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Salt fare, north sea

The British Navy, guardian of the seabound British establishment, almost became its destroyer when sailors demanded rights in the mutinies at Spithead and the Nore in 1797. Sailors were always the archetypal enemy within; the word strike comes from militant sailors' tendency to strike the sails when warring with the Admiralty.

Roll on, roll off
With these words I drown
Topmast secured
Hatches battened down
Sometimes I think
It must be different on land
But from the mast I can only see tyrants
Still in command

Fish & Chip supper
Battered, no bones
Hung, drawn and quoted
And drifting alone
One thousand lashes
For the Age of Reason
Salt for your wounds
When the cod's in season

We reach the horizon
And sail over the edge
Drunk on our memories
More sober than a judge
I'm wasting time
That I can't afford -
I know I'd die on the gallows
Before I'd die of being bored

Salt fare, North Sea

Jacob's Ladder

Political expediency versus class; Winston Churchill let 1591 ordinary sailors drown after their ships were sunk off the coast of Norway in WW2 by German battle cruisers. Churchill thought a rescue attempt might have alerted the Germans to the evacuation of the Norwegian royal family, so ordered ships in the area to abandon the drowning men. Today's footnote would be the sinking of the Russian Kursk submarine; sailors drowned as President Putin put national pride before the need to call in foreign rescue teams.

Like rusty old nails
At the bottom of the sea
Telling no tales
For the good of the Admiralty

You jump when you're told to
Through the open door
And the King of Norway
He's the man you all died for

On this
Jacob's Ladder
The only way up is down
Three days in the water
Watching all the secrets drown
Jacob's Ladder

And they sent him to the wars to be slain
To be slain
And they sent him to the wars to be slain

A thousand lifetimes
Left standing at the docks
In the bar down in Whitehall
They're sure the boat won't rock

In a file marked 'Secret'
In a drawer kept closed
Nobody wonders
Because nobody knows

About this
Jacob's Ladder
The only way up is down
Three days in the water
Watching all the secrets drown
Jacob's Ladder

And they sent him to the wars to be slain
To be slain
And they sent him to the wars to be slain

On this
Jacob's Ladder
The only way up is down
Three days in the water
Watching all the secrets drown
Jacob's Ladder

O Bulldog Leader:
Sooner or later
We'll dig up the body
And try your cadaver

All in vain

Celebrity culture meets institutionalised racism. TV presenter Jill Dando's death in 1999 was fetishised; in comparison, Ricky Reel's racially-motivated murder two years earlier was ignored.

I wish, I wish, I wish -
But it's all in vain

Different colours, different faces
Different schools in different places
Scour the morning papers
All in vain

Evening after, who remembers?
Say your prayers for the great pretenders
I see nothing but flowers
All in vain

I wish, I wish, I wish -
But it's all in vain

All the gravestone elegies
I-never-met-you memories
And every tv picture
All in vain

All your questions, deep as skin
Seperate worlds to put them in
Another might-have-been
All in vain

Colour blind as tse tse flies
Sucking all our difference dry
And as we sleep they multiply

Home with me

Measuring the world in moments, not miles. The memories of us old blues singers.

Your world, my world

San Christobal on New Year's Day
Sunny beach, LA
Blue and coral Kirkstall skies
Timorese sunrise
Fairfield Horseshoe in the snow
Clashing worlds in Tokyo
All the bars in County Cork
Heavy rain, New York

Your world, my world

I sailed the seven seas
Carved my love on trees
I brought the whole world home with me
Home with me

Your world, my world

Barcelona cobbled streets
Paris, 1968
Words along the Berlin wall
When it's just about to fall

I sailed the seven seas
Carved my love on trees
I brought the whole world home with me
Home with me

Your world, my world

Gracelands, Memphis, Tennessee
Killing time, Napoli
Autumn Warsaw, grey and green
Kronstadt 1917

I sailed the seven seas
Carved my love on trees
I brought the whole world home with me
Home with me

If it is to be, it is up to me

There we were, hanging over a bridge watching the King escaping from the mob by rowing his boat down the Thames during The Peasants Revolt, 1381. Three days that turned the world upside down, almost upending the status quo and tipping royalty off its throne. Almost, almost.

If
It
Is
To
Be

It
Is
Up
To
Me

And as we sail, blows wild the gale

Sweet flows the water, yellow as royal piss
Speech turns to stammer, your lips are too tight to kiss
I've never seen rabbits looking as scared as this

And as we sail, blows wild the gale

A five times champion wouldn't row as fast
Caught in the eddies between future and past
Blowing a hurricane from the Royal arse

And as we sail, blows wild the gale

If
It
Is
To
Be

It
Is
Up
To
Me

Don't try this at home

The global anti-capitalist movement reaches back to the late eighteenth century. In the back alleys of history, insurrection, like the common cold, spread quickly, inspired by the French and American revolutions: as the Sans Culottes garotted, British conspirators plotted.

It's a long walk to the gallows
It's a small step to swing free
The crying in the tower
For my conspirators and me
Gunpowder and modem
And a dream of liberty

And then they'll tell you
Don't try this at home
Oh yes they'll tell you
Don't try this at home

If you walk on the beach with King Canute
You'll be walking back alone
Tonight he'll dine on oysters
While we fall like green acorns
We'll be putting down our roots
Right in the centre of the storm

Oh but they'll tell you
Don't try this at home
Oh yes they'll tell you
Don't try this at home

The cry of gulls
The hum of streets
The buzz of phones
The march of feet
We'll meet tonight
To draw up plans:
Exclamations
Ampersands

Somewhere across the water
They're storming palace gates
Scared of the moth/flame metaphor
We fall asleep and wait
Singing for a future but
The chorus comes too late

Because they'll tell you
Don't try this at home
Oh yes they'll tell you
Don't try this at home

So we're coming to the last dance
I've got another request
With your best foot forward
We'll lay this ghost to rest

Song for Len Shackleton

The Clown Prince of English football in a time when the England team selectors refused to pick someone so downright uppity to represent his country. When asked why Len was consistently left out of the team, one selector replied, "Because we play at Wembley Stadium, not London Palladium."

I'm not the kind of man
Who'd live a quieter life
Just for a minute's silence:
( )

Some say it all without a word
Silence can be mightier than the sword

They took the 2,3,5
They turned it upside down
Why run away to the circus
When the world is full of clowns?

Without reason or rhyme [The killing of Harry Stanley]

On September 22 1999, an unarmed Harry Stanley was walking home when he was shot dead by an armed police response unit. Someone had rung the cops claiming that "a man with an Irish accent" - Harry was Scottish - was carrying "a sawn-off shotgun in a plastic bag" - the bag contained a table leg which needed mending. Harry's family are still pursuing the case.

I wish, I wish, but it's all in vain

On hands and knees
Floors like these
Washing away
Red from grey

Hearts will ache
Shotgun-shaped
No remorse
Of course, of course

Of course there's an explanation
Why you sing without reason or rhyme
Without reason or rhyme

Everyone
Must be wrong
This explains
Where he lays

Hearts can kill
And they will
Filed reports
Of course, of course

Of course there's an explanation
Why you sing without reason or rhyme
Without reason or rhyme

Don't pass go

In 1986 Satpal Ram defended himself against a racist attack and his attacker died. Although he's served longer than his original sentence he's still locked up, still refusing the role of repentant convict, still maintaining that self-defence is a legitimate response to racism.

Didn't he know it was a waste of time?
All stitched up by a thin blue line

Well the facts said yes
But the judge said no
Go straight to jail
And don't pass go
Don't pass go

He didn't understand
And he told them so
Go straight to jail
And don't pass go
Don't pass go

there ain't no justice, there's just us

A little self-protection
They don't want to know
Go straight to jail
And don't pass go
Don't pass go

And he won't say sorry
Play the old Jim Crow
Go straight to jail
And don't pass go
Don't pass go

Didn't he know it was a waste of time?
All stitched up by a thin blue line

White paranoia
It runs the show
Go straight to jail
And don't pass go

You want table manners
You get rule of law
Go straight to jail
And don't pass go
Don't pass go

Didn't he know it was a waste of time?
All stitched up by a thin blue line

One way or the other

A hymn for The Quebec St Unemployed Club of the '20s and '30s; a self-help group in Bradford who stole and borrowed... but never begged.

Peace won't come by words alone

No pretty please
Pretty pretty please
No pretty please
Pretty pretty please
No pretty please

One way or the other
Something's got to change
Humdrum has a stammer -
Saying "w w w whatever"
One way or the other

Peace won't come by words alone

I'm so low on order
But high on what I want
And I've got your number
And I'm coming over
One way or the other

When I'm bad

Your duty isn't 'to serve'. Your duty is, as Mae West would put it, to enjoy yourself.

They try in vain our minds to chain

I'm up in the stars
Looking down at the gutter
When I'm good
I'm very good
But when I'm bad
I'm better!

Oh barman
Fill this glass again
And keep on pouring
'Til Death says 'when'.
Oh barman
Fill it to the top
And we'll be drinking
'Til the singing has to stop

They try in vain our minds to chain

ABCDEFG:
The only notes that matter
When I'm good
I'm very good
But when I'm bad
I'm better!

They try in vain our minds to chain

Me and all my friends
Are coming round to your house
And we're not going to go
Until we get thrown out

Oh barman
Fill this glass again

They try in vain our minds to chain

Sewing up crap

The Factory Act of 1892 outlawed child labour. Behind the modern glass and chrome shopfronts of present-day capitalism are invisible sweatshops stitch-stitch-stitching the profits together; sweatshops employing child labour.

I don't know, and I don't want to know

Chain, chain, chain

A cut-price empire
Clean-cut lines
A perfect body
And a dirty mind
The rules of this game
Say we all look the same

Chain, chain, chain

We'll put a spin on it
We'll take a pencil to it
We'll make a virtue out of
Keeping oh so quiet about it

I don't know, and I don't want to know

Chain, chain, chain

Talk about child's play
Count the birthdays
A stitch in time says:
Just look the other way
The rules of this game
Say you don't know her name

Chain, chain, chain

We'll span a hundred years for it
We'll make a killing out of it
And we'll corner the market
By keeping oh so quiet about it

Working for The Gap
Sewing up crap

One up the chimney goes
Two hawks a tray of matches
Three braves the weaving floor
All pray for the life of Four

Five down the pit descends
Six ploughs in fields and meadows
Seven spins the handloom round
Eight lies in th' burial ground

After Shelley

During the Irish potato famine of 1845, London's Parliament decided who would eat and who would not; as over a million people starved to death, Irish crops were being exported to England. And now? Over twelve million children will die of poverty-related illness in 2002. Words based on a poem by Shelley.

The seed you sow, another reaps
The wealth you find, another keeps
The clothes you weave, another wears
The arms you forge, another bears

The songs you write, another sings
The heart you lose, another wins
The food you bake, another eats
(Poison-laced and oh, so sweet)

Rock and Roll
Check your pulse
Art or death
True or false
Can't stay young
Can't grow old
Overpriced
Undersold