UNITED STATES

Waking up to frosty landscapes

Waiting on a desert sun

Stopped into Nepali’s teahouse

Looking down Milano’s lawn

The scent of London’s summer

Piquant whiff of chanel on a train

Everywhere I look it’s United States

Everything I hear it’s United States

Where’s it going to end the United States

Like their fathers before them

They’re prone to crossing swords

Shooting off their biggest mouth

And prancing ‘round like Lords

Internationals recoil

Talking ‘bout the weather of their lives

Met a Yankee couple at the old train station

He was wringing his hands about that nation

Semi comatose in Tehran

Paper thin the walls around me

Static and announcer’s parlance

Creeping into conscious thought

Crackling the searing bacon

Every now and then a free man’s fate

Keeping it natural with the bass driving the rhythm and everything played and sung largely into a mic - the theme is rather self explanatory.

Friend of the Fabulous

Touched you are by latent hands of Gods

Your face is bloated by the froend you’ve got

You’ve always got the news of their stuff

Someone’s elevated by their lateset bit of status

You’re a friend of the fabulous

It’s so good you’re almost tremulous

You think that we’re hanging on your words

But what’s she really like that piece of work

Oh she’s just so normal and such fun

Everyday’s a party oh if only we could come

You’re a friend of the fabulous

It’s so good you’re almost tremulous

You’re a friend of the fabulous

Let me bathe in your perspective

You’re a friend of the fabulous

If she knew us we’d be so blessed

Everyday you’re locked away

In your love of adulation

So you’re a limpet clinging on

To that association

You’re a friend of the fabulous

It’s the fundamental anchor of your life

Like bees on speed they’re buzzing you a lot

Must be more today who will feed another high

Re-recording of this 2003 song with Ted Key (Organ) and Adrian Secker (Piano). Adrian has played live with us a couple of times this year so it was a project to recreate the live sound in the studio. Back in 2003 there was no streaming and the original recording (song title 'Jack Johnson' ) was on CD and received local radio airplay for a few weeks. Spotify wouldn't accept a song titled with another artists name - hence the title change.

Jack Johnson

Driving up the Kawera gorge to Queenstown

Looking out the windows at the cars

Then you go and make a small commotion

Pointing out the V-dub that went past

Did you think you saw Jack Johnson

Did you see a surfboard and guitar

I think you’ve had way to much my friend

Cause everybody here looks like a star

Coronet is lovely as an ice cream

We’re carving up the snow having a ball

Then you go and make a small commotion

Pointing out a cool dude on a board

Sunday and we’re on the beach hung over

Recalling when the Eichardts was a bar

I feel like some kiwifruit pavlova

You’re still musing bout that V-dub car

The first version of this in 2005 was a reaction to nationalism as exhibited via plane hijackings. This time the US border politics triggered a rewrite with a different chord structure and words. Just acoustic guitar and bass: back to basics!

INTERNATIONAL NATIONALITY 2025

I woke up to face the day Acapulco Hilton

I knew I had to catch a train to the USA

I should be excited but I know I’m not

I’m feeling all the fears that America’s got

There are borders and a national guard

There are people who are living so hard

I think it’s time to make us all the same

An international nationality

Out of the xray beam to the border gate

Who’s got a false passport are they here today?

I’m looking around for a sweaty brow

Has the guard gotta grudge and a sacred cow?

Let’s get something underway

Take away the borders of today

I think it’s time to make us all the same

An international nationality

Free them . . . and you’ll be halfway human

The children . . . let them be in arms tomorrow

I’m looking out through the glass at the other’s world

Seeing them through the fence where they’re all being held

Who’s that getting up and walking around

Are we just gonna leave without making a sound?

I was struck by an article in the Guardian 10 years ago about a woman who used to hang out and work with the Rolling Stones in the 60s and the article was about adapting to old age while having nostalgia for such a potent time in her life. For this recording I had to change one word - 70 to 80. Musically it needed to be rhythmic but melancholic: something you got from major and minor seventh songs in the mid 70s as disco kicked in

YESTERDAY’S PEOPLE

Yesterday’s people used to party, party, party

Yesterday’s people were so cool so cool so cool

There was a girl her skin so fresh and fine

There was a guy as smooth as a dark red wine

They were out there in a happening era

Face to face so close and nearer

Photogenic and oh so bold

But that generation has all grown old

In 69 it was crazy zany time

In London town all that music going down

Young people travelling - free love happening

Beautiful people philosophizing

Mary Jane twilight in the Mediterranean

That generation they’ve all grown old

If you’re talking to an 80 year old guy

Remember he - was Mr cool way back in time

Try to imagine the face much younger

The yearning soul hormonal hunger

Suite Judy blue eyes young people dancing

That generation they’ve all grown old

A complete re-recording in the key played live. It was one of those recordings that sounded really messy. Dropping the fader on the acoustic guitar I'd started the whole thing off with revealed a different direction highlighting case and drums. It's about females who stand up for the community against arrogance and male chauvinism and I see them in my work environment - this song is about them..

Miss Rocket Launcher

Hey hey you this Joan of Arc - Miss Rocket Launcher

Love you sending into space – those flying saucers

Your eyes they dart and sense corrosion

You’re leaning forward in silky motion

You know who is fit to govern

For those who aren’t they get concussion

Your elbows dent the seats of power

Your rocket roars it’s getting louder

Hey hey you Sister of Mercy – Miss Rocket Launcher

Love it that they’re on your mind – the poor and poorer

When you sense their exploitation

Your voice it cracks and lips are brazen

I’d hate to be your target right then

A volley gone to crack their heads

We’re hungry like Cohen’s Partisan

We’ll force ‘em to the stones and hear the doors slam

Room dust scatters as your strident voice rises

Tables go silent as you render the kaisers

Hey hey you this Mother Theresa – Miss Rocket Launcher

Can feel the warmth inside of you – and getting warmer

When they wallow in their greed

You let one go and make em all flee

I’m feeling for the hem of your gown

The reverent touch the best to be found

I know that you will win in the end

And sharing it with you – what a send

A twist on the 'Appearance Medicine' phrase.

APPEARANCE MEDICINE

Tripping round some corridors

Nothing but neon lights

Floor polish and hidden voices

There you are before my eyes

It’s appearance medicine

Like a hormone injects in a vein

It’s appearance medicine

A face that lights a flame

S O B and tachy heart when lightning seeds a body start

That jumps a gate to permeate my actual need

For you with me - today

This hospital’s a restaurant

Medicine is the menu

God’s own surgeon shaped the face

That walks me to the moon

It’s appearance medicine . . .

Ah-huh Ah Huh da da da da da da da da

It’s appearance medicine

It’s appearance medicine

Everyday it’s much the same

Going on that ward round

Floor polish and hidden voices

Soon my heart it’s on the pound

New start after finishing SC and Spotify Album - Eccentricity so Beautiful.

This title jumped off a page and lately in the live act we've been doing some 80s songs: I think that influenced the approach here.

Decarbonizing Aviation

Decarbonizing Aviation

It’s a new concsiousness

Vapor trails gone West

Sometimes you got to make a change

To keep love on forever’s path

Your shaking trees are exhausting me

Better a sundown heart to heart

Decarbonizing Aviation – night swimming and seeing it spark

Decarbonizing Aviation – going steady yeah not too fast

Glaciers and shrinking

Habitats and mourning

Can we glide the plane back home

Gotta give up on bad bad stuff

Seven days of denial nights

I think we know that enough’s enough

Written 11 years ago: recalls the days when music was vinyl only and a magical retreat from disabling matters of the heart

33 RPM NIRVANA

Flattened faces pressed up against the glass

It’s well known no-one needs to ask

People talking ‘bout how I’m feeling

If they were me yes they’d be reeling

They’d need time and recuperation

But at night I take up station

Hanging around in 33 RPM Nirvana

Getting away to 33 RPM Nirvana

She’s a stranger that’s her right to choose

Who can blame her she don’t like old news

You might say she’s one go getter

And why did she not treat me better

I admit I loved her deeply

But right now I’m kind of sleepy

Hanging around in 33 RPM Nirvana

Getting away in 33 RPM Nirvana

I’m pulling the curtains and switching it on

Watching the tone arm lower onto my black vinyl

Drifting away now the music is my river

Not analyzing I’m seeking separation

Through the mists of time I wander

What is life I’m bound to ponder

Gonna get to shrug my shoulders

Moving on and getting bolder

Hanging around in 33 RPM Nirvana

Getting away in 33 RPM Nirvana

Wrote the title phrase on a birthday card and immediately thought that's a 'song title'. The first take of the vocal was a loose ramble but I just left it in - it seemed to fit.

Love Our Together Life

That cliché thick and thin about loving all the time

We’re not vascillating over always gotta rhyme

Doubling up in laughter keeps an even keel

And getting to a sweet spot finally it’s real

We drove out to the cliff and back

Now it’s all about giving back

It’s life upon a road with little jobs to do

And a race across the sand to share the view

It’s pouring out the drinks as the sun dips down

And talking ‘bout the people who we see around

Love our together life

Love our together life

Back in days of war it was tight in the lip

And the putting up of walls with a face half lit

Cause expectations could never be met

And it takes a lot of years to wind it back to less

Yeah giving up on hurt and feeling how it was

In the years embryonic burning hot

And the psyche bathed in the songs of the time

But transplanting now to a wiser kind of rhyme