and i’ll meet you there i can find my way home in the dark and this year has begun with a cough in the lung and a tender troubled old heart well at least it’s a start we’re not cut from fine cloth we are old winter socks and we dont match or fit or stay up and we sling back cheap wine as we float down the rhine in this stolen struggling tug and the river grows feet and coughs up from the deep a school of mackerel and cod and salt swimming fish flap about on the bridge while the water splashes noisily home yeah let’s go noisily home

2014

‘Kitchen’

Album

Released May 2014 / CD-r & digital / WR055

we found a house with mortar walls a good for nothing roof that was soon to fall and all the while we were living there the landlord told tall tales to scare like he said that the bed where i slept the stain thereon is where his wife had bled years ago when his twins were born they came into the world covered over with thorns and how how they snagged and drew and bled a bloody puddle on the bed in my room he said well there were three of us young and soft happy in the west trying to find a job we painted we were making work it hung upon the mortar walls and covered the dirt while he said that the twin boys born were kept upon the ward for a year or more and how how the doctors came and never saw before and never saw again he said well we were drunk and chucked bottles about we shared two women and i don’t know how but by the bath there was bombay gin we drank ourselves silly then we all climbed in while he said i was the best he knew i never let him down and always paid when due and he said that he was somehow proud well i took him for a liar then i robbed his house and i left
well i was kept out of doors i was locked out for my health you claimed it was for the best said you were only trying to help but i am not so sure that being hungry and poor is what anybody needs and i don’t see the use of scraps of shoes on my feet oh i thought we were friends you and i and it’s sad to see how i’m sleeping in your kitchen like a fool that just won’t leave and there are things that i’ve done that i wish that i could somehow change i make a long long list and i’ll start at the end of the day and the teachers they are running away and the lesson hasn’t ended ok cause we’ve lost more than we’ve been told and the school is a shell and it’s old and the books are stuffed with leaves and the stories are born on their knees and the supplies won’t last til the spring and here’s the last of the good stuff they’ll bring we gotta use it or lose it and try and make something new i got a bucket full of clay and an oven and the books for fuel they say that mother knows best but there’s little that’s left of her son between the streets of berlin and the avenue back in london and the teachers they are running away and the lesson hasn’t ended ok cause we’ve lost more than we’ve been told and the school is a shell and it’s old and the books are stuffed with leaves and the stories are born on their knees and the supplies won’t last til the spring and here’s the last of the good stuff they’ll bring well my needle sticks and it misses and the moment is lost and how we throw it all away in the belief that another will come well sooner than later the pieces just don’t grow back and we leave with less than we like and that is that
when the cold comes where you gonna wanna run to do you think that we got it any better than you do it’s winter everywhere and we all breathe the same air but come on anyway they said it was bad i didn’t know there was any good left could you help me out or do you know who’s in charge here the rules seem to have changed and the maps don’t show the way and this feels fucking far from home the stars look dim cause there’s smoke in everyone’s eyes what we did gonna take a lot to put it all right and one seems to know how the story goes or how the whole thing ends
i never thought that this ship would sink but here we are at the bottom of the sea and there’s a way to get home from here but where then is rarely that clear she cut your sails to fit her bed tied me to it and then set me adrift at high tide the things the moon does the planets the heavens above we’re not built for these things this place we’re not built for these things these days and we’re not built for this a mile away i remember her name another step and i’ve forgotten her face and by the time the snow has all gone and you and i and colours and songs i cannot run like a dream that i do i cannot fly or silently move but when i think of swimming to france it’s like a dip like a splash in the bath we’re not built for these things this place we’re not built for these things these days and we’re not built for this how my house still stands i don’t know if it stands still well i just don’t know could you check in on the dogs for me if they’re ok if they need anything well we can’t take it with us when we go and i suppose that’s the waste we all know there is a kind way to say goodbye no one told me i haven’t got it quite right we’re not built for these things this place we’re not built for these things these days and we’re not built for this
all the stories you told don’t follow me home in the dark there is more to be said but there are things better left in the bar and i stain shirts with blood i cake shoes with mud on the way but you strip it all off and everything drops in the rain do you think we can try to maybe stay dry for the night keep off the tap and wear it like that for a while it would be something new to be true to you but i won’t yes all the things i could do they are nothing next to all i don’t and this presses on me and it presses on you and between the sheets two of us meet tight and blue so the morning came i got to run for the train back home i have your scent on my fingers my skin beneath my tongue and in leipzig’s glorious bahnhof i wander around i look up to its heavens its rafters for answers not found and this presses on me and it presses on you and between the sheets the two of us meet tight and blue but i roll on the same a little changed still lost with the memory of you noisily coming undone yes the stories you told don’t follow me home in the dark and there’s a lot to be said for leaving the dead where they are and this presses on me and it presses on you and between the sheets the two of us meet tight and blue
all the letters get lost and the words aren’t heard and they say there’s a chance we’ll have rain by the third but the clouds don’t stall and the water hasn’t fallen for months now four months now what choice do we have but to do what we can the colour runs out and the grass turns to sand under our feet under our feet well you gave me so much but it’s barely enough and a man cannot live on kindness and love the blood grows thin and yet the heart needs something to pump around to pump around here and i was never that good at playing that good and the dust it blows in it creeps into our room it creeps into our room while we sleep when you shout from the bed i walk away from the bed and when we drink it seems there’s always trouble ahead but we should have a little fun amongst the grief and the worry that we carry it’s so heavy you are here with me dear i can’t say it enough you got my back and my belly and my head and my love i don’t say it enough
tommy didn’t seem to care he never once showed that he missed her he just threw her body down the stairs and said the sticks will always land where they fall he said the thing about the breaking up is the thing about the getting together you always know the way it will end everyone winds up alone i didn’t try to be a better man i never ever said i was holy i couldn’t make a master plan just a list of what i couldn’t get done it started when i left ireland and it was over by the time i went back there and in between there was a wife in the south that i never carried into our house she said the thing about the breaking up is the thing about the getting together you always know the way it will end everyone winds up alone and all the time we were on the beach the rain chucked it down on the highlands now the fields are mud under feet and everything ends at the sea everything ends at the credits everything ends at the bell everyone winds up on alone and all is right in the world
well let’s fill up the bottle one more time and then you can help me drink cause good lord your lips they fit me well when we roll and we stick and we sip and you’re unbuttoned when you arrive and out of breath and you turn me right around and you say come on and be a gentleman well i don’t know how anymore so take the feathers from your pillow and stoke up the fire and let’s heat up this house lay your broken hand down upon my tired thighs and we’ll heal as best as we can but if you go i will follow and i’ll leave again cause each of us has a home you couldn’t say we are together right now but we don’t do this alone no we don’t and every which way you have walked home before can you try and forget them all cause i need you totally lost tomorrow and there just where i’ll fall there’s no cavalry coming no help on it’s way and i don’t think there ever was we were foolish and hit the cold ground running and now all our tracks are lost they’re all lost

2013

‘When the Animals Follow The Gunshots’

one day we were making plans and in the morning he was gone said go bury my best tools beneath the lawn cause i’ve given my weak arms and i’ve given my legs and after it all the fields are still flooded but the fences are left so i make with the sowing and i make with the hay i make with the hoeing sunny bank in the mud through the rain and trouble gonna come when i wanna run this place on my own yeah we all got trouble everyone got a little trouble i’m not alone i couldn’t be honest anymore and i couldn’t be true and when i take a hard look at our history here neither could you don’t know what’s gonna grow don’t know what i’ll make but you put a bad seed into the good earth it’s gonna take take take go tell it on the mountain go tell it in the town polly the widow been out here cooking and putting stuff in the ground there’s red smoke from her chimney and there’s black dirt round her door and i’ve ten to your five no word of a lie we won’t see her no more
fee and i left the rest in their beds and we went now i couldn’t be further away further away from the town and my intentions are good but they’re nothing without some strength i can build a fair fire but the rain always snuffs that thing out but there is no way to cry but the way that we cry and there’s no way to laugh than the way that we laugh there’s no way to walk but the way that we walk but there’s no way to leave cause there’s nowhere to go there’s nowhere to go anymore god they locked all your churches they nailed all these old doors shut could you speak to them please we all need shelter sometimes meanwhile i write to my wife lying about the things that i’ve done but you know i’d confess it to you if i could only get inside i thought i was lost but i was never more found i thought i was high but the fall brought me down i thought i was numb but sensation remains i thought we were done but the pain’s still the same no the pain hasn’t changed at all
how the great clouds are growing and the grey skies are snowing and the pieces are thick soft knuckle bones on a ridge near the west gate with a bag full of wet slate and a hole in my belly dear leise a hole i left a pony with michael and a score with the foreman lost a ton from what the dock hands dropped sold or stole i have my eye on the prize i keep your hips in my mind not this hole in my belly dear leise this hole and as the seventh wave lands there go our plans there go our sand castles down there are too many in the bed and the runt is half dead and we all roll over and into the ground when we land please let’s stay awhile take my hand and sit quiet there’s no fixing the thing but at least it runs slow i have tried plugging it with beeswax wet clay and tree sap but this hole in my belly dear leise this hole i cannot get peace and you know i only sleep with the door closed i cannot settle my stomach or soften my dry throat but i imagine a better time healthy and kind with no hole in my belly dear leise no hole
it is not in what’s missing and it is not in what’s lost it is more in what’s left and what i’ve now got i was out from the firelight and past the dry dock far away from the town where it all went down to rot i was promised a job i was promised a room i didn’t see anything they gave both to you now i know the way but i don’t see the signs to the line she winds round the black forest pines it goes i can hunt high and low through rain sleet and snow i can measure nautical miles from the lights in the sky i can fathom and tow but i do not know the line she winds around the black forest pines it goes all the things i desire through electrical wire and the pieces of cloth the swallow the cough the song thrush the heave the dream her beak the tramping through coal dust and bellowing from a cold lung the 1 2 3 2 2 3 hardly enough how to get there from here when the where isn’t clear you are here in my throat but it’s only to choke we have lost you see yeah you see you see it goes the line she winds around the black forest pines
when the animals follow the gunshots when the deer all run to the sound when the birds flock close to the fire then it’s time to run to the town and when the leaves pick themselves up from the cold ground and when the springwater doesn’t come clear when we’re done being sentimental then it’s high time to get out of here but could we sit together on the white train and could you share with me the reasons you left he is a friend and much more for you i know and i don’t get the way that it went and in the station point me to the best bar and tell where you can be found pick up your kindling and take a tram home and kiss him and wrap arms around

‘We Love To Get Lost And We Love To Get Found’

EP

Released December 2013 / CD-r & digital / WR052

EP

Released September 2013 / CD-r & digital / WR049

are we really stuck without power three days from the town and are the trails and the paths all lost i cannot find a way out anything of a payout and the good guys are certainly gone we are caught upside down again right side out again how do you people get on cause sometimes the curse is lost in the words and we don’t need a reason to lie to fight deserter deserter i know it hurts stop the willow bends down where the dead do lie with their pockets all full of rocks deserter deserter i know it hurts stop are we so far from grace we do this without faith and the basic idea is all wrong when i fall on my face i don’t lose anything and it helps to know which way is up so set em up joe and dig me a hole for to climb triumphantly from i don’t need a bed and i don’t need a chair i need a table to lay stiff upon i need you at my head and all the rest someplace else just crying and a-carrying on deserter deserter i know it hurts stop the willow bends down where the dead do lie with their pockets all stuffed with rocks deserter deserter i know it hurts stop are we so far from grace we do this without faith and the basic idea is all wrong sometimes i think i’ve arrived but i haven’t left yet i never got out of the dark and i’ve a rope round my waist and a hand on the door i make pigeon steps through the park so slowly does it carefully does it boys i know i’ve been here before it wasn’t any kinder back then it was always a mess and will be for evermore good god deserter deserter i know it hurts stop the willow bends down where the dead do lie with their pockets all stuffed with rocks deserter deserter i know it hurts stop are we so far from grace we do this without faith and the basic idea is all wrong
go slow billy boy i haven’t my legs i’m tired from the swimming and i can’t steer my head your wife will wait for as long as it takes so go slow billy boy go slow if i was a kind man i would have stayed at home i would have kept the door shut i would have hung up my coat but out in the country and out in the town well i love to get lost and i love to get found we can blame it on the weather we can blame it on the snow we can say it was the black ice that made us go slow we can lie til the cows come a-stumbling home but it is my fault alone and alone so i mix sand with water and in go the feet arms tied down and shackled to knees go turn up the radio go turn up the song come and find me when all this is done the hills will be tall whenever we arrive and the grey lake deep and wet and wide so don’t give up the ghost don’t you give up and croak keep it up above and on top i don’t know the truth and i don’t trust my friends and i’m not looking up as all this ends not much to save there is not much to save something to burn and something to bake if you meet mrs james at the general store tell her good day but tell nothing more don’t say that i miss her and wish she were mine don’t tell her it all billy boy
i was outside when the rain stopped and the night brightened up in the blue of the morning and the creep of the sun the apple trees in the garden they were drenched and they shone the wet grass the autumn leaves sodden and soft i’d been tasked with supplies i’d been asked to buy bread i’d been sent to find sugar i got sea salt instead cause i remember the atlantic and the low winter tide i don’t believe that there’s anything that we believe we should hide so low so slow so low here joe so low so slow so low here joe i carry a compass i don’t have a map but with all of the spinning i still know the way back i had a thought before waking i had a dream before this im so sorry for what happened gonna try to fix it so low so slow so low here joe so low so slow so low here joe i’ve been gone for 3 weeks but it feels like a year i’m telling you that i miss you but i wouldn’t wish you were here
if you do it enough the blood and the spit turn to wine if you do it enough all the things you need you’re gonna find now you work for your bed you work for your time and i know that the way that we wake is the way that the whole world goes i don’t talk so smart and i don’t dance as well as before i don’t collect friends and i always have an eye on the door i stay awake most nights until i know that the house is asleep then i can get some work done and move stuff around in peace i start with the chairs and i stack em and sling em downstairs i put a table in the cellar and start with the saw under there have to count to three hundred for the dust to get some rest then it all comes back up and out comes the paper and pen i scribble about brambles i write about nettle leaves got a belly full of briars and eyes too lazy to read i need me some creepers some ivy some old bind wood something that clings on and digs beneath the bricks and the good it is only a little lake only a shallow pond come on follow me walk away waterside only a little lake only a shallow pond come on and follow me walk away waterside all of the sunken and all of the drowned all of the ones with the lungs water damaged all of the suddenly lost to the ground scratching for someone to drag down so here we are again here we all are now i wrote and i wrote and then i spoke and then i started to shout you got to be cruel to be kind and so fuck it lets open the gates see what the worst of it is and the worst of it is and the worst of it is
i believe that you are just as they say that you are i believe you are all and much more i can honestly think now of nothing else and when it’s good it is like nothing before i couldn’t get straight or sober in time but i want to meet you when i can will you wait for me a little while you take a break for to give me a chance to come back the carousel spins and we’re both hanging on although i’m sick and feel i need to get off but i know that from the moment my feet touch the floor i’ll wish that it never stopped all the coppers the pennies the pieces of tin the papers and the promises made if i lose everything then that’s where i am and it is simple and there’s nothing more to break prayer bells ring and chime sing and swing and i write with the windows locked tight i should be away but still somehow i stay and the night breaks it’s peace with the light but i believe there’s a way without running away and i believe there’s a home we can make i don’t know with what or where we will start but it sounds like i’ve found me some faith

‘January’

EP

Released February 2013 / CD-r & digital / WR047

so they say so they say i make my bed where others lay well they lied well they lied i make my bed where others died i couldnt be i couldnt be i couldn’t be where people were so i left so i went i took a boat to float to her she never asked she never asked she didnt make demands on me she opened up she opened up she opened up both arms for me with calico and indigo and quilted sheets on every bed from every room another view across the blue and dewey heather the kisses came and left like breaths the nights too short the days too bright too much for any simple heart too much for hers too much for mine so holy words rained down on us but they ran right off our backs like blood and in the end what is left just the chance to cut and run so it goes so it goes ive never known just one good year i only know i only know every road that brought me here and we are cruel we are cold we are without and we are small we pack the kindness in a box and bury it or just burn it all oh come on give a little oh come on give a lot i cannot be complete and careless i cannot be what i have not but if theres a way to walk the ocean if theres a way to climb the sea if theres a tunnel to the clouds that chuck that hail down on me if theres a way to burn water if theres a way to drown a stone there is no way there never was it never lived leave well alone so they say so they say i make my bed where others lay well they lied well they lied i make my bed where others diedare we really stuck without power three days from the town and are the trails and the paths all lost i cannot find a way out anything of a payout and the good guys are certainly gone we are caught upside down again right side out again how do you people get on cause sometimes the curse is lost in the words and we don’t need a reason to lie to fight deserter deserter i know it hurts stop the willow bends down where the dead do lie with their pockets all full of rocks deserter deserter i know it hurts stop are we so far from grace we do this without faith and the basic idea is all wrong when i fall on my face i don’t lose anything and it helps to know which way is up so set em up joe and dig me a hole for to climb triumphantly from i don’t need a bed and i don’t need a chair i need a table to lay stiff upon i need you at my head and all the rest someplace else just crying and a-carrying on deserter deserter i know it hurts stop the willow bends down where the dead do lie with their pockets all stuffed with rocks deserter deserter i know it hurts stop are we so far from grace we do this without faith and the basic idea is all wrong sometimes i think i’ve arrived but i haven’t left yet i never got out of the dark and i’ve a rope round my waist and a hand on the door i make pigeon steps through the park so slowly does it carefully does it boys i know i’ve been here before it wasn’t any kinder back then it was always a mess and will be for evermore good god deserter deserter i know it hurts stop the willow bends down where the dead do lie with their pockets all stuffed with rocks deserter deserter i know it hurts stop are we so far from grace we do this without faith and the basic idea is all wrong
so i could take all the tiles from the roof of your house and i could tear all the wallpaper down i could swallow the paint drink it straight from the tins and cough it up all over your town and i could steal your sheets from your bed and stitch them into a sail and use the doors to make me a boat its not the best of ideas but bare with me here and we’ll see where this thinking goes for if ever there is a way i will find some way yes see me make a fine mess from the plan im not so fun to be around when i have eyes on the work i am a problematic troublesome man i may be forced to drink down turpentine i may be led to be fed hot coals i may be shoved from the severn of fall from the forth but i will never pull you below
all these lies that i find they dont mean much without some truth you see i left without word just a mouth full of dirt from the good ground there is nothing in a man nothing in a plan but the promise the promise of a shot boys only a shot in the dark they all said it was me it was not it was he i cant prove it we have been through enough and you know im not built for that stuff ask the kids to come down and well tell it all now it really is how their mother decides she needs other things in her life right now when the blood runs quick weve only one chance to get it wrong and i hate long goodbyes would rather sneak off in the night every time and when i write it all down its barely a page of scribbles barely a page hardly worth it at all
you were right no surprise we didn’t need to dress up by the book we were true i didn’t think we could you made good i made songs we passed time in this way but silly boys and their toys have to fuck things up when i wake all i say is that you shouldn’t have let me you know the man that i am you know how things go and now im walking all the way back to trouble will take a month its far enough for me to get back home its not a lie all the time that we spent together its not gone its not lost its just changed its shape we don’t stop we move on im walking back to trouble but its tough and its hard and such a dear sad shame
when i was away they closed down the post the telegram the wire when i was away all the money changed colour i’ve no idea what its worth when i was away my friends delivered letters and asked where i was when i was away when i was with you when i was away i drank irish whiskey i stole from your father when i was away i wandered around not looking for work when i was away the trains only stopped when they ran out of diesel when i was away when i was with you when i was away my friends got over me and married each other when i was away they say they still miss me i only think of them now when i was away i shaved my face so no one would notice when i was away when i was with you when i was away my mother sold the farm and left the green country when i was away my brother had a son and he’s walking by now when i was away the church where he was christened collapsed in the winter when i was away when i was with you when i was away they told us to stay inside but i didn’t hear them when i was away we were warned of the water but i didn’t know when i was away my wife got sick and she’s growing weaker when i was away when i was with you

2012

‘Good And Gone’

Album

Released August 2012 / CD-r & digital / WR043

well here’s how the whole thing begins on the grey line joe and i waiting to pass we’ve got all we can carry and all we can find but the guard is making it hard we both keep quiet study our feet ticket stubs crumbs of bread litter the cobbles litter the streets and from here only bad roads ahead bad roads ahead bad roads ahead from here only bad roads ahead sir your map is not true no use no good we would do so much better without id plot a course from the stars if only i could and fix a point where the sun goes down you could measure it in yards or measure it in miles count it out by the hairs on your head put one to the next and make a thin line it would tell only bad roads ahead bad roads ahead bad roads ahead it would tell only bad roads ahead well im trying my love believe me im trying but its hard and i know i am three days late but this land is for horses it was not built for cars and we are both in a hell of a state but if you can wait for me i will try to be deserving of your time i have been far less and worse and yes it was me who chose to drive bad roads ahead bad roads ahead it was me who chose to driveso they say so they say i make my bed where others lay well they lied well they lied i make my bed where others died i couldnt be i couldnt be i couldn’t be where people were so i left so i went i took a boat to float to her she never asked she never asked she didnt make demands on me she opened up she opened up she opened up both arms for me with calico and indigo and quilted sheets on every bed from every room another view across the blue and dewey heather the kisses came and left like breaths the nights too short the days too bright too much for any simple heart too much for hers too much for mine so holy words rained down on us but they ran right off our backs like blood and in the end what is left just the chance to cut and run so it goes so it goes ive never known just one good year i only know i only know every road that brought me here and we are cruel we are cold we are without and we are small we pack the kindness in a box and bury it or just burn it all oh come on give a little oh come on give a lot i cannot be complete and careless i cannot be what i have not but if theres a way to walk the ocean if theres a way to climb the sea if theres a tunnel to the clouds that chuck that hail down on me if theres a way to burn water if theres a way to drown a stone there is no way there never was it never lived leave well alone so they say so they say i make my bed where others lay well they lied well they lied i make my bed where others diedare we really stuck without power three days from the town and are the trails and the paths all lost i cannot find a way out anything of a payout and the good guys are certainly gone we are caught upside down again right side out again how do you people get on cause sometimes the curse is lost in the words and we don’t need a reason to lie to fight deserter deserter i know it hurts stop the willow bends down where the dead do lie with their pockets all full of rocks deserter deserter i know it hurts stop are we so far from grace we do this without faith and the basic idea is all wrong when i fall on my face i don’t lose anything and it helps to know which way is up so set em up joe and dig me a hole for to climb triumphantly from i don’t need a bed and i don’t need a chair i need a table to lay stiff upon i need you at my head and all the rest someplace else just crying and a-carrying on deserter deserter i know it hurts stop the willow bends down where the dead do lie with their pockets all stuffed with rocks deserter deserter i know it hurts stop are we so far from grace we do this without faith and the basic idea is all wrong sometimes i think i’ve arrived but i haven’t left yet i never got out of the dark and i’ve a rope round my waist and a hand on the door i make pigeon steps through the park so slowly does it carefully does it boys i know i’ve been here before it wasn’t any kinder back then it was always a mess and will be for evermore good god deserter deserter i know it hurts stop the willow bends down where the dead do lie with their pockets all stuffed with rocks deserter deserter i know it hurts stop are we so far from grace we do this without faith and the basic idea is all wrong
oh i am not what you came for i am only whats left here i am not what you came for im only what you find here you see as soon as the snow came the good boys all upped and went and they said hold the fort son and i said well ill do my best see i was married to a brave one who stood by her stupid one who stood by when she could have been dancing away yeah i was married to a strange one who stood by me though i know not why they said hold the fort son and i said well i can but try so i left her for the winter i left her for the cold i left her for the winter the wind and the snow and the smoke and the coal and the greed the need to be alone but when they said hold the fort son i never thought id make it my home now there are houses deserted thrown and abandoned pieces of people now scattered and random but every place needs a caretaker someone anyone with the key when they said hold the fort son i would never believe they'd leave me so i am not what you came for i am only whats left here i am not what you came for i am only what you find here and we must make what we can from what we’ve got for good or for bad tread lightly through the willows but promise me that i can come back
well you took everything you earned and spent it on dirt you put the dirt in a coat and buried them both and i was once a brighter man i made the best of what i had i took the stones that you threw and i planted them and they grew of course you know that stones will sometimes grow if they’re just left alone and water it will climb if conditions are right the corn it will sing and will tell of golden things stones will grow i said stones will grow once i made a window from a wall i made a leap from a fall i made a painting from a stain i made tobacco from pouring rain i made a little that you could use i made a lot that you wanted to lose i faked nearly everything i mean i invented many things stones will grow so i climbed out of your window and i dropped down into the boat and i fell with a splash but the tough little thing still floats i heard you shouting after me but it was only to say that i if had not have jumped you would have pushed me anyway stones will grow i know that truth ain't written down but is said and thought aloud and there is no final word there is only wind and dirt and you say you cannot believe that these things are real to me but mirrors wires tricks of the light are the mechanics designs and devices of all life stones will grow
well you can lose all you wanted to follow and burn all you wanted to keep and bleach all you wanted to swallow i would still cough it up for thee now the light hits the walls of the chapel the light hits the side of your face yes the light hits the walls of the chapel the light makes a whole other place and she unbuttoned her frock and down it did drop and she combed back her long yellow hair it is as real to me now as that day on the dock and as useless and as pointless as then penicillin shots and ether cloths and doctors that do not give up it is enough to be kind we don't need to find miracles of medicine and blood did you think things were better without it did you feel good not being ill did you not feel pain guilt or shame well you did and you do and you will i watched you draw a short breath in the cemetery there saw you swap your feet for your knees you struggled with strength but it is not your friend but i am and shall forever be
i left without taking my shoes now i wonder what im gonna do i guess i left england behind and i know i never said goodbye but now i follow you as you ride by the river in the southern sunlight and you are a new mark of whats kind and you've raised the bar so high i left without shaking his hand but i’ve only affection for the man and as tough as a story can be it is just that and now history but now i follow you as you ride by the river in the southern sunlight and you are a new mark of whats kind and you’ve raised the bar so high i left without taking my leave
we were sent out here by her mother and we were carried out here by a kept man he knew his way round a train with pride and disdain and he threw us like sacks on the tracks i said tom its no use we’ve not anything to prove and we’ve done nothing untoward you you best watch your back when yo leave us like that theres just no telling what we might do mary she left in the morning and i followed her at first light cause by the time i had the thought shed gone she was seven miles clear of the line and im a walker i am not a runner and im not what you call in good shape but i ran after her god i ran after her and i caught her by virginia lake she said oh worried boy fare thee well oh worried boy fare thee well with your hands and your feet you make good enough things but your head will undo all the work oh worried boy fare thee well i said you need a man with a plan and i am not one of them but i can find my way down from a hill and my feet they face forward the best of the times and my legs they carry me still but i am not deep of pockets or careful with knives and so i cut my hands all the time and toms a miserable leech who steals and who sneaks he wants to slice me up fast and fine she said but i fear we’ve no safety in numbers we just make a bigger target to hit but i’ve a coat full of holes i have sticks i have stones and thats more than anyone should need so what do you say lets go each our own way and meet when the winds have calmed down for there is murder in them yet and my sails aren’t set we should get to safer dry ground she said oh worried boy fare thee well oh worried boy fare thee well with your hands and your feet you make good enough things but your head will undo all the work oh worried boy fare thee well it was thursday when they found us at blacknest and it was sunday when they took us both home and they laid us together on the kitchen table and they took off our shoes and our coats and the neighbours came by to see us to see what they had for the hole two on the pine board barefoot and grey silent unwelcome and cold she said oh worried boy fare thee well oh worried boy fare thee well oh my worried boy fare thee well with your hands and your feet you make good enough things but your head will undo all the work oh worried boy fare thee well oh my worried boy fare thee well
it was just like you said it would be it was never that bad takes a whole kind of person to lose what i had but it wasn’t the leaving and it wasn’t the fight no it was all that came after and the blame is all mine so i started rearranging things to make a new place id been so long without i needed a change i painted the bedroom walls every day so the paint would never dry so the colour would never fade i dug a hole and put your willow below i planted it upside down and now the roots are like thin pointed legs standing around i took the house number down and i bolted the door and now the postman passes by and no one ever calls and i wear my clothes inside out they fit better that way and i only drink water from the obelisk lake i only send telegrams not letters anymore i scribble in shorthand i scratch and i scrawl and i blocked up the chimney and filled the house with the smoke and now i sleep in the stable with the mare and the foal and mrs james doesn’t come by anymore she just sends her son but he seems happy to see me he’s the only one and now the radio doesn’t work i never hear you are you lost are you alright or have you rearranged things too
trying to sleep with the curtains closed the morning light cant wake me up i am washing your clothes and watching the door as if any minute you’ll be home they all come they all stay they all leave us with this the evening light your golden hour when the whole place shines its best and an hour later my gloom sets in and i watch the bats circle overhead they all come they all stay they all leave us with this im mindful of who i talk to now i try not to ask for help im not alone i am not alone its just that theres no one else they all come they all stay they all leave us with thisItem description
so we two took flight we two had no idea of anything but we ran for our lives we ran for the woods the trees and the hills we got lost and we were never found there is a whole other place outside this fence outside this gate where people move on and where things change so much they stay just the same we got lost and we were never found we two no help we two no use at all for anyone we just ran for our lives we ran for the fear the guilt and the fun get gone and stay gone get gone and stay gone for heavens sake good and gone good and gone for evermore we got lost and we were never found

‘Stitch’

Compilation

Released August 2012 / CD-r & digital / WR040

i took a white train to the south and an old tram to your house and i’m not a wealthy man but i do live well and glad this way well and glad this way and when i said i really needed it i meant i really needed it but these days nothings sticks and these days nothing even seems to change so i’m leaving you that’s why i’m leaving you and i do miss the fireworks and i do miss the fun with her but a town is not a girl and this town it is not the world and the rain falls just the same the rain falls the same so i take a white train to the south and an old tram to your house and i’m home feels like i’m home

2011

‘Now Wash Your Hands’

Album

Released September 2011 / CD-r & digital / WR038

well i was walking my lover my lover back home we stopped at the old oak to pick up the bones and she said to me you dear you cannot be true you cannot be trusted and i cannot marry you but i’d sold all my fingers my thumbs and my toes and i got me a pocket of silver and gold and they unrolled my collar from around my neck and i winked with the one good eye i had left i said lover oh lover oh what do you know i’ve been ten thousand miles away from my home and i walk with you now with no ease in my legs no pleasure to be found there no spring in my step and i’d fixed up a coffin and i nailed down the lid while she hitched up her dress and i climbed underneath and i laid down there upon the good book upon the good word the good the good and the good and i was cruel when i could be and kind when i had to be taking as much as good folk would allow me but oh my oh my oh why oh why why does the blood flow so fine when i’m low on a slow train stupid with dumb pain miles from you and won’t leave you again i swear it oh i know it’s not true but what can one do with a lie but tell itItem description
he said run to the hills and i’ll meet you at castlebay jake will be there and he’ll take all your pain away if they catch us together it’s trouble for the both of us there so i ran to the hills he didn’t meet me at castlebay jake wasn’t there he didn’t take all my pain away i didn’t expect the best but i thought at least he’d be fair they have a saying in this town you only stay here for two days one to arrive and then one when you go away well i put them together turned round without saying hello
so she gave me the key the key to her house and she said i could stay there a while but i lost the way the way to her house and so i slept here outside there are some things in life we are just not meant to hold there are some things in life we are just not meant to hold and it is more than a moment and less than a minute and it’s so slight it takes no shape no effort to extinguish no form to distinguish no body no measure no weight and there are some things in life we are just not meant to hold there are some things in life we are just not meant to hold so we ran as fast as we could but we took all the wrong turns and now the road meets the sea and jericho jericho how does the wind blow and how does the wind follow thee take a stick from the tree and make something simple and true not a thing to do harm but a thing to move my heart anew but there are some things in life we are just not meant to holdItem description
when the seventh wave hit i was under prepared suddenly off balance suddenly scared and i dropped my guitar and i lost my breath but the thought of your arms pulling me from there and up up and laughing at the clumsy old man id become i was sorry and was thankful and smiling too its just water after alls said and done and my feet on these stones and my hand in your hair your pale skin exposed your fine hips laid bare in the evening right by the riverside the last of the light the day unties comes undone and unwinds night falls low and to sweet home we go you and i its not far but just enough of a ride to measure the time going fast so i counted the trams in the rain yesterday and they ran just the same as they do everyday and he said you’re a stubborn one son and you’re too much like me and i worry for you because of these things but there it is as it goes and i could do with remembering more of what he told but the best of whats left is yours and yours alone and but ill help with the load my dear it cant be all bad it cant be all wrong it cant be all sad or wed never get along and i remember you smiling i remember you well full in the southern sunshine my girl my lady my one you soften the blows and goodness knows they do fly and do hurt and i was never more careful but still the dirt under fingernails does showItem description
well i will not wash my hands of you and i will not clean my sheets of you and i will not close the books on you and i will not change the locks of you and i will not forget songs of you and i will not burn the maps to you and i will not wash the clothes of you and i will not lose the scent of you no and i will not cut my hair of you and i will not leave the bars of you and i will not ignore the letters from you and i will not change my address of you and i will not unset the traps for you and i will not sleep through days of you and i will not cease the hunt for you and i will not wake the dream of you no and i will not grow tired of you and i will not become quenched of you and i will not waste nights with you and i will not leave the side of you no
so i was under the red barn when the tree hit the black barn when the thick trunk buckled and folded it down and the splinters flew the leaves flew too the branches the bark the roots tore the ground and frightened in there i lost a lungful of air i crossed myself and i did fear the worst and i shut my eyes and i hid there inside and i thought of the ways the ways the ways they were hurt my father was swinging but the tree it was winning he was throwing the axe in vain at the thing silently complaining and rolling and swaying cursing under his breath the day his old man slipped in and my brother he was running i mean really running head down and wide eyed and not looking slow and my mother she was shouting calling after him crying my young man my young man where will you go from here oh but no one makes sense with fleeing in the head with nerves live and wild all angry and thrashing and we do what we do and this much is true the moment it’s gone it’s nothing but happened and i see this sad wreck this mess of a barn and i think of the damage i think of the harm and how does a tree fall i mean how does a tree fall it just falls it just falls give it up old man there you are
well he lost his wife and he said to me please put me on the first train home i tell ya cause i ain’t nothing without her here you see i met him inside and he was hurt and bitter set for revenge with anyone he could think of he was a near sighted, easily slighted man and how pride is a killer and by christ he missed her he told me again and again he told me again if he ever told me at all how he lost his wife and he said to me please put me on the first train home i tell ya cause i ain’t nothing without her here so the rain drops dark from the sky in sheets slabs of attack hard hitting the streets and i’m barely one man barely one man out here i see black clouds hanging down on foot wide wires thick bloody chains and they’re hooked to the sky cats and dogs falling down into the town and he lost his wife and he said to me please put me on the first train home i tell ya cause i ain’t nothing without her here
well the door shuts fast throws splintered glass at my head and outside in the street the sirens they find the dead and chemical clouds drop on the house like mud and i cough of course i mean i throw up a horse and then some there’s chaos in the streets night time noise and mess roads of crows fields full of hungry men purple water in thick pools oily on my stairs but did you ever believe i’d ever really leave you there well i took the voice from the woman i made batteries from thumbs and from toes and thats what i think of cause that’s how the bad dream goes and when i climb up the ladder the wood bends and breaks into meat and i fall on my ankles and my ankles snap off from my feet if there was once a safe passage once a clear path it is lost and if i was ever once true it was never to you i’m better gone if there was once a safe passage once a clear path it is lost if i was ever once true it was never to you i’m better gone and now the blood from my arm meets the blood from my nose on the floor but i will worry my heart i will worry my heart no more as i kiss off your gloves and i kiss your pink fingertips and your nose and your neck and your eyes and your lemon lips cause today is the day today is the day when it goes the black and the blue and the weight of clouds that have grown as i ride the train to the south i ride the tram to your house and there you are just too good to be true in white and in bloom and ajar well you can run all you like but the simple life it will find you and there are things you can avoid but this boys is all for you yes you can run all you like but the simple life it will find you and there are things you can avoid but this boys is all for you
she pulls a cold stone from the colder dark soil and she holds it tight til it’s warm and she finds the good in all of the bad yeah she’s smarter than me for sure cause we liars we make fires we dig holes in the hills and we will not rest til we drop and we are out here apart and things they are hard but all that has started will stop i walked down to the river where is the river there’s not a drop where the water should be so much for a soak for washing the clothes for cleaning the dirt from me it seems i rode all this way just to sit in your town and i find your house but i’m lost and i still feel the distance like we’ve only just begun and all that has started will stop i shout at the walls and they shout back at me and i shake out every loose tooth i’ve got i’m not much of a man and there’s even less of me now time to take up the slack see what’s what she just wants to swim and i just want to drown she’s a lake i’m a bottle got shot and i fill it up still and it tips and it spills and all that has started will stop and she sighs why and kisses my eyes and i cry all the tears that i have i was born so sorry for all the wrongs that i’ll do for the bothered the buckled the brash i grew up in the west i lay down in the east and i’ll make my bed where it’s soft and i do love a lady but i’ve been terrible lately but all that has started will stop

‘Winter’

Album

Released January 2011 / CD-r & digital / WR033

well they called me a liar those liars and those men and they told me i am stupid to write yes and this thing that i do is not honest and true well i know what i make isn’t fine but i thought they were holy and that the lord looked upon and that the path that they walked was divine there’s one way it goes down a shallow mallow hole and still i know what i make isn’t fine i found wings of wet clay sodden and strange legs that drag and won’t run a straight line the birds are barely awake and they blink in the day and i know what i make isn’t fine i see a swallow a swift a swan on a cliff feathers dusted in chalk and lime the wind does blow my crimson throat i know what i make isn’t fine so i make a sheet of wet glass left it sharp in the grass i fill the fire with red bailing twine i make a sudden slight bed from the hay in the shed and i know what i make isn’t fine i make a cup of bad milk i make a pig’s ear from silk i tie a horse to a horse make a line and i’ll leave it all there between jesswood and clare and i know what i make isn’t fine and at the cavalry cross and along the dry docks there are people without sound minds and they will listen to you and do all that you do and i know what i make isn’t fine she took a piece of my nose i took a piece of her chin i took her trouble and made it all mine i’m not sure if it’s true i took it blind and blue but i know what i make isn’t fine
well i met them at six they were already uptight joe and robert and me and mike and joe said something and robert opened up with the fire there was confusion and mayhem and disarray i took a handful of coppers and i ran away and i got this far but this far is not far enough you see joe will speak first and he’ll spit it all out he’ll get carried away and he’ll moan and he’ll shout and he’ll point that fucking finger of his right at me but for once in my life i’ve been careful with words i’ve been kind with the letters and i know they don’t hurt and i held her hand in mine most gently i did yeah there were fine clear days on the steps by the bridge when the corners of my mouth did curl and lift and in queen’s park the sea stretched up above like the hills but all the will in the world won’t bring peace to the town so take a fork to the belly and a knife to the back and see the good guys fall like the bad guys fall all the time and there seems no rest for the worry in me but i don’t want to take it to bed you see for she has only been kind and good and good and good i just caught a bad train and it took me away but the wheels and the rails well i love them today and sometimes the moving is moving towards you i just caught a bad train and it took me away but the wheels and the rails well i love them today and sometimes the moving is moving my god towards you yes sometimes the moving is moving my god towards you well i met them at six they were already uptight it was joe it was robert it was me it was mike and joe said something and robert opened up with the fire
i was asked to pull up an old oak tree by a man i had never even seen but he sent a request to your address with enough money inside to say yes so i walked out one day in the snow with heavy cold mud in my throat and i went to the park where it sits and i began to make a dead one of it see i was once clear of heart and of mind yeah i thought i had fairness inside there was a chance i could turn out alright there was an option to walk in the light but these days i find myself lost aware of where i am shot and cursing the day that i flipped and began to make a dead one of it there is so much that i don’t understand of the ways of woman and of man of the shapes that some lovers make and the ways they wake up each day and i was as mean as anyone could be with your name and your memory yeah i coughed up my past in a ditch and i began to make a dead one of it and so i carried that guilt for a time and in southampton i left it behind but it grew where i buried it deep and it jumped and tore a lump out of me and now it hangs from my neck like an ape and it stinks and it scratches and it shakes and i should have never have done what i did i’d begun to make a dead one of it

2010

‘If You Can Hold It You Can Throw It’

Album

Released August 2010 / CD-r & digital / WR031

well you run to my house when it rains down and you run to my house when the sun’s out and you run to my house when there’s nothing at all and still you run to my house and you run from my arms when you’re sorry and you run from my arms when you’re bored and you run from my arms when you’re happy and you cannot be held anymore and you said will you go find a blind man and you said will you go find me a dog and will you show that dog to the blind man and pray that they both get along and will you meet me downstream if you can run and will you set up a table and chairs and will you find me a good one a good one a good one and will you ask her to wait for me there find me a good one a good one find me a good one to hold will you find me a good one a good one oh god will you find me a good one fore you go
well we walked a ways and then we walked some more so far so lost and not nearly there and on a calm welsh hillside by a tiny poor chapel we laid down happy and tired and you said shall i build us both a warming fire out of wood from the boats down on the beach so i watched you walk across the sand from above and i sat down smoked and felt content well we’d been trying and trying and finally gave up not a whisper a breath not a spark and those clouds grew fierce and the sky turned heavy no chance for a flame we better head inside and under strong roof of ship salvaged timber you slept while i looked for the sailor’s notes folded letters squeezed between oak beams lovely words floated home and in the morning i thought i saw ourselves on the shoreline while we waited there for our boat she was smiling and he looked worried a little couple in the crowd and then you called i turned and we were gone
well said tom my unwelcome one there are still fights to be lost out there and in your name good things go astray though you hold them and cry that you care and your plan of attack is like a balloon gone flat and you know how much use that will be you can do better than this but your judgement is pissed and you’re just a disappointment to me oh you are not made of muscle and you punch like paper but there are fights to be lost out there and i have heard talk of a scuffle on the shores of the grey lake and if you’re quick you can swim there from here and there are four bags of bones with sticks and with stones and black flags that block out the light and their shadows they are long and are cast to do wrong and they do know your name alright oh i am not built for speed and my hands and my knees are more used to walking these days but i lost the path and it wasn’t that hard and i fear i won’t find it again while she sits in that town and she listens to the trams as they rattle and they rumble along in her corner room filled with dust and perfume and my letters and my clothes and my songs oh he is solemn and old and he’s painted with smoke and he sits on my back like a shell and the weight of that thing and all that that brings he is simply not put there to help well said tom my ungrateful one i was born with an eye on the door i was spat out and left cold and too soon did grow old and i’ve no time for soft anymore and the thing that we were and the thing that we are there is a world between the two and the shape of what was and what now that we’ve got an absolute world between the two yeah the thing that we were and the thing that we are there is a world between the two and the shape of what was and what now that we’ve got an absolute world between the two
well i think that i i am a stupid man and a slow man a slow slow man but i know that he he is a cretinous man and a low man a low low man and i see russian men and i see desperate men and they knock on your door and i ask you once more please do not let them in and i see english men and i see clumsy men with their letters and notes and i ask you no please do not open them and there are horses they’re pushing the fences down and there are things in the water i know cause i put them in there to drown and you called my heart you called it an angry thing and a sly thing a sly sly thing and i know that my faith is hardly anything it’s a slight thing a slight slight thing but i see these russian men and i see wounded men but they are stronger than me and i’ve stones under feet and no speed in the flee and i see english men and i see stupid men and i believe they’re unworthy and will shame thee and hurt thee please do let them be and there are horses pushing the fences down and there are things in the water and i know cause i put them in there to drown and your name to your face i left both today and now i run from that place and i will kiss you no more but miss you more each day
i took off the suits that i stole and i filled up the pockets with coal and i buried them deep in a hole and i left all below there and if you think that i’m coming back now to that god forsaken mistaken town let me never again walk to that house but keep well away and i know that blackwater runs high and i know that blackwater runs wide but i’ll swim where that river runs deep and grow wrinkled and happy i don’t miss the knowing too much and i don’t miss not knowing enough and the spite and the bite and the fights have left me a little guarded but i do miss her gentle warm neck and the stretch of her fine white legs but she says that she misses me yet and that’s all i could wish for and i know that blackwater runs high and i know that blackwater runs wide but i’ll swim where that river runs deep and grow wrinkled and happy and i see that they’re building a house with the bricks from mine they tore out well i’ve not been too careful these days with my character no but i do not declare to be good or in possession of that which is true but we all know what we should do just try to be kinder and i know that blackwater runs high and i know that blackwater runs wide but i’ll swim where that river runs deep and grow wrinkled and happy and i know that blackwater runs high and i know that blackwater runs wide but i’ll swim where that river runs deep and grow wrinkled and happy yes i’ll swim where that river runs deep and grow wrinkled and happy
two in the town heads low and down i thought that these days had left me now but all of the rubble and all of the stones remain and now i miss you so much that i never want to miss you again well we waited all night for the day and whatever remained we printed it out and chucked it away took sticks from the trees and drew waves from the beach in the soil we put crows into holes and we coughed from our throats to make oil and you left for a year and then you rode out here and my father said son keep clear but i am careless and slow and the less that i know now the better so let go of my arm there’s been nothing but harm since you met her i am lonely without your comfort about the shape of your face in the streets of this town but there is nothing we’ve lost that i cannot still throw away i am happy without but precious and proud of our days like when we slept in fields and in the night i dreamt of a fox in the firelight just sitting there and in the morning the food had gone so it was you or him and i know not which and i know not how or when so we kick down the honest street under feet but tonight you simply lied to me and truly my man truly my friend the end be well and away i never want to miss you again be well and away i never want to miss you again be well and away i never want to miss you again be well and away i never want to miss you again
a bell in a boat in the middle of the lake and every black monday it rattles awake and so i run from the guardhouse and into the trees scared out of my skin that this time they’ll catch me for there are things that i’ve done that cannot be disproved and i try to forget and i try to undo and you can keep your gun clean from the rain and from the dirt but if you fire that thing then someone will get hurt and where to begin i couldn’t make this stuff up if i tried lord oh where to begin well she said find me a fireman and build me a fire and throw on what you’ve got and let it grow higher and i’ll stand on the ocean and i’ll spit on the flames and we both know that you will limp back to me again well did she take off for england with miss james and emily in a boat bound for liverpool on a gravel grey sea and did she cling to the side while the waves did lurch and did she come home with a stomach full of nothing but hurt oh where to begin i couldn’t make this stuff up if i tried lord oh where to begin there was a fight and a dog and a rope in the woods i said my home is a hole and was well understood and i bled on the bed and then dragged it to the bridge and there we threw off our clothes and swam underneath and i fell off the roof and i tore a piece from my hand i didn’t look at it for a week i was a well worried man and lawry shouted at his twin and his ghosts in the club and mary and joseph and enough is enough and where to begin i couldn’t make this stuff up if i tried lord oh where to begin there were ravens and magpies and jays and rooks jackdaws and slackjaws and dishonest crooks a murder of men a gang one should fear and they walked thirty miles and set up camp right here and these fellows are crazy and half out of their minds and they do not know reason or an action that’s kind and they are out of touch but too much in charge and you threw them a bone they made off with the farm where to begin i couldn’t make this stuff up if i tried lord oh where to begin and so we climbed up a mountain and the air it grew thin and she was dressed for a funeral and i was dressed for spring and an hour to get up and three to get down and i was never more stupid and never more proud and then i ran to johanna’s from the south to the north i fell into her bed i fell onto the floor and maybe i was robbed and maybe just dumb but careless at best and what’s done now is done now is done now is done now and where to begin i couldn’t make this stuff up if i tried lord oh where to begin
well after the trees fell and after the storm after the trouble the fights and the war you’d think there’d be an simple way to get home but the maps they are mindless and the roads overgrown and i don’t need an answer i haven’t asked a thing and i don’t need guidance or help that could bring the story is sad and it’s familiar and old and it’s hardly original and so often told we took all that we could from all that was left we used it all up and then left it again we cut up the land with forks and blunt swords dug trenches and graves and then buried the law we buried the good book we buried the word the things that had held us safe where we were we buried the horses the geese and the dogs the crooks and the liars all of em gone and if there was something to be lost then away it would go if there was something to be rid of then lose it joe if you can hold it you can throw it and if it moves it can stop if it’s something to carry it is something to drop if you can hold it you can throw it and if it moves it can stop if it’s something to carry it is something to drop
well the sycamore tree strikes the window and wakes me up and now there are leaves on my head and glass in my bed and blood and so i lay there a while and i try not to move til it’s safe i do wake worried all the time but this is a gloomy day there had been peace for a month and i’d hoped that the trouble had passed there was distance between us and movement and lovers and calm and i got lost at the coast but the portuguese took me in and fed me and kept me and never once asked where i’d been and when the heavens above dropped all their stuff for a week i was happy and dry and i watched that sky with glee and the rain doesn’t care for umbrellas down there it just falls and it’s good to get out in the flood if you can swim well enough while it pours well anyway some time apart and a healthy heart again and i wrote it all down and i sang it all out for my friends and these days that i lost i’m not sure where they’ve gone but you see that if a man gives his best he’s only bad left underneath so this tree in my room and you want me to meet you today well i don’t know how it helps but i’ve a list of what i want to say and it reads like a song but i’ve only this one for you and it is what it is and it’s clumsy and it’s short and it’s true and it is what it is and it’s clumsy and it’s short and it’s true

‘Cellar’

Album

Released March 2010 / CD-r & digital / WR028

well i thought that the winter would do me some good i thought i could work out the black and the blue but it hasn’t been enough and away from the dirt she lights fireworks a month away and i’m well lost without get careless and clumsy and upside down and i shake out a song that sounds like a curse she lights fireworks and when i am sleepless in a cold lonely bed she lays down with me and takes hold of my head and she whispers low slow kind words she lights fireworks i know what i need and i know what i want but the two they are strangers and they don’t get along and if i put them together someone will get hurt she lights fireworks and she showed me the place where the ground opened up and i never again want to see her blood i cannot sleep with the thought of her hurt she lights fireworks i miss her hellos and i miss her goodbyes and when i’m away she is bright in my mind we are happy and torn and equally worse she lights fireworks
we’re up at five and out to the woods like we’ve everything to lose a gang of four and we’re needing more than what’s shaking in our boots cause our captain well he’s no more of a man than the sack of sticks that’s me yeah he’s a slim one jim just look at him standing up to speak he says boy’s i’m worried boys i am worried cause that sound above it is meant for us but it’s not supposed to cheer some stormy cloud an aeroplane bringing thunder to the ears cause they build this stuff to spill the blood and it does just what it’s told so go tell it jim to leave me be and fly on home because i’m worried boys i am worried so we five got lost by nine in the woods and we’re thoroughly soaked and i cough up a sea of charcoal waves and cold water thick with salt and i’ve not drowned before so all of this it is new to me now i don’t like how it feels and the cold and the chills i want to wrap up warm and shout i am worried boys i am worried
well i called to the cargo man can you take us across and he said well i’ve just room for one but i’ll take your wife if she’s quiet and she’s fine and you can meet us downstream if you run and i ran sure enough well what could be done we want what we want and that’s all and my legs were a mess and the head wasn’t there and i followed breathless a fool and she said never not worry for me any more and i’ll never not see you again no never not worry for me any more and i’ll never not see you again and she slept with a hundred cold men to keep warm but she cared not a bit for anyone and how i tried to keep clear but dad she’s still here and she is hard and she’s set to her bones yeah she is silent black hair and she is marble skin and she is lidded and she is angry and she’s proud and i do not miss her flight towards death but i do miss her life near me now she said never not worry for me any more and i’ll never not see you again no never not worry for me any more and i’ll never not see you again and now all of my troubles are buried below all of my troubles below
when she showed me her house i didn’t see the wires and when she showed me her bed i didn’t smell smoke and i saw a window i didn’t see a mirror but now i believe what i fear not what i’m told i had nothing to run from nowhere to run to but the weight of the worry turned into flood and her roof it let in a river of rainfall and with her door shut tight well the whole place filled up well my love ran away and she fell down a dark hole a cellar she found sudden and heartless and i followed her in and she left but i stayed there now i’m done with days but i’m tired of the night and you took my bucket of stones and you threw each one at me now i know what’s below but still there i go but if you call me a sinner that don’t make you a saint and if you show me a map that don’t make you the road if you show me the map that don’t make you the road
we are fighting on the border and they do want us to stop we are burning up their cornfields and we are killing all their crops and we are leading their sheep to the grey lake and we are forcing them in to drown and we are pulling the leaves from every tree that we find and ploughing them into the ground and some somehow get home we are a gang of no good and we’re greedy and we are pale skinned vicious men and we have nothing to offer beyond the loss of everything dear to you there and we are throwing mud and sticks and stones at every new house in the town and we are soil and we are slate and we are grass and we are clay and all that will shrink and break down and some somehow get home and we are carrying sacks full of weeds and rocks and we fill your fields with these and we have oil for the well that we dug from the ground we have a plan to build fences from trees and we will dig a ditch from one farm to another and we’ll fill it with all we cant use and at the end of the year well share it out fair and no one will win or lose some somehow get home we are filling the barns with trucks and with cars and herding the cattle outdoors and they will stand in the road in the sleet and the snow and with luck we will freeze them all and the roofs will grow holes and grow tired and your attics will let in the ice and then the crows will move in and bring in on the wing feathers and twigs and mice and some somehow get home and we’ll sleep in the valleys and hollows away from high safe hills for there is nothing to take and nothing to be won nothing to give or to steal we are poor crippled and crooked without unwanted and mean but we do have the guns and we do have the numbers and that boys is more than you need some somehow get home and we do have the makings of great men and we do have mothers that are kind and some of us have daughters who don’t know our names but all this we have left behind there have plentiful chances to make right and there have been offers from kinder wise men but we are self righteous dogs who don’t know when to stop and that is our lot in this thing some somehow get home we are holy in heart and intention and we are careless and cruel in deed and if the coast is as far as this road goes then we’ll leave it and jump in the sea for we have come far enough just to start again and many bad miles forgot now we are fighting here on the border and they do want us to stop and some somehow get home
oh st mary i give up mary what do you know oh st mary i give up mary what do you know well get me to the church on time before my breath it goes and i’ll sleep right where i slip and fall and call that place a home oh st mary i give up mary what do you know well my legs are stumbling sticks and will not be walked upon so where’d you put the pulling sled to lay my sorry on oh i cannot carry heavy bones that cannot build a home oh st mary i give up mary what do you know well i know she ran away from you and she’s better off alone so bring a shovel and fetch a spade and i’ll get some digging done oh watch and learn something here i’ll make myself a home watch and learn something here i’ll make myself a home
well i worry for your bones the way you drag them along and i fear for your skin and what is put there upon your neck your breasts your legs and your feet but i cannot help them and they will not help me and you say that you made a slight thing of black hair and clay and who knows who but they took it away and who knows how and who knows to where and it’s a dark sad thing that you’re hiding in there and so i’m gathering sticks from your burnt down house and i’ll build me a fence that will keep the dogs out and i dreamt that the tram you were riding upon it was struck by another and from it you were thrown and twenty three foxhounds picked you up and they cleaned all your wounds and they licked up the blood and i’m gathering sticks from your burnt down house and i’ll build me a fence that will keep the dogs out and i would run to the beach and i would meet you below if i knew you’d be there and if i thought you could float but i will not wait and watch upstream for you without life gone to the sea oh i’m gathering sticks from your burnt down house and i’ll build me a fence that will keep the dogs out
well the good guys don’t get any better and you sir were once true to me but if i ask you again please do not pretend that you’ve faith in the life that i lead i couldn’t hope for a brighter place to fail i couldn’t wish for a more beautiful mess and all the lime trees have gone that were once tall and strong they’re scattered and thrown and then left and i’m amazed that a train can get lost but it happened and how i don’t know but gone to the ground is where we’re all bound so stop worrying get up and go it was a good time a fine time we found here and i do thank the day now it’s done and i miss so much but there’s nothing to be done for the sorrow the grief and the blood so see a straight track that’s a fine line to move down a smooth path a wide sky above and if this aint the way well what do you say we follow it and see what becomes i said if this aint the way well what do you say we follow it and see what becomes
it’s the knowing you’re moving in a manner that hurts that’s keeping me up and it’s knowing the hours you choose to work that’s making it tough but i am not what you’d call a jealous man my spirit is light but you do seem to look for some sort of trouble some sort of a fight but i have no quarrel left in me from the frozen canal in the town from the woods to the street you live on i sat at the station without a train to ride home upon and you threw some pieces of chalk at my back as i left you in bed my head was scared but my body prepared to stay with you there but i have no quarrel left in me and i have no more hard words here for thee

2009

‘The Wife’

Album

Released September 2009 / CD-r & digital / WR027

i went down to the royal canal intending to throw in my towel with a bottle and a bucket of stones i sat there and drank there alone things had got quite bad enough it seemed there was little left to be done i’d left my best with the rest and i gave up my ghost to the dead so i clung to bucket but yet that bottle was a buoyant friend and a river only knows down so that’s the only way i go now but there is nowhere to hide out at sea and that thought is a worry to me and i slept but i do not know how i dreamt of the song of the royal canal and we couldn’t be further apart and i miss you with all of my heart and i miss you with all of my heart and i miss you with all of my heart
well i left my life with that woman my wife and i fell like a shell in the road and a fact is a fact and we’ll have none of that but now i cannot go back home and i’ve a stone in my mouth the size of my thumb and a bottle of indian ink and i will write to you daily in gideon’s book however you are better than this however you are better than this so i stumble along and i cough and i choke as i clumsily carry the coal in a sack on my back for the fire i lack and i’ve dust in my hair and my throat and i will follow your shadow until the end of the day and i’ll find the small place where it sleeps and i’ll wait there yet until you wake up again whatever you are better than this whatever you are better than this and our house in the lime tree got claimed by the birds by the pigeons the sparrows and the crows take the flag from it’s roof before it gets seen and hide it beneath your clothes your dancing feet your careful reach your calico sheets to the wind our clutching hands all our wonderful plans forever you are better than this forever you are better than this forever you are better than this forever you are better than this
i didn’t count the gaps between the breaths she took after the fall cause i thought my mind would stay clear i thought my hands reliable now where will we hide the kids and where will we get the guns cause no matter that she’s gone dig a hole for everyone i caught the blast you took it home and now it’s waiting there for me and i know it sits i know it plans to blow a hole through everything take the flesh off from the bone take the woman from the man pull the wool off all the lambs and dig a hole for everyone now there ain’t a lot that i can do but i can fix this so it works and it’s not pretty being easy but i can fix it so it works and there is movement in the trees a sudden sound a cough a thud men are stirring in belstone wood and we’ll dig a hole for everyone a scared man’s character is flawed and his actions are not true you got to stick it to him quick before he does the same to you they look for blood and they will find it in every careless son away from home and in the field and we’ll dig a hole for everyone take all the glass out of the windows and fill the frames with all the doors stuff the books into the chimney and pour the whiskey on the floor set a place for every face i’ve looked upon and come undone make some room make some plans dig a hole for everyone the heartless thoughtless cold remorseless mindless spineless gang of crooks well i’ve lost my best friend they couldn’t care less what they wanted they just took they line them up and lay them low in the cold clay soil and mud common thieves and hooded crows and we’ll dig a hole for everyone common thieves and hooded crows and we’ll dig a hole for everyone
my dumb worried hands have led me to this and the crows in the trees throw stones and don’t miss and i carry your clothes your pictures your name your heart was a home your heart was a home well you were there at the start and you’re here at the end and i know it’s my fault i won’t do it again and i haven’t a chance but i try to be true your heart was a home your heart was a home now i miss your sharp eyes your stumbling legs your clear blue mind and your happiness and the good that you gave you just breathed it out your heart was a home your heart was a home your heart was a home your heart was a home
twenty cold days away a tram and a train and in the dark of the morning i couldn’t see you so well and i won’t see you again and the doctor knows what it does and he knows how it goes but he is sure lost for words as to where it came from and he’s tried all he knows and he says if there’s one thing i’ve learned they’re all so quick to go all the ones that got lost they are not coming home and she led me to virginia lake and undressed in the rain and she said i should watch her close while she swam and i’d learn how to be brave but she’d made me a suit of stones and told me to jump in and she put rocks in the pockets and flint tied to the sleeves well i didn’t jump in and she said if there’s one thing i’ve learned they’re all so quick to go al the ones that got lost they are not coming home and after three weeks a letter came and it told how you are but with no return address to run to i keep reading it loud my dear man i am well without i am healthy and i’m glad and i have all that i need and a little that i want try not to be sad if there’s one thing i’ve learned they’re all so quick to go and all the ones that got lost they are not coming home
well i dreamt of a book with all the wrongs in the world and they were written down in my own hand and i know that it’s tough this waking up to see the same disappointing man but i heard it form michael who saw it with his own eyes he said there’s good to be found everywhere you have to hold on to something well let’s hold tight to nothing and pray that that gets us there and oh careless man it’s a terrible damage you do and there’s nothing like a woman to bring out the worst in you and when samuel told us to take care at blackwater he kept not a thought for himself and he left at sundown and soon to dumb ground he fell and well beyond help so we both gather the sticks and carry them to the cottage and throw them into his old room we’ll build a bed for his head from broken bird’s nests and stuff a pillow with feathers and wool and oh careless man it’s a terrible damage you do and there’s nothing like a woman to bring out the worst in you we walked over the blue hills the high hills the wide hills and we still feel so far away and it takes more than i know to make you a home and keep all your worries at bay and if you’ve lost faith in me then i can hardly blame thee for the doubts that i gave you myself look for a way out find it and stay out and get clear and do not send help oh careless man it’s a terrible damage you do and there’s nothing like a woman to bring out the worst in you i said oh careless man it’s a terrible damage you do and there’s nothing like a woman to bring out the worst in you
well i was met and on a train i sat and it went and as simple as that away from you and with every quick mile and it’s too late for us my wife and to the house and straight out the door drink in the park until dawn sand in my hair and my eyes and it’s too late for us my wife and in the kitchen some sort of a fight a little blood we’re both sore but alright limping and laughing and tired and it’s too late for us my wife and i was carried and the second we stopped too soon and suddenly dropped and i talked the dark from the night and it’s too late for us my wife and i know that this moving makes waves but you know that i’ll do it again put me out and leave me to dry it’s too late for us my wife the walking the worry the wall the low slow state of it all my faith is not in this life it’s too late for us my wife it’s too late for us my wife

2008

‘The Hills Are Alive’

i see searchlights see dogs on chains heads full of trouble looking for someone to blame they say where you gonna run to where you gonna hide this time where you gonna run to where you gonna hide this time well i know a safe house and it’s not too far and there we can lay low til this blows past four stone walls to wait within one thick door to crouch behind and it’s there we can run to and it’s there we can hide this time when i was young beneath the table or up deep in the loft my brother turned me out said you’ve grown too soft you need working on boy before i call thee mine and i don’t care where you run to i don’t care where you hide this time and so i head for the black hills my back feels full of shot an angry mess below my neck all kindness forgot knotted muscles stutter fuck it stretched strained sinew whines where are you gonna run to where you gonna hide this time but half a mile from the paddock i see a horse up in a tree a flayed set of legs a thing i cannot believe but a crow upon a matted mane and a crow upon a pony’s eye they both say where you gonna run to and where you gonna hide this time and the cattle here are starving and they will not feed a child they huddle in the red barn and are frightened of the light you’ll do good to keep your head down son they grumble as i stumble by and think about where you gonna run to think about where you gonna hide this time and my stitches they are mending but they’re not mending fast they buckle in the grey skin they bite and leave a mark and they whisper to one another all along their crooked line they say where’s he gonna run to where’s he gonna hide this time well i got me some answers but i couldn’t be more wrong and every field i look into is burnt and scrubbed corn and every gate is broken and every fence just sticks and twine and i don’t know where i’ll run to i don’t know where i’ll hide this time well i am running from sebastian i am running from his wife i am running from the blacksmith who says he saved my life i am running from the winter the freight train the lover and the liar and i am running from the fireman the coal man and the colt mrs o the vicar standing on tiptoes singing her frail lungs away hallelujah glory be on high i am running from superstition mischief and the law and her heart that couldn’t beat true and the knocking at the door i am running for the running the doing the going and the flight and i am running from the cold cave the blackwater park i am running from whatever creeped in when we left the door ajar i am running from tiny sparrows paper birds and dogs that bite i am running from the palace pier the king’s square and the ford wilbury and the chapel house and the ghost of elin lord the broken bottle the empty chair the wide crow black sky i am running from the sudden storm the cold father gone the english man down in my blood and the shame and the scorn i am running from the good book the one sure straight line that tells me where i can run to and where i can hide this time it tells me where i’m gonna run to and where i’m gonna hide this time
joseph came by last night fell out of the dark face flushed with red blood and a rattling heart he coughed out names in panic short of breath said the woods were full of them and a fire in the main street the church ablaze no one inside to speak of a crowd outside amazed they watched the steeple burning they know who’s to blame said the woods were full of them so stumble cough and stutter feet lost to mud drunk and heavy not strong enough joseph wide with wonder at the things he’s seen said the woods were full of them
well i ran to the south but i always knew you want to be kind you just got to be true but she talks of her marriage and the house they both share and i cannot wait to lay with her there but she’s holding my hand and making her plans and all the while telling her man you belong to me you do and we sat up all night when the kitchen caught fire and in the morning there’s problems and doctors and liars and her suitcase spills his stuff on my bed and so i try on his suits and his shirts i don’t care i take off his clothes to get to her underneath and she wears them like labels you belong to me you do but i tried to be honest i went out and i stayed in but it seems like i’m simply no good at anything and i climbed up the walls and i jumped from the roof and she said it was funny the things i would do but there’s no one i want more than marie to be true and say you belong to me you do i said there’s no one i want more than marie to be true and say you belong to me you do

‘Eat Like A Bird’

Album

Released November 2008 / CD-r & digital / WR019

if it’s the worst that could happen and you tell me it’s happening and you say all the dams in the land gonna burst all the rivers of europe will flood every village well you’re a well worried man and i’m leaving without you cause it’s not like you know and it’s not like i’m listening i have had a throat full of this stuff now my stomach it aches and my lungs are rejecting and the air is thick and it’s leaving without me so you look to the east but they all got their backs turned and the north wind blew the south into the ocean and you look to the west and they see and they do laugh you come on your own and they’re leaving without you ain’t it funny when it goes it all goes so slow ain’t it funny you can feel the last piece drop off ain’t it funny ain’t it funny ain’t it funny no it fucking ain’t funny when you fear for your heart and it’s leaving without you so hold tight ain’t no one gonna save you hold tight is help not on it’s way hold tight i can feel my good arm failing i fear for my heart and it’s leaving without me and i know the way home is a way long gone
well when they finally found the mess i made i had to run away and you said we’re in this together now ‘cause i’m as much to blame so up battlefield and devil’s hill and all the places in between our heads were low and the pace was slow on tired and hungry feet and we hid out at castletown and at six we made the house the keys still work so me and her fell in and laid it down and i said i hope to leave you happy i hope to leave you warm and i do not wish to be the one that ruins all the fun but every night those little mice play games above our bed and every day i make up ways to break their little heads and the thing about the sleeping is the trouble that it brings and the thing about the waking up is the trouble that it brings so it’s up the lane and down again to walk the long night off it seems my legs are made of wet things the bones have all gone soft and you traipsed for thirteen miles just to get in to a fight but i cannot get you out again and i cannot tell you why let the answers be forgotten and let the meaning stay unclear we just carried a little clutch of grief like a bunch of doorless keys
get gone my worried mind you don’t help me any time and get out my careless heart you do little else but harm and go slow my hurried hands but hold on tight if you can but be kind be true i’m telling you the clumsy arms will follow suit and look up the sky is china grey i haven’t felt the sun for days i’ve not raised my head for a week and i never saw it go well i know i wasn’t tough enough to do all i should have done but i never said never do i just hoped your good would carry you stay bright as long as you can it looks like you got your man good stuff goodbye that’s all i never saw it go
well if you follow this river it somehow leads uphill it cares not to stick with convention and flow to the sea and i do not know what’s wrong with the law around here but ever since we took a leap from the bridge it’s gone weird see we were lost without mark and we had to find someone fast and when that train rolled slow at the grove we took our chance but at the northwood ridge our luck just had enough and they were searching the line but before our time we jumped and the heart goes tumbling down but the water well i could not tell its path and before it was light you and i had gone too far somehow away from the coast and up towards the v and the law of the land ignored and impossibly oh we arrived at the top drowned and forgotten below and the steam from the train like a sigh into the snow and many men have told less but many men have told bigger lies but i tell you straight this ain’t no place for the wise where the heart goes tumbling down now we have little to steal and less to give away and when days go wrong it’s good to keep a few things safe oh but i have lighted the load and now all the ballast has gone maybe i threw out too much sense and such well lost when the heart goes tumbling down
how far are you gonna go before you can say you’ve been your broken boots your buttonless coat all wearing thin where did you lose your want for me so far from where you are and what you’re looking for the stonewall park is jackson town we sat in there for days our backs against the sycamore tree a fond careless place was it there that you lost your want for me or so far from where you are and what you’re looking for chichester cathedral park or in the new forest your front room floor the beach at dawn or somewhere else where did you lose your want for me so far from where you are and what you’re looking for elizabeth your garden path it leads right to my door and i count the steps every day but i know that you won’t call where did you lose your want for me so far from where you are and what you’re looking for
well look at us both choked soaked with tears you were my love for five good years and everyone said will you please marry her well i didn’t and thank god cause you’re doing just fine without me well i left you in bristol you said you hated my bones and that they carried an idiot and will i ever go home so i hid in st marys and lit a candle for my dad its been years since we spoke he don’t know who i am anymore and oh my dear friends one thing you should know i’ve been outside and it’s rubbish don’t go and all that i’ve learned and all i can say is everything above goes below someday on its knees well we wiped off the blood and then we wiped off the tears til we’ve nothing to show for those five good years and the people still ask well how is your one i haven’t seen you in so long it’s not funny at all any more and oh my kind friends one thing you must know i’ve been outside and it’s rubbish don’t go and all that i’ve learned and all i can say is everything above goes below someday on its knees
six sheets to the wind now where’s the wheel gone you say no i’ll be ok from here but all that talk of escape and the running away tell it enough and you disappear i start to believe i made up myself i don’t know which way is up turn me inside out maybe start again get underneath see what we’ve done and you left to find your own way back and you left me looking for joy here while i fumbled and tumbled and fell about you got clear i remember you cool and happy chasing frightened boys crying out what you’ll do to them i had your name on my lips from that very first day i say it loud now and then and you left to find your own way back and you left me looking for joy here while i fumbled and tumbled and fell about you got clear now i see two low birds at the barren shore four wings spread wide at the water’s edge i feel i’ve thrown the last stone that i’m gonna find the beach is empty there’s nothing left
throw caution to the wind you’ll see him again and take off your wedding dress all the days without you are the ones i’d sooner forget and fold your ivory legs over my chair and do lay your gentle head down all the days without you are at the back of the room and loud and now i send you words as a brush as a flirt and you send me a whisper back all the days without you are irritated troubled and flat and well i’ve been here before but not without cause and not without holding my breath and all the days without you are black and blue and in debt now the field needs to dry and the hay needs to turn and i wander the lane with the dogs all the days without you are doing their best to get lost and did we once have a good book did we once a home well i hope we can find it again cause the days without you are never that far away
i’ve got fixtures for friends and i’ve stitched them again with a well worn tale that i found on the way see my daughter got lost and she’s not coming back and she’s found a good man for a father and she writes to tell how she’s lost my address well the talk around here is cheap and careless and i’ve nothing to say that wouldn’t be cruel shut me up shut me in and call me a fool put me all the way under put me all the way down and i know what i am not much of a man so put me all the way down samuel in blackwater late last year and six months through the next and it’s not yet clear but if they drag the grey lake they may well find my spade exactly where i threw it for there was a fight and well it had to stop there blood in my eyes i fell down the stairs and i cracked a few ribs and i yelled the air blew and they took me wild and desperate from you+ put me all the way under put me all the way down we both tried to be true but it’s not what we do put me all the way down on the scullery tiles they found jimmy lyles wide-eyed on his back suddenly flat and the doctors put a pole to keep him straight from his neck to his legs and they won’t work again so he sits stiffly still and counts the days fundamentally less involved with the place see your little piece of dirt is just somewhere to dig and lay your bones down when they’re through with it he said put me all the way under put me all the way down i am holding you up and enough is enough put me all the way down put me all the way under put me all the way down i have indeed lived well yes but i’d sooner forget put me all the way down
so i gave up on christmas and got on a ship and tied in a blanket enough food for the trip climbed off at cherbourg and started to walk and finally stopped now when i’ve reached your town wall the last time i saw you you were splashing through waves paddling in the shallows of a long sunday you were younger than life and clearly in love and come to spend the weekend away from your one laughing at night i was making up songs scrappy guitar fingers clumsy and wrong and you waved when i went and nearly fell in the sea and i miss you my dear and hope you’re happy

‘We Could Have We Should Have, We Didn’t’

EP

Released December 2008 / CD-r & digital / WR020

Album

Released July 2008 / CD-r & digital / WR016

i came to you to be lonely i came to you to lay low and i’ll stay here as long as you’ll have me and hide the books when i go but if you find the writings i leave here if you stumble upon the words please forget the man you invited and bury the lot in the woods because miles behind in the old town i did love a woman who wrote and she showed me the names of her enemies and soon they were after my throat so i asked her to run away with me but she told me to go on alone in the morning i woke with the starlings and left with the first of the snow oh annabel you need not worry for you are not of this world your eyes are clear and your heart strong dear just cover my tracks well please cover my tracks well
two days from home and already were lost two weeks from any dry land they say hoist up the sail i don't know what they mean i am a feet on dry land kind of man land lover land lover where are your legs where are your manners forgot all left in southampton a pair of dry pegs brittle and full of dry rot well you follow you follow you don't swim too good but you catch up with us fast enough and you built a strong boat out of splinters of wood with a bright fair crew you can trust
(co-written with Kristin McClement)
out here there’s no one left to hurt cause you know there’s no one left at all out here there’s no place left to hide cause we don't need a place to hide out here the rivers burst their banks and they pour they pour into the towns out here the rain falls thick and fast it wants to bury us both out here the houses have no roofs and out here all shelter is gone out here the fields are upside down and the corn grows under ground out here the animals have gone and where they went i do not know out here the roads are full of trees and i've been lost down every one
through these streets i run like im hunted tonight on a fast breath that believes in everything holy ghost like and true and the promise of your want for me we could have we should have we didn’t i was born in a small town i haven’t grown tall like the giants the open plains make they are larger than life and nearly eight feet high and are born to ten thousand days we could have we should have we didn’t and given the choice boys will be boys and will throw things they never should hold and the older we get the more we forget the wonder of that first throw we could have we should have we didn’t well i kept my calm when the chapel collapsed but i left there as fast as i could the roof buckled and broke and now that its gone all the rain falls onto the pews we could have we should have we didn’t so take forty flags and fifty three poles and build a fence up with them all a man should have reason to turn back at that but they just plough right on we could have we should have we didn’t so the road it got lost and its all my fault and its my job to find it again help was at hand but the best laid plans have dumped us in no mans land we could have we should have we didn’t a field of rape a fence of beech wood a blue wide sky high above the guard house the gate house the barn and the yard any piece of this is enough we could have we should have we didn’t i bought books for the fire and wine for the sea and paper to hang off the trees i would settle for less for peace and a rest but these things are elusive to me we could have we should have we didn’t is there a basic good a common ground a line thats been drawn in the sand well we’ve crossed it and scuffed it and rubbed the thing out and we do not give a damn we could have we should have we didn’t we could have we should have we didn’t we could have we should have we didn’t
i push a spade into cold earth a hole to make in the old dirt michael put me to it i got the whole morning to do it a crow sits on the wire cloaked and heavy and quiet she watches me start to move things blinks and shrugs shellac wings and i don’t know why and an hour down i find it up to my waist in the wet pit stop right there i’m careful not to break anything so i wait for michael to come back i roll a smoke and sit down crow flaps into the hole and flies out as fast as she can go and i don’t know why
november night walking in line down the hill under rain to the church my brother my mother my lover behind and my father on my shoulders it hurts and since he’s been gone i’ve been carrying on like an idiot a thing without means without the fear of the devastated look that i know to his eyes i would bring see i took and i took and when it was gone i looked to see what was next and it was all i could do to stop at you and you were right and are beautiful yes yes you have been something dear and that is strong but is out of my hands and is lost and the ways of these past few years are weird and have suddenly taken their toll since he’s been gone since he’s been gone since he’s been gone i’ve been carrying on there’s a tunnel in the cellar behind the south wall that was bricked up twelve years ago and it was built by my uncle a man short of breath who coughed and cursed from his throat i watched him choke on cigarettes never did once get a kind word not told as a lie he was stubborn and tough sincere and rough and he smoked all the morning he died and the thing that he left is narrow and wet and it runs from the house to the lake a red trapdoor flat on the shore covered with gravel and slate there are signs of a place for launching a boat a plank a rope a post hole some way of escape but from what and who with and after that where to go since he’s been gone since he’s been gone since he’s been gone i’ve been carrying on oh god i count friends on my left hand where the finger there is skinned and twisted and it aches i’ve been careless at work and i’ve wasted the time idled weeks away i was told to make something of nothing but it’s hard with the ringing in the ears when the cough in the chest meets the front of my neck and i cannot swallow it clear so tania was at sea and i sent word from here and she went aground but i know that she’s safe we lived together in spain but she learned to live alone and in newfoundland she stays i was as mean to her as i could be i really raised the standard for that and i told myself that after portsmouth i would not expect a scrap since he’s been gone since he’s been gone since he’s been gone i’ve been carrying on i’ve been clumsy all week and i’m frightened to speak it out loud in case it gets any worse but i am limping and bleeding and i’ve been patched up it’s not serious at all but it hurts and i think of the time when paul and i fought and my finger got broke in the door and the fight stopped right there and i tore at my hair and we laughed but by christ it was sore now i send letters to miss harris and we’re so far away i dont think that we’ll ever meet she is a writer and a reader but above it all a friend to me indeed she is bright and will listen and so i say this to you now be just as you are you are a source of great comfort stay complete and barefoot and inky and lovely and scarred cause since he’s been gone since he’s been gone since he’s been gone i’ve been carrying on and my sister sent a message that only gave an address but she hadn’t been heard of for months and when i’m finished here i’ll get to her somehow even if i have to run there was a man who promised to give her enough leather to sit and make saddles all day i never met him once it only lasted a month and then she just galloped away so we all shared your clothes and i still have some shirts that did keep me warm in new york your pocket watch i got it fixed right away but now it’s stopped in a box in clare’s loft there are some things dear man i can not stand to have around or to keep clinging to and there’s a limit to the stuff it’s heavy enough and i need to be able to move since he’s been gone since he’s been gone since he’s been gone i’ve been carrying on
well we walked a ways and then we walked some more so far so lost and not nearly there on a calm welsh hillside by a tiny poor chapel we laid down happy and tired and you said shall i build us both a warming fire out of wood from the boats down on the beach so i watched you walk across the sand from above and i smoked sat down and i felt content well we’d been trying and trying and finally gave up not a whisper not a breath not a spark the clouds grew fierce and the sky turned heavy no chance for a flame so better head inside and under strong roof of ship salvaged timber i slept while you looked for the sailor’s notes folded letters squeezed between oak beams lovely words wet ink floated home in the morning i thought i saw ourselves on the shoreline while we waited for our boat she was smiling he looked worried a little couple in the crowd and then you called i turned and we were gone
out here there’s no one left to hurt cause you know there’s no one left at all out here there’s no place left to hide cause we don't need a place to hide out here the rivers burst their banks and they pour they pour into the towns out here the rain falls thick and fast it wants to bury us both out here the houses have no roofs and out here all shelter is gone out here the fields are upside down and the corn grows under ground out here the animals have gone and where they went i do not know out here the roads are full of trees and i've been lost down every one
(co-written with Kristin McClement)
well we finally returned to the park on a buckled and broken cart one less than the number that left all over a bit of a mess hello you well what do you know im really finally home you can find anything if you look hard enough well i found it hard there and it shook me up the head went first and the blood followed fast til there was nothing left to warm the heart hello you well what do you know im really finally home if you see me looking at the road again and if you catch me thinking of leaving again take hold of my feet and nail them to the floor of your sweet sad room and i will leave you no more hello you well what do you know i’m really finally home

‘Fire Escape’

Album

Released March 2008 / CD-r & digital / WR013

there are some things i will not learn the long and the short of her and how to stop the trouble getting hold and not letting go for i’m haunted as i’ve not been before by the swing and the slam of the door by the sound of her steps on the stairwell hurried and running away she said some days are lost long before the sun comes up and we’ve barely begun and already we’re saying it’s done well i will see myself out the view from here isn’t clear the road leading home’s disappeared and there’s a low grey cloud getting closer and a bright patch of sky growing dim and from here something good burns it’s last and i watch it’s final sad spark it tumbles it spins it plummets and i run to see where it lands but a hole in the dirt is no substitute for what’s gone and a piece of a life ain’t no life at all well i will see myself out oh you lie you love and you hurt and i don’t yet know what’s worse but mr taylor told his son to fear you then plotted to steal you away and i can’t for the life of me find a kind way to leave you behind you are there in the cold corners of christmas in the sky and the sea and the salt your red hair is flat to your skin like pencil on stone your china bleached body freckled peppered bones and i will see myself out oh i’m asleep and i don’t want to wake i’m so tired i could stay here for days counting the places you took me guess again guess again one more time in a grey town northern and bleak or at night by the side of the road waiting for your father to find us drive up full beam on us both you were never that sure of your place in this war so you left deserter deserter over the hills you went well i will see myself out well your man he is no friend of mine and i wonder if that makes it alright there’s a broken fire escape there’s a long long way down from here but i’m not scared as you open the door and he’s there looking swollen and sore and you kiss his cheek as he walks in past the window and straight to your room and the light winks out and i’m without outside and alone four floors to the street now breathless feet stagger me home and i will see myself out the winter has broken my will and my throat and my heart hurt still well you came and you stayed now you’re leaving and i don’t know the why and where to now would you cross the road to avoid me and would you lower your eyes if they saw me well stay safe be true i won’t follow i can’t catch you up from here oh were you kindness itself was i giving you hell all the time it has taken an age but this nature is all mine and i will see myself out but i am alarmed by the beauty of you and my legs do not know what to do you are as new to me as the first time you are as strange and as hard as can be i am foolish i mean i am set for a fall and nothing to be done at all i can watch but i can’t learn anything and i’ll leave by the same way i came in you said some days they are lost long before the sun comes up well the light’s disappeared and i’m still here holding on well i will see myself out
well i pray one day they will lay you down in a bed of pure black coal they will lower your bones to where no one goes and then forget they ever set you below i pray they forget they ever set you below i don’t say it lightly but god almighty i do wish our paths hadn’t crossed cause on the narrow lane your twisted ways have got my kindness lost all my kindness has got lost for you do not know and you will not learn cause you have scared everyone who could tell with your table legs and your beachy head you have jumped and are far beyond help you have jumped and are far beyond help you were grand at the start but then things turned dark about the time the rations ran out and when the hunger took by hook or by crook you stole everything you could grab you just stole everything you could grab and now i pray one day they will lay you down in a bed of pure black coal they will lower your bones to where no one goes and then forget they ever set below i pray they forget they ever set you below
well i woke with the knocking and it scares me to death it’s getting louder and louder and i fall out of bed grab the torch from the floor as you wake start to move they have come like we feared they would and there’s but one thing to do get away so you push your head through a shirt as i run for the back door and now you’re shivering by my side in the dark as i struggle with the lock and something is thrown and breaks and smoke swallows the air and we’re both out on the fire escape and i’m sorry and scared but we got to get away but we can’t go to paul’s we can’t go to kate’s forget about jane james or claire peter is gone and elin got lost who does that leave out there your careful words your delicate hands well they will not last a week herein this terrible town we got to get away i walked down to the river to search for a boat a safe way across a flake of hope i left you in the cherry orchard you said you needed to rest so where have you got to my love there’s no one else you got away

2007

‘I Do Wrong’

eversince good has been able good has been trying to turn bad eversince rain been falling people below kept down now i got stones in my pocket a sorry note back at the house i’m shuffling down to the water i’m gonna sink and i’m not coming back once in a while it’s always once in a while it can be good once in a while it’s forever once in a while we do what we should there is but one way to the ocean there is only one path that’s true the road it is straight but it is so steep and when things go wrong you got to get out and push i thought of the cold before i jumped in i thought of the water in my throat i thought that my eyes would stay open even when my heart was closed st michael your flock it has flown i can’t see a feather upon your tiles i remember a time before the gunshots when all the sky was wild the cathedral spire with falcons nesting the chapel roof where the starlings roost and under the water the fish move like birds i’ll dream of you always peaceful and true eversince good had been able good has been trying to turn bad eversince rain been falling people below kept down
well i am not always good i do what i should not do out in the fields out on the hills away from you and when i said that i couldn’t it’s more like i wouldn’t with you it is as simple as that it’s simple and sad it’s true that i do wrong i do wrong you i do wrong i do wrong you you take hold of my hand but do you know what i am and can be i have a system in place a process a method a plan here it does not always work it often hurts and is painful but it is something to follow it’s something to lay all the blame on i do wrong i do wrong you i do wrong i do wrong you well there’s sand in my clothes it’s between my toes it’s inside my head this is too much you wanted blood but you’ll leave me dead now i’m bucket bound you talk about how to make a bed i’ll show you a hole but you’ll call it a home sweet home instead i do wrong i do wrong you i do wrong i do wrong you so where’s all the sense where’s the regret and the lesson learned we’re back where we were a little more tired bruised and hurt don’t talk about good i burnt the book and i took his name i only did what i could i know what i should but i’m still the same and i do wrong i do wrong you i do wrong i do wrong you
i reluctantly locked the guns away have to live now without the noise they make gave up things that made me glad be a careful kinder man i’m not afraid of a little work but no one wants to get hurt and these methods they do alarm i am convinced they’ll do me harm i said ok is that enough and she said not quite not quite my love well we hadn’t seen a soul for weeks lost friends and family how to speak the nights grew long outside the flat the days just smudges of grey on black i’ve tried to stop things going wrong i squeezed kind new words into old cruel songs i held my breath and all that came out again was my dear is that enough and she said not quite not quite not quite my love so she sent me out with an epic list and i never saw the end of it pages and pages in a flowing hand poured onto paper a dream of a plan it began with sand inside a shoe a snail shell a burst balloon all these i found with little trouble but soon one thing led to another i asked have i now done enough and she said not quite not quite my love well i was sent to find a china drum a carousel a tommy gun a map of stars a book of prayers and how to get from here to there i wrote a poem on a yard of blue rope set fire to that and gave her the smoke these things she took unreservedly but the list went on without relief i asked have i now done enough and she said not quite not quite my love so i gathered stones and lumps of flint 144 metres of string a dozen doors a copper bath i never knew and i never asked it went away and i brought more from the quarry the park and the red river shore under top soil cold clay and gravel countless tiresome miles travelled i could only ask is that enough and she said not quite not quite my love my worried one you’ve worn me down and all the things i do leave you without and i need a little for myself just enough to start again i’ve been careful foolish hugged and hurt handheld heart-burnt lungs are shallow breathing hard good lord i’ve fallen far and only to say i’ve had enough and she said so long so long my love

‘Weeping Well

Album

Released May 2007 / CD-r & digital / WR004

well we caught out we were too slow we didn’t see the trouble coming heading this way straight for us all the terrible things you said were true i’m not sorry i said sorry i’m not sorry but i will say it again we were caught out we were too slow they were angry so this is what they did they brought ladders they brought petrol thirty people marched up the hill to our home they climbed ladders they poured petrol they tore the roof up and set the place alight they nailed the doors shut they blocked the windows they got wood from the fence i built last year d.i.y. done tools packed away they stood around chucking stones at our house and then the neighbours gathered outside we could hear them laughing at the flames at the thick smoke at the black air i pulled you closer and i said we’ll be ok just don’t cough and don’t cry cause then they’ll hear you and they’ll know we’re still alive if we’re quiet if we keep still when it’s done then we can fly away well when we came here there were questions we gave answers the wrong ones every time but when they ask you did you know me you better tell them i know not who you mean i can’t see you are you still there i can’t find my hands to reach for you i can’t hear you can you hear me my love it’s gone but we were not to blame not our fault what happened we were warned but did we listen no we were caught out we were too slow these things fall apart without our help take strong wings and use them well grow good from hopeless dust and dirt my brave one take the pain away take the pain away and throw it to the flames
some things are better left unsaid some mouths are better left unfed well i give as good as you my friend and i’m biting my tongue again you’d think with all the stones woe throw that one would take and surely grow but i’ve put a hundred rocks below and nothing yet to show the problem i can see is this what could be is not and what is is the remains of the day just sorry vibes of scrapings a hope and itch could you burn your clothes and then show me how cause the worries in my life are foul i do try i do try but i can’t keep them down we can’t even keep her afloat so how we ever getting home there’s no hurricane no gale force just silly little waves that’s all they tipped us overboard and now we’re here well always when the clocks go back i lay awake and worry that light lost replaced by black is gone and that is that you play away and i count the days i take and take and what remains no one above but both below oh what have we done we can’t even keep her afloat so how we ever getting home there’s no hurricane no gale force just silly little waves that’s all they tipped us overboard and now we’re here you say ok it’s time to go get your coins your keys your coat you break my heart and now you know where can i go the dark fields all around the town swollen lakes of black and brown a meadow lost to the barren ground she’s gone gone by now
i have the worse bunch of friends they plague my heart to no end and they do all they can to offend now i’m out of belief but i’m down on my knees some friends indeed i do not need them at all my family don’t know my name i got ill and they all moved away and the hospital they wouldn’t let me stay out of belief but down on my knees my family indeed i do not need them at all i left by the only way out i got away the only way i know how well i wept i did scream and shout out of belief but down on my knees that kind of help indeed i do not need it at all well you say you’re in need of a rest well i know that i’m not at my best but will you ever look at me again out of belief but down on my knees that grief indeed you do not need it at all
all these girls what do they know plug me in and watch me go i’ve been slow and i’ve been soft but something’s changed the penny dropped for sure between these wall something stirs threats were said but promises heard make believe all you like but the people here they do not feel right the goose the crook and the baker they all want to take ya they said we wouldn’t make it we didn’t make it my middle man has left me here and stole all i held so dear he went over the waves and under the hills and buried it all in a deep landfill the goose the crook and the baker they all want to take ya they said we wouldn’t make it we didn’t make it now i’m out of sight and out of mind i still dream of your face your ribs your behind whatever went down is dirty and mean i been trying so hard but i can’t get clean the goose the crook and the baker they all want to take ya they said we wouldn’t make it we didn’t make it
please slow down i am shot day done a fair fight lost settle here i need to rest time to talk time to reflect well i followed you cause i thought you knew all the right words all the right moves but i know that now i soon found out that you were following me we went round and round well did you hear a gun no i don’t think so well did you see a bullet no i feel it though are you leaking blood and does your heart grow cold my heart is dropping my blood it flows well there’s a question and there’s an answer here i’ve some bad thoughts well my head it ain’t clear my spindle my thread my needle my stitch won’t you fix me up fix me up quick because the day is long but there’s little left the day was good the time well spent and if you only hold one hand tonight won’t you hold it fair hold it gentle and tight hold it fair hold it gentle and tight
tell this to everyone wherever you go i speak about things that i do not know i am up to no good and there is not turning back and you say that you’ll follow well i don’t know that we gotta get out of the town if we can run for the hills and don’t look back horses and torches and angry mob everyone crazy everything lost and if you think that the good lord is losing his grip see his hand at my throat i choke and yet he does not release there are stories in my family i do not believe a house in the west that i have never seen some things are hidden for what’s written there it will not delight but only frighten and scare everyone thinks that the good lord is losing his grip see his hand at my throat i choke and yet he does not release the woods of my childhood were bare black and fearful littered with kids clothes abandoned and fearful find me a clear green forest to walk in someday and i’ll say anything just get me away if you think that the good lord is losing his grip see his hand at my throat i choke and yet he does not release
well fourteen miles out of town on the northern road coastal bound a quiet place with nothing around there they built the weeping well a little town with little to see where the people live in some harmony but they fill up their buckets most completely every day at the weeping well in the morning the men do make a line and an hour later the women are behind and they pour it all out from a great great height and they do fill up the weeping well see this place is a tap and it won’t turn off and the tears that they pour they do not stop they just give and they give and the let it it all drop down into the weeping well i am going there this desperate day cause you have left me in this state and i’ll throw in my bucket this very day and i’ll add my fill to the weeping well

‘Woodland Recordings EP’

Album

Released December 2007 / CD-r & digital / WR008

EP

Released March 2007 / CD-r & digital / WR001

before you turn away from me again and pull yourself into the winter air and head for houses with a kinder host who’ll try their best just to keep you close before you throw your only key away and look to friends for a place to stay and gather strength from all the bitter words colder claims always cause me hurt long before we had moved from here long before you got clear things were simpler things were almost good the great park the neighbourhood before the sun hesitates to shine meet me again at the riverside spill the wine and make promises of all the times we’ll always miss before you turn away from me again
well there are some bones that break and you can’t put them straight they are fixed in a painful place and what’s done is done and while he called me his son i was not but i am proud of the name now all the tears in the world they won’t bring him back he was put complete below i could have held him more but no use now i’m fine but i do miss him so it’s just too sad no mister no more it’s just too bad no mister no i am not yet gone i am not yet not yet gone i took the windows from the walls i took the door from the frame i turned the whole house upside down i looked under the stairs but you weren’t sleeping there i don’t know if you want to be found it’s just too sad no mister no more it’s just too bad no mister no i am not yet gone i am not yet not yet gone come on in the water is fine he said come on in the water is fine he said come on in the water is fine he said come on in the water is fine
give me a book of paper birds a shovel and a field of dirt i’ll show you where the magic goes nowhere else but down a hole the clouds grow the rain does fall into your house and all we got pots we got bowls below the water down the wall does flow in sheets but i do believe in one sure thing the good will grow and stay and then fade away and sorrow will return again i dug a hole and now belong someplace else i’m running from the ground i marked i painted dirt i burnt grass, and coloured earth gather up all your scraps of clay and chuck them on the wheel again and whatever things they become well that’s what throwing dirt has done today but i do believe in one sure thing the good will grow and stay and then fade away and sorrow will return again cut a ribbon of hair from your head take a needle a length of thread stitch a line from my heart to my hand and i’ll take that as the one true map now set down your folded wings i’ll throw them to the eastern wind see what good those feathers do without the heart to make them move at all but i do believe in one sure thing the good will grow and stay and then fade away and sorrow will return again
low slow autumn a tired tree litters my floor with copper leaves down in the woods there’s a fire starting i can smell the smoke from here well jericho warned us not to get burned but when have we ever listened to her she’s been wrong so many times we’ve all lost count but she tells a good story like no one else can you keep your worries clear if i keep the things between the walls hold your fears below and i won’t let the wolf inside well we’re all gonna fail we’re all gonna go someday soon i’m gonna wind up alone alice said that i don’t know if she’s right but she forced some medicine down me, good lord the clouds they are filling they are soon gonna burst and then there’ll be a storm to soften the dirt when doing nothing’s the wisest move things are getting fairly ruthless here can you keep your worries clear if i keep the things between the walls hold your fears below and i won’t let the wolf inside
am i slight to you have i passed right through your eye your heart your body too am i cold in the night and do i welcome you right you are more to me now and i don’t know how to be tender and true when i’m not that to you to be lovely and wise when i’m not in your eyes am i careless enough or do i worry too much do i fit your clothes and do you ever know could you ever be kind when you pay me no mind oh you are more to be now and i don’t know how to be tender and true when i’m not that to you to be lovely and wise when i’m not in your eyes
i see myself without everything i have all wanting flat and it ain’t so bad i don’t dig a hole i just leave it at home find a quiet road and walk down it alone i see myself at yours face down on the floor completely ignored and not wanting more i don’t dig a hole i just leave it at home find a quiet road and walk down it alone i see myself adrift lost in the drink studying the deep and there’s nothing there to see i don’t dig a hole i just leave it at home find a quiet road and walk down it alone

2006

‘Church Boat’

Album

Self released / CD-r / no catalogue number

you’ve got a heart singing strong and i can almost hear it from here and i’d lie through my teeth to say something bright and clear and now i’m counting the days and i’m counting the ways to get by and i’m losing my place and i’m losing the reason why are these your arms here i need your arms dear cause i really don’t see us getting to heaven tonight i need your arms here cause when i get up and go i just slip and i fall and i look for the long in the short and you say well what’s wrong with you you should be so happy but we struggle to fit and i know these things happen but i do need your arms here and i do need your arms dear cause i do not see us getting to heaven tonight i need your arms here well it must have been funny cause i’m sure that we laughed all night i just thought of something and that something just ain’t right
(additional lyrics by vicky steer)
blackwater christmas eve we pulled samuel out carefully the moonlight showed cold and clear a wet man a sad sight indeed and it just aint right to celebrate and it just aint right to raise a glass st mary’s bells christmas day blackwater a mare struck by the river’s cold fist we found her miles down in walls parish like a bag she was taken away the river it took her like a bag away and it just aint right to celebrate and it just aint right to raise a glass st mary’s bells christmas day blackwater there’s a wide high moon a sudden white light a pale face shining in the wintery light there’s a bright bold star there’s a path well lost and there floats a good man now careless and gone

2005

‘The Great Park’

Album

Self released / CD-r / no catalogue number

all lyrics by stephen burch, except where noted. copyright 2024. all rights reserved.