Multiple award-winning writer and journalist, and a lifelong fan of heavy music
I’m sure it all looked lovely in 1:50th scale
A concrete solution to a stalled revolution
New broom sweeps clean and a rising tide lifts all boats
Who wouldn’t want to be boarding this Brutalist Ark?
Corbusier’s wet dream was stillborn on the Rotring board
Have you revisited the scene of your crime against humanity?
Look upon your works, ye mighty, and tremble
At the thought of who’s waiting around unlit blind corners
Concrete stilts sheltering only vandals and vagrants
Lifts that crush the spirits, tags on walls and ankles
Fifty years on, you’re dead but your infamy endures
Metal-framed windows falling out faster than the tenants
You sacrificed the classics, the icons, the greats
In pursuit of a sterile, grey, concrete disgrace
Gaps stuffed with rags so you’d pocket the riches
A nod is as good as a wink to a blind man
But I can see what you did to my streets, my people
And there’s no inverse glamour in this high rise ballad
Your neat suburban bolthole couldn’t save you from the hatred
Of generations stunted by your pygmy dreams of utopia in the sky
I hope you rot in a hell as bad as the one you created for us
We’ll never trust your unkind again
Packed a lot into a two year disaster
An overstuffed suitcase that's falling apart
You shouldn't have been there, the words were too cutting
Beating my head while breaking my heart
Why when I lie awake are the only things I see all the men I couldn't be?
What sins I've committed in past lives to answer
The question of why this is happening still
Sleep with the fissures, it's not who you think
But there's no medication for this kind of ill
If I made any mistakes, then my illness made them for me as it slowly overtook me
Haunted by trauma, I stand by the window
The Russian solution to failure I own
A concrete conclusion to wounds self-inflicted
At least with this baggage I won't die alone
I looked into those hazel eyes and told her things which made her cry
Of days where I would scream inside and nights where I would pray to die
Hey, them’s the breaks when you die by the sword from suffering which can't be inured
I wonder if all that therapy will mean she’ll really miss me when I’m gone
Goodbye, you beautiful stranger
Clear your diary because we’re done here
The times are a’changing but it won’t do much good when they’ve come for everyone but you
Compliments have barbs in, swipe away your tears, words can only do harm now
Every first glance is second guessed, every bright smile extinguished for fear of offence
Damned if you do or you won’t
Logic surrendered ten hypocrisies back and it’s not worth being shot to look over the parapet
Every Maginot line in the sand is a frontal assault and there’s no way round this one We’re doomed to an era of diminished returns, suppressing creation and stifling humour
With the lights on, it’s less dangerous
Break up the band, lads, it’s going to get chronic so sell off the amps and cancel the tour
Every chorus could get you cancelled or worse; every bridge has a troll just waiting to pounce
Unquit the day jobs and dust off the ties that bind us to suited and booted safety in numbers
We’ve picked out our final chords
Sit on the fence and you can’t cause offence, but you will offend both sides by not taking theirs
There’s surrender in numbers across all the frontlines, a culture war lost before we set fair
I’m sure it all looked lovely in 1:50th scale
A concrete solution to a stalled revolution
New broom sweeps clean and a rising tide lifts all boats
Who wouldn’t want to be boarding this Brutalist Ark?
Corbusier’s wet dream was stillborn on the Rotring board
Have you revisited the scene of your crime against humanity?
Look upon your works, ye mighty, and tremble
At the thought of who’s waiting around unlit blind corners
Concrete stilts sheltering only vandals and vagrants
Lifts that crush the spirits, tags on walls and ankles
Fifty years on, you’re dead but your infamy endures
Metal-framed windows falling out faster than the tenants
You sacrificed the classics, the icons, the greats
In pursuit of a sterile, grey, concrete disgrace
Gaps stuffed with rags so you’d pocket the riches
A nod is as good as a wink to a blind man
But I can see what you did to my streets, my people
And there’s no inverse glamour in this high rise ballad
Your neat suburban bolthole couldn’t save you from the hatred
Of generations stunted by your pygmy dreams of utopia in the sky
I hope you rot in a hell as bad as the one you created for us
We’ll never trust your unkind again
Packed a lot into a two year disaster
An overstuffed suitcase that's falling apart
You shouldn't have been there, the words were too cutting
Beating my head while breaking my heart
Why when I lie awake are the only things I see all the men I couldn't be?
What sins I've committed in past lives to answer
The question of why this is happening still
Sleep with the fissures, it's not who you think
But there's no medication for this kind of ill
If I made any mistakes, then my illness made them for me as it slowly overtook me
Haunted by trauma, I stand by the window
The Russian solution to failure I own
A concrete conclusion to wounds self-inflicted
At least with this baggage I won't die alone
I looked into those hazel eyes and told her things which made her cry
Of days where I would scream inside and nights where I would pray to die
Hey, them’s the breaks when you die by the sword from suffering which can't be inured
I wonder if all that therapy will mean she’ll really miss me when I’m gone
Goodbye, you beautiful stranger
Clear your diary because we’re done here
The times are a’changing but it won’t do much good when they’ve come for everyone but you
Compliments have barbs in, swipe away your tears, words can only do harm now
Every first glance is second guessed, every bright smile extinguished for fear of offence
Damned if you do or you won’t
Logic surrendered ten hypocrisies back and it’s not worth being shot to look over the parapet
Every Maginot line in the sand is a frontal assault and there’s no way round this one We’re doomed to an era of diminished returns, suppressing creation and stifling humour
With the lights on, it’s less dangerous
Break up the band, lads, it’s going to get chronic so sell off the amps and cancel the tour
Every chorus could get you cancelled or worse; every bridge has a troll just waiting to pounce
Unquit the day jobs and dust off the ties that bind us to suited and booted safety in numbers
We’ve picked out our final chords
Sit on the fence and you can’t cause offence, but you will offend both sides by not taking theirs
There’s surrender in numbers across all the frontlines, a culture war lost before we set fair
It's time to say goodbye
To the only man I know
To the image in my reflection
To my soulmate through the past
I looked in the mirror and he spat in my face
The discordant, disturbing, disruptive disgrace
Two men at loggerheads, Jekyll and Hyde
One of them won, now the other must die
I know two reasons why
Only one of us must go
Your aborted insurrection
Was your first mistake, and last
You know what I did cos you led me astray
As fear and loathing bleached colour to grey
I feared for my safety alone with myself
Unspooling, self-harming, corroding my health
Now I've brought you here to die
To conclude your destructive show
Cos whatever your intentions
The damage you did was vast
A future to salvage from rage undefined
Amends to be made for the tears we cried
fxxx myself, alter ego, you cancerous curse
The way I became made the way I am worse
And when two men enter, one man grieves but no man leaves til the demons are slayed
My last rite of wrongs, condemning to death the life of the alter ego I made
I swear I'm not that man any more
I never was
I never will be
Please don't give up on me
Staring into a bottomless abyss
Filled with extinction level cowardice
No space even here to contain the hubris
Of a mob who’d delete the very ground they walk on
It’s a no from me
The sight of a flag makes you physically sick?
Well, buckle up, folks, cos here’s my new trick
Aversion therapy, ladled on thick
Til you drop the charade and accept the first answer we gave
It’s a no from us
Nationalist socialists warp good ideas
Blaming your neighbours, engendering fears
“We’d all do much better if ‘they’ disappeared”
Yet it’s ‘them’ who pay for your indolent hypocrisy
It’s a no forever
I’d say ‘go to hell’ but that’s what you’d create
A ruinous, bankrupt, malicious estate
A nation birthed out of racism and hate
Go back where we came from? We were here long before you
No means no means no fxxxing thanks
Pull out the teeth
Lies become truth
Break up the band
Sales through the roof
A lost generation
Suffer the kids
Everyone knows
What you almost did
Blood on the streets
Enoch was right
But he chose the wrong target
And called the wrong fight
Ten years and counting
Never forget
Never forgive
And never regret
A decade decayed
As the promise depleted
Haunted like ghosts
By opponents defeated
Self-lacerating
A future destroyed
No country for old men
Or young men, or boys
Doomed from the outset
It all fell apart
Vote with the head
But never the heart
Terrible tragedy
Lessons to learn
Try it again
And our nation will burn
March me to the cliff at pitchfork’s end but I still won't jump when you say how high
Not rising to your half-baked plans for unhappy ever after til your dream finally dies
Ten down…
The enigma that nobody sees, I live in total darkness and I thrive in the hunting game
The worst nightmare you’ve never had
I stalk you in car parks and badly-lit subways and I’m always around – you’re never fully alone
Feed on the fear that you show
I am a shadow, your paranoid thoughts, the terror nobody sees and when I come calling
Nobody ever hears you scream
Was that a sound? Or was it your imagination playing a trick on you?
Is that a knife? Or is it all a dream?
(Perhaps it’s all a dream.
You’d better hope so…)
Always alone and always afraid, you think you’re gonna be fine, you think I’m somewhere else today
The truth is I’m coming after you
You’ll never know when I’m planning to get you cos I slink around like a shadow in the background
Black masks and blood your final view
The tension rises, the atmosphere builds, I wouldn’t rather be anywhere else on this planet
You don’t know how cunning I can be
I love my hobby in the cold, dark Hell on Earth where only brave men go it alone
And one day, I’ll get you – yes, I mean you…
A clear night
The moon is bright
There’s frost tonight
And a man’s about to die
I don’t yet fear
The end that’s near
I still can’t hear
As a gun is pointed at my eye
One in a million
So why does it have to be me?
One in a million
Why was it only me?
A quickfire sound
My body’s downed
I hit the ground
As my life blood drains away
The rain runs red
Around my head
I’m all but dead
Nothing else to do but pray
One in a million
So why does it have to be me?
One in a million
Why was it only me?
Lying here in agony, my mind is bright yet I can’t see
Recurring bleeps informing me that all is as it ought to be
I wish it was, but actually there’s very little left of me
I pray to God each day to set me free
I cannot speak; I wonder why; I cannot talk; I cannot try
I think I hear someone close by; I try to scream; they walk on by
I’m trapped. Inside my head I sigh, but no-one hears my mental cry
In theory I’m alive, although if this is life, I’d rather die
My body’s badly scarred and drained although I’m healthy in the brain
If I got well, I’d only gain – this limbo’s driving me insane
My life can never be the same, handicapped in major pain
But sensory deprivation’s worse again
My thoughts have slowly cleared so this mental pain now sears me
Distraught that my career and my life have disappeared
I hope I’m getting near to the moment most men fear
Please pull the plug and let me out of here
I’m sure it all looked lovely in 1:50th scale
A concrete solution to a stalled revolution
New broom sweeps clean and a rising tide lifts all boats
Who wouldn’t want to be boarding this Brutalist Ark?
Corbusier’s wet dream was stillborn on the Rotring board
Have you revisited the scene of your crime against humanity?
Look upon your works, ye mighty, and tremble
At the thought of who’s waiting around unlit blind corners
Concrete stilts sheltering only vandals and vagrants
Lifts that crush the spirits, tags on walls and ankles
Fifty years on, you’re dead but your infamy endures
Metal-framed windows falling out faster than the tenants
You sacrificed the classics, the icons, the greats
In pursuit of a sterile, grey, concrete disgrace
Gaps stuffed with rags so you’d pocket the riches
A nod is as good as a wink to a blind man
But I can see what you did to my streets, my people
And there’s no inverse glamour in this high rise ballad
Your neat suburban bolthole couldn’t save you from the hatred
Of generations stunted by your pygmy dreams of utopia in the sky
I hope you rot in a hell as bad as the one you created for us
We’ll never trust your unkind again
Packed a lot into a two year disaster
An overstuffed suitcase that's falling apart
You shouldn't have been there, the words were too cutting
Beating my head while breaking my heart
Why when I lie awake are the only things I see all the men I couldn't be?
What sins I've committed in past lives to answer
The question of why this is happening still
Sleep with the fissures, it's not who you think
But there's no medication for this kind of ill
If I made any mistakes, then my illness made them for me as it slowly overtook me
Haunted by trauma, I stand by the window
The Russian solution to failure I own
A concrete conclusion to wounds self-inflicted
At least with this baggage I won't die alone
I looked into those hazel eyes and told her things which made her cry
Of days where I would scream inside and nights where I would pray to die
Hey, them’s the breaks when you die by the sword from suffering which can't be inured
I wonder if all that therapy will mean she’ll really miss me when I’m gone
Goodbye, you beautiful stranger
Clear your diary because we’re done here
The times are a’changing but it won’t do much good when they’ve come for everyone but you
Compliments have barbs in, swipe away your tears, words can only do harm now
Every first glance is second guessed, every bright smile extinguished for fear of offence
Damned if you do or you won’t
Logic surrendered ten hypocrisies back and it’s not worth being shot to look over the parapet
Every Maginot line in the sand is a frontal assault and there’s no way round this one We’re doomed to an era of diminished returns, suppressing creation and stifling humour
With the lights on, it’s less dangerous
Break up the band, lads, it’s going to get chronic so sell off the amps and cancel the tour
Every chorus could get you cancelled or worse; every bridge has a troll just waiting to pounce
Unquit the day jobs and dust off the ties that bind us to suited and booted safety in numbers
We’ve picked out our final chords
Sit on the fence and you can’t cause offence, but you will offend both sides by not taking theirs
There’s surrender in numbers across all the frontlines, a culture war lost before we set fair
It's time to say goodbye
To the only man I know
To the image in my reflection
To my soulmate through the past
I looked in the mirror and he spat in my face
The discordant, disturbing, disruptive disgrace
Two men at loggerheads, Jekyll and Hyde
One of them won, now the other must die
I know two reasons why
Only one of us must go
Your aborted insurrection
Was your first mistake, and last
You know what I did cos you led me astray
As fear and loathing bleached colour to grey
I feared for my safety alone with myself
Unspooling, self-harming, corroding my health
Now I've brought you here to die
To conclude your destructive show
Cos whatever your intentions
The damage you did was vast
A future to salvage from rage undefined
Amends to be made for the tears we cried
fxxx myself, alter ego, you cancerous curse
The way I became made the way I am worse
And when two men enter, one man grieves but no man leaves til the demons are slayed
My last rite of wrongs, condemning to death the life of the alter ego I made
I swear I'm not that man any more
I never was
I never will be
Please don't give up on me
Staring into a bottomless abyss
Filled with extinction level cowardice
No space even here to contain the hubris
Of a mob who’d delete the very ground they walk on
It’s a no from me
The sight of a flag makes you physically sick?
Well, buckle up, folks, cos here’s my new trick
Aversion therapy, ladled on thick
Til you drop the charade and accept the first answer we gave
It’s a no from us
Nationalist socialists warp good ideas
Blaming your neighbours, engendering fears
“We’d all do much better if ‘they’ disappeared”
Yet it’s ‘them’ who pay for your indolent hypocrisy
It’s a no forever
I’d say ‘go to hell’ but that’s what you’d create
A ruinous, bankrupt, malicious estate
A nation birthed out of racism and hate
Go back where we came from? We were here long before you
No means no means no fxxxing thanks
Pull out the teeth
Lies become truth
Break up the band
Sales through the roof
A lost generation
Suffer the kids
Everyone knows
What you almost did
Blood on the streets
Enoch was right
But he chose the wrong target
And called the wrong fight
Ten years and counting
Never forget
Never forgive
And never regret
A decade decayed
As the promise depleted
Haunted like ghosts
By opponents defeated
Self-lacerating
A future destroyed
No country for old men
Or young men, or boys
Doomed from the outset
It all fell apart
Vote with the head
But never the heart
Terrible tragedy
Lessons to learn
Try it again
And our nation will burn
March me to the cliff at pitchfork’s end but I still won't jump when you say how high
Not rising to your half-baked plans for unhappy ever after til your dream finally dies
Ten down…
Multiple award-winning writer and journalist, and a lifelong fan of heavy music
22 years as a writer in various professional disciplines, plus 32 years spent dissecting (and attempting to improve on) the lyrics of bands from 3 Colours Red to Yellowcard
