Hunker Down

The leaves are green and the kids are buzzing,
I hold my breath when I see someone coming,
We’ve got that old blitz spirit

Hunker down hunker down for a while,
Hunker down hunker down wind your neck in and hunker down

Some things change, some things stay the same,
What you want and what you need may not be everything,
We’ve got that old blitz spirit
Yes there’ll be bluebirds over.

They took to the roads to the sea and highlands,
To the holiday homes and the private islands,
The cupboards are bare so you better start giving
There’s a man over there digging graves for the living.

First Homecoming

I lost myself down the water road,
Took myself to the ocean,
Sure when I woke I’d be by myself,
Shook from sleep by the motion,
Of the breathing body beside my own,
As the sun lengthens our shadows,
In this new place that I call my home,
Where we bless the light when it comes.

I brought my music into this house,
It had to happen sometime, 
I lost the urge to be by myself through the short nights and the winter.

Although the winter is long and cold,
The roof is fastened on tightly,
Though we’ll feel it more when we get old,
We can take it lightly,
You can’t go wrong if you build a team,
But don’t rely on it solely,
Feels good to admire another’s fire
When you don’t rely on it wholly.

Mark The Hard Earth *

When the sun shines down,
From his heavenly throne,
All the people lying on the ground are like lizards on a stone,
Thank God for sunny weather,
It’s only once a year,
The cold and wind they break them,
The winter brings their tears.

God put me here in this field full of snow,
The dark sky above me and the hard earth below,
It always feels cold, it’s always the same,
I made my choices and I’ll shoulder the blame

Standing in this field,
The sun beats down so bold,
Even though it’s real I know that it’s not gold.
I’ve no reason to complain,
This season always takes me,
To when I first felt low,
This season always makes me.

Me I like rain on a grey afternoon,
That sound on my window it brightens the gloom,
It’s never so still as when rain’s falling down,
The silence and the darkness they steal old Sol’s crown.

It'shardtoseemtobeokwhenyou'renot

I’m looking in through these whitewashed windows,
Try to remember what no one knows,
Try to remember what brought me here.

It’s hard to seem to be ok when you’re not,
It’s so far away it’s not even a dream you’ve got

Nursing a glass, you see the art work and you see your face,
Like a reflection and when you leave here you wont leave a trace,
Like a reflection there is a door to another place,
It’s just a door to another place.

It’s hard to seem to be ok when you’re not,
It’s so far away it’s not even a dream you’ve got,
You wake up in tears and you’re pinned by the fear about the time you’ve got.

I Don't Want To Die Here

The first time I left home I didn’t make it on my own,
With the money running out I went reaching for the phone,
Digging holes and building walls in the dark and in the rain,
When I set off for the second time I didn’t think that I’d be here again

Oh it seems like a lifetime 
Its still so clear
I loaned this land some children
But I don’t want to die here

I reckon Salmon can recall the underwater sound,
Of the currents of creation shifting gravel in their hatching grounds,
With their noses pointed upstream as they dream of the ocean waves,
They’re fearless and they’re defenceless as they leave their cradles and their graves.

This place where you were born, old faces on its stones, the inside of your bones
are inscribed with the lyrics of the official song and one day you’ll be master,
No one alive today remembers when this tradition first began 
but I have got a pal whose grandad was born forty years before it started.

The slick cobblestones reflecting seventies festoons,
A drunken county rallies round ideas like sad balloons.
The Salmon’s not content to stay back bringing up the rear,
He’s got to move like silver lightning and I don’t want to fucking die here.

I'll Always Leave The Light On

From the serpent to the southern sea,
and from crises to serenity,
From up here where I call home,
To the sea that has become known.
Nothing stirs, nothing sleeps, nothing laughs, nothing weeps.

Strong men come, strong men go,
Rockets fly, Rivers flow,
I’ll always leave the light on though no one’s home.

In the horsetails, in the pines,
On the sea bed, in the mines,
Could be Falkirk or the Fiddlehead Ferns,
San Fransisco or the path of the Terns.

Someone’s shouting, someone’s dying, someone’s preaching, someone’s flying.
Strong men come, strong men go,
Rockets fly, rivers flow,
Haters need what lovers know,
Haste the day that they’ll let it go,
I’ll always leave the light on though no one’s home.

If Wishes Were Horses

I wish that we were made of gold, 
I wish that we would never grow old,
Do all the things we’ve never tried,
If wishes were Horses then beggars would ride.

I wish that politicians ties,
Would tighten up when they told lies,
I may as well try and stem the tide,
If wishes were Horses then beggars would ride.

When you get what you want and it’s not what it seems,
At the top of the mountain without any dreams,
At the end of your journey with miles still to go,
It just keeps getting harder the more that you know.

I wish that we could move this town,
Across the sea where I live now,
The city lights shine on the Clyde,
If wishes were Horses then beggars would ride.

The Poorest Company *

When the wind feels like the words are breathing in and out of me,

And I’m standing beside you there’s a shadow where a man should be,

I would be glad enough if wherever I might be,

People would remember we’re woven in a tapestry.

When we steal what we can, with the courage to be free,

And I’ve found where I belong, among the poorest company.

When the wind feels like the world in useless spinning all round me,

A country round my shoulders its flag raised on a gallows tree,

I wont let it get me down, I know there are people now,

Who bind together what they do and live their lives like I want to.

When we steal what we can, I take everything I see,

And I’ve found where I belong, among the poorest company.

I Didn't Try Hard Enough *

I didn’t try hard enough, 

I didn’t try hard enough,

The gold we saved in the good times turned to lead when it was rough,

I must admit the rough was pretty tough,

I didn’t try hard enough,

Oh well.

I miss the factory job I used to do,

I miss the factory job I used to do,

Never thought that I’d miss it more than I thought that I missed you,

The repetition really pulled me through,

I miss the factory more than I miss you.

I couldn’t see the road the road ahead for tears,

I couldn’t see the road the road ahead for tears,

I thought the world was ending as I fumbled through the gears,

Turned out to be just four uncertain years,

When I couldn’t see the road ahead for tears

Scatterseed

Spin me round tiny time machine,
They used to call you Lions tooth or windblow,
They used to call you milkwitch or parachute,
They used to call you evening glow

Scatterseed, Scatterseed, the fallen star of the football field,

Let new names take, let them thrive and grow,
Dazzle me you little sun of the grass,
I hear you roaring, death to lawn perfection,
The timepiece no longer known as.

Scatterseed, Scatterseed, the fallen star of the football field,
Scatterseed, Scatterseed, I’d never call you ‘just a weed’.

Scapa Flow 1919

It took twenty years to build this fleet,
Four years to lose the war,
Millions dead and no one knows,
What the dying was all for,
The King’s run off to Holland and they jailed the mutineers,
Six months since the killing stopped
We were still anchored here.

Maybe a country rose and fell in Oldenburg god only knows,
And all we saw was the rise and fall of the tides in Scapa Flow.

We were ragged we were dirty,
Though we knew didn’t care,
Our only flag was a linen rag,
As lank and lousy as our hair,
Esprit de corps and dignity they ran off with our hope,
One day I robbed an officer,
I sold his iron cross for soap.

The day was June the twenty first,
And the year nineteen nineteen,
The day the seacocks opened,
Still the strangest I’ve yet seen,
By semaphore and searchlight we sent the signal on it’s way,
Von Reuter’s still the only man,
To sink a navy in a day.

Sanday

Sanday so far from here,
When the wind howls I still feel near you,
Sanday, hear the barking sound?
It’s no seal call, no farmers hound.

Back when we found out that the game was real, 
Bobbing in a ruckle of rusted steel.

Sanday

Now Sanday’s just names on stones
and tangles and sun bleached animal bones,
Memory’s now my home,
The old world like the Great Auk has flown.

We got pinned down in a field, 
Nothing else has ever seemed so real.

Sanday. 

Thirty years that I’ve been gone,
Celebrate me with plastic flags and scones,
Those boys who didn’t last so long,
Will take no comfort from your wartime songs.

My folk are scattered and now none live there 
but my time lives on as long as they breathe air.

Sanday.

Saint Monday

Angels regarding discarded pinions,
They can’t be rebought for trinkets and rings,
Ageless eyes glance out at ancient dominion,
Trapped in silent and gaugeless old strings.

Whose are these trees? and why is this mountain
fenced from broken old mill into town?
Whose is this warehouse forlorn and enormous?
All the machinery’s all broken down.

Sandpaper, rust, oil in the lines,
Waiting to fire us back to the good times,
Playing out tunes on a broken guitar,
Trying to bring down the fire from the stars.

Shipwrecked

Sleep until the day,
Dream come what may, 
If when you wake I’m gone,
You know I wont be long,
I’m weary as I wait,
It’s eerie and it’s late,
I’m longing to be home,
Don’t want to be alone.

One dual carriageway castle makes thunder through the dark,
Lit up like a night time shop front,
The distant blare of a distant fox hunt.

If our little boat it hits the rocks below,
We’ll scramble overboard and swim towards the shore,
No one gets shipwrecked anymore.

Wintermoon *

Beyond repair one dismal morning,
redemption waiting in the afternoon, 
grey and chill though at the dawning,
I am the lonesome winter moon. 

Though the day goes by so quickly,
I am a ruin like the bishops tower, 
fielding questions from the sun,
rise and shine late grows the hour. 

I make the shadows on your shelf, 
I bathe the earth from the night sky, 
I get my powers from someone else, 
I'm just another middle guy.

Five Past Two

I can’t seem to open this document
I can’t seem to get anything done today
It’s been a while since anyone came around
Maybe thats ok?

I know these chores are reasonably pressing,
Like they could be done with being done today
and I could probably do with dressing,
In case anyone swings past this way.

It’s five past two in the afternoon.
Nothing’s gonna get done soon.
I can sense your urgency is very real,
but I might as well be howling at the moon.

I can’t seem to pick up the phone and dial
My MU fees are still unpaid
These ballads aren’t going to learn themselves
And the bed remains unmade

Ghosts *

They say we’re not like them, 
A generation ago,
We came on the same ships we were hidden below.

We came seeking protection,
Away from the strife,
Away from the struggles and the hardships of life

I’m not an incomer,
My parents were ghosts,
Sir I was born here so where would I go?

There’s ghosts on the motorway,
The world is on fire,
There’s ghosts on the sandflats as the water gets higher and higher.

There’s ghosts in the brothels,
Behind thick stony walls,
There’s ghosts and their children in prison food halls.

Going To The North

The wind whistles through this old frozen railway car,
I lost track some hours ago though I know we’ve come so far,
We’re only going to the north to see our parents there,
They’ll always find a bed for us though there is no space to spare.

I can always find my own way home in the night time in the day,
The cold wind concentrates the mind and blows the blues away,
There’s a star up in the north, it can help you to get home,
It’s been at work since the very first day from Kirkwall down to Rome.

You can view things more clearly when you see them from afar,
The little things they get clearer the nearer that you are.

A prisoners road across the sea where now water drowns in sand,
The same thing always calls me here that causes birds to land,
There’s a magnet in the north, you’re never really gone,
The lodestone it cant help but spin and it knows where you belong.

First Homecoming

I lost myself down the water road,

Took myself to the ocean,

Sure when I woke I’d be by myself,

Shook from sleep by the motion,

Of the breathing body beside my own,

As the sun lengthens our shadows,

In this new place that I call my home,

Where we bless the light when it comes.

I brought my music into this house,

It had to happen sometime, 

I lost the urge to be by myself through the short nights and the winter.

Although the winter is long and cold,

The roof is fastened on tightly,

Though we’ll feel it more when we get old,

We can take it lightly,

You cant go wrong if you build a team,

But don’t rely on it solely,

Feels good to admire anothers fire

When you don’t rely on it wholely.

Where The World Is Thin

There’s not enough room in the word
To describe the distance I’d travel
How many steps from your bed
Before all these knots in my shoulders unravel 

You can buy affection for gold
You can sell ideas for pounds and pence
There’s much that’s certain in this world
Love’s not obliged to make much sense 

That’s what makes us spin
Where the world is thin 

Down marble and sandstone halls
Into the room where you’re somehow still living
The likeness creates it’s own light
A slice of your spirit that won’t give up giving 

Some of us strive to achieve
Something that lives once we’ve moved on
Here’s this beautiful death mask
Your signature and a crown of thorns  

That’s what makes us spin
Where the world is thin
That’s what makes us spin
Where the world is thin 

Engraved in copper, exposed in the dark room
Painted on canvas or cast in bronze
Caught forever in frames per second
Perched on the head like the snare of a song 

That’s what makes us spin
Where the world is thin
That’s what makes us spin
Where the world is thin