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Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Eschatological Baby, Lukashenko Maxine, Out of my Head (1979-93), The New Normal, Evelyn's song, Coldharbour, and I’ve never felt more like a father before.
1. |
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When the Axe comes down,
it's satisfaction guaranteed
When the axe comes down
they give you everything you need
When the axe comes down
you know they like to watch you bleeding.
Even Alexander didn't manage to hold it,
and he wasn't even trying to sell democracy.
The soldiers intended to take the country and mould it
into just another market like the ones you see.
All around the world except for those unforgiving
who don't understand the 'Murican way of living.
When the Axe comes down,
it's satisfaction guaranteed
When the axe comes down
they give you everything you need
When the axe comes down
you know they like to watch you bleeding.
Why does no-one ever learn the lessons of history?
And the soldiers and dancers
make their stupid mistake.
The man who was hiding was an absolute mystery
and was turning the foresight into something out of date,
they kept reassuring us, the president's so clever
and the 'Murican way of life is gonna last forever!
When the Axe comes down,
it's satisfaction guaranteed
When the axe comes down
they give you everything you need
When the axe comes down
you know they like to watch you bleeding.
When the axe comes down on the policeman of the world,
when the axe comes down on every boy and every girl,
and the time they fired the missiles and it all got out of hand,#and the axe came down on every woman, every man,
saying FUCK THE MIDTERMS Mister President,
What about Afghanistan.
When the Axe comes down,
it's satisfaction guaranteed
When the axe comes down
they give you everything you need
When the axe comes down
you know they like to watch you bleeding.
Even Alexander didn't manage to hold it,
and he wasn't even trying to sell democracy.
The soldiers intended to take the country and mould it
into just another market like the ones you see.
All around the world except for those unforgiving
who don't understand the 'Murican way of living.
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2. |
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Beautiful Mutant Monkey
with peppermints on your smile
your attitude stinks
like the grin of the sphynx
or the eyes of the Queen Crocodile
Beautiful Mutant Monkey,
do they let you stay out on your own?
My only mistake with the pictures I take,
was the dream on the blue telephone.
Beautiful Mutant Monkey,
a far-out madonna in drag,
you stand on your head
you pretend to be dead,
like the man in the jar in your bag
Beautiful Mutant Monkey,
do they let you stay out on your own?
My only mistake with the pictures I take,
was the dream on the blue telephone.
Beautiful Mutant Monkey,
when they let you stay out for a while?
'cos I know that in time
I will think of a rhyme,
you can stand on your head when you smile
Beautiful Mutant Monkey,
do they let you stay out on your own?
My only mistake with the pictures I take,
was the dream on the blue telephone.
Beautiful Mutant Monkey,
do they let you stay out on your own?
My only mistake with the pictures I take,
was the dream on the blue telephone.
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3. |
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I was watching television when the newsflash came across
that Elvis died in Memphis and I didn't give a toss
because I want to be adored by peasants 'cos adoration's where it's at,
I wanna play Las Vegas twice a year, get crazy, stoned and fat
(Oooeee ooh wah wah)
I'm a Sex God Baby
You got my picture by your bed
I'm a Sex God Baby
You've got my image in your head
I wan't to live in an asylum where I'm lonely
and by forty I'll be dead
I've always been a lazy sod,
I've always been a jerk,
but you know what I love about rock and roll,
it's better fun than work
'Cos I'm the King of Rock and Roll and you know what that means
It means I can be vulgar and offensive and obscene
it means money, it means women, it means sex and drugs and fame
it means 150,000 housewives prostrate at my name
(Oooeee ooh wah wah)
I'm a Sex God Baby
You got my picture by your bed
I'm a Sex God Baby
You've got my image in your head
I wan't to live in an asylum where I'm lonely
and by forty I'll be dead
Ireadthe book that Albert wrote * and I loved it when I read
That Elvis like John Lennon spent whole weeks alone in bed
with cigarettes and comic books and junk food and TV
but despite the shock that Albert felt
it seems Okay by Me
(Oooeee ooh wah wah)
I'm a Sex God Baby
You got my picture by your bed
I'm a Sex God Baby
You've got my image in your head
I wan't to live in an asylum where I'm lonely
* Elvis by Albert Goldman
and by forty I'll be dead
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4. |
Billy Bunter Said (1993)
03:43
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The four Fat Men of the Apocalypse
came riding from the west
in search of blood and food and drugs and sex and money
Plague and Famine and the one with the sickle
and I guess you know the rest
came riding up to the barmaid and said "look here honey
It's been forty days and forty nights
since we had something to eat
and you look like you're a pretty nice girl to me.
Yes, it looks like you're a nice girl,
and it looks like you're quite sweet,
and you can still go down to the end of the town
and be back in time for tea" *
Billy Bunter said
if you want to be free, just get out of your head
and climb down from that tree
Billy Bunter said
if you want to be kind
there's only one thing to do to deschool your mind
Billy Bunter said
Yeah if you want to be free
Billy Bunter said
You've got to listen
Billy Bunter said
if you do what you're told
you can be like a child and never grow old
The man in the crowd was laughing
as he shook his fist and grinned, and said
"You Human Beings will be the death of me!"
And he told us all to go in search
of a place where no-one sinned
and then he said a bit more, but it didn't make sense to me
And so I left the earnest seekers after truth
and made my way in search of
magic potions that would make me thinner,
but I found that God's own Pharmacist **
had simply gone away to mix some
cocktails and some politics over dinner ***
Billy Bunter said
if you want to be free, just get out of your head
and climb down from that tree
Billy Bunter said
if you want to be kind
there's only one thing to do to deschool your mind
Billy Bunter said
Yeah if you want to be free
Billy Bunter said
You've got to listen
Billy Bunter said
if you do what you're told
you can be like a child and never grow old
Karl Marx looked down at Groucho
and he said "it's simply weird,
how the world gets more confusing every day"
And he took the double Helix ****
he'd secreted in his beard
and without a second thought, he just threw it away
and four and twenty bailiffs all scale down to Inverness
to cadge an invitation from the beast ****
And when they found out
there was nothing left to repossess
the four Fat Men disappeared into the east
Billy Bunter said
if you want to be free, just get out of your head
and climb down from that tree
Billy Bunter said
if you want to be kind
there's only one thing to do to deschool your mind
Billy Bunter said
Yeah if you want to be free
Billy Bunter said
You've got to listen
Billy Bunter said
if you do what you're told
you can be like a child and never grow old
NOTES
* Originally A A Milne in a poem called Disobedience
James James Morrison's Mother
Said to herself, said she:
"I can get right down
to the end of the town
and be back in time for tea."
But it was quoted by Robert Heinlein in Number of the Beast and I pinched it from there.
** At the time a band called The Mission had just released an album called God's own Medicine. My mate, the late Paul Whitrow was working for them at the time, and this was just a minor shout-out to him.
*** Paraphrased from Amused to Death by Roger Waters which I found massively underwhelming.
**** DNA as any FULE KNO
***** See the vulgar rugby song The Ball of Kirriemuir which includes the couplet:
"Four and twenty virgins came down from Inverness,
and when the ball was over there were four and twenty less"
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5. |
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You can't put coffee in your tea,
yo know it makes 'ee bad,
Mama take a look at me,
you know that it's driving me mad.
You can climb in the fishtank
like a garden gnome
You can even wear a green checked suit,
You can light up a cigarette loaded with affection
you can eat it with the pearls in my soup *
It's always the same Mama
It's driving me mad Mama
It's making me sad Mama
It's always the same
It's not my fault I'm the way I am,
smoking incense with a pig
I can hum at a tune with the man in the moon
'cos you know that I'm gonna be big
I can be like a chicken and I've lost my head
my parachute's tattered and torn,
the love of my life has been waiting so long
while I roll around asleep on the lawn
It's always the same Mama
It's driving me mad Mama
It's making me sad Mama
It's always the same
I'm only a reptile from up in the sky
a frog with a mask on a bike
It's always the same, 'cos whatever the game
I always do just what I like
The words of this song are all written out wrong
There's times I wish I'd never been born
I'm coming back soon beneath the mud coloured moon
and my parachute's tattered and torn
It's always the same Mama
It's driving me mad Mama
It's making me sad Mama
It's always the same
It's always the same Mama
It's driving me mad Mama
It's making me sad Mama
It's always the same
* Nicked from a song on the first album by Elephant's Memory
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6. |
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There are fifty thousand spastics in a field full of mud
and a misplaced man of dignity tries to save them for his God
which provokes a strange reaction of bemusement not of rage
and a short fat man with a walking aid limps onto the stage
And Alice gets excited when she hears her favourite song
She wants to sing along with it, but the words all come out wrong
Oh Alice says I'm pissed again, I'm smashed again, I'm pissed again,
she always says I'm pissed again, she don't know what to do.
Oh Alice says I'm pissed again, I'm smashed again, I'm pissed again,
she always says I'm pissed again, so much it's quite untrue.
There were many too many people for the many people there
the papers wrote exposes about who the many were.
We went to work next morning with black bruises in our eyes,
to find that something beautiful was already becoming lies.
And so the two of us and Alice we sloped off to have a drink,
and we ended up in the only place it's possible to think.
Oh Alice says I'm pissed again, I'm smashed again, I'm pissed again,
she always says I'm pissed again, she don't know what to do.
Oh Alice says I'm pissed again, I'm smashed again, I'm pissed again,
she always says I'm pissed again, so much it's quite untrue.
And when you look inside yourself, you know that you can't find,
The answers to anything much, and really you don't mind.
We went to watch the cowboys but nobody wants us there
watch TV for all those hour,
did anybody really care?
About Africa and the superstars flash monochrome on the screen,
well my reaction was to shout and scream and be obscene!
Oh Alice says I'm pissed again, I'm smashed again, I'm pissed again,
she always says I'm pissed again, she don't know what to do.
Oh Alice says I'm pissed again, I'm smashed again, I'm pissed again,
she always says I'm pissed again, so much it's quite untrue.
Oh Alice says I'm pissed again, I'm smashed again, I'm pissed again,
she always says I'm pissed again, she don't know what to do.
Oh Alice says I'm pissed again, I'm smashed again, I'm pissed again,
she always says I'm pissed again, so much it's quite untrue.
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7. |
On the Beach (1982)
02:45
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Standing pn a lonely beach,
I'm lookingg for a wail,
I turn around and then I find,
a disembowelled sperm whale.
Oh armpits armpits in the sky,
the cosmic dandruff in my eye.
I'm standing on the beach my friend,
I'm standing on the beach.
The dying idiot called his son,
who came running to his side.
He said "my boys, the meaning of life,
is a roundabout not a slide",
on hearing this his sons just stuck
their fingers in his eye and said:
I'm standing on the beach my friend,
I'm standing on the beach.
Hiding beneath a parachute
making noises at my Mum.
I suck and I blow,
and then I know,
I've only just begun.
Oh God. oh Joy, oh Love, oh Bum
I'm just a phoney tum-te-tum,
I'm standing on the beach my friend,
I'm standing on the beach.
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8. |
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Take a Monkey on your mind,
thou shalt seek and thou shalt find.
Nothing matters, never mind,
I'll see you in the morning.
I don't mind and you don't matter,
I really don't know why
people think it's cool to do
something before you die.
I don't care if they drop the bomb
I know who they'll drop it on,
I am you and you are me,
L'anarchie flotante aussi.
I met a man from Bangladesh
who told me what to do,
he told me that to be like him,
I'd have to be like you.
If I knew all the thing's I'd done,
I'd find something to see,
I don't know what it means
but all I want is floating anarchie
I don't care if they drop the bomb
I know who they'll drop it on,
I am uyou and you are me,
L'anarchie flotante aussi.
I know you think I'm doing alright,
but I want to go into the long night,
I've got no sense of what its all about,
so I lie back here and scream and shout,
the experts textperts * tell me
that it has to be that way,
so I'll just walk out on the wild prairie
with a Ki Yi Yippie Yi Yay **
I don't care if they drop the bomb
I know who they'll drop it on,
I am uyou and you are me,
L'anarchie flotante aussi.
* I am the Walrus (Beatles)
** Shake that thing (SAHB)
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9. |
Unity (1993)
02:30
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One summer evening with a head full of pills
in a village deep down in the Oxfordshire hills
I lay by your gravestone and stared at the sky,
and Unity stared back with Valkyrie eyes,
as she styared at the swastika scratched in the glass
and pondered her dreams of their possible pasts **
With her heart full of Hitler and a hole in her head,
as her sisters sat foundly surrounding the bed.
She stared at the martyr, she stared at the thief,
and lost in her owl inexorable grief,
as her sisters sit fondly with tears in their smiles,
from the Reichstag to Swinbrook is far more than miles.
One summer evening quite close to the end,
though the hole in your head was beginning to mend,
the hole in your heart was too heavy to bear
you just sort of gave up like you didn't care,
wild talents like yours are too precious to waste,
if their caught in a cage they just have to escape.
** Something I nicked from Roger Waters
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10. |
Out of my Head (1978)
04:45
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Many years ago when I was only nineteen,
and my brain was confused by obscenities.
I met a girl, yeah, if you know what I mean,
and I slightly confused my identities.
She was only fourteen at the time.
She was the sister of a friend of mine.
We all hung out as friends,
I thought that it would never end,
but I made myself a mountain to climb.
You took me out of my head
(but you don't even know it)
You made me wish I was dead
(But I could never show it)
So near but so far
(You transmogrified my world)
You behaved like a woman
But I always knew
You were completely out of reach
'cos my mate's little sister's just a girl
All those years ago though I knew it was stupid,
I allowed myself to go do it anyway,
falling in love with you was completely idiotic,
and I still really don't know what I can say.
I was old enough to know better,
so I never sent my heartfelt letter.
We never spoke again, not even as friends,
which probably worked out for the best of things
You took me out of my head
(but you don't even know it)
You made me wish I was dead
(But I could never show it)
So near but so far
(You transmogrified my world)
You behaved like a woman
But I always knew
You were completely out of reach
'cos my mate's little sister's just a girl
You're still in my head (you stuck around for the ride)
especially when I'm drunk or contemplating suicide,
I dunno if it means that I am some sort of dogmatic,
but it leads on to a mindset that is almost automatic:
that four in the morning feeling that I can never quite dispell,
which is leading me down, down, down, down, down
to my own personal hell.
You took me out of my head
(but you don't even know it)
You made me wish I was dead
(But I could never show it)
So near but so far
(You transmogrified my world)
You behaved like a woman
But I always knew
You were completely out of reach
'cos my mate's little sister's just a girl
You took me out of my head
(but you don't even know it)
You made me wish I was dead
(But I could never show it)
So near but so far
(You transmogrified my world)
You behaved like a woman
But I always knew
You were completely out of reach
'cos my mate's little sister's just a girl
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11. |
U Got the Knack (1993)
02:26
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I was sat in a bar in Sheffield,
I was waiting for the rain to come.
I was waiting for the end of the soundcheck,
I was feeling like I weighed a ton.
And my man phoned up to tell me,
I was really gonna be alright:
Mr Brown was coming to town,
and it's gonna be groovy tonight!
You've got the spark
that sets my soul on fire.
You got the flame
#that fills me with desire.
You got the knack.
It's satisfaction guaranteed.
If it wasn't for you and Mr Brownn
I'd have everything I need
I was sat in a Parisian whorehouse
painting pictures of half naked tarts.
It's amazing what you can get away with
if you do it in the name of art!
My man phoned up to tell me
I was really gonna be in luck,
cos I may not be Toulouse Lautrec,
but I'm not too loose to truck.
You've got the spark
that sets my soul on fire.
You got the flame
#that fills me with desire.
You got the knack.
It's satisfaction guaranteed.
If it wasn't for you and Mr Brownn
I'd have everything I need
Back in my own house in Exeter,
with my head full of trouble and pain,
the enormity of which doesn't register
'cos I feel like I'm going insane.
My man phones up to tell me
I was really gonna be in luck.
Mr Brown is coming to town
and for once I really don't give a fuck!
You've got the spark
that sets my soul on fire.
You got the flame
#that fills me with desire.
You got the knack.
It's satisfaction guaranteed.
If it wasn't for you and Mr Brownn
I'd have everything I need
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12. |
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Long distance information (*) get Kropotkin (**) on the 'phone,
'cos I've got lots of things to ask him if I get him on his own,
'cos I've just seen something that I found quite disturbing on TV,
Kropotkin will explqain it if he gets to speak to me,
'cos there's a man around the corner with a bible and a gun.
Alexander Dubček died last night
and there's never a communist around when you need one!
He was a great man and a good man
but he always faced disgrace,
for being the man who promised socialism
with a human face
the history books and teachers still all
focus on his shame.
In another twenty or thirt years
no-one will know his name.
Everybody will have forgotten
this giant of a man.
Alexander Dubček died last night
and there's never a communist around when you need one!
After fifteen years of exile,
still within the Warsaw Pact,
they let him back to Prague
with his integrity intact.
When the Velvet Revolution came
thety left him there to rot,
and when the crowds had all stopped cheering,
and the world's press all forgot.
There's no place for a hero
when the new world's just begun.
Alexander Dubček died last night
and there's never a communist around when you need one!
(*) Memphis Tenessee by Chuck Berry via something by Carter USM
(**) FROM WIKIPEDIA: Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin (9 December 1842 – 8 February 1921) was a Russian anarchist, socialist, revolutionary, historian, scientist, philosopher, and activist who advocated anarcho-communism.
Born into an aristocratic land-owning family, Kropotkin attended a military school and later served as an officer in Siberia, where he participated in several geological expeditions. He was imprisoned for his activism in 1874 and managed to escape two years later. He spent the next 41 years in exile in Switzerland, France (where he was imprisoned for almost four years) and England. While in exile, he gave lectures and published widely on anarchism and geography. Kropotkin returned to Russia after the Russian Revolution in 1917, but he was disappointed by the Bolshevik state.
Kropotkin was a proponent of a decentralised communist society free from central government and based on voluntary associations of self-governing communities and worker-run enterprises.
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13. |
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Charlie said "Think of the Now".
No time to look back, no time to think how.
And dreams of you will always show:
You're gonna get yours in the end.
Don't tell them anything,
Don't tell them anything,
Don't tell them anything at all.
Don't tell them anything,
Don't tell them anything,
Don't tell them anything at all.
Hiding in the bottomless hole,
away from God and Rock & Roll,
the Family of the Infinite Soul.
You're gonna get yours in the end.
Don't tell them anything,
Don't tell them anything,
Don't tell them anything at all.
Don't tell them anything,
Don't tell them anything,
Don't tell them anything at all.
They hung him on a torture tree,
#they said it was for you and me,
they spread him out for all to see,
you're gonna get yours in the end!
Don't tell them anything,
Don't tell them anything,
Don't tell them anything at all.
Don't tell them anything,
Don't tell them anything,
Don't tell them anything at all.
Don't tell them anything,
Don't tell them anything,
Don't tell them anything at all.
Don't tell them anything,
Don't tell them anything,
Don't tell them anything at all.
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14. |
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I gave you money and you gacve me more,
even than I paid or bargained for,
there was no pretence of love between us,
though I never tried.
Your mind was young but your body was old,
it's not unusual so I'm told,
so I kept you in the background
and to keep you there I lied.
We walked together through the garden,
like a Nazi with a hardon,
and the Queen of Sheba with a basket on her head
Were you invited to the feast,
by the ever effervescent beast,
my mind still bears the guilt you know
I tried so hard to get ahead
and each night as I crept to bed
I knew that you'd be happy
and that you'd always let me in.
And every early morning,
after I had been performing,
I would marvel at all the funky things you'd do
for a fiver and some gin.
We walked together through the garden,
like a Nazi with a hardon,
and the Queen of Sheba with a basket on her head
Were you invited to the feast,
by the ever effervescent beast,
my mind still bears the guilt you know
God I flinch because you were used,
but God you were born to be abused,
you never rose yourself above the level of the dirt.
he other evening in the street,
I was so afraid that we might meet,
but luckily you stayed at home,
ironing your new boufriend's shirt.
We walked together through the garden,
like a Nazi with a hardon,
and the Queen of Sheba with a basket on her head
Were you invited to the feast,
by the ever effervescent beast,
my mind still bears the guilt you know
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Jon Downes Bideford, UK
Jonathan Downes is a naturalist, cryptozoologist, author, editor, film-maker, poet, novelist, activist, journalist, composer and singer-songwriter, best known for being the Director of the Centre for Fortean Zoology. He married Corinna in 2007, and has two stepdaughters, Shoshannah (Born 1985) and Olivia (Born 1987) and a granddaughter, Evelyn (born September 2014). He was widowed in August 2020. ... more
Jon Downes recommends:
Be afraid, be very afraid
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Cold in your blood
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