Unthank Road

And here we all come
We’re comin in fast
You've’ve seen it before
In showers of gas

And who owns the bomb
And Boko Haram
The children all dead
Oh where have they gone

But you can’t hold us back
We’re a billion and one
Feel us on the rise
From the rubble we come

Woman in line
Waiting for bread
Could be your mother
Copyright free images of the dead

And we will not be defined by you
And we will not be defined by you

And here we all come
We’re all roped to the tide
We’ll stand ya up
We won't leave ya behind

We’re the Marquis De Sade
We’re the birth of the Bard
You’ll feel us in love
We’re the conscience of God

Taxation migration
Their lies are so cheap
Fear what we don’t know
Hold you when you sleep

We’re vomiting song
Drop the salvation bomb
They can’t kill us all
Oh here we come

*Piano by Otto

Evangeline is leaving home - yeah
Said don’t come for me after I’m gone
No one round here ever heard of Coltrane
And its too sad to laugh and its too lost to cry
Rub Fly agaric on your broomstick get naked and ride
And the girls are painting their faces just to hide the pain
They hang around here like the cause of the rain

It's how pornography feels before you’re ready to see
The beggars all know when hungry you read
And the boys still dragging the girls down Blunderbuss Lane
And the bad ones round there born to tell every lie
The coffee’s cold and lipstick dry
There’s a stranger in town but no one can say his name
They hang around here like the cause of the rain

The night cleaners dream of the breached municipal floor
Spilled their blessed dead across the glories of war
And a quart of hope shall fall that they won’t explain
And the sunflowers all broke the air heavy and torn
Evangeline’s bootlegged heart left with the storm
And the quartet were on fire but nobody came
Now they hang around here like the cause of the rain

*Piano by Otto

Come on this crucifies me
Lay Lady Macbeth down at our feet
Tattoo the morals of the world upon the sky
The dam is broken
People are crying
Bridges are burning
You gotta see us in love to believe

People share their food when they eat
I’ve seen 'em dying down on our streets
And you know it could have been you or me tonight
When the light goes out
Humanity fires up
The people come running
And oh it’s a beautiful thing

Come on down where they’re in need
When grief brings you down to your knees
And the world lays its flag upon your ground
People are coming
They’ll wash your feet
It’s the beauty of our kind
Lean on us and breathe

Come on this love is for free
It’ll climb the wall over their policy
The love of mankind is tested when its light is low
The people are coming
They hurt cos you hurt
It’s a shout out to love
From all the family

* Saw by Suzie Hanna

Bring the world together don’t drag it apart
Are you ready to fight it to the bone
They got bombs that’ll kill every mother-fucking livin thing
Somebody’s dead
Bring their body home

Lovers staring down the barrel of a baby-makers bed
The London moonlight it aint so tough
Been composing my string theories long-time now
We learn to hate
But we don’t need to learn to love

The Mosul boys and the Cherokees are a long time forgotten
People learning how to die
They round down the wonder of us to war and economics
Hold my heart
I think I’m gonna cry

We’re in this together never let that go
Ride horses in the dark to that seedy motel room
But this life is unfinished
Grab life
And let it bloom

People think I’m a lonely man
People say I’m less than a lot
People think I’m stranger
People know that I’m not
People say their loved ones love me
People say I’m hard to ignore
People say I’m provocative
That I don’t give a fuck anymore

People say I’m a liar
People say you don’t you answer your phone
People say I’m just this weird old guy
People leave me alone
People say I’m tired of the world
People say I got nothing new
People are aggressive in pitiful ways
Being me is all I can do

People think I’m renegade
People say I’m a spokesman for that
People hate me but we never met
People know where I’m at
People say I’m an asshole
People think I should shave
People say I burst into beautiful
People piss on my grave

People see me out on the Road
People don’t think I cry
People speculate on their assumption
But I’m just a little boy inside
People think that I’m tortured
People widen their eyes when I’m gone
I’m just a diary entry in your life
I’m just a vehicle for a song

In a market where there’s a crowd
People screaming death is so loud
Beautiful woman shouted hey man
We’re aware of you now

At the violence they’re saying goodbye
Young people stand together and cry
And you kill children I don’t know how
We’re aware of you now

And you wanna be in a band
Father with a rock in his hand
Did you dream once to stand and take a bow
We’re aware of you now

And you condemn your child like a dog
That you were fucked up on God
You keep blowing apart the beauty of man
We’re aware of you now

Light the candle low burn that spoon for its spell
I’m not ready to die but I think I’m going to hell
The whiskey's cheap and the piano's full of bones
Diplomats arguing like a parliament of crows
Moon scared of the darkness behind the skeleton tree
She walks the plank to his room come on and drown me
Wealth aint money ya know it’s not even close
Half the time making love is forced and so it goes

Get off your knees there’s no help coming from above
This curse on mankind is lifted only with love

Little scrunched up kid oh can you hold on
Not this one but somebody’ll sing you a song
The waters rise its starvation time again
If the poor could pay we told ya famine would end
Obituaries are being sold over the bar
Small town boys dreams don’t travel so far
But the debt of war will come for these young men too
Governments and whores pretend that they love you

And the lies round here are as Goddamn contagious as death
They’re sellin women at the docks til there's just their pretty scent left
Preacher’s screaming let it start or let it stop
The mountains will rise and the seas will reclaim ya God
There’s a billionaires storm coming better hold on to love
Some people won’t share their blood
People got lonely like no one left here cares
The children need us how dare you send your prayers

*Piano by Otto

It don’t matter if you’re a woman
It don’t matter if you’re a man
It don’t matter if you’re bending the rules of love
Kiss the world while you can

And it don’t matter what you believe in
It don’t matter what they say
And you’re a long time dead thinking about life
Don’t throw the world away

And it don’t matter where you come from
And it don’t matter what you deserve
And it don’t matter if you build a mausoleum
That’s not what its worth
Climb down from your houses in the sky
Bow down touch the earth

And it don’t matter that your dreams are out of order
And it don’t matter what you’re not
And it don’t matter if you are a fool up a tree
This place is everything that we got

And it don’t matter if you’re hopeless
Don’t matter if you’re a jerk
It don’t matter if you’re important or not
There’s bigger and smaller forces at work

And it don’t matter about time
And it wont matter when you’ve gone
And it don’t matter if you’ve a broken heart
You wont be here long
And it’s the only thing left to know
Be gentle with the thing you stand on

This is the modern age of democracy
The land of the free is not of the few
And we’re all angry with salvation
Nobody wants to sing for you

They’re manacled and lynching at the borders
But the neutral ground resistors are protecting them
There’s a house that no one man should climb too
Cut down those damn white gods of men

Oh corruption come lately
Plantation Daddy on the rise
It’s your time to turn brother against brother
Mister history’s not on your side

We just wanna look after the place and our babies
The misogynist never stops to wonder how it feels
They're selling us to the lowest bidder
The new cotton spirituals are bleeding in new cotton fields

Give me three fingers of bourbon
Humanity be brave it's what we do
There’s democratic slavery on every corner
Nobody wants to sing for you

Oh corruption come lately
Plantation Daddy on the rise
It’s your time to turn brother against brother
Mister history is not on your side

* Slide Guitar by Drew Webster

People are good we felt it today
The veins of our kind united again
On Parliament Square there’s blood on the rain
And we screamed it into the darkness but your God never came

And I’ve see em run into danger to help those who fell
Down here we make our own heaven and hell
The hate of our kind is met with a mountain of shame
And we screamed it into the darkness but your God never came

The night porter said there’s no justice in this
We all wander home to hold those that we kiss
On Parliament Square we must master our blame
And we screamed it into the darkness but your God never came

Somebody’s gotta sing the news
Somebody’s gotta sing the dove
Somebody’s gotta sing the tears
Somebody’s gotta sing the love

Somebody’s gotta sing the blues
Somebody’s gotta sing the crud
Somebody’s gotta sing the trees
Somebody’s gotta sing the blood

Somebody’s gotta sing the death
Somebody’s gotta feed the bud
Somebody’s gotta sing the night
Somebody’s gotta sing the love

Somebody’s gotta sing the moon
Somebody’s gotta sing this stuff
Somebody’s gotta sing the pain
Somebody’s gotta sing the blood

Somebody’s gotta sing it now
Somebody’s gotta sing for God
Somebody’s gotta sing the hate
Somebody’s gotta sing the love

Somebody’s gotta sing the light
Somebody’s gotta sing the mud
Somebody’s gotta sing the hurt
Somebody’s gotta sing the blood

Trumpet by Jasper Revell

I was born in a liar of a town
Like Steve Earle passing through
Everything I wanted I had to stand up and fight for
You know what its like to grow up and ya feel that shit ain’t you

When we fall we fall hard but when we stand we are giants
My best friend died in his sleep and sometimes we just run outta luck
I was on the run from goin' home
Found an old guitar in an abandoned room and what I was meant to be woke up

Met a girl got distance in her eyes
We were learning what we got was not enough
Buffy St Marie sang The Big Ones Get Away
And I didn’t know where we were heading but we were generating love

So we ran away to the city settled in the village
First time in my life my past was gone
Her belly grew and my pages too
And from the Unthank Road is where all these songs come from

Money didn’t come at first we were just like renting life
Now I got a woman with a belly full of God
Get a job son you think you better than us
Little one cryin’ like the fire of the moon just look at what we got

She wore babies and I a practicing troubadour
Not a child’s book dared tell you the smell of her kiss
Made bread and milk and at night I’d take a bow
Angela Clements called to say she found me because I can do this

All roads lead from where your shadow ends
I’m so in love with what this world has to sing
Everyday I’m in awe of the beautiful people we made
If I could live my life over I wouldn’t change a thing

The Picturehouse is showing In the Mood for Love
It’s already half a life they light lanterns in the sky
My phone rings and I pick up my guitar
And from Unthank Road I witness and testify

*Bass by James Cornford

This isn’t how it should be
You don’t have to be what you’re not
You don’t have to do as they say
You don’t have to be frightened in your bed
You don’t have to go hungry today
You don’t have to be alone in the dark with the dead
You don’t have to stand with your head bowed
You don’t have to be with people that make people scared

This isn’t how it should be
You don’t have to hurt anymore
You don’t have to be scared of your thoughts
You don’t have to say please make it stop
You don’t have to be threatened at work
You don’t have to wish you were dead
You don’t have to be humiliated again
And you don’t have to be with people that make people scared

This isn’t how it should be
You don’t have to say what you don’t mean
You don’t have to be afraid of your love
You don’t have to fit in its ok
We feel ya let it go
And we will allow our kiss to be shared
For there is an army of you
And we will not be people that make people scared

*Piano by Otto