Huddled in the safety of a pseudo silk kimono wearing bracelets of smoke
Naked of understanding
Nicotine smears, long, long dried tears, invisible tears
Safe in my own words, learning from my own words
Cruel joke, cruel joke

Huddled in the safety of a pseudo silk kimono a morning mare rides
In the starless shutters of my eyes
The spirit of a misplaced childhood is rising to speak his mind
To this orphan of heartbreak, disillusioned and scarred
A refugee, refugee , refugee

Kayleight

Do you remember chalk hearts melting on a playground wall
Do you remember dawn escapes from moon washed college halls
Do you remember the cherry blossom in the market square
Do you remember I thought it was confetti in our hair
By the way didn’t I break your heart?
Please excuse me, I never meant to break your heart
So sorry, I never meant to break your heart
But you broke mine

Kayleigh is it too late to say I’m sorry?
And kayleigh could we get it together again?
I just can’t go on pretending that it came to a natural end

Kayleigh, oh I never thought I’d miss you
And kayleigh I thought that we’d always be friends
We said our love would last forever
So how did it come to this bitter end?

Do you remember barefoot on the lawn with shooting stars
Do you remember loving on the floor in belsize park
Do you remember dancing in stilettoes in the snow
Do you remember you never understood I had to go
By the way, didn’t I break your heart?
Please excuse me, I never meant to break your heart
So sorry, I never meant to break your heart
But you broke mine

Kayleigh I just wanna say I’m sorry
But kayleigh I’m too scared to pick up the phone
To hear you’ve found another lover to patch up our broken home

Kayleigh I’m still trying to write that love song
Kayleigh it’s more important to me now you’re gone
Maybe it will prove that we were right
Or ever prove that I was wrong

Lavender

I was walking in the park dreaming of a spark
When I heard the sprinklers whisper
Shimmer in the haze of summer lawns.
Then I heard the children singing
They were running through the rainbows.
They were singing a song for you
Well it seemed to be a song for you
The one I wanted to write for you , for you… you….

Lavenders blue, dilly dilly, lavenders green
When I am King, dilly dilly
You will be queen
A penny for your thoughts my dear
A penny for your thoughts my dear
I.O.U. for your love
I.O.U. for your love

Lavenders green, dilly dilly, lavenders blue
When you love me, dilly dilly
I will love you
A penny for your thoughts my dear
A penny for your thoughts my dear
I.O.U. for your love
I.O.U. for your love , for your loveeee.. for your love… for your love.

Bitter Suite
I – Brief Encounter
A spider wanders aimlessly within the warmth of a shadow
Not the regal creature of border caves
But the poor, misguided, directionless familiar of some obscure scottish poet
The mist crawls from the canal
Like some primordial phantom of romance
To curl, under a cascade of neon pollen
While I sit tied to the phone like an expectant father
Your carnation will rot in a vase

B) lost weekend
A train sleeps in a siding
The driver guzzles another can of lager, lager
To wash away the memories of a friday night down at the club
She was a wallflower at sixteen, she’ll be a wallflower at thirty four
Her mother called her beautiful
Her daddy said, a whore

C) blue angel
The sky was Bible black in lyon, when I met the magdalene
She was paralyzed in a streetlight
She refused to give her name
And a ring of violet bruises
They were pinned upon her arm
Two hundred francs for sanctuary and she led me by the hand
To a room of dancing shadows where all the heartache disappears
And from glowing tongues of candles I heard her whisper in my ear’j’entend ton coeur’, ‘j’entend ton coeur’
I can hear your heart, I can hear your heart, I can hear your heart
Hear your heart
I hear your heart

D) misplaced rendezvous
It’s getting late, for scribbling and scratching on the paper
Something’s gonna give under this pressure, and the cracks are already beginning to show
It’s too late
The weekend career girl never boarded the plane
They said this could never happen again
Oh, so wrong, so wrong
This time it seems to be another misplaced rendezvous
This time, it’s looking like another misplaced rendezvous
With you
The parallel of you, you

V – Windswept Thumb
On the outskirts of nowhere
On the ringroad to somewhere
On the verge of indecision
I’ll always take the roundabout way
Waiting on the rain
For I was born with a habit, from a sign
The habit of a windswept thumb, and the sign of the rain
Rain on me, rain
It’s started raining

Heart of Lothian

I) wide boy

Wide boys, wide boys, wide boys
Born with hearts of lothian
Wide boys, wide boys
Born with hearts of lothian
Wide boys, we were wide boys
Born with hearts of lothian
These hearts of lothian

Its six oclock in the tower blocks
The stalagmites of culture shock
And the trippers of the light fantastic, bowdown, hoe-down
Spray their pheremones on this perfume uniform

And anarchy smiles in the royal mile
And theyre waiting on the slyboys, flyboys, wideboys
Rooting, tooting cowboys
Lucky little ladies at the watering holes
Theyll score the friday night goals

I was born with a heart of lothian
I was born with a heart of lothian
I was born with a heart of lothian
I was born with a heart of lothian
I was born with a heart of lothian, with a heart of lothian.

II) Curtain Call
And the man from the magazine,
wants another shot of you all curled up.
‘Cos you look like an actor in a movie shot.
But you’re feeling like a wino in a parking lot.
How did I get here anyway?
Do we really need a playback of the show?
‘Cos the wideboys want to head for the watering holes,
watering holes, watering holes.
Let’s go.
And the man in the mirror has sad eyes.

Waterhole

When the taxis gather in mock Solemnity.
Funeral hearses court the death in virginity,
Was it paradise lost or paradise found?
Did we gain respect or were we holding ground?
You had found true love, or so you believed
And the wideboys tattooed your hearts upon their sleeves.
So when you think it’s time to go,
when you think it’s time to go,
Don’t be surprised, the heroes never show.
And the patter merchants selling false impressions,
Tipping eyes at the waitress with American expressions,
Tie angels to the bar with sweet Martini’s and their charms
They’re lying on every word and every arm
They’re turning down their noses to the best lines
And the cheap wines.
And the wideboys,
They wear their lovebites for their crimes.

So when you think it’s time to go,
when you think it’s time to go,
Don’t be surprised, the heroes never show.

Lords of the Backstage
A love song with no validity.
Pretend you never meant that much to me.
Numb, a vallium child, bored by meaningless collisions.
A lonely stretch of headlight, diamonds trapped in black ice.
A mirror cracked along the white lines.
I just wanted you to be the first one.
I just wanted you to be the first one.
Ashes are burning, burning.
Ashes are burning, burning.
A lifestyle with no simplicities.
But I’m not asking for your sympathies.
Talk, we never could talk, distanced by all that was between us.
A lord of the backstage, a creature of language,
I’m so far out and I’m too far in.
I just wanted you to be the first one.
I just wanted you to be the first one.
Bridges are burning, burning.
Bridges are burning, burning.
Now, now, now, now

Blind Curve
A) vocal under a bloodlight

Last night you said I was cold, untouchable
A lonely piece of action from another town
I just want to be free, Im happy to be lonely
Cant you stay away?
Just leave me alone with my thoughts
Just a runaway, just a runaway, Im saving myself

B) passing strangers

Strung out below a necklace of carnival lights
Cold moan, held on the crest of the night
Im too tired to fight

So now were passing strangers, at single tables
Still trying to get over, still trying to write love songs for passing strangers
All those passing strangers

And the twinkling lies, all those twinkling lies
Sparkle with the wet ink on the paper

C) mylo

Oh I remember toronto when mylo went down
And we sat and we cried on the phone
I never felt so alone
He was the first of our own
Some of us go down in a blaze of obscurity
Some of us go down in a haze of publicity
The price of infamy, the edge of insanity

Another holiday inn, another temporary home
And an interviewer threatened me with a microphone
talk to me, wont you tell me your stories.

So I talked about conscience and I talked about pain
And he looked out the window and it started to rain
I thought maybe Ive already gone crazy
So I reached for a bottle and he reached for the door
And I picked up the sleeping pills crushed on the floor
Inviting me to a casual obscenity

D) perimeter walk

It would be incredible if we could retrace all the times that we lived here
All the collisions
Wasted, Ive never been so wasted
Ive never been this far out before

Perimeter walk
Theres a presence here
I feel could have been ancient, I could have been mystical

Theres a presence
A childhood, my childhood
My childhood, childhood
A misplaced childhood
My childhood, a misplaced childhood
Give it back to me, give it back to me
A childhood, that childhood, that childhood, that childhood, that childhood
Oh please give it back to me

E) threshold

I saw a war widow in a launderette
Washing the memories from her husbands clothes
She had medals pinned to a threadbare greatcoat
A lump in her throat with cemetery eyes

I see convoys curbcrawling west german autobahns
Trying to pick up a war
Theyre going to even the score
Oh… I cant take any more
I see black flags on factories
Soup ladies poised on the lips of the poor
I see children with vacant stares, destined for rape in the alleyways
Does anybody care, I cant take any more!
Should we say goodbye?
Hey

I see priests, politicians?
The heroes in black plastic body-bags under nations flags
I see children pleading with outstretched hands, drenched in napalm, this is no vietnam

I cant take any more, should we say goodbye
How can we justify?
They call us civilised!

Childhoods End
And it was morning
And I found myself mourning,
For a childhood that I thought had disappeared
I looked out the window
And I saw a magpie in the rainbow, the rain had gone
I’m not alone, I turned to the mirror
I saw you, the child, that once loved
The child before they broke his heart
Our heart, the heart that I believed was lost

Hey you, surprised? More than surprised
To find the answers to the questions
Were always in your own eyes

Do you realise that you give it on back to her?
But that would only be retraced in all the problems that you ever knew
So untrue
For she’s got to carry on with her life
And you’ve got to carry on with yours

So I see it’s me, I can do anything
And I’m still the child
‘Cos the only thing misplaced was direction
And I found direction
There is no childhood’s end
You are my childhood friend, lead me on

Hey you, you’ve survived. Now you’ve arrived
To be reborn in the shadow of the magpie

Now you realise, that you’ve got to get out of here
You’ve found the leading light of destiny, burning in the ashes of your memory
You want to change the world
You’d resigned yourself to die a broken rebel
But that was looking backward
Now you’ve found the light

You, the child that once loved
The child before they broke his heart
Our heart, the heart that I believed was lost

So it’s me I see, I can do anything.
I’m still the child
‘Cos the only thing misplaced was direction
And I found direction
There is no childhood’s end
I am your childhood friend, lead me on

White Feather
When I hit the streets back in ’81
With a heart and a gown and a poet’s crown.
I felt barbed wire kisses and icicle tears,
Wearing at me for all these years.
I saw political intrigue, political lies.
Going to wipe those smiles of self-satisfaction from their eyes
I will wear your white feather,
I will wear your white flag,
I will swear I have no nation,
But I’m proud to own my heart.
I will wear your white feather,
I will wear your white flag,
I will swear I have no nation,
But I’m proud to own my heart.
My heart, My heart,
This is my heart.
We don’t need your uniforms,
We have no disguise,
Divided we stand, together we rise.

[All the children, all the children,
Tell your children…]

We will carry your white feathers,
We will carry your white flags,
We will swear we have no nation,
But we’re proud to own our hearts.
We will carry your white feathers,
We will carry your white flags,
We will swear we have no nation,
But we’re proud to own our hearts.
Our hearts,
These are our hearts

I won’t walk away
I won’t walk away
I won’t walk away no more,
No more.

Escute