1. |
Thieves' Imagination
03:10
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Thieves’ Imagination
(Skaith)
At the roadblock I just smiled and said
‘Sorry but I don’t have my papers’.
He gave a shrug and a sigh and he said
‘Well, how can we sort this out?’
‘I got a little refresco,’ I said ‘I’ll make a small consideration’,
He said ‘I think my sergeant
Is going to want a little more than that.’
Oh nothing’s what it seems
It’s like we are in the theatre
He’s got his policeman’s costume on
But a thieves’, he’s got a thieves’ imagination.
‘I’m a cousin to the king,
Very pleased to meet you.’
A minister of state
We can help each other out.
You want to sell some planes?
I can be persuaded
But you are going to have to help me
Sort out this bottom line.
Oh nothing’s what it seems
It’s like we are in the theatre
In their sober suits and ties
But a thieves’, he’s got a thieves’ imagination.
Reaching arms around the world
They’re greasing palms of the undeserved
On the bottom rung, you have to survive
But those at the top
They never know when to stop
Those at the top
They never feel rich enough.
Oh nothing’s what it seems
It’s like we are in the theatre
In their sober suits and ties, and uniforms
And their thieves’ imagination.
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2. |
Below the Water
03:37
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Below the Water
(Skaith/Jones)
I swear that we’re almost choking
On this free market medicine
But they’ve still got time for joking
Living high on the yacht basins
And they tell you to stay cool
Then they give you the cold shoulder
And you wind up like an iceberg
You’re so far below the water
chorus
Below the water it’s sink or swim
Your feet don’t touch the bottom
It’s looking pretty grim
Don’t ask for flippers don’t ask for fins
You’re so far below the water
For your sins.
All my friends are standing back
All waiting for impatience
And the others are paralysed
By fear or complacence
And they tell you to wrap up
And it’s true it’s getting colder
From the bank vaults to the bonus
Explode below the water!
And the people in the shallows they are shouting
The people in the shallows shouting
‘Send them home’.
And the people in the shallows they are shouting
The people in the shallows shouting
‘Bring back the gallows.’
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3. |
You and Me
04:58
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You and Me
(Skaith / MacNeill)
I’ve heard the lies that you said before
Heard the lies that you cried before
All the times love has died before and it was over.
All the days that have played before us
All the hands that have strayed upon us
All the times you’ve lied for us
All the times you tried
It’s you and it’s me
And it’s now or never
It’s you and it’s me and I’ll do whatever
And I will trust you, I will trust you
So never again
It’s you and it’s me
And that’s fine
All the words that have gone before
All the hurt that was wrong before
All the misheard sighs in our time
And to all the love that was lost before us
All the dogs that have lain before us
And the calm that became us, there’s no harm.
All the lies, all the cries all the times you tried before.
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4. |
Should Have Been Buried
03:29
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Should have been Buried
(Jeffries / MacNeill)
Follow me back to the car park
Stroll with me down to the beach
Look at the shores for the places we’ll never get to
Look at the cliffs for the heights that we won’t reach
A finger on edge and the circle
A flick of the ash on the end
A look that is held then averted
Weren’t these the signals?
A look of things as they come to an end
Admit that it’s dead
Should have been buried a long time ago
Admit that it’s dead
Should have been buried so painful, so slow
Why the denial?
All those fake smiles
Should have been buried.
A last look over a shoulder
A foot holding open a door
Waiting for footsteps to fade away
One final deep breath
A face and a shape to be seen no more
Admit that it’s dead
Should have been buried a long time ago
Admit that it’s dead
Should have been buried so painful, so slow
Why the denial?
All those fake smiles
Should have been buried
Should have been buried
Admit that it’s dead
Should have been buried a long time ago
Admit that it’s dead
Should have been buried so painful, so slow
Should have been buried.
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5. |
Number 5
02:22
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6. |
Dylan Thomas was Right
04:11
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Dylan Thomas was Right
(Skaith)
I look in the glass, who's that staring back?
Not the person who's inside I swear.
On the bus and the shops I'm still taken aback
How come they're calling me 'sir'?
(Chorus )
I will try and accept the advice
Not cowed at the close of the day
I’ll go kicking, not gently into the long night.
Dylan Thomas was right
And I have won races I’ve heard the applause
I’ve stood in the light on the stage
But the past is still with us, never quite disappears
But it struggles to brighten the dimming of age
If only youth knew, if only age could
This frustration of being alive
There’s so much I believe, so much I denounce
But life's mystery persists to confound me.
Life’s mystery persists to confound me.
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7. |
A Bank Robber's Lament
03:32
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A Bankrobber’s Lament
(Skaith/Campbell)
I spent 3 years in Long Lartin, 4 more in the Scrubs
18 months in Parkhurst, I really have paid my subs
But while I was in Dartmoor on my third OU degree
I saw the error of my ways, it’s easy now I see.
I know now what I should have been
I know now what I should have been
You don’t need no mask nor gun
No risks but lots of fun
I know now what I should have been.
I should have been a banker.
Engrossed in my studies and reading Bertolt Brecht
I came across his apercu- really quite correct
What Bertie said was bertinent, this you must agree
It makes more sense to start a bank, than to rob one
Can’t you see?
I know now what I should have been
I know now what I should have been
Don’t need no mask nor gun
No risks but lots of fun
I know now what I should have been.
I should have been a banker.
I could have worn my ski mask on some fancy Alpine slope
I ould have used my shotgun for bagging grouse with noble folk
I could have robbed ten million and never once gone to jail
My brief could have taken the judge aside and said
This one is too big to fail.
I know now what I should have been
I know now what I should have been
Don’t need no mask nor gun
No risks but lots of fun
I know now what I should have been.
What I should have been,
I should have been a banker.
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8. |
Blue Drifting
02:56
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Blue Drifting
(Skaith&Jones)
You almost came by tonight
Almost turned on my light
The new indecisive me
Truth is a fantasy
Part of the mystery
Like the one that you weave around me.
Chorus
It’s not the breeze I can feel lifting
Not the clouds that I see shifting
It’s you, it’s you and the blue that’s drifting
Drift yourself to me.
Home’s where the heart should be
You move so soft and free
Feels like I’m standing here still
Sky and forgets-me-nots
Sparks when the steel gets hot
Each one is a second to kill
The unstable mirror of the waves
The promising honeycomb of caves
A love that saves
Is just a phrase……
….but not always.
You almost came by tonight
Almost turned on my light
The new indecisive me
Truth is a fantasy
Part of the mystery
Like the one that you weave around me.
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9. |
The River Runs
02:46
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The River Runs
(Skaith & MacNeill)
The hands are dusty and the ground is dry
Like the ink on this page but I can rewrite it
A Mars a day helps you work, rest and wash
5 cigarettes a day, are you counting the cost?
Arms outstretched, Palms to the sky
Catch the tears of the World drifting by.
With meters of pipe, the river runs dry
The bringer of life, the river runs by
For comic relief, the rivers run
With sheer disbelief, the river runs.
It ran from the springs and into the wells
Gaunt child’s eyes and the images that sells
O’ the boarded waterways that ran in the streets
£3 a month, a shilling a week
For hundred of years, the water was needed
The riverbed dry. The earth left un-seeded.
With meters of pipe, the river runs dry
The bringer of life, the river runs by
A hundred feet the river runs
Just sign the sheet.
Four hundred years, it’s not new news
For an annual appeal to change the views
For cleansing of souls, for washing and drinking
The monthly target, a well of souls sinking
From Chadwell Spring to New River Head
It’s not flowing enough for the dry river bed
The new river company, Water Aid
Continuous supply, the river stayed
Water flowed, pulling funds
Sediment money. The river runs.
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10. |
Her Song
03:06
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Her Song
(Skaith)
She loves him because
He’s always there, he’s always around
Pulling her up
There’s better days been
And there’s better to come
It’s not only now
If she can’t take the world on
There’s always those arms.
But those arms in the night
So lifeless by his side
He never enters her dreams
This weariness their love inspires
So when they sing
When Fairport sing
‘Who knows where the time goes?’
She says that’s her song
So when they sing
When Fairport sing
‘Who knows where the time goes?’
She says that’s her song.
A life of quiet despair
She’s read all about that but that can’t be her
Her life is good
So much they have and so much they share
Their love is a rock
A rock that that is there so firm on the ground
But so firm on the ground
Never sees the sky
So firm on the ground
Never gets the chance to fly.
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11. |
Dark Side Running
02:52
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Dark Side Running
(Skaith)
Was it really for God
Or the adventure and the promise of girls?
Were there insults traded
‘Get back to where you came from’?
Were you stopped and searched each week
By men in uniform
While friends you thought you had
Ran off and denied you?
Wish I could understand how we got to this.
Cos we can laugh and we can sing
We can pray and we can dance
We can be kind and gentle and generous
Smile at strangers, help a friend
We can play we can invent
Try and make this world good again
All these things we do
But it seems there’s a dark side running
And there’s nothing so cruel
One man won’t do to another.
Maybe we marched together once
Against an illegal war
Shared the same ideas then
As we tried to change the world
Friends said you were ambitious, but always the idealist
So how come we get to these tweets from you
That say ‘Today we shot some prisoners.’
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12. |
I am Refugee
03:02
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I am Refugee
(Skaith & Jeffries)
On a train in 1940
A kinder-transportee
In ’45 we were millions
Displaced by war and poverty
I’ve been expelled from Uganda
Run out of Palestine
(My) brothers and sisters taken
Time after deadly time
(When) Your world comes crashing all around
I am refugee
Wars I never started
Leaders who just wash their hands
Call us ‘swarms’ and ‘aliens’
Those invaders fresh from foreign lands
But out there in there stadiums
They raise the welcome banner high
Cos you can’t turn back the clock
You can’t just close your eyes
On a train in 1940
A kinder-transportee
Even then they called it ‘outrage’
Aliens with no right to flee
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13. |
The Promise
02:55
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The Promise
(Skaith & MacNeill)
I remember crystal trees, swimming round with honey bees
Walking over seven seas, tender hearts and open pleas
I remember moving lakes, running round in funny shapes
Living with all of my mistakes, the push and pull, the give and takes
I remember your love.
I remember Philadelphia
New York City
Niagara Falls that day
My God you looked so pretty
Flying home, holding hands
Over the Manhattan skyline
The promises we made but never kept
On Lime Street Station
The last time
I remember your love.
I remember waterfalls, grey heights and sunny walls
Singing birds and deep sea calls, stepping out among snowballs
I remember blue-lit hills, a stain slash and powder frills
A credit card for some cheap thrills, steamy breath on window sills
And I remember your love
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Latin Quarter UK
Latin Quarter are celebrating the 40th anniverary of their 'Modern Times'-album this year. They first burst onto the scene with their singles "Radio Africa" and "New Millionaires" – songs that stayed for months in the German single charts in the 80s. The band split up in 1998. In 2011 five of the original musicians got together again. 7 new albums released after this reunion. . ... more
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