1. |
Arrival
03:56
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You could be whatever you want
You could have been whatever you want
Yet you're here in this old place
Yet you're stuck here in this old place
One by the thousand, attracted by a brand
Taking over my life with unreasonable demands
They think we have a cure here to make it disappear
They won't get a single thing
They won't get a single thing from me
The cracks in my heart deepen day by day
And I wonder why i've nothing to say
The guile of my mind weakens play by play
And I wonder why i've chosen to stay
I don't want to know you, means more guilt if I do wrong
If i'm staying silent, i'm not leading you along
The weight is bearing down on me
I need some breathing space
I've got to get out of here
I've got to get the fuck out of this place
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2. |
The Pharmacist
06:38
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I am not witchdoctor
For you're naked sins
I am not a bubble burster
For your new children
I am not a public figure
in which to confide
I am not to be on the jury
Or to be left untried
But in my domain of fruitless empathy
You'll develop a complex based on your dependency
Hoarded in, congested
Depressed and overestimated
The distress to be expected
With derelict confectionery
Extemporaneously compiled
To remain useless and vile
While you go the extra unnoticed mile
You'll have seen a million faces
Sent to be treated in other places
The eyes that were too young
For the law to see what's wrong
Where your ethics lose their poetic sense
Replaced with metric density
I am not a medley maker
Of your favourite songs
I am not the earworm
In your head when it's all gone wrong
I am not a philanthropist
Who's here to speculate
I am not an addict
Watching your failing mental state
But your feel the need to question what it is I know
You take one little tablet and suddenly you're George F. Archambault
Box to box and crate to crate
Year to date and end of day
Intervening much too late
To help the sorrow dissipate
Or just to help eradicate
That rash of shame or that twist of fate
You only now present with a belated sense of urgency
You'll be singled out for a single dose
One to kill, one to promote
For a life that need not live
Yet you insist on drugs to give
To the dying kind with mind decay
Watered down 'til they're washed away
Five year's training to go near and far
We don't need you here for what your are
Our people are healthy, dead, or slow
And you can only go where the money goes
Your language might help you but soon you will see
That patients are assholes in every country
They'll warp you and bleed you and leave you immune
To the reason that's led to you being marooned
I am a human and these are my days
Spare me five minutes to give me some praise
So I might hit target, so I might survive
By preparing your pills I stripped myself alive
If you listen to me and take my advice
I'll save you from becoming a habitual device
Yes, I need you're custom but dear God, can't you see?
Patient safety is my priority
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3. |
An Interlude For Tia
03:52
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It was the morning
I remember that, I remember that
And it was her 10am feed
And she took it normally
And it was strange
Even after a month, things started feeling normal
Which I was fine with
This was gonna be my life
I was fine with that
This was my normality now
But anyway she feel asleep
And I feel asleep
And i'm usually tired after i've come to see you guys
And I just remember there was this scream
And I swear I almost fell out of my skin
And it was the Mrs she screamed
And it was fucking terrifying
And she was crying, she was crying so much
And Tia had gone purple, purple and still
I couldn't have been asleep for more than an hour, an hour at most
Yeah, just a few minutes off the New Year's prize
Just a few minutes off
Would have got the prize
Yeah, just a few minutes off
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4. |
Foreign Similarities
03:36
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Your shoes do seem a little big for you
And I know your words will get misconstrued
But now you're slipping on your words
And it cuts so deep to hear you curse
In a different language, in a different tone
The way you let little things get overblown
Is a tidal wave waiting within
Asking: "Are you playing to avoid losing, or are you playing to win?
"Are you playing to avoid losing, or are you playing to win?"
Oh, what a difficult sight you must be
To the men drawn in by your beliefs
And a charming set of rotten teeth
That would be more suited to a shop in Leith
I wonder if a move has proved it success
When the dress you wear gets you no notice
Leaves lungs longing for an asthma attack
And blends you in 'til the blood flows from your back
Blends you in 'til the blood flows from your back
Now I hear you're exempt from society
After getting yourself dosed up on Preconceive
Now I work to music up above my head
Leaving rumours of a miscarriage left unsaid
But part of me will miss those jagged rocks
And a heart that was born from an Eastern Bloc
But I won't get eaten up by despair
Cause like you I didn't come here to care
Cause like you I didn't come here to care
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5. |
Model Day
07:02
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Be a man and suffocate
Learn to love the place you will inevitably hate
Succumb! Succumb! to the clientèle
Who will kill your butterfly and leave you in the diving bell
Befriend all the company
They're the only ones to remind you of your sanity
Bolster up your vigilance
It's the only state of being that'll mean you'll ever stand a chance
So you begin with an illness
And i'll begin with a cure
Once i've had it checked
This remedy is yours
So your return for another
Which the doctor has put on to repeat
Despite the fact he has no idea
What he's trying to treat
Script after script after script after script
Came each one I wish I could have ripped
And thrown out of the system
But can they really not afford to to buy Sumatriptan?
Suits and salaries would come
And empty out our galleries
And regurgitate some fallacy
About an agony-ridden family
And yet my apathy can understand your tragedy
Risk after risk after risk after risk
From the spitting addicts afflicted by existence
When the law doesn't help you as a form of resistance
Script after script after script after script....
But that doesn't mean i'm conflicted by my interest
That doesn't mean i'm conflicted by my interest
That doesn't mean i'm conflicted by my interest
That doesn't mean i'm conflicted by my interest
That doesn't mean...
I'll leave every day
Knowing I didn't change the world
Thinking about the different ways
Conversations could have unfurled
There's no recognition
And you can't expect there to be
From a job this menial
That somehow means everything to me
So you will create a false sense of worth
When you join the patients on Fluoxetine
When a job begins to hurt
So you will learn to tolerate this mess
And you will learn the art of
Keeping your feeling suppressed
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6. |
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Mhairi
Mhairi, marry me
Scar me with an inch of my life
Show me what it is that's not right
And i'll help you out of this nightmare
Mhairi
Mhairi, marry me
Take hold of that bottle like a knife
Admit to me that none of this feels right
And i'll bury it deep in a hole
I'll anaesthetize what keeps you
From closing your eyes
I'll dismantle the image
Of the man who was trampled that night
It's life-changing, not life-threatening
But you have to question who you're letting in
And Mhairi, I beg you
To let me go, or to tell me we're through
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7. |
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Will you hush?
Will you leave?
Little thrush
We can't alleve
But we'll suffer through it
Cause you think that we can heal
Another reason rang not to answer the phone
An overblown bag of bones wants me dethroned
Now I want to cry but I won't, I swear
I wouldn't want someone thinking that I care
With a heavy voice, hands, and a head of disdain
I swear i'll do something that'll make it all change
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8. |
There Go The Girls
03:57
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I have seen round triangles
I've counted out the days
It took me to formulate
And conceive the perfect phrase
That would efficaciously
Manage to displace
All the flames around your heart
Made of burning paper lace
Which made it hard to keep a grasp
Of any situation
Where I imagined that we overcame
Every single contraindication
Can't you see
What it is you mean to me
Oh please
Cause you're Clostridium to my Botulinum
You're the strings on my harmonium
You're the face I see when I go to sleep
You're the secret I wish that I could keep
But your interest in me
Was minimal at best
It took a dozen beta-blockers
Just to regulate my chest
To rid me of the heartbeat
And leave me with the thought
That I could win you over
And you could not be bought
Can't you see
What it is you mean to me
Oh please
Cause you're Clostridium to my Botulinum
You're the strings on my harmonium
You're the face I see when I go to sleep
You're the secret I wish that I could keep
And every single type of vaccination
Won't separate my cardiac cells
And eradicate this infatuation
Cause you're Clostridium to my Botulinum
You're the strings on my harmonium
You're the face I see when I go to sleep
You're the secret I wish that I could keep
And if like cures like
Then love needs love
I need your atoms
Or lack thereof
To reconstitute and stabilize
This contentment that i've devised
And every single contraindication
Could be mitigated by hands
Wrapped around your lymph node glands
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9. |
On Leaving
05:27
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Nothing lasts forever and I knew this time would come
Yet all I feel is anger about the ease which I succumb
To the laws of outer management, to the rule of a company
Who fail to look past profit and see individuality
I don't care about the area, I don't care about it's needs
I don't care if it hits target, I don't care if it succeeds
Fuck you, I don't wanna go - my life is in this shop
You honestly thought i'd be happy with a mandatory swap?
But this simply is the rule of life 'til I can cast aside
DHC Continus and Bendroflumethiazide
You've just got to grin and bear it and pretend you've got a handle
Despite every second person you meet being someone you want to strangle
So i'll arrive with potent bitterness, sadness, and despair
I know now in this company that no one will be spared
The moment you hit "legendary" your life is gonna change
They'll pick you off like targets hanging in a shooting range
So introductions will be made again, it's time to start anew
Fifty different people I guess i'll have to get used to
You'd think I might enjoy the change, so I can start again
So why does my contentedness feel more like a stranger than a friend?
No, I guess that feeling's locked inside until I can walk away
From cytotoxic triangles and Enalapril Maleate
I've been sucked into the system trying to acquire myself a skill
And i've lost the dignified part of my rational free will
But you might as well shut your mouth cause no one's listening to your plea
This sorry excuse is the person that you've chosen to be
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Johnny Setlist Edinburgh, UK
Johnny Setlist is musician of sorts. Sometimes he talks in the third person.
Available for weddings/funerals.
johnnysetlist [at] gmail.com
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