Words – Micko Westmoreland

 

Noisy Neighbours

It’s been going on some time
Net curtains are a twitching
On the wires of the nerves
Second hand slowly ticking
With a glass to the wall
Listening out
It’s kind of scratching
I could do without
Going down on all fours
Heard through the floors
It’s a form of torture
Coming through the walls

Chorus

Can you hear that banging?
It’s hammering home
All kinds of strangeness
Down to the wire with my noisy neighbours

But how to complain?
Describe those grunting noises
It’s more trouble than it’s worth
When you hear those disgusting voices
In the head and all around
An unbecoming slapping sound
Keeping note, date and time
Hours pass, state of mind
Up the alley, right on cue
Caught on camera, point of view
In and out, it’s all untrue
A carnal matter I can’t undo

Chorus

Noisy Neighbours, Emotional Failure, Noisy Neighbours, Anti-social behaviour

Chorus

Can you hear that banging?
Can you hear that banging?
All kinds of strangeness
Down to the wire with my noisy neighbours

Psychedelic Shirt

Went to a disco, I was 13 years old
In a disused scout hut, I was all on my own
I’d bought a new shirt, red, blue & green
Bought it down Leeds market subject to my means

Chorus

Check out my psychedelic shirt
So out of time it hurts
If it’s not for you, not for you, it’s for me
Back in the day, young offenders leave me be

 

Gone from the cloakroom
Strung out on the toilet floor
Mopped up in the fluid
Screwed up in a ball
Walking in defiance
I left behind a stream
Those torrents of abuse
Defined you, as they define me

Chorus

You don’t have a future
From that moment I shape my own
I’m glad I’m not like them
Mulled it over on the way home
Even at a tender age
You get a sense of what things mean
Reaching out from the gutter
In search of star filled dreams

Chorus

The Finger

Don’t point your finger at me
I’m not responsible for misery
I watch the world but I don’t see
It works out better than way for me
I’m just the man in the street
I’ll read my daily paper down the pub
It won’t burst my bubble
I really don’t think it should

Chorus

It’s not like I don’t care
I don’t give a shit
I’ll just show them the finger
If it ever boils down to it

Do you remember a time
We holidayed in Majorca
We drunk on Mother’s credit
To our firstborn daughter
The liberation of those days
Innocent and care free
Sign of the times
In hindsight it was luxury

Chorus

It does do my head in
To turn a steely eye
On the seething streets
Curse, coz I know why
Still, I’ve got my paper
Half my sanity
I can tut, grunt and shrug
At all that hipster vanity

Chorus

You Killed My Father

Those sunnies look like our telly
Fringe, cut square on a curly wig
Hawaiian shirt, nylon sta press flare
Medallion man lights up my Mother’s cig
Weekends in the club
Aunties and Uncles we hold so dear
Pop and crisps, bowls or snooker?
One armed bandit, domies with beer.

Chorus

You killed my father, now you must die
You killed my father, now you must die
Enter the fray I beseech you
Tis on this day we say goodbye
Coz you killed my father and now you must die

Now the atmosphere’s turning weird
No one gets it, how you’ve taken his place
You seem to enjoy the attention
Cocky smile right across that face
This lurks in a colourful past,
To stop it I have to take the strain
Dig in this trench of forgiveness
Forgo warfare to remain sane

Chorus

Imelda

How do you look so young?
You spent a thousand dollars on chewing gum
Forgot your cheese in Rome
Divert the plane
From returning home
Will anything ever be enough?
Sparkling jewels glisten from above

You were a beauty queen
This week’s girl from a magazine
Obsessed with shopping sprees
Dreaming of your powers to be
Can a steel butterfly flap it’s wings?
Fired from a furnace of forbidden things

Chorus

Imelda, Imelda, Imelda Imelda
Ransacking national treasure
To feed your stately pleasure
Addicted to scheming schemes
What is it you wanted to achieve?
Specials shoes made for the Beatles
Endeared you to all the lowly people

Did it feel like torture
To be deemed unimportant?
Flee to Hawaii
Appear in court if necessary
Leave all those precious things behind
For the national audit committee to find
Taking all you will for yourself
Covering all the tracks for your mental health

Chorus

Sick & Tired

We are sick & tired we’re sick & tired
Of a member of the clergy accepting free cups of tea
There’s so much work to be done here at this jumble
His face is full of biscuits like it’s some kind of jamboree

Chorus

Nothing seems to satisfy, finding fault in everything
Happy to externalise than accept what lies within

He is sick & tired he’s sick & tired
Of the unsightly nature of his next door neighbour’s place
Stray branches, grass clippings left all over
He says he’s bone idle, but never to his face

Chorus

She is sick & tired she’s sick & tired
Of the sound of the doorbell, it’s ringing all the time
It can wake her from her afternoon slumber
Although the deliveries were the ones she placed online

Chorus

They are sick & tired & sick & tired
Of the new management and the way they run this place
Used to be quite a quiet little restaurant
Now it’s full of kids, they’re flicking food & smashing plates

Chorus

You are sick & tired, you’re sick & tired
Of the sight the homeless begging round your door
Every time I feed them a little loose change
It just encourages them to hang about all the more

Chorus

The Fear

Are you afraid of the dark?
The creature under the bed
What currently lives in the wardrobe
May also reside in your head
Darkness conceals, imagine danger
Tension leads to avoidance behaviour
Shrinking courage limits decision
Fear brings fears like an old superstition
I can’t rescue you from despair
You’re a prisoner of your heart
Running scared, you’ll never be free
Hell bent when things fall apart

Chorus

Feel the fear & go with it
Feel the fear & flow with it
Live each day like it were your last
Feel the fear & flow with it
Feel the fear & go with it
Let go of the future & the past

 

When words go beyond just words
Those emotions eat up time
It becomes a tangled fusion
Like a virus in the mind
But letting go of the little me
That needs so much attention
Reflects upon this economy
It’s a self-imposed detention
So careful what you feed
Whilst trying to escape
If you manage to break free
Don’t let demons haunt your wake

Chorus

Good Friend

I’m so tired of your face at my window
Making demands, facing those commands
Scratching the pane, break the glass
Cursing the splinters, forcing the catch

Chorus

All you had to be was a good friend x2

Now you’re in again, destroying my mind
Shattering the pieces, drinking some wine
Think you’re entitled to what you’ve not got
Fighting for justice whilst twisting the plot

Chorus

Parading sensitivity like a weapon
Demanding sympathy whilst seeking attention
Seeming so righteous but fearing humiliation
Aren’t those oppressions of your own creation?

Chorus

Beautiful loser, King without a kingdom
Arrogance, supremacy, mastication
Where is the cavalry now? Since you spat them all out
No time to tear the place down, now there’s extra mouths

Chorus

But as you read this & you balk with scorn
Chastise & ridicule, downgrade and withdraw
‘What’s up’, would have been enough
Never an apology needed
If you’d of been prepared to open up
We both wouldn’t have conceded

Chorus

The Now

Plug yourself into responsibility
Believe it for very sound reasons
Argue for your own limitation
Face the music of your own demons
Fear of failure keeps you falling
You don’t have to do all the things you must
They may string me up for saying less
There’s a freedom you may learn to trust

Chorus

We are in the timeless now
The spotless here & now
We are in the formless now
The tireless here & now

Wait in line for your state of mind
It’s a timetable of frustration
Coz even without a valid ticket
You’ll arrive at your destination
The background static of discontent
Is pushing you towards the edge
Coz, the physics of your journey here
Is better left un-sketched

Chorus

Drawing on disappointments
It’ll drive you round the bend
This unkind kind of thinking
Is no journey’s end

So

Magnetise into your daily life
Whatever you hold in your dreams
Coz the future remains unwritten
Let the feel for life reign supreme
I don’t exist to impress the world
I’m here to make myself feel good
Try to see life as it is
Allow myself to live as I should

 

Halcyon days

 

Those legs go up to eleven
Glitter, pearl, Saffron, lace
Stumble through a hall of mirrors
Fashion yourself from any place
Little children twist and scream
Never reaching limitation
Fire together in wildest dreams
Endless fascination

Chorus

Halcyon days in exotic ways
You’re a walking work of art
So party like New York City
Until the daybreak’s apart
Halcyon days in exotic ways
We all played a part
So party like New York City
Until the night falls apart

So you try to change your world
But it all seems so far away
Like peering through a parted curtain
Figures in a distant play
So do your very worst
You budget avenging angel
Shipwreck of the streets, set the world alight,
With your powerful imagination

Chorus

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