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1. |
Nosferatu
01:54
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Nosferatu,
It would appear I have emulated you,
Oh & on what future night
Can I begin this life?
Oh what am I to do
Nosferatu?
Oh I have lived so many days
Unconscious of the suns bright rays.
Nosferatu,
Oh what shall I do?
Oh in love & in work
The sunlight I have shirked.
Tell me what am I to do,
Nosferatu?
Oh & on what dark night
Did I destroy this life?
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2. |
Gangs of Grimsby
02:15
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This is an ode to the gangs of Grimsby,
In the days of old,
When Double Diamond was cheap & SeudeHeads were bold.
The Park Street Mafia had them in their grip,
A gentleman’s umbrella with a sharpened tip…
Marmalising Gypoes near Cleethorpes Borough Tip.
A continuation of the tradition of Richard Coeur de Leon,
A spontaneous recreation of some of the more interesting situations
In the history of the dear sweet English nation.
Scunthorpe Hell’s Angels away…a gathering near the Ritz Café
Angry machines by B.S.A.
Oh SuedeHead in your white butchers coat
Your gonna need some Daz or some Persil after today.
A joyous feeling of exultation near Cleethorpes railway station,
A Nietzschean sense of glee! Oh for a Wolf-Cub SuedeHead like me…
This was a boot boy symphony.
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3. |
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Heritage rock will never die,
All in a lather over BTO
My heart strings tugged by the Moody Blues,
My heart is true, true to you,
Heritage rock will never die.
Heritage rock has stood the test of time,
It improves with age like quality French wine …
You’ll get a good investment for your cash
If you invest in Wishbone Ash…
Heritage rock has stood the test of time
Heritage rock it makes me cry!
Oh Medicine Head, yeah man, they once said:
‘One & One is One’ & oh how true,
Like my love for you,
Heritage rock it suits me fine.
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4. |
The Wraith
01:40
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I am a wraith!
A mixed up expressionless mass of nothing…
And ‘nothingness’ declines to be something
Just as I decline to love you.
My life? Just like a blank slate
On which ‘Nothing!’ has been written
But experience & wisdom informs me…
That doom, it soon shall come!
A bed-sit wall, an image of Death
And Max von Sydow’s frosted breath,
What are they thinking? A Poet can only guess…
The game of life…a game of chess!
I am a cipher…
Has my heart has been struck by a viper?
Oh the pale moon it waxes & it wanes
I am it’s prisoner…I am it’s slave!
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5. |
Jobseeker's Serenade
01:57
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Oh, I’m really gonna get my act together
But until I do, I’ll sing for you…
A Jobseeker’s serenade.
Can I entertain you with this lukewarm song?
Oh, don’t worry, yeah…it won’t take very long
It’s only a Jobseeker’s serenade.
No, I didn’t get my crisis loan
And the reason is…a crisis does not exist
I’m just a Jobseeker who dreams in vain.
And when I’ve got my act together
It’ll be a different tune that I shall croon…
Shall this Jobseeker rise again?
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6. |
Band Members Wanted
01:11
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Bassist & Drummer sought: Uriah Heep / Lyndsey de Paul
If you think you can make a difference…go on mate give us a call,
Now what I’m about to say may come as something of a shock
But I don’t really like The Velvet Underground or indeed, Iggy Pop…
I just wanna take the best singer-songwriters & blend them with the world of Heritage Rock…
I won’t be cruel, make you dress up like David Bowie in a lady's frock.
Take Genesis & Saxon & Mark 2 E.L.O.
Add a dash of sauce, Clifford T. Ward, Richard Stillgoe.
In an ideal world you should be culturally patriotic
Cos if you’re not, we’ll always arguing & that would be idiotic.
Time wasters, musos & egotists are welcome to apply…
We don’t actually stand a chance but we may as well give it a try
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7. |
Belladonna
01:11
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Belladonna in bloom
Your scent fills my bed-sitting room.
Can the watercress of death
Get you in a right mess?
Belladonna in bloom
Shall I sip your potion & swoon?
A yellow leaf I shall press
In a book on the God of excess.
Belladonna in bloom
The sodium lights hum their tune
Can you hear the flowers grow
And the screaming of the weed?
Belladonna in bloom,
That Green Lady faces her doom.
That watercress on your breath, yeah…
It could get you in a right mess!
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8. |
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And he with his leaf like liver
And his glands all faded & blue,
Not much left to live for,
Not much left to do.
A wife no longer by his side,
No old chums left to meet…
The suicide of an old man who lived down my street.
He hung himself in the parlour lounge
With a noose that he’d crafted himself :
The application of Pierrepoint technique,
No self-pitying cry for help.
The lads & lasses at Golden Charter
Can ponce an old corpse up a treat…
The suicide of an old man who lived down my street.
The dear old C of E seemed quite emphatic, that…
The Reaper he shall not cheat,
He’s kissed goodbye to Paradise
And those innocent gambolling sheep!
Oh he’ll sail away to Purgatory In a soiled winding sheet!
The suicide of an old man who lived down my street.
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9. |
The Poet
01:59
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A freshly minted copy of ‘Barely Legal’,
On warm & crackling vinyl: ‘Fly Like an Eagle’
With items such as these I feel really perfectly at ease,
I am at peace in my own bed-sitting world!
Falling into the seat of a beloved armchair,
Oh I shall wear a pomaded parting in the centre of my hair
And I shall prance into ‘Scope’ in the no doubt forlorn hope
Of discovering a rather natty pair of shoes.
Relaxing with Foghat & Barclay James Harvest,
My dinner…a treat of Spam & oven chips,
The cabbage kicks in & then another chilled tin
Oh the joys of cardinal sin!
Considering the consequences of a diseased liver,
A familiar death mask in the bathroom mirror,
The triumph of time & nasty red wine:
Am I the victim of the giros I have signed?
I sometimes wonder…shall I carry on?
Shall I continue to bombard this world with song?
Is it my destiny to fuse melody & poetry
For this cruel & indifferent world?
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10. |
Municipal Crematorium
02:00
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Municipal Crematorium. In bloom: azalea and rhododendron.
It is modern and clean and the atmosphere is peaceful & serene.
Take a relaxing stroll and think about your loved one’s immortal soul.
Municipal Crematorium, fuelled by Liquid Petroleum.
It is sanitary, pristine and ran by a thoroughly professional team.
The loved one has been blessed and is sleeping in the Chapel of Rest.
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11. |
Beta Male Blues
01:16
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Beta male blues In Hampstead bed-sit rooms,
Oh the electric lights have fused,
So I shall sit here in the dark
Within walking distance of Regents Park.
Wrinkled, un-ironed clothes…
Elastic waist Top-Man trews,
Progressive songs by the Moody Blues
Oh this is a dreary tune by that invisible man
Who travels alone on the tube.
Beta male blues…
The horror of leaking shoes.
A Poet who was born to lose,
Walks to a distant horizon
But the sun is not really shining
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12. |
The Dance of Time
03:30
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Would you care to step inside
The tangle of my twisted mind?
Perchance to find that all is fine,
Sepia tinted memories echoing in time.
And if time should dance it’s minuet
Down the pathways that time cannot forget,
By the sextant & the hourglass our journeys have been set,
Our journeys into sadness…our journeys of regret.
And time that is lost shall not be regained…
splintered light upon a fractured window pane.
A gentle wind that drifts between crumbling spires,
A balding Priest cycles on balding tyres,
A fragment of melody an elegy of desire…
Plucked at by nimble fingers on an ancient lyre.
The sarabande of the tumbling leaves
Twisting on the lilting breeze,
Tangled wood & tangled trees,
A vision, an image…of Mephistopheles.
The dust of ages long since past,
Dances in rays through frosted glass.
Approaching dusk & pale lamplight,
A school of swallows in acrobatic flight,
A time withered poet with failing sight,
His dreams, his fears…of endless night.
Oh the dance of time has danced on by,
Across the pale & wrinkled sky,
A leaf, a flower a kiss goodbye…
The shattering of hope in a final sigh…
Amen.
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13. |
Memories of Suburbia
02:30
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Memories of suburbia on a mid-summer’s eve,
Memories that are stirred by a gentle breeze,
Home made jewellery created from corned-beef can keys,
Elderly ladies praying on arthritic knees,
Memories recalled under Belsize Park leaves…
Memories of Rumbelows on a midsummer’s eve.
Gazing forlornly through a rain-spattered window,
Entranced by reverie in the mid-evenings damp glow,
My favourite refreshment, a glass of cold Tango,
Wincing in anguish at the roar of a Kango.
Memories of suburbia on a mid-summer’s eve,
Memories that are stirred by a gentle breeze,
One-footed pigeon nestling under Rentokil’d eaves,
Ugly gravy stains on Mike Oldfield sleeves,
A sickly Cocker Spaniel with a nasty disease…
Memories of suburbia on a mid-summer’s eve.
Thinking of Bergman & his concept of ‘Magic & Loss’,
Apart from ‘Tenko’ the telly is a load of dross,
Blow-torch scorched, peeling magnolia gloss,
Listening to Genesis playing ‘Los Endos.’
Memories of suburbia on a mid-summer’s eve,
Memories that are stirred by a gentle breeze,
The flowers of marmalade & apricot trees,
The Belsize Park wonder: turn of the century leaves,
The symphony of summer: the drone of bees…
Memories of Rumbelows on a midsummer’s eve.
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14. |
The Winter of My Life
02:39
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In the park underneath the trees a rocking horse dips his nose in the breeze,
Children have gone but still he dips his iron head towards the ground….
I suppose I’m in the winter of my life an old man with a sty in his eye & an arthritic wife,
I should be relaxing on a SaGa sea-cruise, blottoed on Sanatogen or quality Frog booze.
Moles have been at the bowling green creating a surreal, almost Daliesque scene…
When my medication begins to kick in I feel like I’m walking through a dream…
I suppose I’m in the winter of my
When I was a young I once sold a pair of spats to Joe Loss…
now I shuffle amongst the flower beds in sandals & socks.
A cocker-spaniel has got hold of a duck…it looks like that duck has ran out of luck!
A pair of squirrels in a sycamore tree appear to gaze with indifference at me…
I suppose I’m in the winter of my life an old man with a sty in his eye & an arthritic wife,
At my age is there really any point in carrying on?
Oh well, I suppose I may as well just keep
chuntering along.
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15. |
The Shadow
01:17
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Prozac but still it is watching…
I turn to face it, it is angry & swollen
A terrible mixture of grey & blue!
After the sunlight there shall come the darkness
That friendly sky of a velvety hue!
Supposing I told you, ‘your shadow can see you’
You’d think I was crazy but I swear that it’s true.
I turn to face it, but it won’t stop moving,
I am distraught…but I know what to do!
My shadow is laughing…he feels that life’s a joke…
But I have crafted a noose of hemp-seed rope!
My shadow is screaming, now it is bleeding,
I am rejoicing, I shall soon be set free!
Myself & my shadow, my shadow & I…
We swing from a tree under the cruel blue sky.
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16. |
The Thunder of My Head
01:29
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The mist had turned to red…
The thunder of my head,
The old lady smelled of lavender,
The thunder of my head.
A glass of formaldehyde,
I wished that I had died…
The old lady smelled of lavender,
The thunder of my head.
It was like a dreadful dream
A shrill & piercing scream,
The old lady smelled of lavender,
A grim & awful scene.
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17. |
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The hungry bees salute their father,
Dionysus of Crete,
The rose of bitter thorns
That flowers in the sun.
I saw a three legged cat in the garden today
In a trance, in your shade…
The rose of bitter thorns
That flowers in the sun.
I approached you in a crab-like manner
Bearing tincture of laudanum,
The rose of bitter thorns
That flowers in the sun.
And Dionysus was sated.
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18. |
A Dull Refrain
01:17
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An old man on his allotment tending beetroot near his shed
I suppose it’s only a matter of time now & this old bloke will be dead
What is it they say…of cabbages & kings, I don’t know who said it or what it means…
I suspect that broccoli munching folk will get this patch after the old bloke.
Fractured light on a sailors grave & the typist who died before tea,
A dull refrain, a swollen ankle, a dreary melody…
The fear of death, the graves cold breath on a windy evening lane,
A sudden stab of rheumatic pain a dead squirrel in a drain.
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19. |
An Inner Blinding Light
02:05
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How sweet were your sandalled feet
As I heard them come towards me in the evening streets?
By the gates of the sleeping town
Where we laid ourselves on the ground,
And I traced the fine curve of your spine through your skin.
And as we slept near the gathering hay and watched the clouds drift
away
The caress of the breeze so cool, the affection of the night…
Shedding tears like a fool.
And like honey rich your sweet skin running across my lips & tongue,
As clouds ran past the sun, and I glanced for a moment in fright…
Saw an inner-blinding light.
Under the apricot trees I aroused you,
There where your Mother had been in labour with you,
There where the pomegranates are in flower,
At the toll of the midnight hour…
And our love is stronger than death
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20. |
Coda
00:24
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My songs are fairly mediocre
But they’re not very long so they’re quiet quickly over.
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My Imaginary Folk Singer London, UK
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