recorded live in the round
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1. |
A Bigger Splash
03:56
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A swimming pool in California so blue
There’s Neil and Joni too
A bigger splash
We framed the poster put it on the wall
Back from San Francisco in the fall
A bigger splash
The Grateful Dead are tripping in heaven
They turn their amps way up to eleven
Come on over if you want to take a swim
You know I like to watch you glide
Gracefully in the water and make a bigger splash
A bigger splash
Years roll by the edges frayed
Sunlight discolored the frame
A bigger splash
So, we took it down to get it all cleaned up
Not sure what happened to it after that
Mines a different kind of heaven
Football in the park walking by the Severn
Come on over if you want to
Hang out with the kids do what it is you need to
There’s a lovely park here too
I’d like to think you put the poster back, after I left
On the wall in its rightful place
A bigger splash
And every once in a while, when you walk past
It puts a smile upon your face
A bigger splash
David Hockney in 67 says he died, he died and went heaven
All those paintings live on forever, but this was the one keeping us together
Golden Gate fold sacred hill side Amoeba Records before the greats died
Come on over if you want to take a swim you know you know I like to watch you dive gracefully into the water
And make a bigger splash
A bigger splash
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2. |
Rothko
04:14
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A deep space shade of maroon
And a darker night sky blue
Here’s a big bright yellow one
Tall as a house big as the sun
The colour and the camouflage
In the early morning gallery glare
Hurts my eyes tourists arrive
I need to be somewhere
Rothko Rothko Rothko Rothko
Tour parties checking their headsets
Security guard falls asleep
If you stare at these things for long enough
You can expect to weep
The guide is working overtime
A tour party shuffles by
A young girl takes a photograph
And her boyfriend starts to cry
Rothko Rothko Rothko Rothko
And the walls of the art gallery sing
What have you done to me?
What is this thing?
Give me a clue should I be sad
Should I be scared, should I be glad
Every canvass has a number but not a name
You have to let the colour permeate
The inner workings of the brain
I’ve got a headache coming on
Yeah that’s the idea son
No matter how you shuffle the song
Everything you assumed to be right is wrong
Rothko Rothko Rothko Rothko
And the walls of the gallery sing
What have you done to me?
What is this thing?
Give me clue should I be sad
Should I be scared, should I be glad oh
Should I, I don’t know…
Security guard comes back from his break
Been taking to a colleague about a fake
He’ll be glad when the show comes to an end
Says there’s only so much you take in my friend
There’s only so much you can take in
There’s only so much you can take
Rothko Rothko Rothko Rothko Rothko Rothko Rothko Rothko Rothko Rothko Rothko Rothko
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3. |
Pathetic Lament
02:11
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Hear my pathetic lament
I do not care
And I won’t repent
Read my lips in your sleep
One precious secret
Bound over to keep
Our dreams will never come true
Whatever is said
Whatever we do
Love’s just a cold calling card
Guided by voices
And desolate hearts
You give me comfort and joy
I feel like a girl
In need of a boy
Light pours out of my head
But the shadows on you
Will leave me for dead
This is the end of the song
End of the dream in which
We don’t belong
So please take your beautiful soul
Back to your loved ones
Back to the fold
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4. |
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Heavy metal tit for tat
Sweltering in a drop forge cast
Do you know the way to Wolverhampton?
Bought the Diamond Head LP
From the legend Silver Terry
Handbags at the BYO
Local girls mess with your head
Listening to Judge Dread
Then you miss the last bus home
Better call your dad he’ll moan
You got him out of bed
It’s a pig’s ear growing up
In a market town of indeterminate status
But that was then but this is now
And nothing’s changed that time won’t allow
To change us, change us
Smokers coughing on the 144
British Leyland Red Robo’s war
And life shows you the door
Heavy metal that’s your tribe
It’s come to bury you alive for sure
And you can turn the volume up
And you can call your girlfriends bluff
But she prefers the Wonderstuff
She’s in the wrong era
You can put the speaker on the windowsill
Make a racket make the neighbours ill
I dare you; I dare you
So never the mind the albatross
Or the Saturday gigs at the Holy Cross
That put an end to
The festival that never was
On the village green and all because you bailed
Last minute curtailed
On the day the world turned blue
The only thing I ever to wanted to do
Was heavy metal…
All I ever wanted to do
All I ever wanted from you
Was heavy metal
All I ever wanted from you was heavy metal
That’s heavy
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5. |
Jack the Dripper
02:19
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I’m Jack the dripper I am a painter
I work on canvass I work on paper
I died a driver I died a drinker
I died to save you I died to change your mind
So be kind to me
You’ve seen me painting in documentary
You’ve seen me drinking in New York City
I died a hero I died a saviour
I died an artist I died to change your mind
So be kind to me
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6. |
Francis Bacon
03:54
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Francis Bacon made a painting
Of the Nazi Pope in waiting
Existential agony
Hanging in The National Gallery
Soap and bandages from the master of Seville
Roast beef sandwiches from a pub in Notting Hill
You find a way there’s always been a will
Francis Bacon Irish pilgrim
Combs the streets of Soho London
Drinking at the Groucho Club with
Jeffrey Bernard and Damian Hurst
Police conviction it’s the duty of the state
To those who love to love and those we love to hate
The sitter takes his clothes off the artist starts to paint
Francis Bacon died in Madrid
In the raincoat he was wearing
Surrounded by people drawing
Inspiration from his calling
The crucifixion of a famous friend’s portrait
The Daily Mirror says people can’t relate
You cut your nose off to spite your face
To spite your face
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7. |
A Man and his Shadow
03:49
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A man and his shadow not hard to find
Step into the darkness with flashlight
Turn on the siren sit back and relax
Ignore the science ignore the facts
Interrogation is a simple affair
A cigarette machine an electric chair
Not sure who’s good cop not sure who’s bad
When they both have a look, have a look of your Dad
A man and his shadow not hard to find
At home on the front step clapping to be kind
In the new apocalypse the reaper runs riot
And the good ones go early, as we stare down the quiet
There’s nowhere to go and no one to see
As the shadows grow taller tall as the leaves on the tree
And the people cross over oh so politely
There’s a government update nightly
A man and his shadow have nowhere to hide
The bushes are burning the trees have all died
There’s a room in my house where nothing survives
Nothing
Nothing
A man and his shadow not hard to find…
A man and his shadow
Just a man and his shadow
Just a man and his shadow
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8. |
Grayson
04:41
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Grayson let’s do this thing art is like a wheel spin
Time to change those dreary clothes dig out the strobes
And there’s Drella, the Pittsburgh Cinderella who made everyone slippers for the ball
And Damian that devil kid who sells you coloured pills from beneath a coffin lid
Oh Grayson alone upon a screen, swiping and skyping, suspended in a dream
As Mo Tucker beats the loving drum of human kindness Everybody freezes
We all need a little more art in our life
We all need a little more art
The potter’s wheel of fortune spins and you invite us in
To share in the delights of broken kilns and a teddy bear called Alan
Lets make art Grayson let’s make new stuff
We can paint is soy sauce and we can sculpt in mud Recycle remodel re make reconfigure
We can turn back time we can cry a river..
Grayson…this is our time Grayson
We all need a little more art in our life
We all need a little more art
Grayson my confession sits with the high priest of all the misfits
Artefacts of isolation for your consideration
Worthless tools in the digital shed
A transistor radio battery dead
And a massive flashing motel sign
Tickles the fancy flutters the heart
Every connection every reflection every rejection every hope
We all need a little more art in our life
We all need a little more art
We all need a little more art in our life
I turn my gaze away I don’t know what to say
How to feel and or how to look
Into the soul of the etiquette book
Good job Bob Dylan’s let me off the hook
Grayson we can do this thing
This raw material is nowhere near as ethereal as you think Absent friends take a bow here we go now here we go now
We all need a little more art in our life
We all need a little more
Darling, all aboard the penny farthing
Darling, make it cool and make it daring, darling
Conceptualisms world of naff
Dada and the baked bean bath
Futurism takes you back
Impressionism paints it black
Modernism doesn’t care
Apparently, we’re getting there apparently, we’re getting there
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9. |
Fifteen Minutes
04:30
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Fifteen minutes of fame the old Warhol cliché was
A feeble affair so late in the day
Just show me the work and I’ll copy and paste
I don’t want you to get all covered in paint
Just choose an image help yourself
Off the jpeg off the shelf
I’ll be right here if you need some help
Opportunity knocked exhibitions sold out
But now the likes and the views the feeds and the news
Are riddled with doubt
I try to keep up to date wash dirty hands
New wave coming soon yeah, you’re gonna need to make plans
Just take a picture make a copy
Hang it up in the hotel lobby
Tell the manager not to worry
Reproduction is king and Andy knows best
He takes a very dim view of all our futile regrets
Repeat after repeat cause nothing has changed
Nico’s harmonium drones into oblivion
The negative is in the can the picture sucks
It’s just a PR scam you’re not fault it’s the way I am
Max’s closed down and the factory sold
A long time ago but that story that story’s still told
And now the gallery show is a raging success
All those tales in a spin all those heads in a mess
Take a picture of yourself off the peg off the shelf
I’m still here if you want some help
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10. |
Perfect Song
03:08
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The prefect song exists
And when you first hear it
The melody feels brand new and
Every line of it rings true
No matter if you’ve already heard
Every nuance every word
You need to hear it once again
Stop what you’re doing and listen
Makes you cry you feel like you want to die
Makes you smile but after a very short while
The perfect song it seems too slow
You discover another on the radio
One that hits a magical spot
First you grow cold and then you get hot
And you pray for a beautiful day
And you feel surreal
The perfect song twists and crawls
In and out of the dance halls
It takes a seat centre stage
Then it disappears clean off the page
All gone where did the idea came from
All gone back to square one
The perfect song I thought I wrote
I threw away note for note
I gave up on chapter and verse
And saying goodbye, it really hurts
And love love will tear us apart
Still you know that old chestnut by heart
And life imitates art
Here we are back at the start
Of my perfect song
My perfect song
My perfect
My perfect
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11. |
Fine Art
04:09
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She studied for a Fine Art Degree in a red brick University
She said Oh wow now just look at me
I was working on a building site
I’d joined a band we were doing alright
Session on the local BBC
She drew me a picture of the queen
Naked in bath for all to see
And it’s still hanging on my wall
And it remains a talking point
When my friends come over to call
She was a beautiful girl
She came from a different world
I never stood a chance
She met a Dutch photographer
And he photographed her in her underpants
She wrote to me explaining why she had to say goodbye
I found it hard to accept
But I did as I was told
I was as good as gold and I did my best to forget her
I never heard from her in a very long time
And then she appeared in a vision of mine
As real and true as I stand here before you
So I put her into this song
Now it feels like she’s been here all along
Should I try to track her down, now I’m back in the old town?
If you know who I’m talking about tell her to come by I hardly ever get out
I’d been back here for a couple of years
There was no sign of her
I was starting to think I’d made it all up
And Mr Shadrack was calling my bluff
When out of the blue I took a call
And we went to the zoo and we went to the ball
We took the bus after the wedding drove into the sunset
That was the ending
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Vinny Peculiar Worcester, UK
Vinny Peculiar variously described as – ‘An under sung national treasure’ [UNCUT Magazine]– a warm hearted Morrissey [Q Magazine] and ‘The missing link between Jarvis Cocker and poet Roger McGough and some of the wittiest lyrics this side of Wreckless Eric’ IRISH TIMES ... more
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