Back off Back in the back of the van Like a pack man, Heading back man Telling other people all a the craic man Eating dots and plots, having it have nots Revving it reverend like it’ll never end Don’t beg to differ if you spin at a whiff of her Lift up her christopher streaming the locks and rocks Like a pilgrim father asking is it much further Mother of thousands crying out murderer Shining the medal the treadle the tread mill Linen and thread mills bouncing to Jeff Mills This is the line of the party so follow her Parity followers feeling much hollower Esteem engines are working on overtime Railing at white lines overtaking wunderkinds Slighting the sins of the grandfathers’ lean kine It’s the dreamtime the connection Parallel citadel silver confection Marble halls mirror balls walk it like pastry She faced you disgraced you she’s going to outpace you Are you going to sleep with the sheep in the cold leas Green shields mean fields average measure Hedging your bets for maximum pleasure? Keep your sights high son, focus on the main prize Wait for the heat and the dawn wind of sunrise Packs of players, delayers, soothsayers Opposite numbers, fumblers, tumblers Empty gutted stomach rumblers Pitchers, bewitchers, dank damp ditch-deliverers Looking for corkscrews, fresh news, papers and fire Touch the blue before you retire Missing the mainstream caught in an up dream Glorying relics of afternap noon team Playing the part, getting a start Breaking a heart for measure not pleasure The eggs are needed love lies bleeded Easily led like a pencil to water Grammatical fanatical wolf and daughter Says its bled I stand corrected Getting collected here comes the hackney Whack me back me Into a corner I can’t report on you Leave them standing, Those girls a whole handling Howling like hallions I need you tonight But we’re mock rock stars, Heavy Rolling, Crystal - away home! Dream of mansions Dead-end expansions She’s a bottle-blond spray tan beguiler An apprentice Nail-Filer She loves Bonnie Tyler Was that a one-chance life time visit? Was that the taxi fuck did I miss it? Buncrana!!!!! I’ve had ya!! Player piano is tenderly crackling I’m hackling, going to get back wi them Only a short walk to the long pier Did ye not hear? Left holding a French girl With a head skirl, she’s mardy if you don’t believe me check out Thomas Hardy Nobody’s entering shoes in the middle with keys and phone save me the trouble Curling up next to three black cases Blank faces undercover like an elephant But that’s irrelevant A Tiny detective sniffs out perspective Blames the bliss of one off-ness For the kiss-off tear and snot fest Miss the mess wi the mistress Blanking the sack wi relationship hater I’ll tell ye all the craic - later I’ve had all that any man can stand Buncrana - I’ve had ya! 48 hours march into mayhem Rattling like a tin can, off the drink man Back in black in the back of me red van.

Nobody Wants To Be Loved Well it’s drunk text o’clock, all-a-sudden, I’m hot I’m thinking that’s just you but then.. We should probably be phoning, not sitting alone-ing And freaking ourselves out again Or curled up in bed, my arm under your head With you thinking I’d better not snore How’d I get so deranged as to let you arrange The heartstrings on the cutting-room floor We’ve talks about talking, but they don’t get anywhere Well - at least nowhere you’d like Maybe they’re better off left in the bedroom Away from that harsh old daylight You say you don’t want me for day to day living But why are we running away? Are the stories all told, Have we stopped chasing gold? Have the feelings all hardened like clay? Chorus Tonight feels so cold and so empty Like a frozen hand’s dream of a glove For everybody wants to be a lover But nobody wants to be loved I’ve chased you, and caught you, tried to unknot you But you’ve anger that lurks deep inside It bites when it hurts, and it doesn’t bark first And I’ve got my own sin of pride You don’t like my family, you don’t like my friends And in truth I’m not mad on your own Though we look good together, like lace sown to leather The holes in the pattern have grown Chorus Tonight feels so cold and so empty Like a frozen hand’s dream of a glove For everybody wants to be a lover But nobody wants to be loved If I was the right one, you’d not be the left one, my dear But I’m getting so tired of finding that we’re right back here… You say that you’re chasing a dream and you’re not scared to fail Well baby that’s fine but I think you’re just chasing your tail Tonight feels so cold and so empty Like a frozen hand’s dream of a glove For everybody wants to be a lover But nobody wants to be loved

People come tell me all they know sometimes Say you got an understanding look on your face Sorry friend, but that just ain’t the case Understandings not the same as living everyday You can know too much before you finally get away I’m sure sorry that’s the case Got them blues, can’t be satisfied Got them blues, can’t be satisfied I got them blues gonna take that train and ride I swore that once I’d never be back again That was a long time ago, I didn’t feel no pain Lost my job and my woman and I’m here in the driving rain When you work outdoors you think that you might freeze Pick strangers’ apples off of strangers’ trees Take your mind off your troubles friend leave when you please

Lazy Feckin’ Hippies Oh I used to love the way You loved to be around me Oh I used to love the way You loved me being in good form Oh I used to love the way You’d celebrate and crown me Till in the end, I was myself again - up the walls at home I really can’t believe The mystic cack you keep on spouting You’re convinced there’s hotels Full of aliens on the moon But I am, strang-el-y att-racted To the one concept you’ve studiously rejected That of Energy Vampires And their prescence in this room I can’t stand Lazy Fecking hippies Claiming their energy is love Their psychedelic snaking ladders Leave them higher plane backstabbers That rank the cuckoo higher than the dove I’ve learned never to trust anyone that laughs when nothings funny I’ve learned never to trust anyone with too many best friends And to Never ever trust anyone whose religion needs money To mete you out the truth on which your soul’s salvation depends I can’t stand LAZY Feckin Hippies… If I have to listen to another woolly notion I will vomit and choke and wheeze and cough You could knit a hat and a couple of scarves From last nights half-baked mixed metaphors Its a tragic roundabout - please let me off I put it to you, dear horatio That these people offer brain fellatio But I would rather hang around kings cross station Than submit once more to their cranial penetration Do you think they’ve got the message yet? Christ only knows.

Bin Hoker Girl The first time I met her was sat on the street Her big woolly hat on she smiled at me sweet She said why you hungry boy come on with me I’ll take you to places where everything’s free We bantered and dandered our way down the quay She climbed fences easy as night followed day She said don’t be nervous you got to dive in And we head over heeled into sainsbury’s bins Bin Hoker Girl!!! You know you rock my world.. Bin Hoker Girl!!! First we found oranges then we found bread Sweetcorn and mackerel – watch them she said Ripe avocados - Buy none get two free I laughed for I knew she was laughing at me Well we’d this morning’s croissants And yesterday’s prawns And we finished the olives as the night wore on We drank a toast to the holy grail Wi a couple of tins of own brand ale Bin Hoker Girl!!! You know you rock my world.. Bin Hoker Girl!!! The moon shone on Derry And through the oul haze I thought this is one of them mentalist days But none of the folks in the tower Hotel Dined as fine as me and my bin-hoker girl So we danced in the moonlight Below the new bridge She tapped out a jig on a oul rusty fridge We kissed where the heart patients walk off the pounds And made love on our coats on the cold common ground She says pride will starve you The whole world’s just theft Their false economy’s up the left Get off your arse boy and come away wi me There’s a whole lot more crazy world to see… Well I thought I’d been round Been all over the world But I never met a woman like my bin-hoker girl Some of you may think this song’s a joke But more each day got a hard bin to hoke She said they’re like you love Don’t know that they’re free And they’ll never find out Without a good looking hard fighting head knocking smart working bin-hoking girl like me.. Bin Hoker Girl!!! You know you rocked my world.. Bin Hoker Girl!!!

T'ai Ch'i Lattes I’m standing by the side of a northern canal As the freight train thunders through There’s a smile on your face And your hand’s on the pram As I wave goodbye to you Til the summer bells ring true I’m off to see my daughter, she’s a student these days Shining like a guiding star Building the friendships That’ll carry her through A life lived near and far A life lived near and far T’ai chi lattés and last nights fun To launches and engagement rings She’s my daughter, and just like us all She knows how to celebrate things She knows how to celebrate things It’s good to wander this gem of a world And party with the people it holds Better when you come back after all these years Find silver turned to gold Find silver’s turned to gold Now I’m sitting with her mother By the side of her bed And everything smells too clean There’s a psychedelic etch-a-sketch Tracing the Blue Stack mountains on the screen I know it isn’t over cos we both believe And we’re here to see it through And I’ll never be embarrassed to be Singing a song About how much I love you Though I know I never do….

Oh Oh Oh Oh Here comes your herbal infection Oh oh oh oh Where’s your propolis protection None of your beeswax, Face facts We weren’t made to propagate Anything that nature couldn’t mate Now we’ve mucked it up big time Too late for bee-kind Our hive-mind inoculators Slaving nectar-saving pollinators They’re doing their see-you laters But that’s no way to say goodbye Ticks of the mind have Time to find you, will unwind you Like a wool skein, A sheep scene of loathing Steeped clothing Battering rams at the flax dams Get on your flak jacket, father jack hacket. What? Ya mean ya didn’t pack it? Ha! Too late lately so many poisons We’re the only species That heedlessly employs them Hay hay hay it’s old school You need the weather fool We’re up for big bales Black sails in the sunset Unispike as you like Rearguard farmyard action This is four by four traction Sixteen, the sick team Thank the bankers Bought us the slurry tankers Contractual mayhem JuneJitsu Gas them All over the taut brown ground Squirm worm you’re history Lumbricans terrestris You’ll miss the best bits Watch us try to eat our own shit Settle down lad, says my granddad No need for Swearing You could do more being pleasant And what’s that you’re wearing? In the name of Teknopeasant! Pop, the problem is more and more’s been done God knows you were no moron A good man, quiet, hard working and smart And I still miss the smell of your pipe smoke And my granny’s apple tart But now we’re outrun Have you clocked the mileage, We got knee-deep friesans eating captive silage Pensioners at 3 and 4 years Bone-hammock dung-flingers Wannabee gun-slingers can’t stand them, Scan them - look they got chipped ears Just a few years ahead of us, on GPS Time to go back to the dark and pray We learn to enjoy being treated the same way What? Are you going to try And rip out a few pages? Look up the golden ages? Get courageous, Get cosmopolitan Ask for help from your bake-book Face the facts there’s no going back It’s a war against money Being used as a weapon I’m not joking it’s a token of infection It’s time for insurrection Need to get off this oil Get back on the soil Get fierce and vocal – keep it local Take some ground and tend it, befriend it. This is Now - our world – defend it

Oh I’m just a poor fella that wanders this town Tapping for drink or a couple of pound But I once had a girlfriend, a job and a home It’s truth that I tell though I wish it were none I fell out with my girl and the whole of our crew Over some stupid message that I miss-sent to you Couldn’t sit wi me nephews and nieces at home So on Halloween night I was out on my own Sick of the town and the lights of the pubs And the same DJs playing in overpriced clubs I was looking for somewhere to party all night When a bunch of wee goth wans came into my sight They were witches and vampires and a ghoul in a shroud Then I saw one wee lass drop her glove on the ground In my superman costume I ran up and cried “I’m made out of steel girls would ye give us a smile?” Of the six scary sisters she was fairest to me Plum velvet black leather and fishnets and heels She’d a seventies face and her hair looked the same I gave back her glove and I asked for her name She laughed in my face and said “you tell me yours - Did you lose all your friends? Do you want to meet ours” Behind the black lipstick her white teeth did shine “Come on up the hill there we’ve mushrooms and wine” We were joined by six lads, as we got through the gates Says I “I’ll head back, I can see I’m too late” But she looked at me hard with her sunflower eyes And said don’t be silly boy, you are my prize… Under that foolish moon amidst headstones and trees I wished I’d a crowd of me mates around me Not a bottle of powers and a wee bag of cans But I followed along, hand in glove, glove in hand It wasn’t the first time I’d tasted that tea But this time the weirdness it overwhelmed me I thought her my sister, I thought her my twin When she opened her grave to me I followed in Down through the wet vaults of Creggan’s cold clay Past tree roots and caskets in states of decay Till we danced in the great halls of crumbling stone Where wild mouldering tapestries hang from old bones There was all kinds of gentry and strange looking beasts Frock coats and swallowtails britches and lace The lasses and lads there they smiled at their ease But I’d never seen any mouths hungry as these When she said do you love me I lied and said yes Then kissed her and tasted the cold tongue of death I was sickened and twisted with terror and fear For I knew then I’d lost all I’d loved all those years To the drone of a pipe and the tap of a drum I was coming up fast but I couldn’t get home So I spun and I whirled and drank wine til I drowned To the sound of her laughter I slipped and sank down. I woke upside down in a tree the next morn I was bruised cut and sick I was tattered and shorn My superman costume was changed to old rags My powers was gone, and no money for fags I left my mind open on that cold windy hill and the things that crawled in there are haunting me still And the life that they took from me I’ll never know When they stole all the heat from my heart and my soul So all you young fellows that roams round the town Beware the six maids in their ripped velvet gowns And don’t go wi them if your heart isn’t free Or you’ll wander these cold streets stripped bare of your dreams…

It was i believe a woman, possessed By Jesus confronted She straightway confessed Within her the demon Whose name was legion Evicted, destroyed The nascent pork industry of the region Stampeding Swine of The Abyss Stampeding Swine of The Abyss Whoops – what did we miss? Is it a hardcore nu-death metal band Is it retro-fetish clubland Is it a Tory-LibDem party Is it belief in peaceful apartheid? Stampeding Swine of The Abyss Stampeding Swine of The Abyss Is it creatures reared for food Refusing to be a passive brood? Hitting self-destuct rather Than go a step up on the pyramid ladder Stampeding Swine of The Abyss Stampeding Swine of The Abyss An over-reaction to demonic possession? A refusual to engage in group confession? An active clifftop porkorama A metaphorical help-me mama Stampeding Swine of The Abyss Stampeding Swine of The Abyss Or just an exhortation to get real Invitational reach-around Jesus feel A call to arms on a minister’s door Remember what the good book’s for! Stampeding Swine of The Abyss Stampeding Swine of The Abyss

As I walked home through the new streets of Derry A song unbidden came to my mind Its syllables matched my falling footsteps Beneath a grey blue morning sky The architecture was unfamiliar And from small gardens strange gnomes did strain But although money has enlarged our dwellings The hearts of our people they remain the same As I walked on from the top of ardgrange Down past where grangemore was the first to land I thought of peoples my loved and near ones And how they navigate this strand To me it’s simple tonight at least I Have sipped and nibbled yet have had my fill And on front doorsteps and under canvas Have danced and wandered at the full moon’s will I raise my hat to the cats and pigeons And lightly stepping observe a cab He’s heading up – I’ll catch him after When fareless down the hill he‘ll cross my path As I walked home through the new streets of derry I bring to mind olden monstrosities The gutted abbatoirs and ice cream parlours With cool blue tiles and muted screams And where the desperate face of foyleside And the millennium whoredom raise their skirts There are wells so deep No man’s hand may chart them Where 15 centuries of sailors have been laid I do recall up on the high steps Of the Mourne Bar in nineteen and eighty six I told a young girl a half moon was beautiful And she looked at me then like I was thick I saw her once in Lisnagelvin My sister nudged me and said see her there I recognised her from her strong features and The unchanged black crown of her hair As we grow old now our city changes The one we built inside our heads as weans But the city of our hearts surpasses All planners constitutional and concerted campaigns As I walked home though the new streets of derry I remixed and pixelated the nights events And I am resolved that since not I It is Derry surely that is heaven sent