to hell with love
to hell with truth
to hell with pulling out the tooth

to hell with light
to hell with spark
to sit there crying in the dark

oh pity me!
oh pity you!
to hell with green and red and blue

refurbishment, maintenance, glue
and turquoise, gold and silver too
and nourishment
and who we screw

and living the same day anew
again, again, again, again
is anyone out there my friend?
will you like me if i lend you

my fav’rite little pet a while
just don’t return a crocodile
and if you do, is that ok?
‘s that what i am? and will my right

to be so different day to night
bring on a bitter, painful end


surrounded not by caring friends
but nurses, doctors, gurneys, ropes

and catheters and stethoscopes
and offal, coughing, spitting, hope
destroyed against medicine’s wheel
and products of the poppy fields

and byproducts of carbon life
subsumed by earth, and rotted
and rerotted, dug up and
refined and pressed
into a pill, then smartly dressed

just cannot lose their life-force, still
they’re not your friend
and they can kill
and def’nitely
will make you ill

and make you talk a load of... quite
the opposite of what you should
cause what is good is what is good
for you and me and all the others

we are all man!
we are all brothers!
we are not wood!
we are all lovers

friends and neighbours
thieves and thugs
and my one wish, for just today
’s that violence would go somewhere
and die a death
in pain, agony
out of breath
sobbing at the consequence
of it’s own nature’s abhorrence
without a blanket, hope of drugs
tortured by a bunch of thugs

can i be sure that i am real?
can i be sure that i am right?
is it the case that i don’t steal?
and yellow, purple, black and white

are my principles watertight?
i got so gone the other night
i can’t remember if my sick
had ended up on some prick’s dick
he doesn’t have a goal
he tends to micro-manage
he tries to have control
cause it tends to limit damage

she thought she had a heart
but that was made of coal
was tearing her apart
cause she could not find her soul

or another to connect
what she felt to what she thought
she always had it all
but she felt it came to nought

all along the way
both destroying to create
and all they ever needed
was a lover, and a mate
and another to reflect
that what they thought that they needed
was really what had stopped them
and impeded, not succeeded

and both were full of doubt
feeling empty and alone
a whimper or a shout?
a sponge perhaps, or stone?

but perhaps it had to be
we had desires we had to sate
before we understood
about the need to procreate

d’ya think that i’m ok?
d’ya think that i’m a nut?
it really doesn’t matter
don’t believe that you’re a slut

and all along the way
trying never to be cut
keeping third eye on the ceiling
stumbling backwards, eyelidshut

i can move the earth
and you can be the sky
so long as we keep it simple
do our best to never lie

as long as we relate
instead of trying to die
taking photos of the birds
in the sunlight flying by

to hell with doubt
to hell with pain
to hell with all that is insane
to hell with jealousy and hate
to hell with that old passive state;
the halfway house twixt life and death
and wasting all that precious breath

on careless fools
and wasted scum
and potholes, faultlines
rashomon

and going out and getting gone
just safety, home, no telly on
just ping-pong, heartbeats
back and forth

the compass sharply pointing north
so that we know where on this earth
springs the water of our worth
a surplus, not a sorry dearth

quarks and quanta
strings and waves
not drug parties
and techno raves

cause life is lived in analogue
hysterical and primal cry
and zeros, ones and gog-magog
to the tree-frog don’t apply

and mass has magnetism, true
so i believe what we should do ’s
not try to be the right way up
or fill right to the brim the cup

but every day, and all the time
is do our best to bear in mind
that surely opposites attract
and think, perhaps, that what we lacked

was turning around, with back to back
with third eyes shut, near heart-attack
and in denial we’re not treasure
take away the very pleasure
we’re together to imbibe
it’s getting harder to describe now
but here goes: god damn, i’ll try:
bi-polarity’s no lie

and mass improperly aligned
and out of touch
with signals, signs
and signifiers
has capacity
whilst still relating in a way
to destroy the everyday
and make together untogether
and repulse
in equal measure

all colours unified are white
and black is just absence of light
put them together, you get grey
funny thing is, that’s just OK!

oh look at me!
oh look at you!
to hell with all that is not true

affirmative, to all above
and in the end, there’s only love


henry marsh, 6 jan 2012

19  To Hell And Back  Henry Marsh  Paris Guns 2

08  Once Again In Earnest  Henry Marsh  Paris Guns

07  Seamus Seacaptain  Henry Marsh  Paris Guns 2

06  Right Hook  Henry Marsh  Paris Guns 2

05  Leave You As I Found You  Henry Marsh  Paris Guns 2

04  Stone Lion  Henry Marsh  Paris Guns 2

03  Midnight On The Common  Henry Marsh  Paris Guns 2

02  Rattle Snake Thief  Henry Marsh  Paris Guns 2

01  Paris Guns Theme  Henry Marsh  Paris Guns 2

07 Black Beauty  (written By Brian King)  Henry Marsh  Paris

the last track Henry was working on - very raw but powerful

hiya there's a fierce queen
not introverted,or obscene
or paranoid,or schizophrene
but stronger than paroxetine

along the way,a victory march
my ides grown upon the larch
my collar held up not by starch
but by a rattlers singing snatch

Let's build a ballista
Let's build a ballista
My flick-knife in my pocket
My flick-knife in my pocket (rpt)

a batch was brewed before the storm
by witches wanton and forlorn
forewarned is nought but fangs full formed
and strider was a roses thorn

bereft about a farm she cried
the tongue a-shaking since he died
a death of his own making,not
just one,but two in his mind's cot

Let's build a ballista
Let's build a ballista
My flick-knife in my pocket
My flick-knife in my pocket (rpt)

howard's end was ignominious
the shutter nigh on clicked continuous
however,he had left a tally
blowing on the capercaillie

well,i've been thinking 'bout my baby
i know she's thinking about me
and when i think about my baby
i know our love just cannot be

and when the moon is on the wax and
witches saddle up their brooms
the wind it blows and blows and stacks and
thunder and lightning tear the room

Let's build a ballista
Let's build a ballista
My flick-knife in my pocket
My flick-knife in my pocket (rpt)

out of the woods and into the dark 
happy as larry and mad as a lark
fast as a quanta,quick as a quark
zippy as bungle and woody as mark (rpt)

06 Ballista

Mrs Gilbert’s Nightmare

I trod on the kitten’s tail
Has not talked to me for days
She just pads about with claws out
And her funny, feline ways
And this love, love, love, love
Crazy love
Will shorten my days

Now I’m playing with the birds
In a game I just cant win
‘Cause the distance from the border 
To the border is so thin
And this love, love, love, love
Crazy love
Is doing me in

Ah, but Mrs. Gilbert’s Nightmare wasn’t real
And Mrs. Gilbert’s Nightmare was akin
To feeling all dried
All inside
When the water creeps in




I took all my pretty things
And I put them in a box
Then I left them down the bottom
Of the garden for the fox
And this love, love, love, love
Crazy love
Is right on the rocks

Ah, but Mrs. Gilbert’s Nightmare wasn’t real
Mrs. Gilbert’s Nightmare was akin
To feeling all dried
All inside
When the water creeps in

And what’s a dog supposed to do
Now that he’s done his tricks for you?
And you tell the poor mutt: ‘More’ 
And push his nose into the floor

How’s a guy supposed to feel
Now that you’ve broken on your wheel
All the things that we held dear?
Perish the thought, give in to fear


Pinned her down the other day
On a matter of the heart, 
She admits she put the taper
To the paper for a start
And this love, love, love, love,
Crazy love
Is off of the chart

Ah, but Mrs. Gilbert’s Nightmare wasn’t real
Mrs. Gilbert’s Nightmare was akin
To feeling all dried
All inside
When the water creeps in

And what’s a dog supposed to do
Now that he’s done his tricks for you?
And you tell the poor mutt: ‘More’ 
And push his nose into the floor

How’s a guy supposed to feel
Now that you’ve broken on your wheel
All the things that we held dear?
Perish the thought, give in to fear

Mrs Gilbert's Nightmare

Asylum Life

I like to play dominos
In the little white room
Where all my friends go
Oh, they know 
How I got in here
And life adds up to more than years
 
I like to eat my breakfast in bed
Bacon, ketchup and bread, oh
 
But they wanna watch me with that fork
Yeah, they better watch me with that fork...
 
Or they'll get another episode of...
Asylum life
 
I like to keep my books in a line
Stop me wasting my time
Trying to find them
 
And its good when I can call up my mum
A boy's only real chum 
Is his mater, oh
 
But a-when she tells me that I'm bad
Things tend to get a little out of hand
Yeah, a-when she tells me that I'm bad
They wanna watch me...
 
Who wants another episode of...
Asylum life?
 
Slow bliss, oh, as I ride on my pills
Like I've been pickled with dill
And then eaten
And they stop it from occurring to me I've been cheating
 
And slow bliss, oh, as i lay in my bed
Hearing the hum in my head
Like an engine
With all the gears worn smooth from overzealous tending
 
God, I wish they's help me when i scream
Oh, instead of being so bloody mean
Yeah, I wish they'd help me when I scream
And not squeeze me!
 
Then they wonder why I'm stuck inside, oh...
Asylum life
 
"No, no, no listen! We're all children,and we're in the garden,and we've got to look after the germs... yeah, germs!"

(Produced by Lee Knott and Henry Marsh)

Asylum Life

Not To Be

i remember saturdays gone by
when i sat there in my room and cried
for all the things that might have been
i wondered why you weren’t my queen

‘cause it was not to be, not to be

i had it backwards from the start
i went and let you break my heart
and though i could’ve run away 
sucker for punishment l stay

and it was not to be, not to be

along the hills and through the grass
the snake was here long before us
and as i walked my chest was bare
she went and stuck her fangs in there

‘cause it was not to be, not to be

looking back today
it just fades away
into the sky just like a blue balloon

it’s so hard to say 
why we act the way
we do when we’re not going nowhere soon

Not To Be

HENRY MARSH - PARS GUNS TWO:

'I’d rather be somebody’s everything
	      than to be something to everybody'

To mark what would have been his thirty-second birthday, this is the second collection of Henry Marsh's remastered songs written between 2003 and 2012. 

'...in the end, there’s only love'


HENRY MARSH - PARIS GUNS:

‘Life adds up to more than years’

This is the first posthumous album from Paris Guns, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Henry Marsh’s last musical project before his suicide aged thirty. In the note he left for his family, Henry said that he hoped they could do something with his music, so twelve songs (of forty recordings) have been selected and remastered. 

Henry described his music as pop – ‘like a bubble’ that you immerse yourself in briefly – and his songs are filled with humour and heartache. Henry was a perfectionist, meticulously layering instruments and vocal harmonies, but the songs are always lyric-driven: ‘re: songs/words. I think that to listen to a song and say you don't notice the words is roughly equivalent to looking at a painting and saying you don't notice the composition: you do, it has a profound and overarching effect upon the viewer/listener’. The power of his lyrics, which became more abstract over time, can be seen in the dark love song My Joanna, through the guitar-led rock of Satan Sent Superted to the Van Morrison-acknowledging folk of Mrs Gilbert’s Nightmare, culminating in the surreal epic Cast Warrior. 

Of the twelve songs, just two were recorded in studios (Satan Sent Superted and Asylum Life): all but one (Waving Balloons) were played and recorded by Henry at home, and range from the one-take guitar and vocal rawness of Carpe Crematoria to the multi-layered richness of Box of Tricks. 

Named after the biggest gun ever made (an inefficient beast with a 30-metre barrel, that shot 84 kg shells to a range of 81 miles and was fired only once in WWII), Henry Marsh – Paris Guns is ‘a weapon of love’ that needs to be fired again and again. 

Driven by what he described as ‘the engine in [his] head’ that he couldn’t shut down, and inspired by his wide-ranging musical influences, Henry created his own uniquely English cross-genre style. Some of his favourite musicians were Syd Barrett and early Pink Floyd, The Velvet Underground, Belle and Sebastian, Madness, Joanna Newsom, Bob Dylan, The Clash, Robert Wyatt, LCD Soundsystem, The Tiger Lillies, Paul Simon and The Pogues. 

He taught himself to play guitar, bass, harmonica and piano, and began to write and record music in his early teens, finding a way to express his dark, sometimes comic, vision. Fiercely intelligent and with an insatiable hunger for knowledge and new experiences, he was affected by alcohol and drug dependence from his mid teens. After dropping out of his A-levels, he started but didn’t complete a music technology course and then worked in bars and on building sites. In 2003, he recorded with musician and band manager Lee Knott and they produced a six-song EP, My Fondness for Shelled Animals. The next year, Henry moved to Brighton to study songwriting at BIMM (2004–05), collaborating with other musicians then and for the next two years, and playing a handful of gigs. 

In 2007, soon after returning to London, Henry witnessed the death of a close friend in a horrific road accident: the trauma changed his course in life, deepening a dependence on alcohol and drugs that now included heroin. At the end of 2011, he went into rehab and quit all substances. He then threw himself back into his music with Paris Guns. Feeling reborn and that he was going to set the world on fire, Henry was ablaze with productivity in the first half of 2012, writing and recording about a dozen songs as well as re-recording many previously written ones. He had often said that he didn’t think he would make it past thirty, so his family and friends were overjoyed when not only did his birthday come around but he was also happy, clean and sober. However, not long after that, with six months' sobriety, Henry was hit by a deep depression. He was not able to find his way out and tragically committed suicide in July.

‘Paris Guns are a-(weapo)n ov love’ 

Remastered by Micky Portman.

Henry Marsh - Paris Guns

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