Machineries of Joy

Song Lyrics

Words by Darren Howard

A Muse (Myself)

Put my neck on the social block, just to amuse myself

Lay down lines and suck them in, just to amuse myself

Push my heart into your face, just to amuse myself

Play guitar in the key of X, just to amuse myself

 

But I can’t relax around my friends

And I think too much before I speak

Hold me close

It’s safe with you

It’s safe

with you.

 

Shrinking down to suit them all, just to amuse myself

Miss the heads up, miss the call, just to amuse myself

 

This is what I got and what I need is all I’ve got to give

Take away all trouble give it up and start to live

 

Hang my arms in deepest frowns, just to amuse myself

To throw words madly in a box, just to amuse myself

Push away they come too close, just to amuse myself

Build a barrier forever

Just to abuse myself.

 

But I can’t relax around my friends

And I think too much before I speak

 

Hold me close

It’s safe with you.

It’s not safe enough

But I need a little danger…

Carnivore

In every colour
nothing is wasted
creatures form in the salt of her river bed
Silhouetting
a coquettish sin
they dance by the heat of her silent sun

My lizard boots
kick up dust in a plume
from the wood
as I push through the rank of the room
Sweat of suede
leer of the leather
cold comfort of smoke and brass
shot down

Did you think that you could fly
out the corner of my eye
in silver streams with nothing on?
Cry television tears
swap your soul for wasted years
Here comes my Carnivore again

She goes down
I come around


With green abandon
stars are turning dark
in the shadow of her luminescent hair
So the vipers
shank together
solidify the scene that she’s foaming around her head

There she stands
her battering eyelids
down to the gloom of her two-vacuum saloon
To and fro
so the thunder of horses
degenerates my mind as we head out into the night

Did you think that you could fly
out the corner of my eye
in silver streams with nothing on?
Cry television tears
swap your soul for wasted years
Here comes my Carnivore again

She goes down
I come around.

Caspian Star (Second Son)

Lay down your arms

welcome home

we kept the fire warm

you left your dreams piled in the corner

we kept them safe from harm…

Look at my sunburst blazing against the sky

Now that I realise why it burns for you

And I am always here to welcome you home

to crisp your flesh

and lick your eyes

the burning heat of a second son

And so last thing

so still at night

and lasting still through hot daylight

my mind’s rearranged

and dreams subside

and all thoughts turn to what’s in the sky

But the crackling moon will never be changed

while iron ships roll in from the sea

and as you wait for the final wave to come

you taste her breath

her very last breath

in your mouth

again

and again

And so last thing so still at night

and lasting still through hot daylight

my mind’s rearranged

and dreams subside

and all thoughts turn to what’s inside.

The Chinese Bell Tower

I’ll drink til I’m drunk full up and sit down and laugh in you fall I can’t drown

 

Understand I need your voice so near and laugh thrown soft and chiming

 

Dying while awake for fortune’s sake

we jump and feel ten years old

Sit so close, chose to make the most

of living and breathing

and your eyes so sad, sin so bad seemed so sure and right inside I was caught by the tide and knocked down

 

Tripped, twisted, torn apart – why now, you touched my heart?

Your eyes cut their path then dart away, so sharp and searing

 

Draw on me, you draw me in, fine touch and taste teasing

 

Oh, suffocate in sense of smell and hoping you’d walk behind me and drag me along by the strings of my heart and helpless mind to fall and smile behind…

 

Rain your soft hair on my soul and I’ll lay quiet and allow everything.

Do Not Leak Life

Do not leak life

Forward fires the cannon

Ever targeted

Ever kinetic

The reaction must be equal and opposite

Do not leak life!

 

The ocean has a pearlescent face at night

But only if you go and see

Only if you go and see.

 

Do not leak life

Forward fires the cannon

Ever targeted

Ever kinetic

The reaction must be equal and opposite

Do not leak life!

 

Invert your nest

And turn it inside out

Stand naked above instance

Run in rain for the glory of God

 

Do not leak life

Forward fires the cannon

Ever targeted

Ever kinetic

The reaction must be equal and opposite

Do not leak life!

 

All is poised in perfect solar excellence.

It Always Comes To This

It always comes to this

every single day

the river’s fast

so she pulls her drawbridge high

 

Then the apple of her eye

those sinking, shining stars

start falling softly

down into her lower half

oh, why?

 

All of her life

all of her life

every single death-defying moment of her life

 

And after clouds conspire

so dizzy undeserved

she swallows sadness down

and kicks out at all her songs unheard

 

Then fragile endless birds

are driven from her cave

in multitudes of ever-changing

colours in her sky

 

All of her life

All of her life

every single death-defying moment of her life.

 

And this is all she has

but she sees enough to be

She aggregates the fragments

of her childhood as she dreams

 

And screams at last, she’s free

as she stands against the blast

and feels the rush of innocence

and warm eternity

 

All of her life

All of her life

Every single death-defying moment of her life.

 

All the words you said

All the looks you gave

Were driven in my heart

and drove me to my grave

Now we’ve come to this

we’ve come right to the end

all the things we did and said

will never ever mend.

It Was Then It Was You

Inside your chic and teenage bedroom rebellion lair

Black Angels set the scene, incense, sunken purple air

 

Our minds shot together we left them all behind

We left them all bereft outside forever.

 

It was you, it was you, it was who we were back then

Oh your hair played out like a doll, like a doll in devil’s fire

 

We lacked the dread

We mocked the dead

We were alive, alive, alive in red

It was you, it was you, it was who we were

It’s what I wanna be right now in this moment again

 

I ran my closest thoughts about you over your sighing skin

Then we dived, we dived, we dived, we dived right in

 

Inside your sweet and scented evening put-together perfume

Then together, together, together we inverted the room

 

It was you, it was you, it was who we were back then

Oh your hair played out like a doll, like a doll in devil’s fire

It’s what I wanna be right now in this moment again

Lacking the dread, mocking the dead

Alive and alive and alive and alive and alive!

Leave While You Can

Darkness patrician

courtesan queen

unleash your luxury lust

upon this plebian dream

 

Touch my arm

guide me to your tower

unbind your bountiful bower

 

Your arbour

your ardour

ply your trade

moon midnight maid

 

But why am I here?

Why am I still here

facing you when this voice is telling me

“You’d better leave while you can

Leave while you can”?

 

The only thing

the only thing I see

is you here

is you here with me

 

and these four walls

there’s no way out

you’ve got me turning inside

turning inside out

 

but what do I know?

Why do I feel, feel the way that I do

when I look at you now?

And why am I here?

why am I still here facing you when this

voice is telling me

 

You’d better leave while you can

You’d better leave while you can

leave while you can

you’d better leave while you can

 

Dusk collapses on this room

black collapses the moon

too soon

too soon

 

You’d better leave while you can.

Long Dead Dragon Wings

Lost in a frozen forest

of your love

Still reaching for your sun

 

Diving underneath your breath

Tall reeds

you were the chosen one

 

Once upon a time

we were happy ever after

now we’re drowning

in the darkness of our ink

 

And all those blotchy

starlit stone encounters

were cauterised

like all the segments

rip of your long-dead dragon wings

 

I’ll meet you where

the trees touch the mountain

greet the river

where toffee sunlight looms

so large upon the lake

upon the lake

 

Sitting here

this ache will be my burden

fallow in your forest

swimming through your shallow streams

 

Until one day

out of this heavy oil painting dream

you and me

we’ll float away. 

Omega Setting Sun

(The kids go crazy over in East Berlin

when the news comes in

of your cracked porcelain)

 

Stun the mannequin

release his chains

the dew upon his waxen lips

threatens the flow of our laughter

 

Never ask after a boy

with malcontent on his mind

let him forge his furrow alone

forged incredible clustered bones

 

For his bloody hands

insult and distract

the idiot’s comic timing

to fuck about with rhyming words

 

But to sharpen our graphite

to gild the page

is to live forever

be never dead, never dead

 

And perching on the scaffold

of our shaking bones

our anchor will dry on the dock forever

 

So reach hard and long between your words

Joust your demons on charges of reason and truth

 

All you puppets

tangled in your strings

borrowed, afraid

dancing madly on needless things

 

Touch the sword upon your head

Omega setting sun will come

 

Be never dead, never dead

or utterly undone

or utterly undone.

 

(The kids go crazy over in East Berlin

when the news comes in

of your cracked porcelain.)

 

Peace on Earth

Peace

Peace on Earth

You’ll never see it coming

until it’s too late

 

Folded discreetly beneath the street

fighting instinctual surrender

 

History

The flashing eyes of our animals

once darted through the seething jungle

 

The tropics were infested

and dancing in heat

 

Our once kinetic warriors

are now forced to drink dust

in a cell face down

This is the trade-off

 

Defeat

no more clinging to the chrome sceptre

rubies drop and roll as love’s tears.

 

So we collapse in welcome ether

recoil and draw it deep

 

Deep, deep, down below

we turn the engine slowly to keep it warm

 

For this machine will feed and feed upon you

with merciless clatter

and bronze muscles

 

Cold individuals

copper coloured

evil

too dull to touch

too clever to see

 

Slick and yellowed

like dogs of the Kremlin

they wait for the hammer to fall.

Seashell

Love is not emotion

Love is not a Lord

Love is not an arrow

Love is not a dirty little word

 

It’s the morning dew due west

separates us from the rest

it’s what we two do best

it’s our total and utter mental state

it’s to do with fate

just remember it’s never too late.

 

Love is not two people

who just fuck each other a lot

every day in every way

love is cries

love is sighs

love is butterflies

love is what I’ve got.

 

Our love is more than emotion

And our love will last forever

forever forever forever

 

It’s the morning dew due west

separates us from the rest

it’s what we two do best

it’s our total and utter mental state

it’s to do with fate

just remember it’s never too late.

 

Let’s skip this class

run down the river forever

blanch our souls in cold, smooth solid love

 

Your heart is a neutron star

it’s a strange star with no escape

and endless capacity for terminal velocity

 

It’s the morning dew due west

separates us from the rest

it’s what we two do best

it’s our total and utter mental state

it’s to do with fate

just remember it’s never too late.

To The Empty Population

I feel like

though the population is growing

the world gets a little more empty every day

 

I feel like

if I opened more hearts and minds around me

the love inside would exponentially grow

 

Yet still I find

I’m stuck behind

this wall of paranoia

that says to me that you don’t feel the same.

 

So what am I to do

when lies become the truth

and freedom’s just a long-forgotten joke?

 

I feel like

if you poured your heart out to me

well, I’d take it all and never spill a drop

not a drop

 

But what I am to say

when your good heart hides away

and all that’s left is this fragile shadow?

 

I sincerely wish for nothing

but an end to all this madness

but I’m only human

so this is all I can do

 

But what am I to sing

if my words cannot express

the love that’s always been the answer

to this human condition

this human mess?

 

For the only things they know

and the only words I hear

Are not how to love

but how to live in fear.

Toys and Tears

I cannot translate my screams

these things will never change

 

I dreamed when I was a boy

I needed these to stay the same

 

I ran when I wanted to run

crashed cars on plastic sheeting

 

Delivered a joke with no fears

buried toys and tears

in the backyard

or garden

 

When I was a boy

when I was a boy

 

I loved without consequence

when I was a boy.

You Human, You

What is it that makes a man

throw away what he loves?


What is it that makes a man

hurt the ones he loves?


Because

oh, the pain is real

But

oh, the way she feels.


Don’t worry, you’re only human

Don’t worry, you’re only human after all.

You human

You human, you.


Cry shadow tears
for shadow years
Now prepare the clouds for movement
we’re rolling them away
today they’re rolling away


For that which comes

first and foremost

is time and the evergreen notes

of kingdoms lost.


But don’t worry, you’re only human

Don’t worry, you’re only human after all.


You human

You human, you.

You Surround Me (and everything else just turns to ghost)

I , I just leaped out of my skin

Within a second my heart dived in

and my cool was crushed

all you ever did

was walk in.

 

Your smile lacerated logic

and completely in I fell

You turned and you looked far away.

 

Could you ever understand

the slightest touch of your soft hand

and what it means?

The universe would split its seams

and all my nightmares turn to dreams

 

Hair indeed

oh please let my senses feed

deliciously all over your skin

 

Let me peel away

the silent shell of the day

and let our slow evening begin

 

Are we meant to be?

Or are we so clumsy, obscene?

So people this way can be seen

so simple and direct

we come and connect

 

In something that shouldn’t have been.