5 days a week, 9 hours a day,
only lunch and 15 minutes of bliss
with a hardcore mag and a packet of fags
to dull the daily drag through this
is getting you down. So on it goes:
Friday nights on the piss and comatose
weekends that suck out and swallow your brain
until Monday AM when it's shat back again.

And you know
there's really nowhere else for you to go.
And you know
there's really nowhere else for you to go
at all at all and

all your life was coming to this,
from your first day at school to your last at college
on the assembly line. Now you're 29
and you're wondering why it is you spend so much of your time
feeling stupid and sad when you're set up secure.
You got promotion on the cards and a hangover cure
and your mum and your dad are so proud of you
because your pension plan's good and you earn more than they do

and you know
there's really nowhere else for you to go.
Yeah you know
there's really nowhere else for you to go
at all at all at all.

5 days a week, 9 hours a day
you got a hunch that there's someone been taking the piss
because if this is the good life you'd rather be poor.
Now you can't figure out what you're doing it for.


Office Boy Blues

So you can't decide
what to do with your life
and your mum says she can't buy
your way out of this situation
so your complications
keep on coming around,
coming around and coming around again.

So you're fresh out of college
in a mess and your knowledge it
never taught you anything
but how to pass exams
so your hands fumble useless
with the pieces of your chaos
and you can't see how they jigsaw
into the pretty pictures
that you'd dreamed.

So you glean an existence
sweeping floors and scrubbing dishes,
yeah a real life cinderella,
while the rain drills holes through your umbriella
day after day
and every day the same old thing.
It's not much of a life but, hey,
it's a way to make a living.

So now you come around to us, sold
ounce by ounce and pound by pound, sold
to the highest bidder:
a lardy boss that calls you 'kidda'.
So what did you expect?
You know this is as good as you're gonna get.
Welcome to the real world, honey.
You belong to us with da money.

So it's not much of a life
but it's a way to make your living
and it might not feel quite right to you
but, hey, I make a killing.
That's business.
And what matters is
I pay your rent, I feed your kids.
I call the tune so you'll perform.
It's the only reason you were born.

Everyone's a whore, nothing less and nothing more.
Everyone's a whore, nothing less and nothing more.

Real Life Cinderella

Recorded not-quite-live in 2016 with my old cohorts Alex Palmer (drums) and Mario Rodriguez (bass/backing vocals) this is a version of a vintage soul number. Penned by songwriter Ed Cobb and originally a Brenda Holloway classic, I was more familiar with it through the Small Faces' excellent cover. 

I'd sat on it for about a year before adding the organ part which for me makes it complete.

Songs From the Red Room

Every Little Bit Hurts

The ground won't break me; 
I'll smash that fucker through, 
 splash through the blood like a diving pool
and swim up alive  
on the other side, 
 take a free ride  
outta time.

Nosedive.  
Nosedive.  
Nosedive.

Bye-bye, baby, goodbye. 
 Wipe those tears from your eyes. 
 Because everything's gonna be alright.  
I'm gonna sleep with an angel tonight.
You'll be just fine.  
Take a free ride  
outta time. 

 Nosedive.  
Nosedive.  
Nosedive.

And here I go…

That magnificent man in a flying machine….

Nosedive. 
Nosedive. 
Nosedive.

Nosedive

You fall like the fly on the eternal window
 trying to reach the other side, 
 a messiah sun on your crucifix sky  
burning you black until the newspaper cometh.

And O  is that all?

You fall and you climb and you climb and you crawl, 
 your dumfounded soul a putrescent slough  
of idiot hope, like a pauper to God,  
ever upwards yet upwards to  Nothing.

And O  is that all?   

Mine is a musicless mess mathematic.  
I crawl spastic to death, uh-huh.  
Mine is a musicless mess mathematic.  
I crawl spastic to death, uh-huh-huh.  
Spastic to death.   

But this universe, brittle with Reason and Law,  
gives in one instant of mutinous whim 
 in a riot of stars that smash heavenwards home, 
 all colour exploded as the love-chaos brims

as you splash through the glass like a stone,
as you splash through the glass like a stone.

Fly on the Window

God is the abyss at the end of reason, 
 diminishing always and yet infinite still, 
 forged in the blackness of the eternal night, 
 mine to create and mine to kill.

I'll make God from my blindness and name Him my light.  
I will follow Him into the hollows.  
He will die with me doubly as free as a kite  
as I gladly ascent to my sorrow

as I drop from my animal.

Heaven is mind, hell the libido.  
Man is the poor little pig in the middle, 
 dipshit with ego and plump for the picking,  
whose whole God-damned world is a-sizzle with bacon.

And I think of bold Sisyphus, battling his boulder, 
I think of old Abraham, God on his shoulder,  
neither one ever at peace, 
and I envy the dogs for their beasts

as I drop from my animal.

Everything flows, nothing stops.  
The living grows and the dying rots 
 and my liquid loves run on forever.  

Everything flows, nothing stops.  
The living grows and the dying rots  
and my liquid loves run on forever,  
my liquid loves run on until I

drop from my animal

like a stone

into the hollows.

Into the Hollows

So here you are back with that trash from the past, 
 wishing me wet from the poisonèd well.  
O the curse of that thirst!
 I sank sweetly to hell  when I drank from your grail.

We kill a tequila, toast  something or other.  
After all, we are not strangers -  
'To the unforgetting moon!' -  
for syne my doom from your hand  and the dust of my trust  
fell like the phantoms we knew.

And the sand in the hourglass ceased. The gods slept  
and the beast from his slumber arose.  
We were Greeks raiding Hades, you said - 'Just for kicks!' - 
as my idiot Orpheus froze in his tracks  
as the rats scratched a path to your door. 
as the rats scratched a path to your door.   

'Not strangers', you say through deciduous smiles,
'All the whiles of our once remain green.' 
Your cold guillotine, that thief of my dreams - 
 the whole rot-thickened plot rent my comedie vain.

O the dogs and their bitches are nobler wrought.  
Euridices, strangers we are not.  
No, I know all your ways  and I know just who pays  
and I know for what wage you are bought.

And the sand in the hourglass ceased as he crept.  
Did that thief in his teeth hold a rose?  
Who knows what deceits on his breath were confessed  
as my idiot Orpheus oblivious froze  
as the rat scratched a path to your door.

But that rat won't be coming back here no more.

My Idiot Orpheus

The heavens unfold their sorrowful robes  
and lay them black across a funeral sky.  
This land is dead and its body cold.  
No hand to hold have I
as winter frosts a rebellious blood 
 stern through dispassionate veins till I cry 
 in heathen rage, a-quiver with love:  
No hand to hold have I!

But the lunatic stir of that luminous moon  
chained by desire to the world  
wills love, distills love to summon me soon 
 and make a moon of myself  to some gravity's girl
spinning asunder in echoed reply:  No hand to hold have I! 
a hail of thunder in a single sigh: 
 No hand to hold have I!

But I'm only biding my time until that critical fault  
jolts and revolts my poor soul straight into 
 his blissful abyss as a runaway kiss answers true  
to someone new.  

On faithless feet I fever these streets  
seeking a silence from the babel inside.  
I walk rings around nameless things  
with nowhere to go and no place to hide,
only the bleak retreats of hungry dreams. 
 They gather in streams till they seep from my eye 
 and I come alone to a hollow home,  
cadaver my bones just a-twitching to die.

But the lunatic stir of that luminous moon  
still chains its desires to the world  
and from somewhere I'm snared by that subtle harpoon  
and I'm a moon in the stealth of your gravity, girl,
sending my prayers like a fool to the sky  
until your hand to hold have I. 
 I unfold my layers before the light of thine eye 
 and your hand to hold have I.

Clown Dedalus Boogie

I live in the United States 
 of Denial and Inebriation  
chasing dreams above my station.  
Mercifully I never reach them.  
I Brandoise my grandiose scenes  
contending that I could have been  
all those pretty little pumpkin plans  
et cetera, ad nauseam.

I'd like to think I'm learning.

Well I fell disgraced from outer space. 
I landed like a lizard, lost 
 my tail to some coyote and  
grew in its place a red guitar.  
(It played like masturbation.)  
I took peyote without reservation  
and found myself a face  
just to nail before my mirrors.

I'd like to think I'm learning.  
O I'd like to but I'm reeling.

Life's loving losers live and hope.  
Her weary winners know and rot 
 knowing what success is not, 
 knowing nothing more.  
O the maths of Man are various sums 
 that reach the same conclusions: ones.  
Thus the kings are equal to the bums.  
The game itself negates the score.

I'd like to think I'm learning.  
O I'd like to but I'm reeling  
in confusion and compunction 
 towards some functional delusion 
 just like any soft suburban schmuck  
or other breed of sucker, 
 feeding dreams like dung to dying.  
That doesn't look a lot like learning.

 O my heart is with Matilda 
 although my genitals are elsewhere.  
All the rest is neither here nor there.  
Scratching in the coop,  
my hatching truths remark  
through eggshell pasts and present cracks  
to a future out of sight  
that the darkness is part of the light.

And that's not a lot like learning.

Not a Lot like Learning

In a windy house  
my shrunken dreams 
 sup dishwater soup  
like little old men   

and even the louse 
 in the woodwork thrives better.  
The weather is hungry, 
 my hungering weary.   

The wild winds holler  
in Dorothy's bones.  
My hatter-headed lover,  
crack cackling, comes.   

This beery old winter, 
 this building I trawl  
(the attic's dead treasures,  
the cellar's wet coals),   

my leery old lecher,  
my teary St. Paul:  
set fire to them all, 
Mrs. Jones,  and be done.   

Into the summer  
a skyflame she goes,  
lifelight and lovèd 
 to the wizard of Oz.

A Windy House

Well he was quite the golden boy with quite the golden aura,  
the cat-footed chancer shaking that shiny-shiny thing,  
who on a whim could ferret in to the court of any king,  
charm, disarm and set at once about usurping him. 
 He'd sap the fat out of his friends, spend their money and their dreams  
while grinning golden dividends that never quite were what they seemed.  

(Go!)

 Yeah, Harry thought he had it sussed. That rat made monkeys out of us  
as he, a brother to our faces, picked the pockets of our secrets 
 weaving wages from our weakness, just as base as they come.  
He'd sell a kidney out of his mum if he thought that it might buy him free rent for a month.  
He had it coming, aye, and surely it came. 
 It came like God out of the sky to make that fucker rue the day.   

(Poor Harry!)   

The case was never solved. No one ever cared. 
 I guess the feeling was he got the justice he deserved  
and the cops, you know, they struggle on a poor policeman's pay.  
The price they ask these days… Poor Harry! 

 Many vengeances were visited. None of them was pretty.  
There was no bloodier ablution in the whole of Dupli City.  
They found him dripping from a skewer in a sewer of sin  
where all the sewer rats made one fat rat feast out of him, 
 hung like a South Korean dog, all sinew and teeth,  
their bloody snouts agog in his bloody underneath  
supping on the marrow, chewing on the fat.  
And that, my friend, was that for Harry the Rat.

(The Rise & Fall of) Harry the Rat

A true story about the time when Joe Viterbo supported ageing has-been Eric Faulkner from the Bay City Rollers at a wee pub in darkest Fife... with hilarious consequences. Lyrics by Rod Drysdale.

Once upon a time in Ceres came an angry little man.
He was once a pop star in a jolly famous band:
the Bay City Rollers. You must've heard of them
if you're of that generation. 'Bye Bye, Baby', 'Shangalang'.

Well this is how it happened. He was playing a wee gig
in the pub that I worked in because my boss had got him cheap.
We were all pure buzzing, all the punters up for it.
We were hoping he still had it & would roll out the hits.

But he did not.
He was a cock.
He was a 
walloper.
He had a huff,
he took a strop
& he threatened to walk off.
Some of the punters
they gave him pelters
& he didn't like that a jot.
He is so precious
& so tenacious,
yeah, he's Eric Faulkner.

Eric Faulkner.
He's a cock.

& he thought that he was Elvis but he's just a little tool.
He didn't like the sound & he didn't like the room.
He was rude to everybody & he couldn't even sing
& at least a dozen people'd paid a tenner to see him

& he fell out wi' the joiners fae Kirkcaldy at the bar.
He was cunty to the band that had supplied all the gear
& he didn't know the words to his ain stupit songs.
It was nearly fisticuffs, it was gonna kick off.

But they did not,
though he's a cock
& a
walloper.
He took a huff,
& had a strop
& he threatened to walk off.
Some of the punters
they gave him pelters
& he didn't like that one jot.
He's so tenacious
& bloody precious
yeah, he's Eric Faulkner.

He's a cock.
He's a cock.
He's a total total cock.
He's a cock.

At the end he shuffled off wi' his money & shit craic
& I think it's fair to say that he'll no' be coming back.
How old were you? Do you remember Faulknergate?
Once upon a time in Ceres. Can you say that you were there?

If you were not,
he was a cock.
He was a 
walloper.
He had a huff,
he took a strop.
I wish I'd told him to fuck off.
All of of the punters
they gave him pelters
& he didn't like that a jot.
& he's so precious
& so tenacious,
& he's Eric Faulkner.

Cock.

The Jakey Shakes

Joe Viterbo - The Ballad of Eric Faulkner

From the collection 'All of Me' readied in advance of my 2017 Edinburgh Fringe run. This was first recorded by The Specials on their seminal first album. I started performing it live in response to the Brexit abomination and the rise of racial aggression in its aftermath.

All of Me

Doesn't Make It Alright

From the collection 'All of Me' readied in advance of my 2017 Edinburgh Fringe run, this original number was recorded with the LegendaryGraemeMearnsBand featuring the talents of Ali Murray (drums) and Tony Makos (bass guitar).

A Palpitating Dawn

From the collection 'All of Me' readied in advance of my 2017 Edinburgh Fringe run, this song was created by late great Louis Jordan with lyrics from Eddie Lane. Another of my all-time favourites to perform.

It's Hard to Be Good Without You

From the collection 'All of Me' readied in advance of my 2017 Edinburgh Fringe run and featuring the exceptional talents of Ruxi Morton-Teng on vocals, this beautiful number was created in 1954 by pianist Erroll Garner, lyrics later supplied by Johnny Burke.

Misty

From the collection 'All of Me' readied in advance of my 2017 Edinburgh Fringe run, this song was created around 1930 by Gerald Marks and Seymore Simons and has been performed by pretty much every jazzer ever since. A timeless classic.

From the collection 'All of Me' readied in advance of my 2017 Edinburgh Fringe run, this song, created by Jimmy McHugh and Frank Loesser, was immortalised by the legendary Chet Baker and remains one of my all time favourites to perform.

Let's Get Lost

From the collection 'All of Me' readied in advance of my 2017 Edinburgh Fringe run. This song also featured on the eclectic 2015 album 'Midnight Limbo'; for reasons of continuity, it demanded to make a cameo appearance here too.

Love like a Murder

Penned by Rod Drysdale, this song was the last to be recorded by the sadly missed Newtown Grunts back in the 90s, and the first song to be knocked together by Joe Viterbo, whom I joined as lead guitarist in 2008. We've recorded it twice: there's a more produced version on the album 'Too Auld for the Disco'. But this version, recorded mostly live in the studio on 8 track, is my personal favourite: raw, noisy and straight from the heart. A different mix featured on the album 'Jaked, Baked and on the Make', released in 2014 and available through iTunes, Spotify and all the other usal places.

My regrets come all too late.
I just woke up. I wish I was dead.
If I could I'd change everything that I've done wrong
and take back everything I said to you.

I went on a 3-day bender
and I chatted up a belly dancer.
Now I'm drinking just to numb my brain
because I've come down and I feel rotten -
something to do with serotonin -
and I fucked up in front of you again.

Because when I saw you at the disco
I swore to you I loved you true.
But I was fucked. You realised that.
I'm sorry baby. 
It's always the same
with you.

My regrets come all too late.
I just woke up. I wish I was dead.
If I could I'd change everything that I've done wrong
and take back everything I said to you.

I was feeling up and feeling lucky.
I was full of base and full of Bucky.
I had my reasons, baby,
please believe me.
I went to a club that just played techno
and every bloody pub in Edinburgh
and I think that is where
you saw me.

And when I saw you I was wasted.
My shirt was off, I was on my knees.
Never again. You'll never change.
That was the last time.
You've run out of excuses.

My regrets come all too late.
I just woke up. I wish I was dead.
If I could I'd change everything that I've done wrong
and take back everything I said to you.

I need a reason
to stop myself
drinking my life away.
I need a reason
to stop myself
drinking me life away.

My regrets come all too late.
I just woke up. I wish I was dead.
If I could I'd change everything that I've done wrong
and take back everything I said to you.

Jaked, Baked & on the Make

Regrets - Joe Viterbo

A more violent number featuring my son Jamie on drums. 

With a tragi-prick sense of
The Right Thing here's Larry,
all sky-diamond eyes 
lilting lullaby Lucies
to love-sickened walls.
The whole house dry-heaves
and the last living rat
voids his bowels
& leaves

(Ha! Ha!)

with a tragi-prick boding 
of death in his balls.
He slicks back his whiskers
and whispers through walls

singing: 'Larry, your Jones
is a travesty, honey,
as limp-dicked as Coldplay,
all chickenshit. Hell! -
whatcha wanna-slash-gonnabe?
Whatcha wanna-slash-gonnabe:
a man or a Morrissey?
A man or a Morrissey?

That's the worst fucken thing
that it's possible to be.
That's the worst fucken thing
that it's possible to be.

(Ha! Ha!)

Well whadyaknow, Master Jones,
but to bait it?
Whadyaknow, Master Jones,
but to bait it?

Well?
Well?

Whadyaknow?

Written in August/September 2018 as I ruminated on the approaching winter - a horrible affair in Scotland, one that lasts approximately 11 months of the year and seems determined to kill me - and my own rapidly ageing self, this demo may make it to my new solo album.  I'm not 100% sure that the MIDI orchestration in the 2nd half was a good idea. But, in leiu of a real life full symphonic malarkey, I suppose it'll have to do. I may re-record the song later as a stripped-down piano number. Who knows?

Summer ends & wilted Larry,
waking from a dream of love,
sings a sweet song of sorrow.
That schmuck never learns.
But good luck to Larry
wherever he's bound.
There are no sky diamonds anymore
and Lucy's in the ground.

What a waste. What a disgrace.
You can almost taste dem bones decay.
Now Your Larryness, Larry's alive
with the river blues.
Race to the ocean.
Let your mermaids drown.
There are no sky diamonds anymore
and Lucy's in the ground.

Everybody knows how the garden grows.
The roses have their bulbs in hollow eyeholes.
Everybody knows how the garden flows.
You searched for forever.
Tell me what you found.
There are no sky diamonds anymore
and Lucy's in the ground.

Linger & linger
waiting for winter.
Linger & long for a spring
that won't ever come.
Summer's long gone, Larry,
come back down.
There are no sky diamonds anymore
and Lucy's in the ground.

Mr Graeme Mearns

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