1. |
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It was mere folly… I didn’t mark it
there’s more here than there seems… I don’t like it
50,000 wild flutes blow up a storm
there’s someone within us, someone amongst us
someone who knows what frightens and thrills us
there’s laughter behind you and someone is crying
wild dogs are running through dry riverbeds
Go down to the town, down to the town
Go down to the town, down to the town
where they never work all their lives
so they just lie about
lost until knives cut the skins from their backs
the butchers, the bakers, the nightmare makers
all lost till they stammer out there’s answers for life
Go down to the town, down to the town
He loves his little children, he waits in their bedrooms
merging with furniture, hiding in playthings
He comes down, he comes down
the father of fear with a family to feed
collector, reactor, collator, relater
sheds tears, he sheds skins… he is here
surrounded by wild men and ghosts and wild boys
he is wise, he is panic, he is fear
We are tense we cannot sleep
we pull wool from the backs of sheep
o hot in your houses and stained by dead horses
situations repeated like films of your past
like babies in baskets, like rats in the rushes
Bou Jeloud is searching for secrets inside
He loves little children, he waits in their bedrooms
merging with furniture, hiding in playthings
Words by John Balance
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2. |
Dead Men Don’t Talk
02:19
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You can crawl in the depths
you can crawl in your bloated
you can scream your weak
derisions, convictions, contradictions
because we all know dead men don’t talk
you’re flogging a dead horse my friend
a dead horse
You’d better hope your slick will mask
your dimming streets of vision
and you’d better hope that age will blur
your pretentious moralisms
they’re going to be your epitaph my friend
your epitaph
and we all know dead men don’t talk
you’re flogging a dead horse my friend
a dead horse
Don’t you remember when you
used to beat our guts out
with the promise of a brave new world
We’re going to shake your dry and shrivelled mind
like a madman shakes a dead geranium
because remember
dead men don’t talk my friend
dead men don’t talk
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3. |
Khana Kloof
04:24
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4. |
The Media Funk
03:06
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Hype my name till it’s just a noise
and make me king of all the boys
well bless my boots here’s a healthy young mule
drinking deeply from a bladder of vitriol
got the flesh of a prophet on contention’s bones
got a deathwatch beetle in his ideal home
got a tongue that could bruise a grinding stone
and a plastic leech bleeds him when he picks up the phone
Listen good and see what you think
my baby aborted her soul in the sink
she screamed from the bathroom with a potent abuse
my coiffure’s gone crazy and my girdle is loose
complacent saints advertising their gods
and they’ll purge you of your sins with your master’s birch rod
you know his teaching but you don’t know his name
and the lines on his palm are the rules of his game
Excuse him his fist to shelter his virtue
the code of his honour as the cat it may hurt you
all the prophets, the madmen, the saints and the rebels
have forgotten their sayings, but the people keep praying
they traded their history for featureless pebbles
they may cut their knees but the children keep playing
the pebbles that drop on the plains of their grace
an index to measure a space from a space
You’re everybody’s glass demeanour
you’re the pain in every soul
get your ladle out of my mouth
and put it in my begging bowl
[chorus]
Tonight I go down to the dark side
to leave my morals in the lurch
to leave my money in a box by the door
and see an old buddy from a hole in the floor
well I laughed and I cried in all the right places
cheered and I jeered at all the right faces
never could do nothing much I nothing could do well
but I’m the legend of the southern vowel
and brother can I sell
[chorus]
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5. |
Shiny Guitar Music
04:08
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6. |
Aluminium Tubes
03:58
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7. |
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8. |
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So you think you’re unhappy
my well-trodden packhorse
take a look at the tiles
you’ll see the cracks on them are fading
your eyesight’s not as good as it was
So you think you’re unhappy
my sweet little one
o count the hairs and the hands
growing much too older
you’ll see that the time for repression has come
So you think you’re unhappy, my Odysseus
of your dying underground
just look down the tramlines
and the broken siding
you know they’re of no use now
It’s just a repetition for this world
it’s just a repetition for this world
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9. |
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10. |
For All Your Needs
02:31
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11. |
Dogtooth Spar
03:15
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12. |
Beautiful Song
03:51
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13. |
Do You Remember The War?
05:03
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14. |
Magic Theatre
05:34
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15. |
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16. |
No Hidden Extras
02:27
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Words and music: Cultural Amnesia
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17. |
The Fountain Overflows
03:15
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18. |
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A severe endeavour to sever the past
a stone cast by darkness to shatter the glass
and scars remain to stain the pain
white stains remain remain
bloodstains remain remain
pain stains darkest can’t explain
the scars for E that infest me
the scars for E that infest me
Scars for E, o weeping sadness is blurred
flesh and memory, steel blades and tears
and scars remain to stain the pain
white stains remain remain
sweat stains remain remain
pain deepest can’t contain
the scars for E that infest me
the scars for E that infest me
A trust from me, a thrust from E
stained by dead horses, smeared with blood voices
video violence watch towers of silence
video violence watch towers of silence
fall, crush the sadness I feel
and scars remain to stain the pain
white stains remain remain
bloodstains remain remain
pain stains darkest can’t contain
the scars for E that infest me
the scars for E that infest me
Words by John Balance
1982
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19. |
The Pigs Are Coming
03:05
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20. |
Sinclair’s Luck
04:07
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21. |
Lament (hexagonal cages)
02:23
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22. |
Satisfaction
07:36
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23. |
The Uncle Of The Boot
00:55
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24. |
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Green cage cabaret
green cage cabaret
I'm biding my time by the edge of a skull
spending days of my time by the edge of a skull
and I'm plucking my boots and I'm pulling my bootlace
there's silk in my eyeholes, soft music's my earholes
it's beats on a hollow drum at the green cage cabaret
where flowers and good things might grow
There are paper scraps in my head down by the edge
the chalk skull pulls my mind in tune and around
pulls me surely with the tide betide me
high betide me and woe betide me
by the daubed skull I'll abide me
chorus:
At the green cage cabaret
where flowers and good things might grow
they'll not pierce mind through eye not ear
the short slaves of our eyes are our tears
Our eyes are dry they'll not dissolve
the fence what is provoking me
why stitch me up, they stitched me down
why play with me, they played me around
dancing the pastures of the chalked cranium
chorus
There is a small locket
that I'm keeping my scraps in
things that are valuable
knowledge and the like
chorus
Green cage cabaret
green cage cabaret
they stitched me up, they stitched me down
they played with me, they played me around
dancing the pastures of the chalked cranium
Green cage cabaret
green cage cabaret
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25. |
High
04:42
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26. |
Being Boiled
02:08
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27. |
Fingertip Testing
05:49
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Is this the first time, is this the last time
give me a penny and we’ll do it again
is this the first time, is this the last time
well that colour it don’t stain
Reality’s just an index of pleasures
sing happy birthday to our new appliance
that quaint shire your innocence leaks from your eyes
and your new manifesto drips from your thighs
your heart is a plumb bob it swings as you dance
and it snaps as you flounder on somebody’s lance
your body’s my canvas your eyes the occasion
I’ll muck out your stables and then teach you persuasion
What do you say shall we go to the bedroom
shall we go to the bathroom shall we go to the church
shall we go to the kitchen shall we go to the limit
for I’ve been fingertip testing as well
for they all ring the hungry bell
The large size of relief, the sweet smell of excess
and I’ve got your handle and you’re under my press
Out-shout the thunder, outstare the sun
life’s just an index of pleasures when you are young
Don’t ask my meanings they’re all obscene
the opposite sex is just a substitute for jelly and ice cream
here we go…
Get it up get it down
get it off get it on
get it in get it out
yeah in and out
till you just can’t get it no more
yeah
[chorus]
I came, I came with you in mind my dear
I came, I came and what with the drone in my ears my dear
I came, I came and what with the drone in my ears my dear
Sitting in the garden eating bread and horseradish sauce
sitting in the garden in my liberty bodice
sauce, sauce, sauce, saucy horse
sauce, sauce, saucy horse
oeuf de cheval, oeuf de cheval
saddle my baby I’ve got to go
sympathy, sympathy and what of sympathy
locks and keys and people praying
and boys and girls and horses kissing
And what with the drone in my ears
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28. |
Spoilt Children
05:05
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On a day like today we could all fade away
or act out the story that you saw on Jackanory
about the death that came to stay
and wouldn’t go away
without the contents of your cupboard
and the bones of Mother Hubbard
It’s all so so slow, you know
the feeling you get when your dog dies
on your birthday and everything that comes
through your mailbox tries to kill you
And it’s here come the damp rots to
take away the Woodentops
blood soils the buttercups
It’s all so so so, you know I was talking
to Christ about the view from the Cross
but his soul had flown to other lands
I just felt like throwing the Last Supper up
[Chorus]
It’s all so so so, you know
it’s always almost midnight here
the proles and children live in fear
of when the time will start up here
It’s all so so so, you know
here come the soldier men
to rape and kill your toys again
and whitewash your memories again
[Chorus]
Your eyes are two-way mirrors
that I want to stab with scissors
to stop the future leaking out
so I’ll see the sorry way
that fate will leave me now today
Words by John Balance
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29. |
Shallow Water
03:04
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Daddy will you buy me a golden ring
Daddy will you give me death on a string
Daddy will you show me three blind mice
all battered by the same white girl
Daddy I’m so hollow today
I lost my money the easy way
Mother’s in a coalmine singing her song
and the girlies have left for the station
All I have left now
are fools and replication
Mother the rich elastic man is gone
Mother I write them when I can
I take each line of golden print
and shove it mad into my mouth
I’ll make all mothers write in blood
I’ll mad and sing my song and sing my song
and won’t you all be entertained
I hope you all drown
I hope you all drown
Feet embedded in buckets of swill
and eyes turned out to the dirty sunset
I hope you all drown
I hope you all drown
[chorus]
And shallow water
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30. |
The Man About Town
03:03
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Cultural Amnesia UK
Part of the post-punk/industrial tape scene of the 70s and 80s, Cultural Amnesia released three cassette albums and, since
the late 90s, have begun recording once again.
All digitally available music can be found here. Biographical information is at the band’s website.
... more
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