Record Player

In our pockets, receipts and machines

In our estate the lift doesn't work

Walking is hard, 'cos here it's meant to be

In our flunky fingers, silver rings and sweat

From all that worried waiting for things to happen

You know they should, if only they would

But in our heads, visions of getting beat up in back alleyways

Too much mincing about

London's schemes devalue its youth

It's inside your burning veins

I'm in love with the solidarity that we know longer exist

The 80's soul boy misunderstood letters

All those obscure books and films and 45s

Let convictions strengthen love for you, more than you can know

In our bones it feels like I'm going cold, physical

Am I disappearing from sight?

No friends, or lovers, or letters

In our hearts a secret

Behind phone box language

Bugs in the tap

'Cos there are no secrets kept hidden in this big seedy city

In our mouths contempt, tops of alcoholic lies dribbling proletarian junk, like a spastic

Every year you get a little sadder, a little drunker

A little more violent, cynical, waiting for direction or a new discipline

In our pants, hard cocks, a ruffian on the stairs

Writing dirty words in Archway

"So the only reason you play bad guitar is to get a bad reaction

All this clone collective band shit hides your boredom, contempt, and no ideas"

Our only ambition is just to die

Solidarity with other bands is good, we have no ideas

In our palms, silver rings to give to young brides

Kept safe for now, in our souls important decisions wait

Inside creeping out, pushing you forward into

an abyss of future uncertainty, of torture, treated cloth

Climbing like a monkey to reach the top of stairs, lift broken down

Get into the car, (?) under the concrete cement

Go home quickly 'cos we have no ideas

In discos chatting up girls, dropping gins, slurring stupid words,

Nicotine fingers reaching out

Go home and listen to your cracking needle records in stained sleeves

Put it all into unfocused clarity

Estates all over London full of despair and violence

Loud radios are settling our nerves

We look to get back into tunes and chords

We sing and cry all night

And in the morning it starts again, and again, and again

Makes the guitar snap, all through the pissed-up slumber

Your body is getting colder, there's no more purpose

Lost, nowhere to go, have they chucked you out of school?

Made you walk the parks?

I wanted to be a monkey, not end up a cartoon

We have no ideas