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Ian Anderson: Homo Erraticus

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Kscope Records
Released: 2014.04.14
Time:
 51:57
Category: Progressive Rock
Producer(s): Ian Anderson
Rating: *****..... (5/10)
Media type: CD
Web address: homoerraticus.com
Appears with: Jethro Tull, Man Doki
Purchase date: 2014
Price in €: 1,00





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


Part One: Chronicles
[1] Doggerland (I.Anderson/G.Bostock) - 4:20
[2] Heavy Metals (I.Anderson/G.Bostock) - 1:29
[3] Enter the Uninvited (I.Anderson/G.Bostock) - 4:12
[4] Puer Ferox Adventus (I.Anderson/G.Bostock) - 7:11
[5] Meliora Sequamur (I.Anderson/G.Bostock) - 3:32
[6] The Turnpike Inn (I.Anderson/G.Bostock) - 3:08
[7] The Engineer (I.Anderson/G.Bostock) - 3:12
[8] The Pax Britannica (I.Anderson/G.Bostock) - 3:05
 
Part Two: Prophecies
[9] Tripudium Ad Bellum (I.Anderson/G.Bostock) - 2:48
[10] After These Wars (I.Anderson/G.Bostock) - 4:28
[11] New Blood, Old Veins (I.Anderson/G.Bostock) - 2:31
 
Part Three: Revelations
[12] In for a Pound (I.Anderson/G.Bostock) - 0:36
[13] The Browning of the Green (I.Anderson/G.Bostock) - 4:05
[14] Per Errationes Ad Astra (I.Anderson/G.Bostock) - 1:33
[15] Cold Dead Reckoning[4] (I.Anderson/G.Bostock) - 5:28

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Ian Anderson – lead and backing vocals, flute, acoustic guitar, producer
 
Florian Opahle – electric guitar
John O'Hara – piano, organ, keyboards, accordion
David Goodier – bass guitar
Scott Hammond – drums, percussion
Ryan O'Donnell – additional vocals
 
Jakko Jakszyk – mixing, mastering
Carl Glover – artwork, design, photography

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


After the last two TAAB shows (for all time?) in the Czech Republic, sniffle sniffle, we head home to celebrate two years of great concerts around the world. Thanks to you, dear reader and devoted punter, it has been a rewarding, if challenging time for us all.
 
To be able to perform so much new and conceptual old work together is a gift not many bands would have bestowed upon them. Old lags like me are supposed to fade away with the occasional revival or best-of tour in comfortable, familiar places. But out with a bang, I say. No comfort zone repetition and cozy ride into the final sunset. Turn up the wick. Burn a little brighter. Take on the impossible and take a trip. A wild river raft ride down the canyons of the Far Side.
 
And so to a new album and new tours scheduled for next year. Homo Erraticus – for that is the title of the next epic voyage into the Progressive Rock pantheon of strangeness – will begin rehearsals and recording next week. After, that is, Monday’s rush or three to the lavvy-loo following the ingestion of that foul liquid feast which is the prep for the colonoscopy I must endure every couple of years. Clean out the passages. Leave all in a state of pink and spotless readiness to welcome the investigative foray of the curious one-eyed burrowing camera-worm. And you thought the on-stage prostate exam was bad enough? I really must try to get the recorded video this time as the camera snakes its way into the far recesses of my……mind.
 
But, if I can cope with it, so can you chaps, made of your equally stern stuff. Over the age of 40? Got any family history of Colon Cancer? Give it serious thought.
 
But back to Homo Erraticus. Written earlier this year, commencing 09.00 hours on January first, it chronicles the weird imaginings of one Ernest T Parritt, as recaptured by the now middle-aged Gerald Bostock after a trip to Mathew Bunter’s Old Library Bookshop in Linwell village. Bostock and Bunter (sounds like a firm of dodgy solicitors) came across this dusty, unpublished manuscript, written by local amateur historian Ernest T. Parritt, (1873 -1928), and entitled “Homo Britanicus Erraticus”.
 
The illustrated document summarises key historical elements of early civilisation in Britain and seems to prophesy future scenarios too. Two years before his death, Parritt had a traumatic fall from his horse while out hunting with the Vale Of Clutterbury Hounds and awoke with the overwhelming conviction of having enjoyed past lives as historical characters: a pre-history nomadic neolithic settler, an Iron Age blacksmith, a Saxon invader, a Christian monk, a Seventeenth Century grammar school boy, turnpike innkeeper, one of Brunel’s railroad engineers, and even Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria. This befuddled, delusional obsession extends to his prophecy of future events and his fantasy imaginings of lives yet to come….
 
Bostock has returned once again to lyric writing, basing his new effort on the Parritt papers and I have had the fun and frolics of setting all to music of Folk-Rock-Metal stylings.
 
But you can call it Prog.
 
The concerts next year kick off with the 22-date UK tour (details in the Tours pages of this website) and move on to various concerts in Europe through the Summer before we embark on the two scheduled US tours in September/October/November. After that – maybe Australia, New Zealand, who knows. And then on into 2015 with a bunch more, perhaps Latin America, India and beyond?
 
The new album will be played in its entirety in the first half of the show and after the intermission, we launch into a collection of Tull classics from my personal favourite songs. All illustrated and complemented by video and on-stage embellishments from my increasingly theatrically-motivated troupe of musical thespians. OK – that’s exaggerating a little but they will bring a tear to the eye, a tightening to the heart and a queue for the loo as they utter brave soliloquies, bathed in the spotlight of the gods. I gave them the lines from the emerging “Show Bible” last week and they haven’t spoken to me since. Obviously too busy trying them out in the shower and seeking the approval of the family dog. (Yes – I know it’s odd that they shower with the dog but they are all quite pet-friendly, as musicians go.)
 
The “Show Bible” is my name for the lengthy document which has the timeline and detailed description of all stage choreography, lighting cues, sound and effects cues and video links. This is only in its early stages, of course, as we haven’t rehearsed anything quite yet, but the whole point of doing it is to build the rehearsal and recording process together with the live stage show as a coherent whole.
 
While Bostock enjoys a well-earned vacation out of the country, we can feel free, during the next three weeks, to edit, change and otherwise abuse his lyrical efforts as necessary. Things have to “sing” well. They might look pretty on the page but they have to work as sung, performed lyrics. Not merely to read well as paltry poetry. Album to be released around the second week of April.
 
So – off to work we go in the studio. Wish us luck, dear readers and may the bringers of good fate and fortune smile on you too. But first – how about a quick Lamb Vindaloo after the Great Emptying to come on Monday? Thought not….
 
jethrotull.com
 
 
 
 
Homo Erraticus is the sixth studio album by British progressive rock musician Ian Anderson, of Jethro Tull. Released on 14 April 2014, Homo Erraticus is a concept album, and a loose follow-up to Jethro Tull's Thick as a Brick (1972) and Anderson's Thick as a Brick 2 (2012), and again follows the life of fictional character Gerald Bostock. The album was released in four formats: as a double vinyl, a single CD, a CD + DVD collection, and an Amazon.com exclusive box set edition, containing the album on CD as well as three bonus discs. Anderson and his band will embark on a promotional tour of the album, in which they will perform the entire album for the first half of each show, and the best of Jethro Tull for the second half. Homo Erraticus is a progressive rock album which, according to Anderson, also blends folk, rock and heavy metal music styles. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic called the album "as close to 1970s progressive rock as is possible in 2014".
 
 
 
 
1972 erschien Jethro Tulls Kult Konzeptalbum Thick As A Brick basierend auf Gedichten des sagenumwobenen Kindes Gerald Bostock, einem Pseudonym Ian Andersons, und schuf damit einen Meilenstein des Progressive Rock. 2012 erforschte Ian Anderson auf Thick As A Brick 2 die unterschiedlichen Wege die das Leben von Bostock hätte nehmen können und landete damit einen weiteren Volltreffer, der es bis auf Platz 13 der Media Control-Albumcharts schaffte. Mit Homo Erraticus kehrt der Jethro Tull-Frontmann Ian Anderson zu seinem fiktiven Alter Ego Gerald Bostock zurück und verarbeitet auf Homo Erraticus Bostocks Texte, die auf einem unveröffentlichtem Manuskript des Historikers Ernest T. Parritt (1865-1928) basieren. Auf Homo Erraticus untersucht Parritt Schlüsselereignisse der britischen Geschichte mit Bezügen zu Prophezeiungen bis heute und in die Zukunft. Visionen vergangener Leben hervorgerufen durch Malaria, erschaffen die Charaktere durch dessen Augen die Geschichten erzählt werden, wie die eines Steinzeitnomaden, eines Eisenzeit Schmieds, eines christlichen Mönchs, eines Schankwirtes und sogar Prinz Alberts.
 
Amazon.de
 
 
 
 
Der legendäre Jethro-Tull-Frontmann Ian Anderson veröffentlicht ein neues Studioalbum. „Homo Erraticus“ erscheint auf seinem eigenen Label Calliandra Records in Kooperation mit Kscope. Das Songwriting des neuen Longplayers basiert auf einem unveröffentlichten Manuskript des Amateurhistorikers Ernest T. Parritt (1865–1928). Inhalt dieses Manuskripts sind Untersuchungen verschiedener Hauptereignisse der britischen Geschichte mit Bezügen zu Prophezeiungen bis zur Gegenwart und darüber hinaus. Durch Malaria hervorgerufene Visionen vergangener Leben erschaffen die Charaktere, durch deren Augen uns Geschichten erzählt werden. Dass ist beispielsweise die Geschichte eines Steinzeitnomaden, eines Schankwirts, eines christlichen Mönchs, eines Eisenzeit-Schmieds, und sogar des Prinzen Alberts. Eine ausgedehnte UK- und Deutschlandtour folgt auf die Albumveröffentlichung. Ian Anderson wird dem Publikum auf der Tour das neue Album „Homo Erraticus“ in voller Länge präsentieren, zusammen mit Jethro-Tull-Klassikern in einer Video-Inszenierung.
 
Auszug aus einem Interview:
Ian Anderson: „… Bandleader zu sein, ist in mancherlei Hinsicht ähnlich dem Kapitän einer Fußballmannschaft. Du musst nicht notwendigerweise sämtliche Tore schießen. Da ist ja ein Team um dich herum. Aber man muss führen und ermutigen können. Du musst auch Autorität besitzen. Staffelführer einer Spitfire-Staffel im Zweiten Weltkrieg: Alle schauen zu dir hoch, suchen Inspiration und Lenkung. Manchmal muss man streng sein. Die meiste Zeit über aber ein netter Kerl. Zurück zu Bandleadern. Es gibt gute Bandleader und es gibt schlechte. Gute Bandleader: B. B. King, Frank Zappa. Schlechte Bandleader: James Brown. Seine Musiker hassten ihn. Ich habe mit den Musikern dieser Bands gesprochen. Captain Beefheart und seine Magic Band: Sie hassten ihn ebenso. Ich denke, ich habe ein Talent für den Job. Andere wurden gefürchtet, denn wer seinen Job in der Band nicht erfüllte, wurde bestraft. Ich denke, es ist schön, als guter Bandleader bei den Menschen, mit denen du zusammenarbeitest, in Erinnerung zu bleiben. Ich musste mich kürzlich übrigens aufklären lassen. Ich ging immer von 26 Leuten aus, aber es waren insgesamt 29 verschiedene Musiker, die für Jethro Tull gespielt haben! Das ist ja nun nicht gerade wenig. Zwei Fußballmannschaften plus einige Auswechselspieler.“ 
 
jpc.de
 
 
 
 
A second consecutive Ian Anderson solo album -- "Homo Erraticus," due out April 15 - is affirming to Jethro Tull fans what they mostly already suspected, that the long-lived group is effectively no more. Anderson writes as much in liner notes to the deluxe edition of "Homo Erraticus," declaring that, "The huge body of work that is the Jethro Tull catalogue stands firm close beside me and in good stead... But I think I prefer, in my twilight years, to use my own name for the most part being composer of virtually all Tull songs and music since 1968." 
 
And he tells Billboard that "nothing is going on at all" with the band these days. 
 
"And that's the point," Anderson explains. "To me, Jethro Tull is...the vast body of repertoire that's Jethro Tull, the record catalog, the music, and I think that, if we look back on it, it kind of came more or less to an end during the last 10 years or so (with) a couple of live albums and a studio album of Christmas material. That might define the last albums under the name Jethro Tull. It's a body of work I rather think is now kind of historical, since the weight of it lies back in the 70s and 80s in terms of volume. And I rather think it's nice to kind of leave that as legacy." 
 
Anderson adds that recording and touring under his own name now also allows him to shed some guilt he's felt since February of 1968, when the group's booking agency gave Jethro Tull the name of an 18th century British agriculturist after several other monikers were rejected. 
 
"If you'd asked me 20 years ago did I regret anything about my musical career, my answer then, as it is today, has always been the name of the band," Anderson admits. "I can't help but feel more and more as I get older that I'm guilty of identity theft and I ought to go to prison for it, really. It's almost as if I watched old Jethro Tull at the cash machine and leaned over his shoulder as he put his credit card into the machine to check out his PIN and filched his credit card form from his back pocket as he walked away and then fleeced his bank account. It doesn't make me feel very good. I never paid much attention in history class, so I didn't realize we'd been named after a dead guy until a couple of weeks later."
 
"Homo Erraticus," which follows Anderson's 2012 release "Thick As a Brick 2," is his third album to employ the fictional Gerald Bostock, who Anderson introduced on Tull's 1972 concept album "Thick as a Brick;" Bostock is "credited" as Anderson's co-writer on the new album's 15 songs, which examine British history past and present along with some visions for the future -- although Anderson himself came to study history later in life. 
 
"At school we only did two years of history and had three dreadful history teachers who were appalling at their trade,just dreadful people," he notes. As for the album, Anderson adds that, "I slightly jokingly say it's a folk-prog-metal album with classical music and folk music influences. We have a rich arrangement of essentially rock music, but with lots of elements which are part and parcel of my style, I suppose.I don't try to write music in a style, but that's the context. I think it's important that it can be seen to link with things I've done in the bigger body of work that is 44 years in the making, really."
 
Anderson and his current band - all of whom have served tenures as part of Jethro Tull - hit the road to promote "Homo Erraticus" starting April 28 in U.K., with European dates into August and U.S. shows during the fall. He plans to play the new album in its entirety, with a second half that will include "a selection of the best of Jethro Tull's sort of classic songs." He'll also be digging deep for three songs that Anderson says "are quite well-known pieces by Jethro Tull" that have been rarely played live but are going to be part of this year's set. 
 
"It's kind of interesting to find three songs I've always discounted doing again, but when I went to listen to them again I discovered there were elements of those things that I really did like that overwhelmed the things I didn't like," he explains. "So I just have to tune out those negative association and just get on with doing the job."
 
© 2014 Billboard
 

 L y r i c s


Doggerland 

Our footsteps o'er the Doggerland,
chased retreating ice and snow,
left us breathing high and dry,
Land's End to Scapa Flow.
The seeds of Albion, wind-blown
free, scattered to the moors,
dormant beneath the the soggy heath
where stouter oaks will grow.
 
All across the Doggerland
All across before the tides
Across with boar and elk and wolves
Take the high lands near and wide
 
Strike with rock and flint and
bone, follow trail and hoof.
Onwards to another place, a place to raise a roof.
And these four walls to shelter
us upon this blessed plot:
This earth, this realm, this England
- island, alone, aloof.
 
All across the Doggerland
All across before the tides
Across with boar and elk and wolves
Take the high lands near and wide
 
Back across the Doggerland, Costa villa overkill.
Warm farmhouses in Tuscany
challenge Winter's will.
We pensionable, geriatric,
sun-creased wrinklies long
for this earth, this realm, this
England, a burial ground to fill.
 
All across the Doggerland
All across before the tides
Across with luggage, kids and sunscreen
Melted mortgage, dreams that died
All across the Doggerland
All across before the tides
Across with boar and elk and wolves
Take the high lands near and wide 
 
 

Heavy Metals

I am the smith. I feed my melt-pot,
fashion carbon steely blades
while coulter and the mouldboard stab
and break the clod in forest glades.
In sultry peace and blood-raised anger,
I hammer out my forging trade.
 
Lockheed, Fokker, Curtis, Hawker,
Avro, Gloster, Handley Page,
Colt, Beretta, Walther, Mauser,
Springfield, Ruger in a rage.
Holland, Holland, Boss and Purdey,
Woodward, Greener: golden age.
 
Every atom ofthe arsenal forged
in distant dying sun
in unholy Trinity now lends new
form to plough and gun.
Harry S. and Oppenheimer, Fermi,
Teller, what have you done?
And did they pray that He may guide
us in His ways, now battle's won? 
 
 

Enter The Uninvited

Space, place, face, halt, block
Stop, sorry, we're coming in
 
We Roman legions wend their way through
Ever-widening roads of Empire
Long straight tracks to new horizons
Gilded in soft-tinted campfire
Old Corinium Dobunnorum
Durovernum Cantiacorum
Bold Londinium offers voice in
Market square and open forum
 
Angles, Saxons, Danes and Normans
On the whole, a curve of learning
Alfie, great in spirit, battle, on Somerset
Levels left cakes a-burning
Willy Conker, work cut out, in Domesday
Pages, marks our number
Sheep and pigs amongst the hundreds
Fat tithes and taxes to encumber
 
Pizza palace, burger kingdom
Cocaine cola, nylon stockings
Playboy, Newsweek, Time and Life
G.I. Joe, spam fritter shocking
 
Cold War sparring, Langley spooking,
Grosvenor Square (the London Station)
Elvis hips and Monroe lips, John
Birch against United Nations
 
Bubblegum and Google-bum
Facebook-frenzied social network
Apple Mac and iPhone App, Gibson
Fender sonic fretwork
Star Trek, Baywatch, Friends, Sopranos
West Wing, Madmen, Walking Dead
Officer Rick will turn the trick and
Banish zombies from our heads 
 
 

Puer Ferox Adventus

The brash North wind strikes
upon the isle of Lindisfarne.
I offer searching souls the wisdom of my years.
These lessons writ in book of ages holy, past.
The agony, the righteous path to
steer between the waves,
the dark abyss, tied to the mast.
 
This sponge of pragmatic Constantine
mops them all up and wipes them clean.
It's all okay, it's all official. The Christ
child advent here to be seen.
Saturn's Solstice, Yuletide blotted,
blended in cynic innocence.
Meet in Milan and host the party,
safer to sit astride the fence.
 
What is this book? These airy pages?
Scribed and scribbled with latitude.
Tallest tales for poor and needy in wide-
eyed wonder at faith renewed.
Words of gospel and redemption,
absolution if we repent
Emperor's deathbed, late salvation,
baptism in dubious testament.
 
There's a wild child coming.
There's an angry man.
There's a new age dawning
here, to an old age plan.
 
Manic mother, her child gone missing:
found in the temple with the elder men.
Gone about His Father's business. Yeah -
but he soon goes missing once again.
Ducked his head with the mad-John prophet.
West bank desert doubts and fear.
White magic, healing, and exorcism: got
twelve good men - now the gang's all here.
 
There's a wild child coming.
There's an angry man.
There's a new age dawning
here, to an old age plan.
 
Proclamation, divine seed sown.
(Did he really say that thing?)
On donkey colt, calm, to the Passion, knowing
full well what the charge must bring.
The body bread, a farewell supper,
bounty silver, a kiss betrayed
lt's a long, hard haul, that Via Dolorosa.
No last contrition, quite unafraid.
 
There's a wild child coming.
There's an angry man.
There's a new age dawning
here, to an old age plan. 
 
 

Meliora Sequamur

Mortarboard, gown, hood and lace come
guide me in learning, in ascension
where minds may meet and twitters
tweet in modern Latin, in declension.
O Domine, O Magister - we aspiring angels sing
with one tongue, forever young,
let us follow better things.
 
In saintly word and perfect grammar,
to Academia's lofty space.
The trivium, quadrivium, all baser
thoughts now to efface.
O Domine, O Magister - we aspiring angels sing
with one tongue, forever young,
let us follow better things.
 
Cruel Bunter-bashing, cane-a-thrashing,
lines, detention, soon forgot.
O dark ploy! This grammar school boy
has paid the price and bought the lot.
In the quiet hours of life's twilight,
old school ties and photographs,
I call to mind the sore behind, the
tears, the last and longest laughs.
 
Empty desks and inkwells, darkened
chapels, cobweb corridors silent now.
Ghostly purple robes and dusty trencher,
what could be holier than thou?
O Domine, O Magister - we aspiring angels sing
with one tongue, forever young,
let us follow better things.
Meliora sequamur: may we follow better things. 
 
 

The Turnpike Inn

Go no farther: access denied down
byways, freeways of the past.
The superhighway tollhouse humbly
begs your pause, so just hold fast.
A word in ear, free marketeer suggests
you ponders, and takes your choice.
For right of passage, freight or message,
change your horses, raise your voice
in protest at the pretty penny
taken for your mortal sins.
But dally now in sweet surrender, drown
sorrows at the Turnpike Inn.
 
Beware the brigand, pistols drawn,
who offers life for modest fee
and ends his days like poor John Austin,
last man on the Tyburn Tree.
The palest ale, the stoutest porter
fortify the heart, the breast.
Weary head on eider pillow, horse
blanket over, down to rest.
Though we too steal from honest wage,
come lie with us, good kith and kin
and dally now in sweet surrender,
drown sorrows at the Turnpike Inn.
 
Drown sorrows at the Turnpike Inn.
Drown your sorrows at the Turnpike Inn.
Drown sorrows at the Turnpike Inn.
Though we too steal from honest wage,
come lie with us, good kith and kin
and dally now in sweet surrender,
drown sorrows at the Turnpike Inn.
Drown sorrows at the Turnpike Inn.
Drown sorrows at the Turnpike Inn. 
 
 

The Engineer

All along the new straight track we
plough the old fields under.
Seven good feet and a quarter inch,
broad rails to steal the thunder.
100 picks in '36 sent navvies to meet their maker
as black Box Tunnel worms its way
past the Company undertaker.
 
Hard, cast in iron, that engineer:
God bless Isambard!
Piston-scraping, furnace-busting,
(he) plays the winning card.
 
Rain, Steam, Speed at Maidenhead -
Turner's vision wide.
Over bridges, girders, hot-driven
rivets safely guide
passenger wagons from Paddington
to Bristol's briny blue.
On to break the waves, with a thousand
horses, turn the churning screw.
 
Hard, cast in iron, that engineer:
God bless Isambard!
Piston-scraping, furnace-busting,
(he) plays the winning card.
 
But those bonnie lads from way 'oop
North, had to have the final laugh:
the ripe new age was the standard
gauge, four foot, eight and a half.
And rolling out across all Europe,
across the mad, bad Empire world
came the age of steam and the engines
roaring, bold brazen Jack unfurled.
Arching palaces at Praed Street,
stand lofty and serene;
home to their maker and his last two
miles to sleepy Kensal Green.
 
Hard, cast in iron, that engineer:
God bless Isambard!
Piston-scraping, furnace-busting,
(he) plays the winning card.
 
 

The Pax Britannica

I came to woo you at behest of
Uncle Leo, did my best
to charm and flatter, sooth, lay thoughts
of scheming Saxon Prince to rest.
Just seventeen, you were emboldened,
turned away plain Orange boy
and made for me a consort haven
in your heart, haven of joy.
 
Now Empire spills a growing blot
across the atlas, leaves its mark.
The hands of men in iron ships stoke
their boilers, fan the spark.
Generous in deed and promise, our
emissaries make fair trade
and pay with sovereign Queenly coin for goods
and worldly fortunes made.
 
We will win them and contain them,
not by Enneld Pattern gun:
no hard coercion, whip or stick but
ten good shillings to be won.
See, we offer contracts clear in
English, plain as it appears
in small print, some trifling matters:
not important, never fear.
 
Pax Britannica, Pax Britannica, rules
the headland and the wave.
Hansa spirit will enrich us, keep
us from an early grave.
Sweet Victoria, Mother England,
gracious queen whom God will save.
 
We'll leave them gifts of architecture,
engineering, laws and more.
The willow bat, the bowler hat of
gentlemen who keep the score.
Head-up code of moral conduct,
never minions to deceive.
Straight the ball and, best ofall, when
time is come, we take our leave.
 
Pax Britannica, Pax Britannica, rules
the headland and the wave.
Hansa spirit will enrich us, keep
us from an early grave.
My sweet Victoria, your dearest Albert;
two ledger lines above the stave. 
 
 

Tripudium Ad Bellum

Instrumental 
 
 

After These Wars

After battle, with wounds to lick and
beaus and belles all reuniting.
Rationing, austerity: it did us
good after the fighting.
Now, time to bid some fond farewells and
walk away from empires crumbling.
Post-war baby-boom to fuel with post-
Victorian half-dressed fumbling.
 
I see a screen, grey cathode tube in
walnut cabinet, pride of place
in holy family living room. Clipped-
tone announcer, powdered face.
And now to mould public opinion,
sanctify the good and great.
Lordly over his dominion, brash
Television seals our fate.
 
After these wars, when gentler winds were blowing.
After these wars, when stocking tops were showing.
When the Co-op gave us daily bread
and penicillin raised the dead
and combine harvesters kept
us fed, after these wars.
 
We thanked the Yank and thanked the
Lord for sparing us from dark invasion.
Now to liberate, rebuild and balance
Europe's new equation.
Spooky spies in from the cold with
lies and secrets to be sold
to bigger brothers, bigger bombs,
le Carré thrillers to be told.
 
We take our place amongst those others
who would punch above their weight.
Divest ourselves of glowing mantle,
mantle of old Britain Great.
Bit part cast in Hollywood, ripe
old thespian, tolerated.
World-weary ham upon the stage,
evergreen but over-rated.
 
After these wars, when gentler winds were blowing.
After these wars, when stocking tops were showing.
When the Co-op gave us daily bread
and penicillin raised the dead
and combine harvesters kept
us fed, after these wars. 
 
 

New Blood, Old Veins

New blood, old veins, ringing in the new dawn.
Like it, lump it, old chips with curry on.
Let's get to it! Tempus fugit.
Time to cheat the coroner.
Affordable package tours to the
land of Johnny Foreigner.
 
New blood, old veins, kids can't wait to be gone.
Next door, jealous neighbours peeping
through the curtains drawn.
Half-timbered Morris Traveller.
Pop the luggage in the back.
On the ferry, getting merry,
bending over, builder's crack.
 
Out there, far beyond Victorian
piers and palisades.
Have to toss the candy floss. No more
ginger beers or lemonades.
Roll on, roll off. Duty free, Dover, Calais.
Wet the lip, a hefty sip. Cheap
brandy, jolly Beaujolais.
 
Time to visit fresher places, don't
be fearful, we'll join the clan.
Just be mindful of who's the master,
don't pinch the sun bed. Understand:
we're going mental, continental,
socks and sandals, Tapas bar.
Got a phrasebook, bought a timeshare,
lessons in Spanish guitar.
 
Goodbye Blackpool, going
where sun is guaranteed.
Drink it down, throw it up. Watneys
Red: just what I need.
Knotted hankie worn too late,
melanoma's such a pain.
Not too far from hot Malaga to
Luton Airport in the rain. 
 
 

In For A Pound

I've started, so I'll finish. I'm here, so I'll stay.
Dally with a little lady, met along the way.
In for a penny through the turnstile gate.
Searching for the motherlode before it's too late.
Barley grain sprouting, spilled upon the ground.
I'm the mad hatter, getting fatter, in for a pound.
I'm the mad hatter, getting fatter, in for a pound.
In for a pound.
In for a pound.
In for a pound. 
 
 

The Browning Of The Green

Exponential family planning:
let me play the numbers game,
sign up for some benefits, get my
dues and stake a claim.
Spill out to suburbia then spread
onwards to the country wide
and when the last plot's taken, I'll
spill out on to the other side.
 
It's the browning of the green: we'll
be tight as canned sardine.
Lemmings to the right and the left of
us and all points in between...
It's the browning of the green.
 
Be fruitful: nothing to it. Fill the
earth, subdue it, multiply.
It's written in that Goodly Book. So,
it's really best that I comply.
Another baby-booming bloomer?
Imbecile fecundity?
Another mouth, but what the Hell?
Child benefits, they come for free.
 
It's the browning of the green: we'll
be tight as canned sardine.
Lemmings to the right and the left of
us and all points in between...
It's the browning of the green.
 
A little boy, a little girl: quite
perfect but it won't suffice.
Bouncing bairns upon my knee;
six or seven might be nice.
Come, time to go with Daddy, find
ourselves some open playground space
on these concrete fields of England, this
blessed realm, this blessed place.
 
It's the browning of the green: we'll
be tight as canned sardine.
Lcmmings to the right and the left of
us and all points in between...
It's the browning of the green. 
 
 

Per Errationes Ad Astra

We thought it over for a century or two.
Considered all in light of such short history.
Would you let them loose upon the
stars? Bring their dark and murky
waters to lap on pristine shores?
Fine in their own place and with
their own destiny to follow.
But - breeding like rabbits on other
worlds and with other calmer spirits?
 
Per errationes ad astra? Then dream, dream
on. The dream is all. All good sense gone.
 
Neil, Buzz, and Michael, they made a
team. The right stuff in a can of spam.
The brave adventure came to nought,
cruel economics had their say.
A tiny bubble of pure white light from mighty
engines roared on Pad 39A in the night.
Orbiters and Soyuz towered on
stacks of Lox and hydrogen.
But what a little squib, a little
firework in the cosmic crash of fiery
fusion as far galaxies collide:
drowned in the vastness of all we see
and, still, can only just imagine.
 
Let's not worry about the wandering
man. He'll wander hither if he can.
But his time may have already come. And gone. 
 
 

Cold Dead Reckoning

I don't mean to be a misery but
I have to tell you straight
there are zombies in the closet and
they're not prepared to wait.
We are the tribe that eats itself and
spits out not a morsel thing.
And navigates this desert by
our cold dead reckoning.
 
Does anybody have the charts,
coordinates or maps?
A hint of a direction to avoid further mishaps?
A throw of dice, a toss of coin decides
what Mrs. Luck might bring
as we navigate this desert by our
cold, dead reckoning.
 
Turmoil, tempest, tall tsunami,
haven't we heard it all before?
Await The Beast to join the feast,
this party is an open door.
All are welcome! All are joined in
penitence, if it please the King,
while we navigate this desert by
our cold, dead reckoning.
 
We placed our trust in sad self-doubting
leaders who have led,
led us through the dark to slip amongst
the ranks and files of walking dead.
Send to us a guiding symbol,
tiny bird upon the wing,
as we navigate this desert by our
cold, dead reckoning.
 
Now, back across the Doggerland:
will higher mighty force redeem
the one who dropped the moral
compass, failed to fulfill the dream?
Will testimony tarnish and will
sticky reputation cling?
As we navigate this desert by
our cold, dead reckoning.
 
Cheer up, Charlie, brave a smile, lift
your chin and walk the walk.
See! Angels watching over all; the
snake, the dove, the circling hawk.
There must be another Eden, future
garden of earthly delight.
Next time, no fruit: in birthday suit, walk
naked through the heavenly night
as we navigate this desert by our
cold, dead reckoning. 

 M P 3   S a m p l e s


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