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1. |
The life backstage
03:30
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If you could only find yourself the smallest wage
Sweeping floors or serving trays
If you could only find yourself inside that space
Between troubadors and their go-go days
My dance routines are a little bit dinosaur
this schtick is getting old
but you're still out there reeling around upon the floor,
while my heart is growing cold
So call me switched on, 'friend of Erol',
We're at the rave trading cells in the life backstage
I don't recall the details of this pact we made
but our love got lost in the life backstage
my dance routines are a little bit din-o-saur
this schtick is getting old
but you're still out there reeling around upon the floor while my heart is growing cold
Then just think, we'll live together, walking through life in love forever
hands like stars in setting concrete, the lightbulbs flash and we hope they're discreet Tiny hands clap outfits wildly, waiting cars beep their horns politely, but life has begun in earnest sadly,
... This life backstage ... the life backstage
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2. |
Like ’79
04:09
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Let's celebrate our stylised functions
we're drinking late combinin' our junctions (baby)
so call me and let's make this a startup
we'll be touching hearts and minds with our jump-cuts (mmmm) Back when girls were taller and cooler
And the pharmacy put "great!" back in "super"
We were cutting riffs as short as our daywear (sporty)
It was timeless in that you had to be there (tic/toc/tok)
So chop me out a riff like it's 79
Pretty girls dash and the crowd is mine
Slogan slogan slogan in the light divine
Theories that kiss under the sky tonight
Chop me out a riff like it's 78
The lecturers swoon and the past is remade
Fashionistas down at the luck club
But I just want to take you home
Let's calibrate decided indifference
Our jaws drop but it's just interference (hon-ey)
Touch the screen but now feel the leather
We've got passes like those glam flighty fellas
Cool cool cool / don't be a fuck up
cool cool cool / don't be a drill guy
cool cool cool / swimmin' by the hot ships
Partyin' hard mediteranean time
Zim zum zum / everybody's movin'
Chop chop chop/ go the boys at the back crash crash crash
Vows are getting broken sparkin' up the communion wine...
So chop me out a riff like it's 79
Pretty girls dash and the crowd is mine
Slogan slogan slogan / in the light divine
Theories that kiss under the sky tonight
Chop me out a riff like it's 78
The lecturers swoon and the past is remade
Fashionistas down at the luck club
But I just want to take you home
Like 79
Like 78
Like 79
Like 78
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3. |
The past
03:22
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Nothing from the past will ever happen again
Nothing from the past will ever happen again
Nothing from the past will ever happen again
Nothing from your past will ever happen again
Nothing from your past will ever happen again
Nothing from your past will ever happen again
But I don't know why, you'dexchange all of this
Falling for the certainty, not just one more kiss
I dont' know why, you'd exchange all of this Just for me...
No song has been written that sounds quite the same
No song has been written that sounds quite the same
No-one else will catch my heart like in your gentlest refrain
But I don't know why, you'd exchange all of this
Falling for the certainty, not just one more kiss
I dont' know why, you'd exchange all of this just for me...
And I don't know why, you'd exchange all of this
Swap originality for the promise of a kiss
I dont' know why, you'd exchange all of this Just for me...
Nothing from the past will ever happen again
Nothing from your past will ever happen again
No-one else will catch my heart like in your gentlest refrain
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4. |
In two minds
03:41
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What if love was not so strange?
Like beach arrests in southern Spain?
What if i could just act my age?
What if your heart could lose its cage?
In two minds
Should i let this heart take wing
When foolish love's its tune I sing?
In two minds
But happy just to see you there
Sensing love upon the air.
I guess she's in two minds
There's nothing more that i could say…
When love and doubt are intertwined on this night when hearts divide
These finer theories are staged
To a lover left unswayed
Let's enact the final phase
Call it primal downtown days
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5. |
Upturned
03:38
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Just under a minute
the girl did she win it
Sparkling and gold in the night
In the time that we finished,
the awards that we polished
you'd think that the heart was a bomb site
Not a canter or horse race
That smackeroo on your warm face
An embarrassment of kisses
Tightly you held him
In the dark of the gold mine
But when does a heart know more than its misses?
Just over an hour
the boy's heart grown sour
In what started as the night that just might
They danced to their theme song
To offset thec` gone wrong
In a tribute to all that is right
Not a dry eye in London
Or a sad song that could overcome
To the rooftops he took in one step
Would the clock strike morning
Before the logic dawning
Could freeze him up there instead?
When will we be upturned to see?
Some 24 hours now the story is ours
And love's there for all to see
Cos the heart hates a fraction
Sweet curse that inaction
Could the ending just once be happy?
Not a story of heroes or a merging of egos
They're blinking out into the light
If the snow stills the sound of
All the talking around of
could a kiss still make it all alright?
When will we be upturned for all to see?
When will we be upturned for all to see?
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6. |
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What if we had sixty seconds to combine
To recipe the madness from a stew into a wine
The kitchen’s rather mental but then that’s the way at mine
It’s not the last supper so to kiss would be no crime
My mind is partly shot as you undressing to the nines
Is there something in the water cos you’re really quite a find
And yes I love your poetry the way you turn a rhyme
But be kinder so my silence if I don’t respond in kind
“I prefer the heat of battle!” said the body to the mind
My attention span is limited your presence so divine
In the depths of our amazement then let’s take that as a sign
That I love… you
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7. |
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At 12.03, in a darkened night-club line
Dear reader you will find me, biding my time
And people are nag-nag-nagging, that this is where I'll find
The person that I'm scared that you become, late at night
But I just don't / want to get so…
Crazy, crazy every night
Crazy, crazy every night
what if we just became lovers, do you think that's crazy enough for two?
What if we just had each other, do you think that's crazy enough for you?
With morning dew, they're serving the sweetest tears of the town
But you are still out there somewhere, among the peacocks and the clowns
But I just don't / want to get so…
Crazy, crazy every night
Crazy, crazy every night
What if we just became lovers, do you think that's crazy enough for two?
What if we just had each other, do you think that's crazy enough for you?
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8. |
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You, are becoming the reason
That I've tasted a change in the season
Now the sun he's smiling like a guy so fey
And the rain, well he's taken a holiday
I walked... into a wood for spring's light flowers
But it was Octo-ber, guess I got lost for hours
And that time, January in a bathing suit
Well it sure gave those kids a hoot
"Hey mister, what'cha doin'?"
You are becoming the reason
That the moon, has gone back to doing evenings
And when you walk the stars will do their homework
The better to light your way back into my world.
I sipped honey under a willow tree
And in this reverie, felt that you were lying next to me yeah
Were those soldiers, passin', salutin' our first kiss?
Or did I only dream, this state of bliss?
You, are becoming the reason
that I've tasted a change in the season
Now the sun he's smiling like a guy so fey
And the rain, well he's taken a holiday
You are becoming the reason
That the moon, has gone back to doing evenings
And when you walk the stars will do their homework
The better to light your way back into my world.
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9. |
The dream
03:37
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Isn’t this party great
I think we’re all what we seem
So pass another drink
Are we not living the dream?
Shes a provocateuse
Or just a little mean
I think I made my point
When I said “it’s not what you think”
And I’d have conclude, that at this interlude
After all that we’ve seen
Your place or mine, baby that’s fine
Are we not living the dream
And I’d have conclude, that at this interlude
After all that we’ve seen, are we not…
Living the dream?
Bobby’s the star of the show
That was really quite a speech
Maybe it’s all in the schooling, the conduct, the tears and the reach?
We’re in unchartered waters with Monaco’s daughters
Ready the choppper, we’re leaving
Prepare to cast off, we’ve all seen enough
And ‘ennui’ must be one of those islands
And I’d have conclude, that at this interlude
After all that we’ve seen
Your place or mine, baby that’s fine
Are we not living the dream
are we not…
Living the dream?
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10. |
I'm gonna get married
04:29
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I'm gonna get married, you see if I don't
Borne aloft to the church gates
A choral group in full throat
We'll be cutting confetti from our magazine spreads
Making way for Mendlessohn and the "I do's that we said"
I'm gonna get married
I sent her parents a note
Gilded paper poetics
She'll be in no doubt
Red arrows in the sky will tell it
In the sweetest hot air
Whilst below romantic students
Pen poems as they stare
(she said)
"You'll never get married, your dream's too big for the town
you've saddled up on the wrong horse, riding off with a frown”
but a girl's been here to hear all, of your fanciful schemes
whie you missed the winks, the cajoling from, this girl who's not a dream...
We're gonna get married
You see if we don't
We're gonna get married
You see if we don't
I'm gonna get married (yeah!)
I'm gonna get married (yeah)
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11. |
The happiness box
04:14
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it was early on a Friday morning and the wood was plush and velvet lined
The note which was affixed read simply "everything you want is here inside"
But would I step into the box?
The lift doors open as we held hands - a boat for two into the sky
You gave my hand a squeezed and smiled as our past gave way to future lies
But would we step in to the box
A life at sea can seem appealing
When the battle on the land gets high
I wasn't what you'd call sea faring
But faring better than when you and i
But would we step into the box?
Well happiness is kind of hard to fathom
Was it that moment in the fading light
We stood upon a hill in Norway
Our eyes were dead to every other sight
The practicalities of simply loving
Could be hidden just behind that door
So step inside and then we'll lay together
And know that happiness for ever more
But would I step into the box?
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12. |
All the great last lines
03:28
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All the great last lines
I think I heard them all the night you told me why the movies get it wrong
If there was a chance that you had lied
I checked each book believe me
Starting with the dreams
That end the cheapest scenes
All the great last lines characters so rich and full
They don't inspire the love like a story of the fall
Time to tell you why I hate this sunny day
I'll never love you more central casting’s had its way oh...
All the flyest crimes could not enhance the view
that suns a little dimmer in a world now without you
all the great last lines, I think I heard them all
the night you told me why, the movies get it wrong
if there was a chance that you had lied
I checked each book believe me
starting with the time that you left me at Port Said.
All the great last lines, codas so rich and full
They're standing starts in drag, to evening dress or tender wool
Can't we be that good? Wound like a rope is strong
But rescued at the end as they play the final song
Happy ever after and "damn you're beautiful!"
Poetic ways to finish, compelling so its true
But when we both walk out, blinking into the blue
will we be silent stars or whisper vows anew?
And when we write the last scene, will we be lonely, (only)
You and me started off sweet at the start of the story so hold me...
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13. |
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What if we had only sixty seconds to combine?
Two people and a rug and a basket and a bottle of wine
What if in the middle we stopped and just took our time?
I cannot speak for you, but I know what I’d do with mine
What if we had only just each others still to find?
The corn waving quietly applause of another kind
What if we had only sixty seconds in this field?
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14. |
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15. |
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Alexander's Festival Hall London, UK
Alexander's Festival Hall is a sort of English pop confection, a mix of regretful ballads and occasional pop rainbows. New
album 'Not From Above!' is both music and book of stories. Twelve lush romantic songs and a collection of darkly comic thought experiments.
(Author pic by Travis Elborough.)
... more
Alexander's Festival Hall recommends:
Play Some Pool, Skip Some School, Act Real Cool
by Various Artists
A great album of imaginative Springsteen covers (you read that right) featuring AFH covering "Empty sky" and many good musical friends...
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Echo Eléctrico
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