LIFE WILL FIND YOU

I always hoped that life would find me
That it would take me by surprise
Dared to dream that life would find me
It didn't know I was alive

I wasn't alive

I was hoping for something
I was dreaming of something

But hopes and dreams they melt like snow
Stranded on the beach
Impossible illusions
Slip out of reach

Always hoped...
Dared to dream...
Dared to dream that life would find me
It didn't know I was alive

I wasn't alive

Always hoping for something
Always dreaming of something

But hopes and dreams will melt like snow
Stranded on the beach
Impossible illusions
Slip out of reach
Hopes and dreams dashed on a reef
Wash up on the beach
Implausible delusions
Slip out of reach

Life Will Find You

EXILE

The sun was climbing in the sky
Colours all around me
The street began to fill with cars
The drone of the engines
They looked so serious
That made me laugh
The noise and the dust
The blue and white sky overhead

I smoked a couple of cigarettes
Head full of dreams and broad daylight
It was hot under my dark clothes
Sweat was running down my face
Blood was rushing to my head
the sun and the silence
the day had stood still

The sky clouded over
A calm, gentle rain
Reflections on the pavement
And I am ashamed
Beating against closed doors
I felt a little cold
The stars are almost visible
Most people have gone home

Exile

In desperation
World-weary and resigned
I let the water take me
I was swallowed by the tide
Submerged, pulled under
Chilled to the bone
I thought I heard my mother’s voice
Calling me home

Pushed to the surface
A sudden rush of air
I struggled frantically
Courage had failed me

Gasping for breath
Carried by the tide

Waves crash against the shore
I’m on solid ground
Back in the middle of a life I’d left behind
Cough the water out
Eyes open wide
In spite of everything
I’m alive

Alive

On a high-wire
I was balancing
From a window ledge
I am falling

On a stricken ship
I am sinking
Overcome by waves
Dragged by the undertow

Merely human, all too human
I flew too close to the sun

Buried alive
Sealed inside a tomb
A bottomless pit
An open wound

Merely human, all too human
I flew too close to the sun

All Too Human

LIGHT YEARS AWAY 

Wish I could be with you
Wish I could stay
And we could be light years away

If only I could see you
If only I could stay
And we could be light years away

From their factories
And machinery
I wish I was light years away

From Institutions
And revolutions
I wish I was light years away

From Political strategies
and Police brutality
I wish I was light years away

Self-righteous hypocrites
And pious lunatics
I wish I was light years away

Broken hearts
And broken minds
I wish I was light years away

Humiliation
And degradation
I wish I was light years away

Fifty storeys high
I can almost touch the sky

A sky heavy with rain clouds 
Long-range transmissions 
Undercurrents we cannot see  
Travelling at great speed 
Caught in the slipstream
 The ground rises to meet me

Light Years Away

Although he did not believe in any form of afterlife, Francis Bacon believed passionately in art’s supreme function in this life to give substance and meaning to what he called the “brief interlude between birth and the grave”

All songs written and produced by Paul Blake
Guitar on all tracks Adam Yates
except Light Years Away  
written and recorded by Paul Blake/Les Smith/Mick Reed/James Reid

Interlude