Category: Lyrics O – Z

On Edge

On Edge

This life winds me up too much
I am taut as a wire
And the pressure’s building up
I am up to the neck
I am cut to the quick
I am stuffed to the gills
I am sicker than sick

You think you know me
But you don’t know me
You get a version
You cast aspersions
My back is up
But you’d never know
I hide it well
It doesn’t show

This life winds me up too much
I am taut as a wire
And the pressure’s building up

I’m a pot on the boil
I’m a trap on the spring
I am pushed to the brink
I could pull out the pin

 

(Lyrics – GA Johnson)

Part-Monster

Part-Monster

I produce too much of something
Not enough of something else
But the doctors cannot help me
With the puzzle of my health
And I’m tired of easy music
And I’m tired of pretty girls
And I’m tired of being tired
And I’m tired of being hurt

I am the soldier at the back
Who is burdened by his books
Though I stare into the mirror
It does not tell me how I look
So I’m shaving in the darkness
And I’m turning in my sleep
And I’m turning like a monster
With a dead man in his teeth

Oh, part-monster
Oh, part-monster
Oh, part-monster…

 

(Lyrics – GA Johnson)

Password

Password

My password is a dead aunt’s name –
A monument, a testament
My password is a dead aunt’s name –
A cenotaph, a shallow grave

I’m thirty one and fading fast
Forget the past, repeat the past
I’m thirty two and fading fast
I started last and I finished last

 

(Lyrics – GA Johnson)

Recovery Position

Recovery Position

Is it the shadow in my voice?
Oh, I can barely form a sigh
Is it the music that I make?
Is it the sadness in my eyes?
You put me in position
As it tells you in the book
But I’m a separate chapter
You cannot look it up

My mother had a crying boy
Hung up over the fire
I could not bear to see him
I would not meet his eye
I think that’s why I’m like this
The tears they never cease
And yet you never see them
I keep them all in me

I have broken into France
I have stolen into Spain
I’ve been thrown out of Italy
And I’ll be thrown out again
The Dutch never liked me much
And Germany the same
I poisoned half the western world
But it never bought me fame

 

(Lyrics – GA Johnson)

Saint Marie

Saint Marie 

Out of season, out of heart
I cross you off beneath the stars
Autumn leaves a nasty scar
And with the leaves, the heart departs
You’re off the map
You’ve left the book
I’m off my head and treading luck
And it’s too late to call you up
The heart migrates
It comes unstuck
I light a candle for Saint Marie
In the hope she never brings you back to me
I light a candle for Saint Marie
In the hope she never brings you back to me

 

(Lyrics – GA Johnson)

Saints Preserve Us

Saints Preserve Us

Kick out this notion that anything goes
You’re better off sticking to what you know
You’ve got the heart but you re missing the soul
You’ve got the wheel but you re losing control

Keep your hand on the rail if all else fails
‘Cos it’s a long way down and you re so frail
Your hands so cold and your face so pale
Keep your hand on the rail if all else fails

You’ve been living your life like you’re fixing to die
You’ve been living a lie but you never knew why

 

(Lyrics – GA Johnson)

Shot Through The Fog

Shot Through The Fog

Breaking Winter up by shooting numbers from the clock
The cat sleeps on the atlas in Alsace Lorraine,
Dreaming long grass and birds on the wire
I have memories no deeper than this glass
And some besides that stretch history twice

In a super 8 film colour haze,
A scratched nostalgia that runs through my cogs
Shot through the fog;
Time taking care of whatever I cared about

So you are lost somewhere in here –
Your body, a raft,spinning towards the falls
Your death claimed me too
There were two throats in the noose
But mine now swallows whiskey
Mine is not now bruised

The black mouth of this month,
Bruised lips, black ice,
Forms a sickly smile across London’s sky

 

(Words – GA Johnson)

Sing Something

Sing Something

Sing something that I know
Sing something before I go
He said he’d be here
But he didn’t show
So sing something that I know

I’ve missed the last train
It did not wait
Now I’m abandoned to my fate
So sing something that I know
Sing something sad and slow

The bar is closing
They want me out I came here with joy I leave without
So sing something that I know
Sing something sad and slow

 

(Lyrics – GA Johnson)

 

Sketch For Joanne

Sketch For Joanne

Joanne comes around with a radio and absinthe
We start the afternoon with Polish Xmas songs on shortwave
She laughs as we burn the first shot, the green flame

I love Joanne
We’ve been friends for 12 years
We used to be lovers but now a hug can be just a hug
I followed her from Derbyshire to London
She’s the sub-librarian, the swan feeder, spectacle breaker

I wanted to buy her a bicycle this Xmas but she said it was too much
She can close me down like I let no-one else do

We watch the green flame in the window
And it somehow makes me think of Amsterdam or Paris –
Rain beneath canal bridges in neon cafe light

The phone rings but it’s not for me
The answering machine catches it
And holds it and holds it and holds it

 

(Words – GA Johnson)

Snow Drums

Snow Drums

Three on the backseat as we drive home from rehearsal
There’s snow on the drums
The snare shudders like a cold ghost between my mittens

In the trunk, guitars slide like dead over dead
It’s stopped snowing
We think we see foxes

I breathe a canvas on the window
To write your name on the landscape

The sky is a grey flint from coast to coast
With birds frozen in

Magic Trees share the dashboard with a Playdoh Jesus
Grapelli and Reinhardt lock horns on the radio

I draw a black skull on my jeans, not thinking,
Through to the skin
The headlamps come on at five

I miss you bad

 

 

(Words – GA Johnson)

Snowfall Soon

Snowfall Soon

Rain starts on you as your goodbye runs me through
Goodbye is nothing new but it’s last breath when said by you
And this world shrinks to a room
Weather inside : snowfall soon
No bookcase can rescue a man
Only a letter of sorry can

Handle with care if only you dare
I’m sensitive, touch sensitive
Handle with care if only you are
I’m sensitive, touch sensitive

I have a photograph
Mid-heaven, post-laugh
Eyes shine ridiculous
Illuminate the both of us
In the fold of a camera’s eye
In the time it takes to sigh
I open up an ashen heart
Pour out a thousand whys

Handle with care if only you dare, etc
Write or I’ll die
Handle with care, etc

 

 

(Lyrics – GA Johnson)