Clutching at Straws

If a person were to try stripping the disguise from actors while they play a scene upon the stage, showing to the audience their real looks and the faces they were born with, would not such a one spoil the whole play? And would not the spectators think he deserved to be driven out of the theatre with brickbats, as a drunken disturber? . . . Now what else is the whole life of mortals but a sort of comedy, in which the various actors, disguised by various costumes and masks, walk on and play each one his part, until the manager waves them off the stage? Moreover, this manager frequently bids the same actor go back in a different costume, so that he who has but lately played the king in scarlet now acts the flunkey in patched clothes. Thus all things are presented by shadows.

 

(Erasmus, The Praise of Folly)

Hotel Hobbies

Hotel hobbies padding dawns hollow corridors
Bell boys checking out the hookers in the bar
Slug-like fingers trace the star-spangled clouds of cocaine on the mirror
The short straw takes its bow

The tell tale sign of the last cigarette marking time in the pockets as the
whisky sweat
lies like discarded armour on an unmade bed
As familiar cravings are crawling through his head

And the only sign of life is the ticking of the pen
Introducing characters to memories like old friends
Frantic as a cardiograph scratching out the lines
In a fever of confession a catalogue of crime in happy hour
Do you cry in happy hour, do you hide in happy hour, a pilgrimage to happy
hour

New shadows tugging at the corner of his eye
Jostling for attention as the sunlight flares
Through a curtains tear, shuffling its beams
As if in nervous anticipaion of another day

(Champney's Health Farm, Tring)

Warm Wet Circles

On premenades where drunks propose to lonely arcade mannequins
where ceremonies pause at the jewellers shop display
feigning casual silence in strained romantic interludes
till they commit themselves to the muted journey home
And the pool player rests on another cue
Last nights hero picking up his dues
a honeymoon gambled on a ricochet
she's staring at the brochures at the holidays
chalking up a name in your hometown
standing all your mates to another round
laughing at the world till the barman wipes away
the warm wet circles

I saw teenage girls like gaudy moths a classrooms shabby butterflies
flit in the glow of stranded telephone boxes;
planning white lace weddings from smeared hearts
and token proclamations, rolled from stolen lipsticks
across the razored webs of glass
Sharing cigarettes with experience with her giggling
jealous confidantes, she faithfully traces his name
with quick bitten fingernails through the tears
of condensation that'll cry through the night
as the glancing headlights of the last bus kiss
adolescence goodbye

In a warm wet circle
Like a mothers kiss on your first broken heart, a warm wet circle
Like a bullethole in Central Park, a warm wet circle
and I'll always surrender to the warm wet circles

She nervously undressed in the dancing beams of the Fidra lighthouse
giving it all away before its too late
She'll let a lovers tongue move in a warm wet circle
giving it all away and showing no shame
She'll take a mother's kiss on her first broken heart
a warm wet circle, she'll realise that she plays her
part in a warm wet circle

(the Quarterdeck, North Berwick)

It was a wedding ring, destined to be found in a cheap hotel
lost in a kitchen sink or thrown in a wishing well

---

That Time of the Night (The Short Straw)

At that time of the night when streetlights throw crosses through
window frames, paranoia roams where the shadows reign
At that time of the night
At that time of the night your senses tangled in some new perfume
criticism triggers of a loaded room At that time of the night

So if you ask me how do I fell inside I could honestly
tell you we've been taken on a very long ride
And if my owners let me have some free time some day
With all good intention I would probably run away
clutching the short straw

At that time of the night when questions rally in an open mind
summon all your answers with an ice cubes chime
at that time of the night, at that time of the night
pretend you're off the hook with the telephone
your confidence wounded in a free fire zone, at that time
of the night

So if you ask me where do I go from here, my next destination
isn't even that clear. So if you join me and get
on your kness and prey, I'll show you salvation
we'll take the alternative way clutching the short straw

If I had enough money I'd buy a round for that boy over-there
a companion in my madness in the mirror the one with
the silvery hair. If some kind soul could please pick
up my tab and while they're at it if they could
pick up my broken heart.

Warm Wet Circles

(Mayflower Hotel NYC, Wheatsheaf- Haywards Heath)

---

 

Going Under

Is it wrong to talk to myself even when there's nobody else
I'm just checking out that I've not gone under the
water or thrown on the beach like a seal ready
for slaughter
Can't you understand that the way things were planned
it never worked out so I just went crazy
I took to the drink like something say its
maybe


I ain't got no excuse to say, except it's my way
I got nothing else to say, except it's my way
it's always my way I seem to be running away so often
I'll try anything once and that's the way we should be
but it's always the same getting caught up again
in a habbit, a habbit I just can't shake off
the way it always turned out
can you understand it's the way I chose to be
everything seems so easy this way but I'm going under
fast, I'm slipping away, am I so crazy

(Albert St., Aylesbury)

---

Just for the Record

Many's the time I've been thinking about changing my ways
But when it gets right down to it it's the same drunken haze
I'm serving out a sentence to write lifes sentences
It's only when I'm out of it I make sense of this

Just for the record I'm gonna put it down
Just for the record I'm gonna change my life around

Just a revolutionary with a pseudonym
Just a barroom dancer on my final fling
Just another writer paying off my dues
Just finding inspiration well that's my excuse

Just for the record I'm gonna put it down
Just for the record I'm gonna change my life around
Just another empty gesture with an empty glass
Just another comic actor behind a tragic mask,

But I've got no discipline got no self control
It's just a little less painful here when my back's against the wall

It's too late, it's too far, I'm in two minds
and both of them are out of it at the bar

When you say I've got a problem that's a certainty
But I put it all right down to eccentricity
It's just for the record it's just a passing phase
Just for the record I can stop any day

(Marguee Club, London)

---

White Russian

Where do we go from here

They're boarding up the synagogues uzis on a street corner
You can't take a photograph of uzis on a street corner
the DJ resigned today they wouldn't let him have his say
a surface scratched where the needles play uzis on a street corner

Where do we go from here

Terror on the Rue de St. Denis, murder on the peripherie
Someone else in someone else's pocket, Christ knows
I don't know how to stop it
Lay poppies at the Cenotaph, the cynics can't afford
to laugh, I heard in on the telegraph there's uzis
on a street corner

Where do we go from here

The more I see the more I hear the more I find the fewer answers
I close my mind, I shut it out but you know its getting harder
to calm down, to reason out, to come to terms with
what it's all about
I'm uptight, can't sleep at night, I can't pretend everything's
alright. My ideals my sanity, they seem to be
deserting me but to stand up and fight I know
we have six million reasons

They're buring down the synagogues uzis on a street corner
the heralds of the holocaust uzis on a street corner
The silence never louder than now, how quickly we forgot
our vows, this resurrection we can't allow, the uzis
on a street corner

Where do we go from here

We buy fresh bagels from the corner store
Where swastikas are spat from aerosols
I sit in the bar sipping iced white russians
trying to score but nobody's pushing
and everyone looks at everyone's faces
searching for signs and praying for traces
of a conscience in residence, are we sitting on
a barbed wire fence, chasing the clouds home

We place our faith in human rights
In the paper wars that tie the redtape tight
I know that I would rather be out of this conspiracy

In the gulags and internment camps
nameless faces in frozen ranks
I know that they would rather be
standing here besides me chasing the clouds home

We place our faith in human rights
In the paper wars that tie the redtape tight
I know that I would rather be out of this conspiracy

In the gulags and internment camps
nameless faces in frozen ranks
I know that they would rather be
standing here besides me chasing the clouds home
racing the clouds home

You can shut your eyes, you can hide away
it's gonna come back another dady

racing the clouds home

But where do we go from here

(Hilton, Vienna)

---

Incommunicado

I'd be really pleased to meet you if I could remember your name
But I got problems with my memory ever since I got a winner in the fame
game
I'm a citizen of Legoland travellin Incommunicado
and I don't give a damn for the Fleet Street afficionados

But I don't want to be the backpage interview
I don't want launderette anonymity
I want my handprints in the concrete on Sunset Boulevard
a dummy in Tussauds you'll se Incommunicado

I'm a Marquee veteran, a muti-media bonafide celebrity
I've got an allergy to Perrier, daylight and responsibility
I'm a rootin-tootin cowboy a Peter Pan with street credibility
always making the point with the dawn patrol fraternity

Sometimes it seems like I've been here before
when I hear opportunity kicking in my door
call it synchronicity call it Deja Vu
I just put my faith in destiny- it's the way that I choose

But I don't want to be a tin can tied to the bumper of a
wedding limousine, or currently residing in the where are the now file
a oupee on the cabaret scene
I want to do adverts for American Express cards
and talk shows on prime time t.v., a villa in France
my own cocktail bar and that's where you're gonna find me
incommunicado

Sometimes it seems like I've been here before
When I hear opportunity kicking in my door
Call it synchronicity call it deja vu
I just put my faith in destiny it's the way that I choose- incommunicado

(Rainbow Room, LA; St. Moritz Club London)

---

Torch Song

Read some Kerouac and it put me on the tracks to burn a little brighter
now.
It was something about roman canddles fizzin out, shine a little light on me
now,
I found a strange fascination with a liquid fixation
alcohol can thrill me now
It's getting late in the game to show any pride or shame
I just burn a little brighter now

Doctor says my liver looks like leaving with my lover,
I need another
time out
now,
Like any sort of here turnin down to zero still standing out in any crowd
Pulling seventeen with experience and dreams, sweating out a happy hour,
Where you're hiding 29 you know it ain't a crime
to burn a little brighter now, burn a little brighter now

Dr. Finlay: And my advice is if you maintain this lifestyle you won't reach
30

Torch: it's a romantic way to go really, part of the heritage
it's your round in'it

We burn a little brighter now
Read some Kerouac and it put me on the tracks to burn a
little brighter now
It was something about roman canddles fizzin out, shine
a little light on me now, I found a strange fascination
with a liquid fization, alcohol thrill me now
It's getting late in the game to show any pride or shame
We burn a little brighter now, burn a little brighter now

(Virgin Airways, 747- Newark-Heathrow)

---

Slainte Mhath

A hand held over a candle in angst fuelled bravado
a carbon trail scores a moist fresh palm
Trapped in the indecion of another fine menu
and you sit there and ask me to tell you the story so far
This is the story so far
Shuffling your memories dealing your doodles in margins
you scrawl out your poems across a beermat or two
and when you declare the point of grave creation
They turn round and you to tell them the story so far
This is the story so far
And you listen with a tear in you eye
to their hopes and betrayals and your only reply
is Slainte mhath
Princes in exile raising the standard Drambuie
parading their anecdotes tired from oldd campaigns
holding their own last orders commanding attention
we sit here and listen to all of the story so far
This is the story so far
Take it away, take it away, take it away
Take me away
From the dream on the barbed wire at Flanders and Bliston Glen
From a Clydesdale that rusts from the tears of its broken men
from the realisation that we've been left behind
is to stand like our fathers before us in the firing line
Waiting on the whistle to blow, we stand here waiting
on the whistle to blow
They promised us miracles, and the whistle still blows
broken promises, and the whistle still blows
The whistle still blow

(Oyster Bar, Edinburgh, Coutry Bar, Dalkeith)

---

Sugar Mice

I was flicking through the channels on the tv
on a Sunday in Milwaukee in the rain
trying to piece together conversations, trying to find out where to lay the
blame

But when it comes right down to it there's no use trying to pretend
For when it gets right down to it there's no one here
that's left to blame, blame it on me, you can blame it on me
we're just sugar mice in the rain

I heardd Sinatra calling me through the floorbaords
where you pay a quarter for a partnership in rhyme
to the jukebox cying in the corner
while the waitress is counting out the time

For when it comes right down to it there's no use trying to pretend
For when it gets right down to it there's no one really
left to blame, blame it on me, you can blame it on me
we're just sugar mice in the rain

I know what I feel, know what I want I know what I am
daddy took a raincheck
Cos I know what I want, know what I feel I know what I need
daddy took a raincheck, your daddy took a raincheck
ain't no one in here that's left to blame but me, blame it on me, blame it on
me

Well the toughest thing that I ever did was talk to the kids on the phone,
when I heard them asking questions that I knew that
that you were all alone, Can't you understand that the
government left me out of work, I just couldn't stand the
looks on their faces saying what a jerk

So if you want my address it's number one at the end of
the bar
where I sit with the broken angels clutching at straws and
nursing our scars, blame it on me, blame it on me
sugar mice in the rain, your daddy took a raincheck,
your daddy took a raincheck

(Holiday Inn, Milwaukee)

---

The Last Straw

Hotel hobbies padding dawns hollow corridors
a typewriter cackles out a stream of memories

Drying out a conscience, evicting a nightmare
Opening the doors for the dreams to come home

We live out lives in private shells
ignore out senses and foor ourselve
into thinking that our there there's someone else cares
someone to answer all our prayers...

Are we too far gone, are we so irresponsible
Have we lost our balls, or do we just not care
We're terminal cases that keep talking medicine
Pretending the end isn't quite that near
We make futile gestures, act to the cameras
With our made up faces and PR smiles
and when the angel comes down to deliver us
we'll find out after all, we're only men of straw

But everything is still the same
passing the time passing out the blame
we carry on in the same old way
we'll find out we left it too late one day
to say what we meant to say

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the water
those problems seem to arise the one you never really thought of
The feeling you get is similar to some sort of drowning
when you are out of your mindd, out of your depth,
you sound have taken soundings
We're clutching at straws, we're clutching at straws clutching at straws

And if you ever come across us don't give us your sympathy
You can buy us a drink and just shake our hands
and you'll recognise by the reflections in our eyes
that deep down inside we're all one and the same
We're clutching at straws still drowning

(Greyhound Tour Bus, North America)