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I didn’t realise this was a song until I happened across the chorus, forgotten in my notebook, and it exploded. The ‘dinosaurs are drinking gasoline’ line reflects a hope that we’ll give up these dumb tin boxes before too long… but if we don’t the roaches will do just fine without us. Lead track from ‘Skin And Bone’.

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Walking out on 14th St the hollow people know
The secret bargain that the city seeks to make
The city’s hunger is a ghost that’s growing stronger
With every stolen mouthful that it takes
Manhattan is an island of privateers and pirates
The sunken treasure of a rich and stinking ship
I ride the tunnels with the rest you know I try my best
To fight the panic as the stitches start to rip

(more…)

New York like a traffic accident that you can’t not watch, appalled and fascinated. Title track off ‘Skin And Bone’. Julie LaMendola plays amazing saw on the album version.

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Poverty’s a crime in the poorhouse
And the punishment is life
The lucky ones work in the slaughterhouse
And the rest go under the knife
Hunger is a crime in the madhouse
Where the gutters are running with fat
Liberty depends on consumption
Is there anything wrong with that

Skin and bone, skin and bone, skin and bone
And you’re very very far from home, skin and bone

(more…)

Too much long distance flying, all the cities start to merge into one big one with the countryside around them a distant memory. Written on glimpsing the third world that you can disappear into in America if you go mad, lose your health insurance, or fail to pay your rent. Originally appeared on ‘Skin And Bone’.

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Come away with me and we’ll have ourselves a life in the new world city
Trade this stubborn farmland for a million neon nights in the new world city
We’ll build a house on a piece of torn up land
Made of board and tin with our own bare hands
In the new world city

(more…)

Written in Hyde Park on the occasion of Ms Fishuncle’s birthday, and originally released on ‘Four Songs’ before resurfacing on =shinyshiny= and finally =shiny/atom.

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You and me and a bottle of wine
A summer’s evening by the serpentine
Lying still while the world goes by
Around and around and around

You and me and a bottle of wine
A recipe for a beautiful time
And all the people in their feathers fine
Strut around and around and around (more…)

First appeared on =shinyshiny= and later reissued as part of the =shiny/atom set.

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I get dizzy counting the days
I’ve been living my life in a daydream
Time ticking along
I didn’t want to listen to the radio or watch the TV
I didn’t want to hear about
All these bitter things out there in the world

Words and deceit and metal that shines
Like a hook in the back of the life of your mind
So hard to fight, so easy to close your eyes
Roll over dreamer slip and away (more…)