Charging around with a juggernaut brow
Overdraft, speeches and deadlines to make
Cramming commitments like cats in a sack
Telephone burn and a purposeful gait
When out of a doorway the tentacles stretch
Of a song that I know
And the world moves in slow-mo
Straight to my head
like the first cigarette of the day
And it's you, and it's May
And we're sleeping through the day
And I'm five years ago
And three thousand miles away
Do I have time? A man of my calibre
Stood in the street like a sleepwalking teenager
No. And I dealt with this years ago
I took a hammer to every memento
But image on image like beads on a rosary
pulled through my head as the music takes hold
and the sickener hits; I can work till I break
but I love the bones of you
That, I will never escape
And I can't move my arm
Through the fear that you will wake
And I'm five years ago
And three thousand miles away
The Bones Of You is taken from Elbow's fourth and Mercury Music Prize winning album, Seldom Seen Kid.
I could write pages and pages about the lyrics to this song, but take some time to absorb them yourself, they'll probably mean something different to you anyway.
I absolutely agree, Garvey is truly a poet for the people. I heard him once in an interview talking about how youth worker in Manchester uses the lyrics to 'Scattered Black & Whites' as a poem to work with young offenders.
ReplyDeleteScattered Black & Whites
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Been climbing trees I've skinned my knees
My hands are black the sun is going down
She scruffs my hair in the kitchen steam
She's listening to the dream I weaved today
Crosswords through the bathroom door
While someone sings the theme-tune to the news
And my sister buzzes through the room leaving perfume in the air
And that's what triggered this.
I come back here from time to time
I shelter here some days.
A high-back chair. He sits and stares
A thousand yards and whistles
Marching-band (Boom-ching)
Kneeling by and speaking up
He reaches out and I take a
Massive hand. Disjointed tales
That flit between short trousers
And a full dress uniform
And he talks of people ten years
Gone like I've known them all my life
Like scattered black 'n' whites