Rother Vale (draft version), performed by "Me and Mr Jones".

Guitars, vocals: Dave Banks
Percussion: Rob Dean

"for the dogs have their day on this sweet bridleway, down in Rother Vale"

Music and lyrics © David Banks 2017

Rother Vale (draft)- Me and Mr Jones

Lyrics by Bertolt Brecht loosely translated from the German...

A Life of Galileo

Galileo's Solar Rotation Waltz

Draft version of "Infamy" (version 21/2/18)

Music and lyrics by © David Banks 2017

If only they’d pay me a little more, my life would be complete
If only they’d let me pass the test, I’d take the driving seat
If you could see my damaged soul, you’d overlook my wrongs
And if you were a better audience, I’m sure you’d like my songs
If only they’d give me a seventh chance, I would do my part
And if only you were beautiful, you’d surely win my heart

If you were a little more reasonable, I wouldn’t be so aggressive
If only I could own your heart, I wouldn’t be so possessive
See inside my damaged soul, and you’d overlook my wrongs
And if you were a better audience, I’m sure you’d like my songs
If you were a little more balanced, you could be my counterpart
And if only you were beautiful, you’d surely win my heart


If	on….	ly   (the bastards set me up)
If	on….	ly   (the bastards ground me down)
In for me, in for me, they’ve all got it in for me
In for me, in for me, they’ve all got it in for me

If only you wouldn’t see your friends, we could be alone
If only you could change your voice, it cuts me to the bone
If you could see inside my damaged soul, you’d overlook my wrongs
And if you were a better audience, I’m sure you’d like my songs
I could do so much better than you, by looking in Exchange and Mart
And if only you were beautiful, you’d surely win my heart

Infamy

A Hymn to the Prince of Darkness (version 21/2/18)

Music and lyrics © David Banks 2017

I sing a hymn to the Prince of Darkness
I raise my hands to the Bearer of Light
Yield heart and soul to Beelzebub and
The service of the Kingdom of the Night
I praise the name of the Fallen Angel
Worship the Lord of Air and Skies
The Keys of Enoch will deliver us 
To Apollyon – the Lord of the Flies.

You gave us fruit and the gift of knowledge
A moral sense to know wrong from right
You led us out from the Kindergarten;
Not crawling, but stretched up to full height

I see you daily in the pub and on the TV
A morning star, not some old geezer on Mount Sinai	
God’s seraphim are just way too flashy
I prefer the spawn of Satan and his charming succubi.

You never shirked from your ambitions
You took the rap for what you’d done
You never raped any virgin children
Never crucified your own son.
You gave us love and all the best music
You give us sex and booze and rock’n’roll
You never asked me for any payment
Not even to hand over my immortal soul.

You gave us Lilith to be our soulmate;
Not some frigid subservient Eve
You taught us how to hide from Jehovah
To prevaricate and deceive

A Hymn to the Prince of Darkness

Middle Man (version 7/3/18)

I grew up playing cricket in a Sussex county town
Bus ticket, straight wickets, money raining down
from the banks in the city to the borgers in the green belt;
ranks of detached privilege in the hand that I was dealt

Welcome to Middle England

My dad was middle class, middle aged, just like I am now
A middle grade degree - botany - how to study flowers
Marriage bower, ivory tower, spreading round the middle
Eying up lead violin, while playing second fiddle

Yes, he was a Middle manager

Now pay attention, boys and girls

Hairy toed and hobbit-like, with slowly spreading girth
A halfling in a half-way hole in a Shire of Middle Earth
And forty five years later, my pater’s morphed to me
Middle-aged moaning Minnie, mitherin’ to be free

Minnie the Minx

Complacent yet dissatisfied, you can’t believe it, can ya?
But check out Chekhov and you’ll see I’m just like Uncle Vanya
Afraid to take a shot of faith, yet the loaded gun entices
Critical, yet full-beguiled of a full-blown mid-life crisis.

Just a ...Middle man

Pay attention at the back, there

It’s confusin’, ‘cos my wife Susan is comfortable and balanced
Possessed o’ grace and fair o’face and full o’ many talents
Middle class and middle aged and rather white of hue
And here I am - a prisoner - Stuck in the Middle with Sue

Lyric © David Banks 2016. Written at the Glasgow Songwriting Festival 2016 at Govanhill Baths. Many thanks to Dave "Solareye" Hook for squeezing this out of my brain.

Public domain cricket effect downloaded from CMIUC100 at www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3jWUVU5qqw

Middle Man

Draft version, performed by Dave Banks (vox, guitars) 27th July 2018

Music and lyrics © David Banks 2018.

PRS tunecode 323086GN

Love is malaise Love is malaria
Love requires servitude And I don’t really care for you
Just say no Just say no, girls and boys
Just say no to love

Love is infatuous Loving is infantile
Love requires action And I just want to rest a while
Just say no Just say no, boys and girls
Just say no to love

Love turns platonic Love becomes platitude
Love shuts horizons And I need my latitude
Just say no Just say no, girls and boys
Just say no to love

Hi there, Rhine maiden, I am your Alberich
Cupid is Satan, Valentine makes me sick
Be on your way, go trouble younger hearts
Take careful aim, go spend your brittle darts
Just say no to love

Love is so saccharine Loving is sacrifice
Love requires worship But I just think you hair’s quite nice
Just say no Just say no, boys and girls
Just say no to love

Love is all flightiness Love is like flypaper
Don’t want a perfect home I want a skyscraper
Just say no Just say no, girls and boys
Just say no to love

Love makes me constipated, I need some Seneca
Quick dose of salts or an olive oil enema
Be on your way, go trouble younger hearts
Take careful aim, go spend your brittle darts
And Just say no to love

River so wide I cannot get over it
River so deep I cannot get under it
Grass is green on the other shore of this Lethe, this Styx, this Shenandoah
That’s the river of love

(Say) No to Love

Draft version (14/8/18) of what will hopefully become a future "Poke O'Swedgers" song...

Music and lyrics by © Dave Banks and Lorraine Lucas 2018

Woke up in the morning with my head full of the blues
And things went downhill quickly when I turned on the news
But I suddenly remembered what my therapist did say
That a Happy Song and major chords will send those blues away

I’ve got an altered attitude, cultivating gratitude
Every day I’ll make a start with a glad and happy heart
You can always lift your mood with a clichéd platitude
But tomorrow’s just a broken dream away

Sat down after dinner with my head stuffed full of dreams
My Happy Song was drowning out the spiders and the screams
I kept on remembering my therapist’s refrain
A happy face and sunny smile will drive away the pain

I’ve got an altered attitude, cultivating gratitude
Every day I’ll make a start with a glad and happy heart
You can always lift your mood to high beatitude
But tomorrow’s just a broken dream away

Sing out a Happy Song and make it Happy
Sing out a Happy Song to last all day
Put on your Happy Face and keep it happy
Tomorrow’s just a broken dream away

Lay me down at bedtime and drifted off to sleep
And cast creation’s cares on my mental rubbish heap
If I hum loud enough, rock my body to and fro
I’ll be happier than Hemingway and Vincent Van Gogh (Marilyn Monroe? / Jose Mourinho??)

Guitars and vocals by Dave Banks

Happier than Hemingway

A neo-gothic tale of John Polidori and his 1819 book "The Vampyre". It's a thinly-veiled attack on Lord Byron's morality and how life just isn't fair...

Words and lyrics by © David Banks 2019

Vampyrion

This is the story	of John Polidori
Minor poet and doctor by rank.
A man of some letters, in solitude’s fetters
Demeanour both handsome and frank.

But for Byron’s enjoyment 
he entered employment
Of that lecher with a winning tongue
George Gordon Byron Eurotrash vampire
One who’ll drain you, then mock you in song.
	Can’t you hear his song?

Byron, A Vampyre. Mad, bad, a bit of a bore
Tentacular - Dracula: 
A sucker with a fetish for gore.
Artistic maelstrom; poetic siren. 
He’ll wreck you on Geneva’s shore 
(he’s a haemovore).
		
He’ll wreck you on Geneva’s shore

Vampyrion
			Vampyrion
			Vampyrion
	Don’t	let him in 
	Don’t	let him in 

John Polidori	wrote a nice story
A sad nobleman, dangerous to know
Who devoured young virgins 
on Hellenic excursions
Undead Don Juan who’ll steal your sister’s trousseau.

John Polidori’s	gothic hate story
Appeared in Eighteen Nineteen
But the name of the author of this tale of horror
Was given thus in that rare magazine. 
It was written ….

A Tale by Lord Byron, Vampyre. 
Mad, bad, a bit of a bore
Tentacular - Dracula: 
A sucker with a fetish for gore.
Artistic maelstrom; poetic siren.
He’ll wreck you on Geneva’s shore. 
So, lock up your daughters!
He’ll wreck you on Geneva’s shore

Vampyrion

The Little Boids, by Dave Banks

This is a preliminary recording of a song inspired by that immortal Brooklyn folk rhyme:

"Spring is sprung, the grass is ris,
I wonder where dem boidies is?
The little boids is on the wing. Ain’t that absoid?
The little wings is on the boid" (Anon)

Music and lyrics © David Banks, January 2020.
PRS registered tunecode 387041FM

Tell me Richard, Dicky Bird	
Why your song is so absurd
About what you seen and what you heard
About all the birds in the green wood

Sing me the song of Jacky Daw
Where he’ll be tomorrow and where he’s been before
And what he’s heard and what he’s saw
‘mongst all the birds in the green wood

Sing me the song of Robin Redbreast
About who he’s used to feather his own nest
Who he hates and who he loves best
Of all the birds in the green wood

Sing me the song of Margaret Pie
How she longs for the colours of the butterfly
But she’s black and white, that Maggie Pie
Of all the birds in the green wood

Sing me the song of gaudy Jay
He longed to be plain, not a floral bouquet
A mod, not a hippie, but he was born this way
Like all the birds in the green wood

Sing me the song of young Tom Tit
He’s made a House with Martin and they plan to live in it
And holler at the neighbours and swear and spit
At all the birds in the green wood.

Sing me the song of Jenny Wren
About why she loves the birds and how she hates men
And why she slowly counts to ten
Amongst the trees in the green wood

The Little Boids

Text © David Banks 2013	   Chesterfield, July 2013
Melody © David Banks 2020  Chesterfield, Jan 2020
PRS tunecode 387041FV

My friend Rhys has a house in the country
	and a flat in old Hong Kong
Rhys tells me he’s happy there
	but it seems to me he doesn’t belong

Emma has fancy job in the city
	that keeps her mind alive in her head
(she says) but way she talks and the glass in her eyes
	tell me that her soul is dead

But I have a hole where things should be
	I just want some sun and good company.
Cos I want nothing....
	A big fat nothing....to cushion my fall.

Michael has a wife and she looks pretty neat
	neat and pretty and fine.
They sit in silence on the terrace in the evening.
	I’m so glad that she ain’t mine.	

But I have a hole where stuff should be	
	I just want some booze and bad company.
Cos I want nothing
	A big fat nothing.... to cushion my fall.

They say “Nothing comes from nothing”
	So you get your kicks for free.
and “If you have a little then more will be given”
	So take it away from me.

Krista has a son and she has high expectations
	That he’s gonna make her proud.
He’s got a degree and she’s got good social skills
	But I find him them both a little too loud.

But I have a hole where things should be
	My low expectations keep me company.
Cos I want nothing....
	A big fat nothing.... to cushion my fall.

Photo: Buddha as an avatar at Dwaraka Tirumala temple, Andhra Pradesh. CC BY-SA 3.0 by Adityamadhav83. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

The Ballad of Prince Gautama

Dave Banks is a middle-class, middle-aged, terminally dissatisfied moaning minnie who identifies strongly with Uncle Vanya.

Unlike Uncle Vanya, however, he does enjoy writing songs. 

He has in the past formed slightly less than 50% of the remarkable lo-fi, shock-folk duo 'The Sedatives' (https://the-sedatives.bandcamp.com). In prehistory, he has also been a member of 'The Groundwater Boys' and 'Jefferson Volkswagen'.

He now writes and performs with a variety of collaborators, especially the excellent Mr Rob Dean, Mr David Ian Jonesm Nr John Belli and Ms Louise Sweeney as "Me and Mr Jones" (https://meandmrj.wixsite.com/meandmrjones). 

He also plays and sings with Kev McInally as 'Poke O'Swedgers' (https://soundcloud.com/user-413397786)

Inspirations? He gets a kick out of confrontational music - Bertolt Brecht/Kurt Weill, Eels, Pulp - leavened with a helping of comedy - Jake Thackeray, Graham Fellows or John Otway. In his mellower moments he has been found secretively listening to his collection of Joni Mitchell, Martin Simpson, Kathryn Williams and Chris Wood cds.

DaveBanks