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.