1/PAGES

Anti-ethereal No to imperial I need some new material To real-life story you The gory euphoria An aria for how far you are From figuring me out Out Off with his head They said I’m wicked Deceitful Confess all of my evil Spin-off Sequel No equal Cleavers deceive us Leave us pitiful and pitfalls He stalls Give us a minute I’ll give you a minute And I’ll put a rhyme in it This dynasty’s finished This affinity for angry young men Hung men Now and then Grown men tell the death knell With their Oh well, I did my best And look where it got you Lesser of two lesser Regressor, depressor Upset second guesser Yes sir, regret is forever And I’m no saint In my prose and in my paint I’m coming of age Cater for all ages Children in cages Locked in parents’ rages Outrageous Take a leaf out of my book I’m writing the pages I’m writing the pages I’m writing the pages I’m writing the pages —————— From history My diary Unauthorised biography Reveals he feels so much Steals a chance Glance little else but little hells You know so well what sells Enemy memories Easy does what it takes To be free Feel Fall to stand Will you ever understand what is a man Also-ran All so grand ambitions Politicians erupt Write a book Wish us luck You’re gonna need it You’re gonna need it Repeat it Defeated nations Dedications Thank you list Someone I missed Kissed goodbye Fly­-by And lie about my past She laughs Sheer ballast Exalt the phallus Never ask to be left behind Pause rewind And find I’ll be in denial While she walks the aisle I’ll walk the Golden Mile A lonely tourist We’ve been through this What’s kept Shoot to protect Expect first billing Filling pages with killing Willing a pause Or are these God’s laws No flaws I don’t know what I saw in singing him a hymn I don’t feel anything Anything but hate Stay up, late learner Page turner Heard there were Tanks, hungry faces Arms, human races Put in their places There’s pages and pages of this stuff Never enough death, dying, crying bodies What is life A trifle of guns, gods, grabs, keeping tabs, traps, drawing maps One thing lasts We’re all waving flags, body bags, rags, lad mags Hate fags and give thanks To be free To be free And to be human It’s hard to care To know what to do What’s the use In awaiting inspiration A wasted generation Where he goes we go Trip on the ego panels Changing channels Exchanging annals of history For what You’re not about to say Be brave Courageous Ignore the fist shakers Speculators on hate through the ages These are our pages And I may just pick and mix my themes Dream dreams Falling apart at the seams And you know what that means —————— Whatever you want to call it It’s war Always I’m at war with myself One of those Or else Or else Or else what If we stop pointing guns at anything that moves See what we lose See what we lose So I choose not to listen To who today it is we’re hating Who was always my friend Playing hearts Playing gods Playing let’s pretend History books Forgotten and burnt Who earns it and who deserves it A life stripped of love That’s a pretty poor inheritance But end-of-dayers are not creators Of life Life Are we reading the pages or writing the pages

2/TYPE

Boom Is how it starts Two spare parts Sparks On your marks Get set Boom Back to the beginning Bring in a love rival She’s an eyeful Delightful conversationalist Not so much a consummationalist Sensational temptations To kiss or not kiss How can you resist In the mist of an anti-psychotic I’m on it I wanted so bad to be the gap between her teeth The thief of hair From here to there To laughter that gets everywhere He gets scared In bus-stop queues and catwalk poses What’s the use in lipstick and roses He owes his life to fanciful notions Self-help books and magical potions We’re oceans apart One heart in the middle Stranded in the riddle of how little we grow So little we know of distant planets New galaxies Unidentified species It’s hard to believe this pair of impossibilities Destined never to meet Keep courting Distorting Importing new feelings A new purpose When we talk I get nervous Senses desert us Past tense alert us To fate And the fairy dust We must have met in a past life Cold readings and dry ice So much inside I can’t describe Have you got a type —————— You know Boom Bad moods Good shoes Wondering who’s feeling the same way Names that start with J What do you say You came second to none But she didn’t want a second one Woebegone Look upon it as experience Are you serious Delirious dreams Recurring themes Kings and queens She seems nice And she is nice But nice isn’t Boom True love Not make-do love Where you re-take and re-touch Have I said too much Too little Too late I’d hate to be nearly 30 Nearly 30 Still hurting Deserting maybes Perhaps Reading out-of-date maps Breathing on the glass If that’s your name you came too fast Destiny laughs “I like men with jobs and ambition” But listen I’m unemployed and I live with my parents It’s not what you think It never is Memories Here’s a word of advice I know what it’s like, I know what it’s like, but just take some MDMA together, trust me! I know you think your dick will be limp as a noodle, but I can get you plenty C20s, or Levitra, or even Caverject if you’re not into pills. Ah, hammerheading; blissful cuddling and hard pounding, that’s the key The right key for the wrong lock She’s everything you want And everything you’re not Now you’re not Out of your mind Wanting to cry Losing your sight You might be doing something right Have you got a type —————— Are we rolling Boom Quit stalling Falling over tall gin Scribbling in the margins of blondes harbouring songs It’s a long list What did I miss Kiss kiss Click click Mix the pheromones Searching under stones Oh no Nights alone What’s next Did he text What do you expect Of a love that’s respectable Barely detectable The acceptable face of knowing your place You only figured out life isn’t a race When one thought of her Dissolves your grand plan Anatomy of man Horizon Sun rising The sea and the stars Laws of attraction Oh for direction A smile Affection while she messes up your life When your life needed messing Here’s to confessing The lesson of life is He is what he is She is what she is And they is what they like Have you got a type

3/HIDE NOT
YOUR FACE

Let my cry go unto you Let my cry go unto you Let my cry go unto you Unto you, go unto you —————— Hide not your face from me Hide not your face from me Hide not your face far from me Far from me, far from me —————— Let my cry go unto you In my day of trouble Hide not your face far from me

4/ARE WE GONNA

Deep souling Calling Keep rolling All bets are off and you’re falling The hard soft landing Ununderstanding men Impossible men I’m so sick of them And then when they laugh When I rap Run laps round your laughs Slaps Perhaps Cutthroat Easy joke Kind of blokes So keen to be mean Delete scenes What could it mean I like everything Everything Every one plus one Hold on Are we gonna —————— Are we gonna keep not daring It’s not fairing Preparing permission First-kiss indecision Keep wishing Now listen The sound of dreams Light beams Thunderbolt Screams It’s all your fault Halt What’s that Lies Reign like rain Train child soldiers We’re all just Stardust Far-flung So young You and I will never die But what if What if they’re right Are we gonna —————— Are we gonna change the ending Blend in Never offending Pretending We still believe in Peace Peace Strange peace It’s a little bit complicated Soldier police Fated belated Take us for crazy Laters alligators Incensed On the fence Past tense Hence The holding on The letting go Learning to fly Never getting old

5/BLACKPOOL ROCK

Sheer bliss You should be used to this Make a wish Kiss me quick Please Sea breeze See these knobbly knees Conceive Big wheels High heels Deals imperial grammes Buses and trams Parents and prams And I ams what I ams And I ams no fool Blackpool You’ll be scared of women Dimming lights Angel delights Devil horns Longthorne’s illuminations Taboos Temptations What’s to lose Choose unwritten worlds Pearls and plastic Fantastic illusions Delusions in ice Make your own conclusions If you’re so wise to what I’m doing with my life In silent sirens Tyrants and rhymers Deep-sea divers stealing applause Racers roars the Arabian Derby Your Barbie in the shower Is that a penis or Blackpool Tower —————— Blackpool You’ve never looked more out of place That’s why we keep coming Keep coming —————— Sheer bliss You should be used to this Whose life Is this my saviour Bad behaviour gave her one Plus one Big One Won the Grand National Irrational fears North, South, Central Piers She appears in smoke Hope against hope Give a man enough rope Elope I’m just an ordinary... You can fill the blanks Give thanks to my daughter Disorder crossing the border You should’ve warned her Lord of the Manor Dressing room spanner Elsie Tanner Ran a banner on a plane Said Marry Me Jane Nothing but rain Insane take-aways Malaise Mayonnaise Ian Holloway’s okay Olay olay Disobey virginity pledges Virgins on ledges Jump fall Into the arms of Cannon and Ball One’s tall and the other’s quite small Aren’t we all And don’t we all have a Holy Grail Holy Grail Have you seen it out there It’s blowing a gale And should we win or should we fail We all set sail Into the Tunnel of Love Look out, this should be good —————— Blackpool You’ve never looked more out of place That’s why we keep coming Keep coming —————— Sheer bliss You should be used to this Miss Blackpool You’re a jewel You’ll find nothing like it Delightful defilement I meant Coral Island Wild and unsilent Girl Guides Brides of Frankenstein You’re all mine And I’m crying eyeliner Find the lights, lip-synching, rhapsody of drinking Winking at the other sex Flex your pecs What’s next Let’s dash Mad cash Crash bumper cars, bars, tarot cards, spas Stars in their eyes Ladders in tights No sadder sights than fathers flying kites On a beach How to teach Out of reach Beseech mental health Wealth of possibilities Ill at ease Mushy peas Pricktease Please, whatever you do Don’t tell me to clean up my act Zip it Stand back That I lack demure tact When in fact I’m a roving wrongun Longing to belong in the bright lights Rides of your life Seeing signs in the times don’t stop Switch off The sign’s inside your Blackpool rock —————— Blackpool You’ve never looked more out of place That’s why we keep coming Keep coming

7/GOOD AT GOODBYES

Moving boxes They’re still waiting When all she knows is Childhood memories Late eighties Patrick Swayze How to keep these Now he’s dead Could our time have been any less well spent —————— So you’re leaving Leaving Breathing the last Baby’s teething They grow up so fast Can you believe in First love marks the laughter The applause Open, closed, revolving doors It was written in the stars Goodbye How many ways can you say it’s no lie Can you say What you never said Does your toothbrush have a friend Or does it end like this In parenthesis With this impossible longing What’s wrong in my soul Is why I stall when we talk You know, about stuff Way too much All the stuff that matters Gets lost Nothing sadder Than the way we talk All through life All these lives Are you good at goodbyes Are you good at goodbyes —————— All you lovers keep your powder dry Can you say I’m going to miss you Dismiss you There’s this abyss you fall In too deep Sleep History’s its own disease Hard to breathe Conceive Cities of endless sorrow Grieve figure eights It’s too lates Is why we borrow When tomorrow she flies From one city to the next Make-up and special effects Can’t hide You’re no good at goodbyes You’re no good at goodbyes —————— All you lovers and laughter Happy ever after Still searching Still searching in the dances Stances Sweeping shot Romance these boys From their lows All for shows And who knows How many dear Septembers Original cast members Remember their lines What is it they want you to do this time And will you mean it Did you dream it Now you’ve seen it All or nothing Asleep in a coffin I used to come here often Coughing up blood Now the vacuum’s sucking up What vacuums shouldn’t suck To erase the traces Of those little-known faces I was always wasted Change places Hold hands Old hands escape the axe Until the third act When no pact with fate Can escape We are what we are And we are moving away On these shifting plates How it ached All the days We never changed Strange inventions Best intentions Best not mention the things we do we don’t believe in To please him Perceiving thoughts to the source One of those Of course We all live in a port Some seek and some sought And I always knew we’d grow apart When all she knows is A week here, a week there There there We’ll find a place for you somewhere In the gaps between clouds Open mouths And the treasure underground You won’t be found ’Til the last day of existence Discovering resistance in the ties Are you good at goodbyes Are you good at goodbyes —————— All you lovers and laughter Happy ever after Averting disaster Still searching