1. |
Call Me On the Way Home
02:52
|
|||
|
Call me on the way home.
Call me on the way home.
Call me on the way home.
Let me know you're fine.
Time for a heart to heart,
So shut up for a second and I'll start.
I'm sorry I split today,
But those people were messing up my head space.
Are you building walls or bridges?
We don't have to talk about it.
But when you're ready I'm there.
No-one can do it on their own,
It just isn't fair.
Call me on the way home.
Call me on the way home.
Call me on the way home.
Let me know you're fine.
Ground control to Major You:
Are you f**king this up majorly too?
Guilt free ain't a thing these days.
You gotta learn to protect ya fragile headspace.
My sorrows don't come as single spies.
They flood from the hills in battalions.
But I'm stood here next to you ready to fall.
Together we can take 'em all, just call.
Call me on the way home.
Call me on the way home.
Call me on the way home.
Let me know you're fine.
This time it feels different,
The silence around you is the loudest yet.
But you've still got one true friend.
Don't do anything stupid,
Hold on and hold back your tears,
Talk to me about your fears.
Don't do anything to compromise you,
You've shone so bright,
Just don't burn through.
The agony, the guts, the instinct to try,
I know you feel alone,
But I'm by your side.
Don't do anything stupid,
You're loved!
You're loved!
Can't you see?
Just call me, call me, call me.
Call me on the way home.
Call me on the way home.
Call me on the way home.
Let me know you're fine.
|
||||
2. |
Flatlined
03:52
|
|||
|
Old friend.
You coward.
Can I raise my head to see?
This end game.
Is a tsunami.
Rejection crashes over me.
She said i'd see you in the end.
My perfect stranger.
My perfect friend.
Suckerpunch.
And i'm rolling.
Through this town we pounded street by street.
I'm heart sick.
On the pavement.
Knowing this is the last time we'll meet.
She said i'd see you in the end.
My perfect stranger.
My perfect friend.
But I knew i'd see you through the eyes.
Of someone who loves you.
But has to say goodbye.
So don't turn around,
I've hit the ground,
Under these fading, city lights.
Or walk with me.
To A & E.
Feeling flatlined tonight.
And just that like,
I can feel the grief.
Not for you, not for me,
But the life we were supposed to lead.
And the distance between us has grown,
With everything you should have said,
And everything I shouldn't have.
And I look down at my feet,
And they're still just my feet.
Nobody else in the world notices the change but me.
But even standing right there you're gone,
Too far for me to reach.
It's like i'm 12 again and I'm listening to The Streets.
I can feel my heart breaking beneath my feet.
It's eat, sleep, flatline... and repeat.
So don't turn around,
I've hit the ground,
Under these fading city lights. Or walk with me.
To A & E.
Feeling flatlined tonight.
|
||||
3. |
All Turned Blue
03:58
|
|||
|
You gotta listen to yourself.
Don't put too much stock,
In anybody else's opinions of you.
Are they wearing your shoes?
Another late night mission,
With this crippling hesitation to find you.
We left it too late,
And now we're wondering...
Why there's another light on,
Another candle in another window,
For a part of you,
That's never coming home.
When she said she loved you...
Did she mean she loved you?
Or just the idea, of what you could do, for her?
It's all turned blue for you.
It used to be silver and gold,
Now you just,
Do what you're told.
Suburbia has eaten what you've grown.
And now, it's all gone cold.
These days I don't mind doing anything,
As long as I remember it.
My mind, and my memory,
Have both gone to...
Pot calls the kettle black,
And swung around the back,
For a final drag meet.
Salt the earth and scorch my feet.
Because I'm here, with my same bag of used opinions.
When I said I loved you...
Did I mean I loved you?
Or just the idea, of what I could do, for you?
It's all turned blue for me.
I've lived my life in red, gold and green.
Now I've seen,
All I'll see.
Suburbia has reaped what I sowed.
And now, it's all gone cold.
I've got a spring in my step but nowhere to spring to.
And if I squint at this lamp post maybe it looks like the moon.
But I never expected my hard choices to come to career vs life.
I don't like having to make bad decisions for you.
It's all turned blue for you.
It used to be silver and gold,
Now we just,
Do what we're told.
Suburbia has eaten what we've grown.
And now, it's all gone cold.
|
||||
4. |
||||
|
Strip me to the bare bones.
I'm humming on a hair comb.
I'm tripping through a care home.
Call me on the spare phone.
Strip me to the bare bones.
Just a feast left for the crows
Between the gods' and men's toes.
Handing out highs, feeling real low.
The dark days you said would come,
They're at your doorstep baby.
At your doorstep now.
Escape with me just for a night.
Pocket full of Percocet.
Do I feel perky yet?
Tight trousers, big jacket.
Rockstar whore, and I shimmy through your door.
The dark days you said would come,
They're at your doorstep baby.
At your doorstep now.
Escape with me just for a night.
Have you seen my hands?
The dark days you said would come,
They're at your doorstep baby.
At your doorstep now.
Escape with me just for a night.
|
||||
5. |
Never Gonna Happen
03:00
|
|||
|
I took the 49 night bus back across town,
Jumped off where red sky meets the grey walls.
A fascist on the shop's radio saying racism just aint racist any more.
But I know my land.
Histories of blood etched with truth on my path.
And in this town, keeping a level head and an open heart,
Don't seem to be the place that most people start.
Billy Bragg don't play on radio 1. Not any more.
Billy Bragg don't play on radio 1.
By now!
You should've seen the pattern.
Anything you want is never gonna happen.
Do you sit back,
And accept the fact that,
Anything you want is never gonna happen?
So alone, so apart, so wrapped up in guilt.
They distracted you with headlines so you never knew how you felt.
They taught you to hate.
To be proud of an empire you didn't create.
A global blueprint for a neo-fascist state.
It's the immigrants!
Scream the expats.
From some sunny beach in Spain.
They moved out for a last ditch effort of some fun.
Whilst others run from bullets like rain.
Johnny Foreigner!
Johnny Foreigner!
Johnny Foreigner!
They all cry.
The prime minister.
Pleased to meet ya.
I'm sure he's a real nice yeah whatever.
By now!
You should've seen the pattern.
Anything you want is never gonna happen.
Do you sit back,
And accept the fact that,
Anything you want is never gonna happen?
The American Dream is a complex, Russia oppresses.
Saudi Arabia is confused with strict rules and rich dresses.
Our lungs are on fire, way down in Brazil.
We sell the second world the medicines that made us most ill.
The petrol. The oil. The need to compete.
The trickle down lies.
The hollow foods that we eat.
Did you hear Samoa's obese?
There's McDonald's in Cuba.
The working class is automated.
Be a robot. Or an Über.
You picked the lesser of two evils.
When you could've picked freedom.
You picked the lesser of two evils.
Can you hear it?
Our time has come.
By now!
You should've seen the pattern.
Anything you want is never gonna happen.
So do you sit back,
And just accept the fact that...
Anything you want is never gonna happen!?
|
||||
6. |
Laptop
02:34
|
|||
|
I need a new laptop.
I need a new guitar.
I need a car that don't crap out over 50 mph.
I've gotta feel something,
That will last.
But my wants and needs, they move way too fast.
A troubled 20-something.
Before that a troubled teen.
I've been the most loved,
Most lost.
And everything in between.
This darkness in me is not gone,
But it's understood.
I was so scared I had to hide it for good.
They say!
In time, this all gets easier.
In time, we learn to see more clear.
We grapple with mortality as that curtain draws near.
It feels like I'm just rushing through my years.
So tell me something.
You think that I should know:
Your favourite lyric,
That you've rolled,
Or just that it's time to go.
I need a distraction.
A lobotomy.
Coz I'd do anything for any one of you that never lifts a finger for me.
They say!
In time, this all gets easier.
In time, we learn to see more clear.
We grapple with mortality as that curtain draws near.
And it feels like I'm just rushing through my years.
I need a new purpose.
To adjust my sails.
To catch a wind that might finally put me on happy trails.
I've gotta build something.
That'll last.
But my wants and needs they move way too fast.
They say!
In time, this all gets easier.
In time, we learn to see more clear.
We grapple with mortality as that curtain draws near.
And it feels like I'm just rushing through my years.
|
||||
7. |
Lighthouse Keeper
03:56
|
|||
|
Catch a break, catch a plane, catch something else.
It's hard to catch the truth when you've been running from yourself.
Take a long shower, take a day or two.
Just do things in your own time.
Do what you've gotta do.
You want to be a lighthouse keeper, all alone at the very edge of the world?
Go-ahead young girl.
You wanna be a lion tamer, get your head bitten off any way you can?
Go ahead young man.
All I'm saying is I know people finding redemption under a bridge,
The path to happy aint straight, so get your kicks any way that you can kid.
You can't change the direction of the wind but adjust your sails.
All it takes is a moment for your good intentions to prevail,
And they won't fail.
You reckon you're Mother Theresa, and yours alone is the world to save?
Well, I remember those days.
You reckon you're Mahatma Gandhi, and not eating is gonna prove 'em all wrong?
We're too far gone.
Why not try patience?
Try kindness?
Try something new!
Take 10 minutes, have a breather, yeah take some time to just do you.
You can't change the direction of the wind but adjust your sails.
All it takes is a moment,
For your good intentions to prevail,
And they won't fail.
|
||||
8. |
Love The Love
03:26
|
|||
|
'Love and hate',
Tattooed on her fingers.
Lost a pinky in a street fight.
Now says 'love and hat'.
Lover's Rock' in blood and ink across her shoulder blades.
She gets her kicks,
In ways you'll never comprehend.
A moment of peace.
Or some silence with friends.
Princess of the estates,
It aint all grey, white, black.
Singing songs of victory and heartache,
From her back.
Inner-city Cinderella.
Streetlight Cinderella.
Inner-city Cinderella.
Knows it's the small things that make a big life.
Love the Love,
Enjoy the joy it brings.
Love the Love,
My gutter kings and queens.
Love the Love,
Enjoy the joy it brings.
Love the Love,
My kings and queens.
If you want a good time,'
Is scrawled upon the bathroom wall.
Enjoy the ride, life's the school.
Time aint about catching up, it's ok to be you.
Baby in your own world, you were born to rule.
Inner-city Cinderella.
Streetlight Cinderella.
Inner-City Cinderella.
Knows it's the small things that make a big life.
Love the Love,
Enjoy the joy it brings.
Love the Love,
My gutter kings and queens.
Love the Love,
Enjoy the joy it brings.
Love the Love,
My kings and queens.
|
||||
9. |
Prince of Nothing
02:54
|
|||
|
I've thought about breaking your windows.
I've thought about smashing your jaw.
I've thought about taking my frustrations out on your front door.
I've choked on all the lies and lines that you said to us before.
But I won't say your name no more.
This is, the first year, that I wished,
That I believed in God.
Instead of pretending to be something i'm not.
This is the first year, that I've had to know myself.
Back with a story to tell.
Going straight through hell.
Sweet Prince of Nothing did it all catch up with you?
You played with fire but you're wet right through
A blanket that is keeping nobody warm.
If sadness were locusts, you'd be a fucking swarm.
This is, the first year, that I wished,
That I believed in God.
Instead of pretending to be something i'm not.
This is the first year,
That I had to know myself.
Back with a story to tell.
Going straight through Hell.
Prince of nothing.
King of bullshit.
You think you're whiplash,
But you're a car crash.
You think you know better?
But boy don't know better.
You talk a lot a lot a lot.
For one who has not got much to say.
Felt like the sun came out,
The day you went away.
Goodbye my toxic friend.
This is the end.
From cradle, to rave.
From stage, to grave.
This is the end.
Prince of nothing.
King of bullshit.
|
||||
10. |
Two Dog Night
03:07
|
|||
|
Rocko was therapy.
Post-war P.T.S.D.
Sat on St Michael's steps.
The church's warmth a safe place to lay their heads.
This cold winter right before you,
But you've got a friend who,
Is loyal through and through.
And to the end,
No-one ever knew you.
The world just looked right through you,
But you shone so bright.
On a 2 Dog Night.
A Russell named Jack.
Named after grandad.
But everybody fought in WW2.
Bought for protection.
Turned into someone she could sing her heart out to.
This cold winter right before you,
But you've got a friend who,
Is loyal through and through.
And to the end,
No-one ever knew you.
The world just looked right through you,
But you shone so bright.
On a 2 Dog Night.
Poor soul look at that junkie.
Shouldn't he be spending his money,
On something a little more responsible?
Like a pair of shoes or some fruit and veg.
Found frozen by the river,
In a yankees cap.
A double XL jacket that,
Someone else had outgrown.
Is this, how we look after our own?
Because you don't,
No you don't.
No you don't know nothing.
Do ya? No. No you don't.
You don't know nothing,
Why thousands of people have to live like this?
No you don't,
No you don't.
No you don't know nothing.
Do ya? No. No you don't.
You don't know nothing,
Why thousands of people have to live like this?
This cold winter right before you,
But you've got a friend who,
Is loyal through and through.
And to the end,
No-one ever knew you.
The world just looked right through you,
But you shone so bright.
On a 2 Dog Night.
|
||||
11. |
Don't Die Today
03:27
|
|||
|
The battle for the streets is getting tighter.
Hey! Don't die today!
The night is dark but the fight is righteous.
Hey! Don't die today!
You stick your head above the parapet, they're gonna come for ya.
Hey! Don't die today!
So be brave in our new world my brothers and sisters.
Hey! Don't die today!
Cold night!
Hold tight!
You got me hanging on the promise of a better life!
What's right.
Is this fight.
We're dancing on the edge of a switchblade knife.
You're just scared that you're not good enough to go all the way.
But you are!
You'll never see if you quit today.
The battle for the streets is getting tighter.
Hey! Don't die today!
The night is dark but the fight is righteous.
Hey! Don't die today!
Redemption!
Is more than this song!
It's belief, it's a chance and it's in everyone.
When you hit the wall,
You gotta stay strong,
This song is for you.
Arm in arm,
Come along.
You're just scared, you don't fit in and it'll stay that way.
But freedom is a sound,
You'll never hear it if you quit today.
The battle for the streets is getting tighter.
Hey! Don't die today!
The night is dark but the fight is righteous.
Hey! Don't die today!
You stick your head above the parapet, they're gonna come for ya.
Hey! Don't die today!
So be brave in this new world my brothers and sisters.
Hey! Don't die today!
We won't get!
I can't see!
No equality.
The wrong side of history! No I can't see.
People being free!
It's a battle for you and me.
No justice! No peace!
No rest for a fascist police,
In the new model U.K. army.
The battle for the streets is getting tighter.
Hey! Don't die today!
The night is dark but the fight is righteous.
Hey! Don't die today!
You stick your head above the parapet, they're gonna come for ya.
Hey! Don't die today!
So be brave in this new world my brothers and sisters.
Hey! Don't die today!
Just know you're doing ok.
Don't die today.
|
||||
12. |
Going Forward
04:10
|
|||
|
If the end goal,
If the purpose,
Is pure existence,
Then nothing should stop us,
From existing in every single way that we can.
And if acceptance is deliverance,
Then deliverance is believing,
That everyone would be better if they can
And so here I stand.
We're going somewhere,
I feel it in my waters.
To the bottom of a barrel or somewhere we oughta,
Be proud of.
In the end.
If Sundays are for roasts,
They're for cuddles and they're for toast,
They're for walking with cold noses,
And little tiny toesies,
With socks wet through,
From the puddles that you trudge through.
It's just a simple metaphor.
For the drudgery, for the life,
For the pain you feel inside,
You can't ignore for any longer.
Open the door to something stronger.
Because you know,
And you can feel it in your waters.
We're going somewhere,
I think it's important.
To hope with all our hearts,
We're going somewhere forwards.
But if we're not you've not got far to fall,
I'm here, and here we stand, one and all.
Solid to the end.
So you can bounce back again.
If time is irrelevant,
Let's mitigate some elephants.
If it's friendship it's important.
If it's purpose or if it's a plan.
If it's a life spent together,
If it's a life well lived with experience,
I'm stood here and I'm telling you,
You've got one chance to live it.
And if we're going somewhere,
Then let it be forwards,
Hold your hands high,
Feel it in your waters, and shout
We're going forwards.
|
||||
If you like Above The Static, you may also like:
Grazie Governo
by The Bar Stool Preachers
supported by 11 fans who also own “Above The Static”
go to album
supported by 11 fans who also own “Above The Static”
viscerally affected by covid, this album has a less optimistic but more accepting message than the previous. it reaches the heart of my experience (and others'?) in a cathartic and depressing acknowledgement. it's nice to know you feel the same
go to album
featured on Bandcamp Radio Jun 8, 2021
go to album
Jagged post-punk from Sydney captures the sound of the ’70s in its acute angled guitars and detacted vocals.
go to album
Gutsy rock & roll from this Brooklyn group bursting with hot-rodding riffs and snarling vocals, hearkening back to classic dark punk.
go to album
Ten Stories High
by The Bouncing Souls
supported by 10 fans who also own “Above The Static”
That album felt like coming home after a long time away but still being proud of everything I'd seen while I was gone. One minute and twenty seven seconds into "Kenver" feels like the culmination of everything I've loved about this band since I was a kid. It feels like the best parts of freedom I've felt on the best nights of my life.
go to album
