Ordinary People's Army

The State of The State

Chasing Crooks

THE STREETS OF BIRMINGHAM

When the rain came down
it washed the city.
We only wanted justice
we never asked for pity.

It shook the walls,
it shook the whole town down.
I can see the smoke filled sky,
I can here that thundering sound.

I can see it now,
I can feel it now,
through devastation
you made it through somehow.
I think back to that,
I can remember that
we walked the towpaths 
of the miles of canals.

Horizons made of brick,
this town is oh so big.
A melting pot from when we were kids,
a place to grow into your own skin.

Remember when we were young,
we thought we knew everything.
They’d say we had a lot to learn,
it’s only now that I get their meaning.

I can see it now,
I can feel it now.
The things they told us
were just there to help us grow.
I think back to then,
to what I thought back then.
You have to learn
before you let things go.



I can see it now,
I can feel it now.
Look behind
see we’ve made it through somehow.
I think back to then,
back when we were friends.
We found our way
on streets of Birmingham.

I can see it now,
I can feel it now.
I never thought
we’d make it through somehow.
I think back to that,
I can remember that
we walked the towpaths 
of the miles of canals.

We lost our innocence
and waived the consequence.
we lost our way
but we made it back again.
I think back to then,
how it was back then,
we found our way
on streets of Birmingham

Phantacism

STREETS OF BIRMINGHAM

BLACK DOG
 
Here we go, it’s here again,
That creeping beast
Coming after your brain.
 A hollow silhouette
hidden features 
I’ll never get used to this
cold heart creature
 
The smell of piss, or lithium
in the corner of my room
 adding to the sense
of doom and gloom
you thought you had it beat
but you spoke too soon.

it’s here again 
and it’s coming after you   

It’s over there! look! 
 The Grim the Striker the Shuck  
lurking in the shadows. 
I can hear it breathing.  
I don’t know whether 
I’m stuck in the hollows  
floating in the ether
but falling deeper
or just plain out of luck

It moves like an 
unwelcome relative. 
A fast transformation
from canine king to feral beast –
 noble to brutal.
I weigh up which
would disrupt me the least.

 It moves with sans-method,
Slobber jawed,
I don’t know whether to barf or fly
as it sharpens its claws
they glint from the dark corner
like knives
And I wait for 
the shackles
on its back to rise

(interlude)

Now there’s a black dog scratching at my door
and I know because it’s happened
many times before
And when I think I can’t take it any more
That’s when I disappear
You won’t see me out round here

there’s a black dog scratching at my door
and I know because I’ve been here
many times before
and when I think I can’t take it any more
that’s when I disappear
you won’t see me out round here

a black dog scratching at my door
and I know because it’s happened
many times before
and when I think I can’t take it any more
that’s when I disappear
you won’t see me out round here

a black dog breaking down my door
and I know because I’ve seen it
many times before
and when I think I can’t take it any more
that’s when I disappear
watch me falling through the floor

a black dog breaking my door
and I know because I’ve seen it
many times before
and when I think I can’t take it any more
that’s when I disappear
you’ll see me falling through the floor

a black dog scratching at my door
and I know because it’s happened
many times before
and when I think I can’t take it any more
that’s when I disappear
you won’t see me out round here

a black dog breaking my door
and I know because I’ve seen it
many times before
and when I think I can’t take it any more
that’s when I disappear
watch me falling through the floor


It’s pissing on the furniture
It’s wrecking all the gaff
It’s dug a hole in the carpet
and it’s ready for combat

It’s pissing on the furniture
it’s chewing up the gaff
it’s dug a hole in the carpet
the bastard

BLACK DOG

PAINT YOUR OWN PATH

Don’t respond to assumptions people spout,
whether you believe them or not.
It’s not for you to offer some explanation
in an effort to try to appease them.
And it’s not down to you to put their minds at rest,
even when they put you to test.
Aren’t you tired of doing your best
In putting their prejudice to bed?
Leave nothing misunderstood,
don’t find yourself on the back foot.
Thoughts are thoughts and yours are your own,
and they are part of a tapestry only you could have sewn.

Don’t listen when they tell you
you’ll amount to nothing, you’ll always be something.
You’ll always be here, engraved in my heart.
That, to me, is everything.
You’ll always be those voices 
that sound louder than sinister murmers,
that one call I will always answer.
You’re on the cusp of greatness,
you’re a fine wine waiting to be decanted;
set free to expand, to show your promise,
to distend and to grow into the people 
I know you to be.

Realise your full potential,
make a life that you find preferential.
Some rules are made to be broken. 
See, it’s not riches that set you free,
it’s not power that offers liberty.
We’re all on that road to happiness.
Use all that you have inside,
in your own, unique synergy.
Paint your own path to success
in love and life.
Create memories which should be kept
in the liquid of your eyes.

PAINT YOUR OWN PATH

NOT THE REAL ELVIS
 
I’m a complex man with a complex mind
I like to win but I really don’t mind 
if I come in last or get left behind,
cos I’m a complex man
and my complexities are primed.

I walk with a swagger 
that soon becomes a limp
“He must be back on the gear,
either that or on the drink”.
I really can’t help
what other people think.
I’m just a complex man, 
I’m not the missing link

I wear my hair live Elvis 
but the boots of a tramp,
my head is covered in grease 
but my feet are always damp.
I play an old guitar
after turning up the amp,
if there’s awards for being trying
then I’d be the fucking champ

“who does he think he is?
who does he think he is?
who does he think he is?
who does he think he is?
who does he think he is?
who does he think he is?”
Well he’s not fucking Elvis

I’m a complex man with a complex brain,
you’ll find me on street corners
again and again.
I wear ladies make-up
to keep me in disguise.
I’m not the real Elvis
have you lost your fucking mind?

“Who does he think he is?...

“Have you lost your fucking mind?...

“Well he’s not fucking Elvis

NOT THE REAL ELVIS

ONE MILE TO DEADTOWN

The graveyard’s full to the brim
there’s people waiting for a space
but they can’t get in
They’ve been waiting for years
it’s over grown with grass and weeds
ever fading memories
and long forgotten tears.

in the town, kids are dealing crack
selling moments you’ll never get back
and purgatory loiters around every corner
and every now and then there’s a word
from a snitch or an informer
and the cops turn up,
something to do at last
but they just pass it over 
with a cursory glance
because fighting crime
is a dance they don’t want to dance

dead town

London money
has priced the youth 
out of house and home.
Second home owners
dress down 
in their chillout, pilled jumpers
and overstretched ski pants
because they think that’s the kind
of thing we do around here.
And while the local youth
scramble for dead end
zero hour jobs
commuting 15 miles every day
there and back, and still 
potentially face the sack
the London monied wait for 
the lucre to roll in,
in their tiger feet slippers
that have seen better days
“But the views” they say 
“are heaven sent”
yeah? right,
but that don’t pay our fucking rent
I’m not after a pair of your novelty slippers
or a nibble on your line caught kippers
sourced locally, of course,
ha ha, in Grimsby port

dead town
one mile from dead town

the bars keep over charging
for their beer
and they wonder in the quiet times
why people steer clear
While supermarkets
keep selling the same uninspired fayre
they’ve sold for 30 years.
There’s no imagination
behind these consumer conglomerates
so they put thirty pence on every product
because every little helps
the bigger the company, 
the smaller the creativity

dead town
you’re just one mile from dead town

Don’t get me wrong I love this town
that’s why it breaks my heart to see it being dragged underground
after some chubby clown endorsed his pie in the sky attitude 
it left us nowhere to go, no room to move

The graveyard is full
The streetlights are off
silence falls
in dead town 
in dead town
in dead town
in dead town

ONE MILE FROM DEADTOWN

IT’S NOT ABOUT US

The nights are drawing in,
the light disappearing
leaving musty air.
There is a duty of care
for their shareholders;
clutching their profile folders,
warming their discounted
bath waters, safeguarding
their sons and daughters.
Whilst elsewhere tepid leads to cold
and the older you get
the more the shivers take hold,
becoming a greater threat,
becoming a greater threat.

Hold on to your nearest and dearest,
Love your kids, hug your wives,
Care for your partners.
Just survive.
This can’t go on for ever;
There’s just too much at stake
For you to give in.
They are the enemy within our homes.
They have no obligation
To ensure you have food to eat,
And the babies’ cot needs heating
Or they’ll cry all night.
They just won’t sleep.
They just won’t sleep.

That is your duty of care,
And there is a battle there;
A battle against this 
Consumer paradise;
A world where profit dictates success,
Where those who have get more,
And those without get less.

Don’t allow these insignificant bastards
To drive you down or out,
You have more important things 
To think about,
Because they are all at it
For the gas, the electric,
The water and the waste.
Dumping shit in our rivers and seas
Leaving a bad taste in our mouths…
In our lives,
Because it’s all about them,
Though that’s no surprise.
The surprising thing is
That we have a government
Ready to shun their duty of care too,
They’re all ten for them
And one for you.
That condescending self-importance
More than takes the piss
And all the despots
Keep their eyes on the profits

It’s all about you
It’s all about you
Whatever you decide
That’s what you’ll do
It’s not about us
You threw us under that bus
It don’t matter what you say
It’s not about us

It’s all about you
It’s all about you
Whatever you decide
That’s what you’ll do
It’s not about us
It’s all about you
It don’t matter what you say
It’s all about you

It’s all about you
It’s all about you
Whatever you decide to do
That’s what you’ll do
Cos it’s not about us
You threw us under that bus
It don’t matter what you say
It’s all about you

It’s all about you
It’s all about you
Whatever you decide to do
That’s what you’ll do
Cos it’s not about us
You threw us under that bus
It don’t matter what you say
It’s not about us

IT'S NOT ABOUT US

COLD WALLS

Lizzie Borden took an axe
and gave her momma forty whacks,
when she saw what she had done
she gave her daddy forty one.
The doctor said she was unstable,
daddies head upon the table
picking through the wrongs he’d done,
that’s why he got the extra one.

Erik and Lyle made a plan
to end the life of mom and dad.
they said at trial in their defence
they’d had enough of sufferance
through all that pain that he inflicts,
angry words and cock and fists.
They took a gun, drained them of life,
then ran away to Mulholland Drive.

Brenda Spencer hated school,
she hated cops and hated rules.
That day she stayed home alone
had some psychotic episode.
She took a Ruger, opened fire;
Tell me why, tell me why.
Finally she left the house,
a Burger King would bring her out.

There’s always something going on 
behind the curtains we don’t know about.
There’s always something happening
behind the closed doors we never hear about.

“Take that thing away from me”
screamed the mother of poor Mary.
A life on the end of her father’s thumps,
rented out to sadistic drunks.
Born into violence, hostility,
nothing more than a commodity.
No one to dry her tender tears,
a killer by the age of 11 years.
Just 11 years

We can look for blame, we can look for cause,
we can put their lives on eternal pause.
We can surmise we can speculate;
pound our fists on heaven’s gate,
but there’s always more we should explore,
it’s way too easy to abhor.
it’s far too easy to write them off,
to denigrate, to mock and scoff,
to close them down or even block.
The thing we need to do is talk.

There’s always something going on 
behind the curtains we don’t know about.
There’s always something happening
behind the closed doors we should talk about.

There’s always something going on 
behind the curtains we don’t know about.
There’s always something going on
behind the cold walls we should talk about.

Can you hear it now?

COLD WALLS

PHANTACISM

I fell in love with a ghost
on the back of a number 11 bus.
She was like porcelain in appearance,
and velvet to the touch.
She spoke through gestures
and a focused eyed stare,
she squared off my unease 
through silent suggestions
in amongst the empty seats
in an outer circle love affair.

I was convinced I’d known her 
all my life.
She gave off a delicate aroma
of herbs and spices.
I closed my eyes and drifted
into her world,
no need for words,
cosmic and tantric
as our souls transferred.

It came like a tidal wave,
crashing and moving the earth
below the surface.
Not a regular occurrence
on the number 11 midnight service.
When I opened my eyes she’d gone,
leaving a trail of shimmering mist.
I alighted at the next stop,
regretting not having the opportunity
of thanking her for this generous gift,
and the beautiful, momentary chaos
that came with it.

Deadly Casino

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