then it tries to find a home
with people or when I’m alone
picking it apart
and staring at your phone
We all have a hunger
we all have a hunger
we all have a hunger
we all have a hunger
Tell me what you need
Oh, you look so free
the way you use your body, baby
Come on and work it for me
Don’t let them get you down
You’re the best thing I’ve seen
We never found the answer
But we knew one thing
We all have a hunger
we all have a hunger
we all have a hunger
we all have a hunger
And it’s Friday night and it’s kicking in
In that pink dress they’re gonna crucify me
Oh and you in all your vibrant youth
How could anything bad ever happen to you?
You make a fool of death with your beauty
And for a moment I forget to worry
JUNE
The show was ending and I had started to crack
Woke up in Chicago when the sky turned black
And you’re so high, you’re so high, you have to be an angel
And I’m so high, I’m so high, I can see an angel
I hear your heart beating in your chest
The world slows till there’s nothing left
Skyscrapers look on like great unblinking giants
in those heavy days in June, when love became an act of defiance
Hold on to each other
hold on to each other
hold on to each other
hold on to each other
And you were broken-hearted
and the world was too
And I was beginning to lose my grip
and I have always held it loosely
But this time I admit
I felt it really start to slip
And choirs sing in the street
and I would come to you, to watch the television screen
in your hotel room
I’m always down to hide with you
Hold on to each other
hold on to each other
hold on to each other
hold on to each other
You’re so high, you’re so high
You’re so high, you’re so high
You’re so high, you’re so high
you have to be an angel
And I’m so high, I’m so high
I’m so high, I’m so high
I’m so high, I’m so high
I can see an angel
PATRICIA
Oh Patricia, you’ve always been my North Star
and I have to tell you something: I’m still afraid of the dark
But you take my hand in your hand
from you the flowers grow
and do you understand with every seed you sow
you make this cold world
beautiful
You told me all doors are open to the believer
I believe her, I believe her, I believe her
You told me all doors are open to the believer
I believe her, I believe her, I believe her
Oh Patricia, you’ve always been my North Star
Oh Patricia, you’ve always been my North Star
Well, you’re a real man and you do what you can
you only take as much as you can grab with two hands
With your big heart you praise God above
but how’s that working out for you, honey
do you feel loved?
She told me all doors are open to the believer
I believe her, I believe her, I believe her
You told me our doors are open to the believer
I believe her, I believe her, I believe her
Oh Patricia, you’ve always been my North Star
Oh Patricia, you’ve always been my North Star
Drink too much coffee and think of you often
in a city where reality has long been forgotten
Are you afraid because I’m terrified?
You remind me that it’s such a wonderful thing to love
it’s such a wonderful thing to love
it’s such a wonderful thing to love
it’s such a wonderful thing to love
it’s such a wonderful thing
SKY FULL OF SONG
How deeply are you sleeping or are you still awake?
A good friend told me you’ve been staying out so late
Be careful oh my darling, oh be careful what it takes
from what I’ve seen so far the good ones always seem to break
And I was screaming at my father
and you were screaming at me
and I can feel your anger from way across the sea
And I was kissing strangers
I was causing such a scene
oh the heart, it hides such unimaginable things
Grab me by my ankles, I’ve been flying for too long
I couldn’t hide from the thunder in a sky full of song
And I want you so badly but you could be anyone
I couldn’t hide from the thunder in a sky full of song
Hold me down, I’m so tired now
Aim your arrow at the sky
Take me down, I’m too tired now
Leave me where I lie
And I can tell that I’m in trouble when that music starts to play
in a city without seasons, it keeps raining in LA
I feel like I’m about to fall, the room begins to sway
and I can hear the sirens but I cannot walk away
Grab me by my ankles, I’ve been flying for too long
I couldn’t hide from the thunder in a sky full of song
And I want you so badly but you could be anyone
I couldn’t hide from the thunder in a sky full of song
Hold me down, I’m so tired now
Aim your arrow at the sky
Take me down, I’m too tired now
Leave me where I lie
I thought I was flying but maybe I’m dying tonight
I thought I was flying but maybe I’m dying tonight
and I thought I was flying but maybe I’m dying tonight
I thought I was flying but maybe I’m dying tonight
Hold me down, I’m so tired now
Aim your arrow at the sky
Take me down, I’m too tired now
Leave me where I lie
Hold me down, I’m so tired now
Aim your arrow at the sky
Take me down, I’m too tired now
Leave me where I lie
SOUTH LONDON FOREVER
When I go home alone I drive past the place
where I was born
and the places that I used to drink
young and drunk and stumbling in the street outside The Joiners Arms
like foals unsteady on their feet
With the art students and the boys in bands
high on E and holding hands with someone
that I just met
I thought it doesn’t get better than this
there can be nothing better than this
better than this
We climbed onto the roof of the museum
and someone made love in the grass
and I forgot my name and the way back
to my mother’s house
With your black pool eyes and your bitten lips
the world is at your fingertips
It doesn’t get better than this
what else could be better than this
Oh do you know what I have seen
I have seen the fields aflame
and everything I ever did
was just another way to scream your name
over and over and over and over again
over an
d over and over and over again
And we’re just children wanting children
of our own
I want a space to watch things grow
but did I dream too big, do I have to let it go
what if one day there is no such thing as snow
Oh God, what do I know
And I don’t know anything
except that green is so green
and there’s a special kind of sadness
that seems to come with spring
Oh do you know what I have seen
I have seen the fields aflame
and everything I ever did
was just another way to scream your name
over and over and over and over again
over and over and over and over again
Oh do you know what I have seen
I have seen the fields aflame
but everything I ever did
was just another way to scream your name
THE END OF LOVE
I feel nervous in a way that can’t be named
I dreamt last night of a sign that read ‘the end of love’
and I remember thinking, even in my dreaming
it was a good line for a song
We were a family pulled from the flood
You tore the floorboards up
and let the river rush in
not wash away, wash away
We were reaching in the dark
that summer in New York
and it was so far to fall
You said it didn’t hurt at all
You let it wash away, wash away
In a moment of joy and fury
I threw myself on the balcony
like my grandmother some years before me
I’ve always been in love with you
Could you tell it from the moment that I met you?
We were a family pulled from the flood
you tore the floorboards up
and let the river rush in
not wash away, wash away
We were reaching in the dark
that summer in New York
and it was so far to fall
oh it didn’t hurt at all
I let it wash away, wash away
And Joshua came down from the mountain
with a tablet in his hands
told me that he loved me
and then ghosted me again
We were reaching in the dark
that summer in New York
and it was so far to fall
You said it didn’t hurt at all
I let it wash away, wash away
We were reaching in the dark
that summer in New York
and it was so far to fall
but it didn’t hurt at all
I let it wash away, wash away
NO CHOIR
And it’s hard to write about being happy because the older I get
I find that happiness, is an extremely uneventful subject
and there would be no grand choirs to sing
no chorus could come in about two people, sitting doing nothing
But I must confess
I did it all for myself
I gathered you here
to hide from some vast unnameable fear
But the loneliness never left me
I always took it with me
but I can put it down in the pleasure of your company
and there will be no grand choirs to sing
no chorus will come in
no ballad will be written
it will be entirely forgotten
and if tomorrow it’s all over
at least we had it for a moment
oh darling, things seem so unstable
but for a moment we were able to be still
And there will be no grand choirs to sing
no chorus will come in
no ballad will be written
this will be entirely forgotten
SONG CONTINUED
And this new voice
This ‘me’ voice
Is it conversational
Confessional?
Does it describe the Easter Sunday I had with Bryan Ferry,
Or that I slept in the corner of his studio once,
I was so hungover, I think he covered me with a scarf…
It also might have been Isaac,
But Bryan Ferry
is a good person
to put into a poem
What about the time I swam in the Cambridge river
with the students graduating…
Then left my stage clothes on the bus to Camberwell
In blackout,
After getting kicked out of Topshop for drinking rosé
in the changing rooms
The pair of knickers left somewhere in Peckham
after an aborted threesome.
The shoe that my ex-boyfriend
tried to hit my new boyfriend with,
On Valentine’s Day,
outside my mum’s house.
Various black eyes,
unexplainable love bites,
lost handbags/phones/cards/wraps
My college work abandoned so I didn’t have to carry it
home…
And other south London artefacts
I’m not sure I could put these things into a song…
These muddy trinkets
Not beautiful enough, too bloody and ragged…
I always felt the song should transcend the swamp.
I needed it to dredge me out.
Drain my lungs,
Massage my heart till I’d coughed it up.
Like
Ah.
Here it is.
Is it
enough
NEW YORK POEM
(FOR POLLY)
My mother and father come to me in visions
and I can feel their arms of love stretch out across the sea,
across time, across divorces, deception and death.
And I know that I am their daughter.
And I know that they love me, despite the damage.
We walk past the hotel where we nearly died,
a kind of passive double suicide.
Wave at the ghosts of ourselves,
cold and still inside,
run screaming into the street,
THIS IS THE NEW SHIT.
Heady with pagan worship
of water towers,
fire escapes, ever reaching,
high as hope.
Then we are dead.
And we are together in ‘other’ New York.
Which is both heaven and hell,
and we have coffee and ice cream
and aching hearts.
MONARCH BUTTERFLIES
I am afraid of things being written down
Confined to the page so permanent
There is an impermanence to song
It is fleeting and of the moment
Words grow wings
Flying and out of the mouths of singers and crowds
But never caught fully
Never pinned down
Celebrated for their imperfections
Because they are a disappearing creation
They live entirely in the moment
A vibration, an exchange of energy
And that way things can be misheard…
Reinterpreted, you don’t have to be seen
You can be so loud so visible and yet
Totally hidden
By a flock of notes fluttering, already dying,
Disguising the somewhat ordinary if anxious writer
With their shimmering glory and colour
My grandfather said I am
Like the monarch butterfly
That got lost
I flew from North America
<
br /> In the eye of my mother…
Drawn to the churches, frescos
And old books of Europe
The new world too new
Back to grey stone and skies
Ancient scrolls, death and dust
Old death, not this fresh death
There in your hand
Glowing and
Relentless
AMERICAN MOTHER
Crafted from Renaissance stone
Mostly these days I write poetry on my phone.
I wish I had more of your staunch American character,
Strong, bold, and unflinching, like the desert, or a New York skyscraper.
But I am more like the English weather
Unpredictable and ever changing,
Prone to downpours.
Battered by sudden winds – thin-skinned, eye-bagged and always cold,
Proud and leaking.
Did you think you would give birth to such an English creature,
With your warm American blood.
I just found a picture of me
Drunk in a corridor with Liza Minnelli,
Waiting for Lady Gaga to go on stage.
I make songs to tie people to me,
With a ribbon of fantasy around their necks
Such a beautiful bow
That I hold in my fist.
And will not let go.
RAGE
I’m worried we are entering an age of rage,
Where only anger will be considered an asset
And the gentle will be mocked, then eaten.
Those with soft voices will have their tongues cut out,
As punishment for not using them the right way.
Don’t you know your words are weapons,
Kindness is obsolete,
As obsolete as handwriting,
As obsolete as silence and darkness in a city.
OH YOU’RE A REAL MAN
Oh you’re a real man
And you do what you can
You only take as much
As you can grab with two hands
With your big heart
You praise God above
How many have to die
So that you can feel loved.
MONSTER
So you start to take pieces of your own life
And somewhat selfishly
Other people’s lives
And feed them to the song
At what cost
This wondrous creature
That becomes more precious to you
Than the people that you took from
How awful
To make human sacrifices
A late night conversation
A private thought
Useless Magic: Lyrics and Poetry Page 6