Lyrics:

Most nights
She watches herself cry
In his bureau mirror.
It’s never ‘pretty’ per se
But symmetrically framed
The contours of her face are
French New Wave grace
On a council estate budget.
She scrunches her eyes
Wrings them dry and
Calls her mother.
God loves a trier,
And it’s trying her patience
Trying to make this
Second rate sex
A relationship.
She’s yet to get to Paris
On his Butlins budget
But is trying
To make it
Work.
More fool her.
Innit.

In the cinematic adaptation
Of her bullshit existence
Night-time, red eyed reflections
Will be realised by indie directors and
Uplit with the neon glow of a mobile phone
It’ll be
So
Fucking
Art.
Though she knows
She tries too hard.
In years to come,
She imagines some young aficionados
Will compose love letters
To her flat chest against
Own brand bedding and attest
Her performance was
Wasted on him.

She is Godard’s complex feminine,
A Northern bedsit heroine, like
Wes Anderson did the narrative
But Shane Meadows picked the setting.
Hitchcock blonde
To a half-cocked lover
Wake up
Wake up
Wake up you boring...
Cut to morning

As it dawns on her
That sunlight looks better
With the curtains closed, and
This bed would feel less empty
If she were laid in it
Alone.

She goes home.

Trying 2 Make It Work

Lyrics:

Your new girlfriend speaks French/Eats angel cake for breakfast/Spends weekends buying records/In second hand dresses/She wears better than the mannequins/Long limbed and elegant

Your new girlfriend has connections/To artists and musicians/Men she renders breathless/Like St. Jarvis/Sweating buckets/Under roll neck jumpers/She makes love/But drinks doubles

Your new girlfriend is vintage lingerie/Pink, pert, perkier thank me/But flimsy/Can't get her dirty/Too delicate for nights spent/In the local laundrette/She's hand wash only

Your new girlfriend smokes slims/Dances like she swims/Feminine, eloquent, absolute bitch/And I'm jealous/Slipping stitches/Pulling threads/Whilst she seamlessly/Seam-free/Slides her legs/Into hand-me-down sheets/On our second best bed

Copyright - Elise Hadgraft (corporationpop)

Vintage Lingerie

Lyrics: 

You write songs like I recite shopping lists/Staving off forgetfulness with/Bread and milk and washing-up liquid/It's your turn to do the dishes/Stretched as we are between/Sex, asthma and domesticity/Sex city citizens/So far from sexy/We're constantly walking/Since public transport is a luxury we can't afford this week/And wine/And cheese/Four pounds seventy on the meter to see me through until Tuesday/Even heat/Even heat's a pipedream

You write songs like I boil kettles/Fill baths by the pint and buy/Only the essentials/And apples and toilet roll and soap-box Britpop singles/You write songs like I put Clingfilm on windows/Well-honed dexterity/Three degrees above freezing/You write songs like sweets/You write songs like sweets/Old ladies fed me on suburban streets/In 1995/You write songs like songwriters lie

You write songs like songwriters lie/You write songs like songwriters lie 

Copyright - Elise Hadgraft (corporationpop)

You Write Songs

Lyrics:

You wouldn't know/He told me/In a 70's shirt/With a smile like cheap polyester/You wouldn't know/Couldn't tell your arse from you elbow/Wouldn't recognise this town before the clubs closed/Said he appreciates/A face made in the Nineties/Though I'd missed the highlights of the industry/Short man with tall tales/Said he'd partied with The Libertines/In dirty London backstreets/Dirty London backstreets/Back before the NME was free

You wouldn't know/He told me/With a hand on my skirt/But assures me that if I was there/I wouldn't know/Cause culture doesn't doss in the suburbs/And bugger all good comes from Stockport/Called me a fantasy/Just a schoolgirl in the Noughties/He'd have shown me the high-life of the Indie Scene/Short arms/Deep pockets/We'd have partied with The Libertines/In dirty London backstreets/Dirty London Backstreets/Back before the NME was free

You wouldn't know/He told me/But if I want/He can show me/Those things I've never seen/Young face/Old mind/Knows just where to take me/Down dirty London backstreets/Dirty London backstreets/Back before the NME was free

Before the NME was free

Copyright - Elise Hadgraft (corporationpop)

Before The NME Was Free

Lyrics: 

Difficult artist
Typical woman
Difficult artist
Typical woman 

Are you on your period
Beholden to your mood swings?
Or just playing the victim?
You know he doesn't like it
Reminds him of his childhood
Becoming like his father
Difficult artist
Typical martyr

You say you want to come and see me
So buy a fucking ticket
If you want to come and see me
Cause you're not on the guestlist
Want to come and see me
So buy a fucking ticket
If you want to come and see me
Cause you're not on the guestlist
Difficult woman
Typical artist

He told you that you're beautiful
So why should you want more than this
Pretending that you're talented
You know he doesn't like it
Reminds him that his hairline
Is becoming like his father's
Difficult woman
Typical fucking martyr

Difficult artist
Typical woman
Difficult artist
Typical woman

*Actual email...no, seriously*

Pick a metaphor and stick to it
Dickhead

You say you want to come and see me
So buy a fucking ticket
If you want to come and see me
Cause you're not on the guestlist
Want to come and see me
So buy a fucking ticket
If you want to come and see me
Cause you're not on the guestlist
Difficult woman
Typical artist

Difficult Women (Demo)

Lyrics:

I don't owe you pretty
It's not up to me to tittilate you
With acceptable sexuality
I can even be sensible for ten minutes
Let alone keep it zipped long enough
To meet your mother
I served my sentence to Sunday Best dressing
One Wednesday in October in 1996
I don't owe you shit

Have you ever considered you might have a
Borderline personality disorder?
Nah, mate, have you ever considered
I might just have got bored of the effort
It takes to be nice to you?

Do you find me offensive?
Am I childish and aggressive?
Or as shallow as a puddle in the park?
Well you can keep your Jungian rhetoric
Armchair psychoanalysis
And shove your fucking pamphlets
Up your arse

I don't owe you a night of unbridled
Sexual excess because your mate Terry says
You're an alright lad really
When you're not calling strangers in bars 
"Bitches"
For not putting out after one drink

Do you find me offensive?
Am I childish and aggressive
Or as shallow as a puddle in the park?
Well you can keep your Jungian rhetoric
Armchair psychoanalysis
And shove your fucking pamphlets
Up your arse

Have you ever considered you might have a
Borderline personality disorder?

Self Help (Demo)

Lyrics:

It's been six months
Since I had a decent night's kip
And I'm starting to flip 
I'd like to spend one night
Without seeing your face behind my eyelids
Fuck your face, mate
Pretty as it is
And I hate the way
Your beats still punctuate my dreams
Seep in at the seams
Until you're under my clothes
And you're rubbing my nose in it
I just want to sleep
Twenty-six weeks, insomniacs luggage
Of monsters in the cupboard but
Now you've moved under the bed
And just like Sparks said once:
"This town ain't big enough for the both of us!"
And coked up love was never that restful
Never mind successful 
So I'm calling the exorcist, shit
I just want to sleep.

Perchance to dream
Of nothing
I'm crawling out my skin
And opting in
To medicated sleep.

I've been turned down
More than these bed sheets
Sleeping with the ghost
Of the desperate and lonely
And frozen in the moment
Feel your hands on my shoulder but
Needs be I'll do it again
Get out of my head
I'm not looking for a boyfriend
Or a recommended bedtime routine
Dreamless and defeatist, me?
I just want to sleep
See me in two weeks time
Pick me up, shake me
"Take your medication, baby"
Two weeks time
Pick me up, shake me
Take your medication
Cause numb is better than lonely
Though lonely was better than you
Haunt me if you want to 
But I just want to sleep.

Sleep
Perchance to dream
Of nothing
I'm crawling out my skin
And opting in
To medicated sleep. (X2)

Sleep (Demo)

Lyrics:

I may have got the talent
But I never got the tits
They say 'dance like no-ones watching'
And that's cause no-one is
With a gift for words like this
You need a face to match
Except when I fell out the ugly tree
I got caught on that branch
And I've been hanging somewhere in between
Since 1998
For my face to grow into my nose
Or nose into my face
Let's say the problem's not all that
It's stature or my voice
A tonedeaf, tosspot toddler 
Who will not share her toys
Aren't I such a sport? 
Of course, I'm just one of the blokes 
If you don't wait for the punchline 
You'll never get the joke
We misplaced just one chromosome
Your girl can't get the parts
To make a living just like you
A poor man's Cooper Clarke.
A poor man's Cooper Clarke
She said
A poor man's Cooper Clarke
Doctor, doctor
I'd rather be dead
Than a poor man's Cooper Clarke.

Doctor, Doctor

Best enjoyed through headphones. Alone. In the dark.

Lyrics:

I'm not coming out with a side hustle
I'm gonna be lucky if I make it out functional
I already hate people, and
Now I'm stuck with a bunch
For the fucking foreseeable
And on the off chance I escape it
To make shit
There's no social distance on Facebook
"Oh my god I thought you'd died!"
"My sister makes macramé give it a like" and
"Would you like to buy shares in my future endeavours?"
It's all peer pressure leverage and
Quarantine decadence
I don't mean to be negative
But I'm starting to suspect that my art is all bollocks
Can't I call in sick to the pub quiz?
Or the office?
Or the facetime with relatives
Who barely acknowledged I existed before this?
It's laughable
Like the right-wing's rhetoric
Laughable

It's been said that I get too serious
So I'm gonna let you in on an itty bitty secret
I kind of hope most of my exes
You know, don't die
But at least get a bit sick
Before you start lighting up the torches
And sharpening the pitchforks
Don't pretend you haven't thought it
You're no better than me
So you better keep your hands clean
Count to twenty for safety
Breathe x3
Ever think you might be going crazy?
Breathe x3
Trapped behind the double glazing
Staring to believe that there's nowt worth saving
Breathe x3

Breathe

Lyrics:

It's in the way you look at me
As if we never met before
You asked me for some space
And then the space replaced the metaphor
And I ain't got the time 
Or the money or the energy
To launch an expedition to the edges
Of your galaxy and knock on the door
Of your subterranean home
Say "Can James come out to play today? 
I'm feeling so alone."
It took me decades just to get here
In that time we grew apart but
You were still the first to map me out
As if I was a star
You told me:
I should cut my hair jus' like the women in your magazines
I should wear my glasses if I think it might make you respect me
Earth girls are so easy, yeah
You've seen it all before
With my feet on the floor
I think you're better off in orbit.

Shoot for the moon
What's the worst that could happen?
I'll lie here in the gutter
With a view of the stars and
I Might never know why he
Found the Earth lacking 
But I bet I could fake it
If you hum a few bars.

I hate the way he speaks 
Like we arranged the constellations
But the Earth it never moved for me
And neither did the heavens, no
And I ain't got the time
Or the money or the energy
To run a rescue mission
When there isn't one for me
When I can be replaced
Like the sole on a shoe
You say, "These boots were made to moonstomp
Babe, they'll walk right over you!"
And then you told me I was cruel
Because I put it in a letter but
The atmosphere's just better
Anywhere that you're not present
Tell him:
I won't cut my hair just like the women in your magazines and
I won't wear my glasses cause I know it won't make you respect me
Earth girls are so easy, please
I've seen it all before
With my feet on the floor
I think you're better off in orbit.

Orbit

*Thinks Your Knob Is Massive

Lyrics:

So I'm sitting by the the bar
And I'm feeling out of place
He walks up
"Great body it's a shame about the face,
Have you looked in the mirror lately?
Babe you're a disgrace
But I'd probably do you anyway."
Wait, what?
Mate, no...
Let me tell you how it's gonna go. 
You're gonna take your skinny tie
And your little trilby hat
In your Clarkson jeans
You're old enough to be my dad
And you'll walk right back
To your flat to feed the cats
Cause you only see your kids 
On the weekend.

I'll learn to take a compliment
When you learn to pay one properly
I'm sorry I don't want a man to treat me like a princess and buy me Louboutin heels
But I'm an ardent anti-monarchist
And I can barely walk in flats.

I've this thing with social media
It leaves me feeling cold like
I'm too poor
Too fat
And too old
Aren't I lucky there's so many guys
To give me my big break
Sliding into my DM's
With a dick pic and a mixtape. 
Ick.
Just...no.
Let me tell you how it's gonna go.
I've got a link to my back catalogue
I think that you should see it
You can go support my music
With your wallet not your penis
And try being less heinous
It's as easy as can be
Start by switching off your monitor
And getting in the sea.

As a matter of fact
Yes, I do think I'm too good for you
I'm also too good for
Tories
Racists
TERF's
Homophobes
Xenophobes
And the landed gentry.

Oh, oh, you can say it's to be expected
Oh, oh, like it's the price for being seen
Oh, oh, if you won't publicly protect us
Oh, oh, don't cry to me from the guillotine.

I Bet Your Mum*

Sick of being artistically ripped off and relegated to the role of 'feminist poet girlfriend', corporationpop emerged from Northern beat poet Elise Hadgraft's late night drinking sessions in a suburban, Stockport kitchen.

Three years later she’s found herself sober, firmly over thirty and about to release her first collection with Verve Poetry Press.

Over the coming weeks you’ll be able to download the full corporationpop back catalogue from here, absolutely free: https://corporationpopband.bandcamp.com/

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