Random Transmissions

A piano led, ambient track that, with the help of the lyrics and vocals from The Big Grey Man, tells a nautical story of ups and downs across the open seas.

Riptide

Riptide (Feat. The Big Grey Man)

Issues Road is a real place - on the way up to Holme Moss. It's also a state of mind. Anyone who thinks they're not on it is either very lucky or kidding themselves.

Come and ride the trail with us
In the footsteps of our fathers
It's a pity they got lost in time
Yeah they disappeared from trace just like us
Oh the stumbles of the past, well they build up too fast
We were reaping everything we sowed
We got tangled in the consequences
We got caught up on the Issues Road

It's a story of 
Rags to riches
And back again through muddy ditches
All in epic Yorkshire dialect
Really what did you expect?
It's a story of 
Snakes and Ladders
Sliding backwards like the clappers
Well we never really cracked the code
We got caught up on the Issues Road
By Jove!

Come and ride the trail with us
In the footsteps of our sisters
We were busy when adventure called
Yeah it's fair to say the good times missed us
I was working at the shop when opportunity knocked
Though I can't pretend I didn't know
Now it's black out over old Joe's mother's
And we're caught up on the Issues Road

It's a story of 
Rough and tumble
Ah, the Universe'll keep you humble
And kid I'll tell you this for nowt
You were there or maybe thereabouts
It's a story of 
Cops and Robbers
I think it's time I cut my losses
He's been jumping over all my rows
Left me stranded on the Issues Road
By Jove!

Come and ride the rocky trail with us
On the trail of all the haters and the burglars
Shout up on the air for the glory
1-0-7 'cos I don't think that they heard us
She'll be rattling the hangers in support
In the face of all the headaches and the grief
Heading out to Cape Verde
I don't think you heard me
Gotta grit your teeth for The Chief

Issues Road, Issues Road
Rainbow on the hillside, wind on the top
Issues Road, Issues Road
Keep fucking moving or we'll all seize up
Issues Road, Issues Road
We might be stuck in the mud, but we're not stuck in the past
Issues Road, Issues Road
If we ever get lost, just need to head for the mast

We're going nowhere, nowhere, nowhere, nowhere
Nowhere, 'cos that's where it goes
We're going nowhere, nowhere, nowhere, nowhere
Nowhere on the Issues Road
We're going nowhere, nowhere, nowhere, nowhere
Nowhere, 'cos that's where it goes
We're going nowhere, nowhere, nowhere, nowhere
Nowhere on the Issues Road
By Jove!

Issues Road

I am a curious creature
A spiral bound prisoner of sleepy lagoons
And when we meet in the future
I'll be a memory cast in the layers of stone
Of lava and silicon
Under the bladder wrack
Tentacles reaching in warm brackish pools
While rising land masses breed thunder and lightning
That rage as the turbulent world starts to cool

Riding saltwater currents in temperate seas
Underneath the foam and the mare's tails that dance in the breeze
The sparkle and shimmer of wide open skies
The embrace of sediment
Fossil Eyes
Yeah Fossil Eyes

I am an alien being
That drifts on mercurial currents of time
Until the eyes of a curious child
Fall bright on the shadows that I left behind
A life in transition, yeah
Literal, littoral.
Hiding in crevasses away from the sun.
The grinding of shingle banks
Guttural, guttural
Dies with the tide and our world is reborn

Riding saltwater currents in temperate seas
Underneath the foam and the mare's tails that dance in the breeze
The sparkle and shimmer of wide open skies
The embrace of sediment
Fossil Eyes
Yeah Fossil Eyes

Ammonite, Ammonite, cast in the jet
A guest from the past we can never forget
Ammonite, Ammonite, hidden from view
An echo persists when existence is through

Fossil Eyes

A metaphor for self-reliance, but also totally about the climbing knot

Bit by bit, hand over hand
Up by your bootstraps, stick to your plan

All the rapid ascenders, and death-mod descenders
And people so brave they abandon the rope
But I've got my prusik and that's what I'll use
To climb out of the darkness and into the hope

It's fair to say I'm difficult
But show me someone who is not
People are complicated you know
We'd have a tedious world if they weren't
The prusik will hold!

Inch by inch, hold after hold
Up by your bootstraps, out of the cold

Not enough turns and you'll slide down the mountain
Grip on too tight and you're stuck where you are
Don't lose your cool though, 'cos we've got the prusik
It won't let us down, well, it hasn't so far

It's fair to say I'm cynical
It's the way I've become over time
But even I still rely on the prusik
And I'm sure in the end we'll be fine
Grab your prusik and climb!

Is it prusik or prusik? Just dance to the music!
A Kleimheist just isn't the same
Use what you've got, you can't use what you've not
Oh the prusik, The prusik remains
The prusik remains!

Prusik

Basura is Spanglish for "trash" or in this sense "bulls**t". In 5/4 time with a bit of 4/4.

Another can of worms, another dose of protein
Red meat for the people, wipe the slate clean
Oh, tell 'em what you want
But they're gonna hear
What they want to hear

Another insect meal, a tasty arthropod
Make you crunch the shells and tell you when to shop
Oh, we all get a leg
But they're gonna hear
What they want to hear

You've got to watch them, 24/7
They're going to dose you up
With Ivermectin Nanobots
Keep looking for the 
Medicine to cure you
Don't mean to bore you
It's all Basura!

Another deep fake, hot take, drama for it's own sake
Tilting at the windmills 'cos they slaughter the fish
Another island lost to the rising seas
I mean I like it hot, but careful what you wish
Another brave ascent that went wrong on the way down
Don't you think they got there first?
Poor old Green Boots, well, I guess you snooze, you lose
And look at Sleeping Beauty, well it could be worse

Thumping the pulpit, dosed up on bullshit
Broth on the house, to make you froth at the mouth
Keep searching for the
Medicine to cure you
Got nothing for you
It's all Basura!

Basura

Fifty cold years since you turned from his grace
Caterpillar Girl with her hands to her face
She never heard
All his words

One stroke and she's down on her knees
Telephone slightly out of her reach
A burning cold
In her soul

I needed songs not your sermons
But you never knew me
I needed songs not your sermons
But you never, you never knew me

In the ischaemia of things
Peaches and clotted cream for you sins
Decent hacks
Worn out tracks

LP scratches out of it's groove
Paralysed in the darkening room
Nurses words
Turn to worms
Have they heard?

The Old Maid was a banshee
But you never knew me
Songs of discord won't chill me
But you never, you never knew me

Catheter, pill, the thermometer sings
Devil knows of the band you were in
Nurse feign a smile
Take your time

Devil makes work, but ECT will free it
I don't think they succeeded
Fight fire with fire
It's my funeral pyre

Father Pious at the ICU door
Last Rites a little premature
I'm half alive
Don't look so surprised

I had a tryst with a witch
Come here

I needed songs not your sermons
But you never knew me
I needed songs not your sermons
But you never knew me
I needed songs not your sermons
But you never knew me
I needed songs not your sermons
But you never, you never knew me

Caterpillar Girl

Well I never went far
Not many places I've been
Now the city's a village
And the river's a stream
And the old factory valley's a litter strewn alley
And the vivid red sunset's just blood up the wall
But don't you look down on the wreckage
'cos you're never too far from the fall

Like it or no
Unquiet Souls
Those left behind
Never let go
Oh, Unquiet Ghosts
Howls of the lost
Roaming the roads
If I can't escape
I will haunt this place
I will haunt this place
Just for the hell of it

Redbrick terraces cower
Under gunmetal skies
Like a landlocked shipwreck
Left high and dry by the tide
Unquiet Ghosts stranded far from the coast
Faded criminal boss fallen hard on their luck
But don't you look down on the broken and lost
'cos you might be one of them when you get stuck

Oh, Unquiet Souls
Those left behind
Never let go
Oh, Unquiet Ghosts
Tied to their posts
Roaming the roads, and
If I can't escape
I will haunt this place
I will haunt this place
Just for the hell of it

Soma or sertraline
Methadone, ketamine
Vodka, amphetamine
What's your poison?
Always been part of the human condition
But if we're all feeling it
Something's broken

Oh, Unquiet Souls
Those left behind
Never let go
Oh, Unquiet Ghosts
Tied to their posts
Roaming the roads, and
If I can't escape
I will haunt this place
I will haunt this place
Just for the hell of it

Landlocked Shipwreck

I'd be broken by the trouble you've seen
World go easy, go easy on me
Life and death and all the places between
Oh have mercy, have mercy on me

Oh my lost love, oh my heart
Curse this obsession that has torn us apart
I can't tell you, how it possesses me
That's the way it ended now
Death is peace but life is lonely

Broken hearts and broken limbs, wind in our teeth
Oh have mercy, have mercy on me
Through the floating rifts, savage ice and frozen peaks
Oh have mercy, have mercy on me

And the beauty, of it all
In the thin air the leader can't fall
Can you hear the beckoning silence of height and the
Sound of wasted youth, screaming on the shattered summits

I'd be broken by the trouble you've seen
World go easy, go easy on me
Life and death and all the places between
Oh have mercy, have mercy on me

In the corner of my eye, and the voice in my head
Between the land of the living and the land of the dead
For the fallen, as they lie
Tied to the broken cord, sleeping under frozen skies

Sagamartha, Chomolungmna
Please have mercy, Goddess Mother
Is it worth it? Can we justify?
Screams of working men
Trapped beneath the fallen ice

Shattered Summits

Don't worry, now, really don't
But I think that the Sun might be dying
The day was always coming, but 
I thought we had a bit more time
Do you see what I'm seeing? 
There's just not enough coming through
Not enough of those sweet Tau Neutrinos
The question right now is really "what do we do"?

Oh those Solar Neutrinos
They just go right through you
Those pesky little critters
Are giving us the jitters

Yeah, OK I see it, but let's not freak out just yet
Not until we're certain, not until we've double checked
Let's keep this under our hats
We don't want all the fighting and fussing
What if we've got it all wrong?
I don't want to cause panic for nothing

They're in a flap at Fermilab
There's concern at CERN
I knew a girl at the Hadron Collider
They wriggled and jiggled and shivered inside her

Mate...mate, look here, look at this, look
What if we've missed a trick?
What if there are different flavours, like crisps
Our basic palate just can't detect
I think we've gone off half-cocked, jumped the gun
I think we've got all excited for nowt
It's understandable, easily explained, but we've gone and freaked everyone out

People, as you were!
The neutrinos are all flowing fine
And the Sun isn't dying
Not now, not yet, not this time
You know the Sun isn't hot enough
To do what it does?
Quantum Tunnelling? Cosmic Cunning?
One day we'll run out of luck

Stick 'em in the Tokamak
Stick 'em in the Tokamak
Stick 'em in the Tokamak and make it so

Stick 'em in the Tokamak
Stick 'em in the Tokamak
Stick 'em in the Tokamak and watch 'em go!

Oh those Solar Neutrinos, they just go right through you
Hanging out at DUNE trying to fathom why
They're only ever passing by

Well back there it seemed like the end of the world
But I have to admit for a moment, in spite of
The obvious problems it presents for us all
I couldn't help feeling
Excited

Solar Neutrino Problem

A sideways take on recent troubles

Them 
It's always them 
Look what they've got 
That's what I want 
How'd they get it? 
How'd they take a hold? 
And why not us?
I think we should be told 

You've got to know when you've got it easy 
You've got to know when you've got it tough 
You've got to realise when you've gone too far 
You've got to know when enough's enough 

Us 
What about us? 
We've been forgotten while they take what we deserve 
It's time to take it back, it's time to make some noise 
If we can't have it then we'll see it get's destroyed 

You've got to know when to mind your business 
You've got to know what it's fair to keep 
You've got to know the whole, unvarnished truth 
You've got to look before you leap. 
Before you're in it too deep. 

At the end of the day I'm as bad as the rest 
Like to stick to my own, won't give up my place
But I'm not so naïve I believe 
You can have justice, without having losers
And you know that it's always been this way
Since we hollowed the bones, since we walked on the plain
Always been us and them, but this is now and that was then 

I 
I recognise 
All that I've got 
All that they've not 
I can't blame anybody trying to reverse 
Their disadvantage from the accident of birth 

You've got to know when you've ridden your luck 
You've got to realise where you'd be without it 
And it's right you get to make your point, but fuck 
Do you really need to be a dick about it?

Them

Well I hate to intrude, I know I wasn't invited
But there's nothing here but hippy crack and hepatitis 
By the skittering hi-hats and the scurrying rats
It was glowing like Hades in the underpass 
Watching boys with machetes jump to gut punch bass
They were having a party under Skeleton Lake 

Skeleton Lake, Skeleton Lake. 
Keep your eyes on the prize, keep your foot on the snake 
Throw your hands in the air and feel the concrete shake. 
They were having a party under Skeleton Lake 

Keep keep it cool, keep it cool. They don't know we're outnumbered. 
Keep it close, keep it close, or they'll drag us all under. 
All that Old School vinyl, like I wasn't impressed. 
They've left me the speakers, they've abandoned the decks. 

Skeleton Lake, Skeleton Lake. 
Keep your eyes on the prize, keep your foot on the snake. 
Throw your hands in the air and feel the concrete shake. 
They were having a party under Skeleton Lake 

Everyone leaving the scene, a Walking Dead stampede. 
Screaming curses as they roll down the track. 
There's no defib, no Epipen, no. Not even plasters in the First Aid pack, or 
Anything else designed to keep you well. 
So just rub out the swastika. Slava Slovensku! 

Skeleton Lake, Skeleton Lake. 
Get your ear to the ground and feel the low end quake 
Watching Boys with machetes jump to gut punch bass. 
They were have a party down at Skeleton Lake 
Skeleton Lake, Skeleton Lake. 
Keep your eyes on the prize, keep your foot on the snake. 
Throw your hands in the air and feel the concrete shake. 
They were having a party under Skeleton Lake

Skeleton Lake

A disassembling of the lies governments tell when they seek to rule through autocracy and deceit. A dissection of how the secret services are not the glamour of the movies, but are actually the levers of rogue states to undermine democracy.

Lyrics: Richard Pierce
Vocals: Richard Pierce
Music: The Big Grey Man
Guitar, Bass, Drums: The Big Grey Man
Keyboard: Richard Pierce

Whisper it, whisper it.
James Bond is dead.

Whisper it, whisper it.
James Bond is dead.

The snow geese are safe again,
From misdirected or deliberate sniper fire,
Incompetence or practice,
Here on the borders of tundra
And western civilisation.
Until the next story invents itself.

James Bond is dead.

Secrets aren’t such clever agents in the end,
Arrogance overlooking the obvious,
And exceptionalism blind.

Fiction is a real fact
Not exaggerated or purpled by prose.
It is.

In the corridors of power,
Incompetence or practice?
Until the next story invents itself,
Until they invent their next stories
In the corridors of power.

Shout it, shout it!
James Bond is dead!
Rejoice, rejoice!
James Bond I dead!

The real world took him apart
Piece by piece,
Myth by myth,
Broken ceasefire by broken promise,
War by war by bloodier war.

Blessed are the codebreakers,
The peace makers,
The pacifists,
Not the agents of the rogue state.
Not. The. Agents. Of. The. Rogue. State.
No, not the agents of the rogue state.

James Bond and Felix Leiter are dead.

And blessed are
The peace makers,
The pacifists.

And blessed are
The peace makers,
The pacifists.
