Musicians from Uganda, India and Brazil jam out a new version of The Tell-Tale Hound

Un-Convention: In Place Of War Project (Rehearsal 1) - THE TELL-TALE HOUND

Second studio album by Manchester Dirt-Swing outfit The Bedlam Six. Released on Debt Records 03/03/14. For more information about the album visit www.bedlamyouth.com

Waiting For Bad News

The Debtor's Wife

Final track from the Bedlam Six's second studio LP "Youth"
Album available from www.bedlamyouth.com

LYRICS:

The book of my life may be second hand
But you may still find a few petals
Pressed between its pages.
I’ll give you all the ellipses and ampersands
If you just save your etceteras for me.

I knew you were crying in the next room
But I feigned a deafness
To the patter of those tears.
I tried to find inspiration in a vacuum
But I lacked the provision of years.

Our lives were elsewhere and we knew it,
So with a sundial for a compass
We turned away from the light.
But between opening that door
And walking through it
The roads all receded from sight.

And I know

I’m not all that you wanted
But I’ll be all that you need
For the day, the night
And everything in between.

I will never feel easy in this skin
So I will only accept happiness
When there is nothing left to long for.
I’ve no time for the times we are living in,
They are just a tourniquet
For glory days gone before.

I hear regrets are always the last to leave
As we move further away
From the memories that define us.
You can take hope
And you can take heaven,
But not simultaneously.
Our footprints don’t remain long behind us.

I’m not all that you wanted
But I’ll be all that you need
For the day, the night
And everything in between.

You said you’d rather see the devil in its true form
Than embodied in the deeds of men and boys.
Don’t wish these worries dead,
Prefer them unborn;
This isn’t silence,
We’re just waiting for noise.

I’m not all that you wanted
But I’ll be all that you need
For the day, the night
And everything in between.

Yes the book of my life is second hand
But what Fate annotates can never be erased.
How long will I stay?
As long as I can stand.
Always, always, always.

I’m not all that you wanted
But I’ll be all that you need
For the day, the night
And everything in between.

LOUIS BARABBAS & THE BEDLAM SIX - All That's In Between

﻿﻿﻿Recorded on The Bedlam Six's day off in Amsterdam during 2014 European tour. 
Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGtAU7J5VrE

Song by Louis Barabbas
Performed by The Bedlam Six
Produced by Kneebone
Video by Matilda Smith

Kneebone appears courtesy of Pigeon Horse Sex Tennis
Thanks to Arnout and Snowapple

LYRICS

Girl there ain't no name for this kind of weather
I can barely see the sunlight at all
And though this may have all been my doing
Hell, that still don't mean it ain't all your fault 

Anything that doesn't end badly, baby
Hasn't really ended at all
Yeah we had a lot of high hopes but sadly
One by one they're starting to fall

And it's a long long long way down

We're lingering on the brink of the pit now darling
There's a hopeless drone of too many flies
But just because you can't buy it, honey
That don't mean it don't have a price

Yes it's a long long long way down

Girl, show me your loneliness
And I'll show you mine
I can't recall the past you created for us
But there's still time

We're riddled with the ghosts of the yet still living
Slaking our thirst upon times gone by
Proposing a toast to the forgotten forgiven
Cursing the clocks as they count down our lives
I feel empty
Yet heavy
The ground is unsteady
I'm losing my nerve
I'll never be ready
Damn all your loving
And damn all your lies
Damn the sweet nothings
Damn these goodbyes

Its a long long long way down
It's a long long long way down

LOUIS BARABBAS & THE BEDLAM SIX - Long Way Down

First single from new album "Gentle Songs Of Ceaseless Horror"
Watch the music video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUCfNNL64iY

Written by Louis Barabbas
Produced by Biff Roxby at WR Audio

Louis Barabbas - Vocals, Guitar
Phill Howley - Drums
Joel Roberts - Bass
Fran Lydiatt - Organ
Biff Roxby - Brass, Synths, Strings and various noises

LYRICS:

You did this to me
In a siege both soft and slow
The venom now runs deep
And the rivers overflow

You did this to me
At the ruin of the day
I still recall the scene
You wore green and I wore grey

You did this to me
Lifted the veil off your intent
Revealed the hole hidden beneath
Down and down it went

You did this to me
As the leaves began to fall
Exposed your heart and all its teeth
While shadows dripped from every wall

We returned to a world of corners
On a sea without a tide
Always trying to go forwards
But only ever moving side to side

And down in the froth and foam
Where we began to sink
I dreamed you'd been sculpted out of precious stone
While I was merely pen and ink

You did this to me
As the mad studied the sane
In all their grim varieties
Their endless shapes and shades

You did this to me
Yeah you did this to me
You did this to me
Yeah you

www.louisbarabbas.com

You Did This To Me

The sparsest and most melancholy number on my upcoming solo album "Gentle Songs Of Ceaseless Horror".
Music video (featuring real ACTUAL human tears) here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkZkRlEocmI

Lyrics:

We are the stuff of archive not of history
The sea at high tide not the stones it leaves
Something said alone
But not done

I held my breath as I reached the shore
We owe this world one death and nothing more
Thought I was home
But I was wrong

When I heard which way you’d gone
I ran all the way
Give me old friends
Over young love any day

We are the stuff of archive not of history
Not the trees that grow high but the fallen leaves
You’re on my mind
All the time

When I heard which way you’d gone
I ran all the way
Give me old friends
Over young love any day

We are the stuff of archive not of history
The more we survive the less our lives mean
What would I do
Without you?

The Stuff Of Archive

There are those in the world that choose to die for what they're feeling
But their feelings would never choose to die for them.
If emotions had skin then half of mine would be peeling
Like petals departing the stem.
There are no degrees of greatness,
There's just greatness and then there's the rest.

Luck is my drug,
I just need another hit,
One tiny taste and that'll be it.

We're all formed in the forge of the rotten parts of heaven
Without ever being told what we're designed to be.
It looked like it took a lot of time to learn all those lessons
But now Time won't learn anything from me.
Because I dreamt of a day when Fate lost its teeth
And on pillows we lay with them hidden underneath.

Luck is my drug,
I just need another hit,
One tiny taste and that'll be it.

Now every soul I see wears the stain of superstition,
So gloriously pointless like a retrospective premonition.
Let's all dive where it's deepest and speed where none have sped,
We'll ride the wave while it knows no ebb.
Before Time's tidal lines leave their trace on my face
With memories that linger like a stale aftertaste.

Luck is my drug,
I just need another hit
One little dose and that'll be it.
Just one tiny taste
And that'll be it.

One Tiny Taste

LYRICS:

I was always almost a good man
But I've never been almost great.
And you watched me rue all the rest.
Though I trust you with my disrepair
More than love and more than hate
It's for the things that are torn
In the thick of the dawn
That I wait.

Some lives are just loose ends to sew
And our threads are still entwined
They are bound fast around all I have left.
You gave me a song in a watch
It would play and I would wind
But the last time it did
I unclasped the lid
Too late

For inside the case I saw more than one face
As the hands both raised to noon
And when counting the cogs in the musical box
I forever lost its tune

One day I awoke from our love
As though from a pleasant dream
Each kiss was an abyss without end.
At its core were two fictions made flesh
With this song their epilogue
That the tiny tuned teeth
Rotating beneath
Will attest

You said you'd stay with me always.
Was that a promise or a threat?
Now you're not around I don't know.
You left me these words but no voice
Just tones tapped on tin
And as the cylinders slow
The keys it should toe only rust 
 
I dream every night
That the wraith personae
Dance to Clair De Lune
But when counting the cogs in the musical box
I forever lost its tune

Each tick of this clock is a beat
Of my heart as it once was.
Oh you are still beautiful now.
I wasn't cold until you showed me that warmth
In the time between the tunes
Our lives were to be
Played in the wrong key
And too low.

I'm losing my way
More and more every day
And I know I'm losing you too
So I'm drawn to follow
All the silent echos
Of old bones
Because counting the cogs in a musical box
Will never explain its tune
Before it began
And long after its end
I have known
Our waltz was always to be 
Over too soon


Musical Box (featuring Liz Green)

Come let me in
I'm soaked to the skin
And the wind begins to blow
The sand in the hourglass has turned to snow
But if you let me lie
Awhile by your side
I will stay with you until the dawn

Where did they go
All those tomorrows
That turned and fled so fast
I've no plans for the future
Just for the past
I don't fear the fall
I don't fear it at all
But I call call call to you
Don't face this fall alone.

For blood still flows
Where once it flowed
Still flows though now so slow 
I can't give you joy
But I'll take your woes
Widow
If you let them go

I should've stayed
If only to fade
Along with the photographs
Age is a disguise we can't take off
How can you deny
The lure of these lies
And why why why
Won't you lie to me no more?

Blood still flows
Where once it flowed
Still flows though now so slow
I can't give you joy
But I'll take your woes
Widow
If you let them go.

Widow

No lies
I've seen through them all
And looked out the other side
Over all those sorry goodbyes
We throw away
Like so many broken toys
Heaped up in a pile
With their painted on smiles

As we doubt
The beliefs we can't live without
Well they come and they go
Turning from icons to logos
And I
I talked to myself all my life
But my Self never once replied

I said Boy
The only thing that'll last is your shame
It'll cling and stick fast to your name
And remain
The one beast you can't tame
But have faith
Just not in myths

Sometimes
As I read between the rhymes
I dream of how to
Empty my heart of you
So I'm tense
Future, past and present
At the edge of his thoughts
A man sees all sorts
So I keep a picture of her with me
Although it's more of a diagram
But who gives a damn?

Because boy
The only thing that'll last is your shame
It ain't joy we measure love in
It's pain
And gain
And more of the same
But have faith
Just not in myths

{instrumental}

Because boy
The only thing that'll last is your shame
Your heart beats in time to the blame
That stain won't wash away
But have faith
Just not in myths

When my soul is weighed upon the scales
And I can pore over the souvenirs
Of all the years
I know some maps can show you too much
And some merely show you the way

Turn the keys in all the locks
Take the puppets from the box
Stop the cogs in all the clocks
Because a moment of defiance
Turned our magic into science
And I long to return
So come let's mend our tempers
Throw earth upon the embers
And cease to be, yet still become.

What goes on will go on
And on and on
But boy we don't go on
For long.

Faith In Myths

Let Me Down Slow

Last Chance Romance

Lately

A demo of the opening number from my musical tragedy JOCASTA. The final version will be a touch slower, feature an orchestra and be sung by Rioghnach Connolly.

Lyrics:

Ignore the clocks ticking and chiming
I warn you don't ever take their bait
Round here it don't matter what the time is
Because round here it's always too late

Some towns chew you up
This one digests you slow 
You might as well just give up
It'll never let go
I've been searching all evening
For a game that ain't rigged
There's only one way of leaving
Get a shovel and dig

Welcome to the upside down
Welcome to the inside out 
You won't find many new ideas in this town
No one ever thought to try one out

They built things to last
But they didn't build them to work
The funny thing about the past
It has a tendency to lurk
Around every corner
And down every drain
Rising up to warn you
Again and again

Welcome to the upside down
Welcome to the last slither of soap
There ain't a lot of optimism floating around
Even the circling vultures have given up hope

We've got low expectations
And high rates of tax
Blood is spilt on occasion
But it soon dries in the cracks

It's one long wrong foregone conclusion

This is no longer about fathers and sons
More of worlds that are starting to shrink
Weeping mothers giving suck to their young
Tender as scabs picked down to the pink
This tale is tired of the telling
It don't want to unfold
It's sobbing and yelling 
To never ever be retold
While the promises pile up 
But nobody's counting
The rivers turn to slop
That ain't fit to drown in

Welcome to the upside down
Welcome to the shadow of the doubt
The house lights have faded now
But that don't mean you can just sit this one out

Everyone here is so proud
Everyone here is so prone
No matter how big the crowd
We still feel alone

How did it ever come to this?
How did it ever come to this?

Welcome To The Upside Down (demo)

Interview with Tom Robinson on BBC Radio 6 Music about by musical "Jocasta" (among other things). Broadcast live from Wogan House, London in Summer 2017.

BBC 6 Music interview with Tom Robinson

The third studio record by Louis Barabbas & The Bedlam Six. Recorded on 24th, 25th and 26th August 2011 at a house on the south coast of England.

Living In The Aftermath

Words by John Cooper Clarke, Music by Louis Barabbas. 
Commissioned as part of John Cooper Clarke's 60th Birthday Celebrations.

Heart Disease Called Love

Writer, musician, dubious pundit. 
Artistic Director at Debt Records, member of Un-Convention, radio presenter for Fab Radio International, Musicians' Union Live Performance Committee member, moderator for Tom Robinson's Fresh On The Net, lead singer for The Bedlam Six.

Louis Barabbas

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