1. COSTA DEL SLOUGH

The hole in the ozone layer
Is all right by me
Makes England warmer in the summer
Them tropical guys had it too good too long
High time they learned to sing a different song
And anyway, what's wrong with the odd melanoma
If it gets us all out of the coma


2. UNDER THE SUN

It used to rain
Dreary and grey
Most every day but not any more
We come out of our homes
We lie down
Under the cloud that never comes
We roll in the radiation
And we make love
Under the sun
Under the sun

The polar ice is melting
Suits me fine
We go to the beach
On the Northern Line

We watch the sea
Comin' up the street
Under the sun
Under the sun

It used to rain
Dreary and grey
Most every day but not any more
We take off our clothes
And have some fun
Under the sun
Under the sun


3. THE ANSWERING MACHINE

We flew here to see you
My feelings and I
I looked down on the city
From up in the sky
The sun was reflecting
From the roofs and the water
Spring had come early
In the parks and the old town
I came with a mission
To patch up a dream
We walked and I talked and my words were absorbed
Into the answering machine
I came two thousand miles
Just to take a look at you
But you were broken and frozen
A heartbreak of a statue
In the bullet-proof mirrors
Where your eyes used to be
I stared at myself and I called for some help
Into the answering machine

The day slipped by and I tried and tried
You took me home and you said
Goodnight, Sleep tight
On the floor by the bedroom door
I watched you sleep and I left before first light

The bugs don't bite
The bugs don't bite
The bugs bite

From the land of the frozen
To the land of the low
We journeyed together
But we were always alone
So if I should come calling
Best not pick up the phone
Cause I'm no good for you and you're no good for me
Let me talk to the answering machine
I can cope with the answering machine
I'm a friend of the answering machine


4. THREE MINUTE BOY

Here today
Gone this afternoon
Another tune we almost remember
What's the story
Sex and drugs again
Business as usual
The clock's already ticking
La la la la
When he was young
Staring at the TV
He watched the fun happenin' to other people
Now they scream
As they run after him
Like a dream
Like Elvis and the Beatles

A three minute song is all he wrote
He only did it for a joke
They played him on the radio
From Tokyo to Timbuktu
A three minute boy, ain't that somethin'
They named their children after him
The good times rolled beneath his feet
He skipped along the one-way street

She's a pretty girl
She don't know how it started
She made a movie
He almost remembered
She measured up
They moved into a basement
We're so in love!
They giggled to the nation
La la la la

Three minute millionaire they said
The numbers rattled round his head
They spun him three times round the globe
She waited patiently at home
And all the pretty girls wanted him
In places that he'd never been
Too much love will do you in
Forgive Forgive Forgive Forgive
Yeah Yeah Ooo

Three minute kid is here again
Surrounded by three minute friends
He found someone to understand
To shock the world and hold his hand
No religion, no restraint
No direction, no complaints
No future and no way out
No time now to think about it
All the money's gone
He don't know what he spent it on
Girlfriends gone off with the Jag
Gone back to her mum and dad
He's curled up on the studio floor
He just can't do it anymore
The flashgun went off without warning
He'll read about it tomorrow morning

She's goin' out with someone new
In this week at number two
Three minute boy ain't that somethin'


5. NOW SHE'LL NEVER KNOW

In the after-silence fighting leaves behind
I try to think it over
But my mind's gone blind
I lost the right to argue somewhere down the line
I had to tell
She told me to
Go to Hell
And here I am

In the gaping hole
Home truths tear in a home
Married to this hurting
I know it's all my fault

Who can tell
Looks like we have
A house to sell

Now she'll never know
What anyone could tell her
Now she'll never know
What anyone can see
Now she won't believe me
Ever again, completely

Now I hang around
Feet back on the ground
I just can't stand
I just can't stand

Now she'll Never know
What anyone could tell her
Now she'll never know
What anyone can see
Now she won't believe me
Ever again, completely
Now she'll never know
Or ever dream
How much she means to me


6. THESE CHAINS

Everything crashed
His wife left him
He lost all his money
And most of his friends
He lay awake all night
Lonely and desperate
Contemplating starting again
These chains are all your own
These chains are comfortable

Four in the morning
Sat in the kitchen
Keys on the table
Went out for a drive
He didn't know
Where he was going
Didn't know
If he was alive

The dawn was breaking
A new day was rising
Shadows creepin' over the fields
He watched the pink light
Steal across the horizon
He realised
He saw with new eyes

These chains are all your own
These chains are comfortable
This cage was never locked
Born free but scared to be
This cage was made for you
With care and constant attention
This cage is safe and warm
Will you die and never know what it's like
Outside


7. BORN TO RUN

The quiet sadness of the people of the North
Echoes silently around the cold grey places
Ecstasies undared
Tremble upon the edge of the tightly,
Respectably unfulfilled
Who drink to excess in order to forget what never happened
Brave faces
Well dressed ordered minds on suicide's edge
Reflected in the rain-skimmed slate grey, battleship grey, hardship grey

Blue grey

And further South, and homeless
Here I am
Globally altered and dishevelled
Oh darling, I've done it all
An antithesis of sorts
And yet bound together and hopelessly in love
With the inevitable loss
And the end
How can we run from ourselves?


8. CATHEDRAL WALL

Curl up tight into a ball
Curl my body against the soil
Staring up here
At the cathedral wall
I will sleep tonight
Be a baby
Forget it all
Be a baby
Watch the quiet stones
Massive friend
Cathedral wall
I will sleep tonight

A mother to the living
A mother to the dead
Silent as the moonlight
I come to lay my head
And I won't know you
Anymore

The peckish evening rolls once more
Into the ravenous night
Of hunger pains
That keep our troubled souls awake
We are forbidden to explain

A mother to the living
A mother to the dead
My ghost will drink the moonlight
Magic stones
My heart and bones

And I won't know you
Anymore

She's cold
She knows me
Cathedral wall
She's cold
She shows
I borrow
Keep away
Keep you away my love, my love
And pray I might sleep tonight

The violence of my heartbeat
The violence of the blood
I will sleep with the cathedral
And, one day, you'll give up
And I will love you
But I won't know you
Anymore

My frenzied and exhausted mind
Will somehow find a way
To leave you for a time
Condemned to lieing
And lying awake

These chains are all your own...


9. A FEW WORDS FOR THE DEAD

The songs and the music
That I portray comes from the heart,
And comes from the mind. That makes it...
That makes me feel
That I am delivering the right information

Can you make it your own
Can you take it by the throat
Make your own luck, learn the skills
Get in early for the kill

It carries on

Pick up the weapon
Marry it, give it your name
Define yourself by it
Take it down 'the disco

Trigger happy, pulling power
Lady killer, take 'em out
See the weirdos on the hill
Come to get you if you stand still

It carries on

Somewhere in history you were wronged
Teach your children to bang the drum
Tell all your family, tell all your friends
Teach your brothers to avenge

It carries on

Or you could love
You could love

Lie down in the flowers
In the blue of the air
Open your eyes
Why use up your life for anything else?
No need to fight for what everyone has
What do you need?
It's already there
It's already there

You could love

So he carried the stars in his pocket
Drank the sunrise till he was drunk
He embraced the angels
They swam like little minnows in his blood
Ghosts in his eyes
Out walking beside him
Laughing like children in his mind
They chanted his mantra together

You could love

They were happy