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1. |
They Call Us Stupid
04:37
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These songs can make you happy, they can make you sad, my friend
They can make you feel euphoric, I just hope they never end
They call us Stupid and we say “Yes, that’s our name.”
We had a kind of lightning, beauty at the height of Prog
We got to play the Roundhouse, got a deal thanks to Whispering Bob
They call us Stupid and we say “Yes, that’s our name.”
They call us Stupid and we say “Yes, that’s our name.”
They used to rehearse opposite us, down in the basement, opposite us
Crowds of hippies on our street, the neighbours appalled on our street
That’s what makes the world go round - hearing those unearthly sounds
The vastness of the States soon began to take its toll
They broke us trying to break us onto College Radio
They call us Stupid and we say “Yes, that’s our name.”
This has made us happy, this has made us sad, my friend
It only lasted five years and then it had to end
They call us Stupid and we say “Yes, that’s our name.”
They call us Stupid and we say “Yes, that’s our name.”
Adam was wild, taboo at the time… a single mother, the neighbours frowned
They didn’t approve, filled with hate, except my mother, she thought you were great
That’s what makes the world go round, in our lovely Northern town…
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2. |
Bundunyabba Blue
04:13
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When something seems so wrong, it probably is wrong, so hold onto that feeling
Hold onto your outrage – it tells you who you are
Try to leave this place before it leaves you changed, before you lose your self
Toxic masculinity is running free…
Johnny don’t lose your money (Johnny, no)
Johnny don’t place that bet (please don’t go)
You’ve got to get out of this town (Johnny, no)
Before you start to forget (please don’t go)
Forget who you are, the things that make you special
Johnny don’t get distracted (Johnny, no)
Don’t be tempted to wait (please don’t go)
The sun it is so bright and there’s hardly any night - it’s no wonder folks seem strange
And they’re drinking all day long, and they end up in a rage
It’s clear you don’t fit in, but do you want to change? And become just like them
Or hold onto your self, if you can
Bowie stole your look, stole your hair, stole your clothes
And I don’t think that the credit was ever yours
Johnny don’t lose your money
Johnny don’t place that bet (please don’t go)
You’ve got to get out of this town (Johnny, no)
Before you start to forget (please don’t go)
It took a bullet to your head to make you feel at home here
Johnny don’t get distracted (Johnny, no)
Don’t be tempted to wait
Please don’t go
Johnny, no
Please don’t go…
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3. |
Walk Away From Hollywood
02:42
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My dream and the future are not likely to end up together
Being told you’ll never be a star is like being pushed from a moving car
I’ve wanted it since I was a child, but now I’ve been exiled
Maybe just the dream will do, I don’t have to live it too
And it just might feel good to walk away from Hollywood…
What do you do when you don’t know what you can do?
I lost my twenties to a dream, now I’m starting again
I’m coming to real life late… but I’m starting to appreciate
Maybe just the dream will do, I don’t have to live it too
I’m feeling old but I can see I’m the youngest I will ever be…
And if I can’t play in a band then I could turn my hand
To selling hats, shoes or flowers, what are the hours?
I couldn’t breathe the air, I hated driving everywhere
Maybe just the dream will do, I don’t have to live it too
And it just might feel good to walk away from Hollywood…
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4. |
Since Bowie Died
02:08
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Since Bowie died
It’s all been a blur
We didn’t realise
How lucky we were
In the world we grew up in
We didn’t know it then…
Since Bowie died
Everything’s changed
Those days seem impossible now
From a different age
It opened the floodgates
Well maybe he knew…
Since Bowie died
We’ve been on our own
It’s time to go on now
Into the unknown
It will be OK
Just different is all
Since Bowie died…
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5. |
Rock'n'Roll Never Was
03:29
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Elvis never met the Colonel
Brad and Janet just drove on
Ian Hunter never kept a journal
Marc and Mickey didn’t ‘Get it On’
No-one ever shouted “Judas!”
Ringo never got the call
Nothing was bigger than Jesus
The Sixties never started at all
No ‘Blackboard Jungle’
No ‘Rebel Without a Cause’
There never was no future
Rock’n’Roll never was…
Brian never played the ‘Pinball’
Mark never had the Fall
Bill Nelson just ‘Quit Dreaming’
And Stupid never formed at all
Ritchie never got on the ‘plane
There never was any ‘Purple Rain’
No Bikini Kill, no Comet Gain
There was no ‘Train in Vain’!
No bored teenagers
No Punk Rock record stores
No way to express anger
Rock’n’Roll never was
Bob never sang he wished he didn’t know now
What he didn’t know then because
Nothing ever happened
Rock’n’Roll never was…
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6. |
The World's On Fire
02:52
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Is there anywhere that’s left
To rest your skin?
To take comfort
And begin to live
I’ve seen things that
I wish I’d never seen
Atrocities
On a TV screen
It’s like the world’s on fire
It’s like the world’s on fire
Burning futures
The world’s on fire
Is there anywhere that’s left
To rest your skin?
Take comfort
And begin to live
I’m so weary
I am disarmed
Nations and religions
Bring nothing but harm
It’s like the world’s on fire
It’s like the world’s on fire
Burning the future
The world’s on fire
It’s like the world’s on fire
It’s like the world’s on fire
Burning futures
The world’s on fire…
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7. |
Lazy Susan
02:35
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My mother was the Time-Check Girl,
Some kind of celebrity
When I asked her what time it was,
She’d say “At the third stroke, it will be…”
She worked nights, I’d be home alone,
I’d ring the Speaking Clock just to hear her voice
When they asked her why she worked two jobs, she’d say
“Some people have no choice…”
She’d sing “Shoobie-doo”…
They called her Lazy Susan,
Because she moved so fast
She had the perfect marriage
She never thought it wouldn’t last
She always kept composure
Her dignity and her pride
So people didn’t know that
She was dying inside
And to hide the way she felt
She sang “Shoobie-doo”…
You can ring the Speaking Clock
Just dial 1,2,3
I don’t call it any more
It’s not the same to me
It’s no longer my mother’s voice In fact,
Mum’s not around at all
And I’d do anything to be able
To make that call
And to hide the way she felt she sang
“Shoobie doo”…
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8. |
The Streets Of Harlesden
04:23
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Five a.m. again
Off to the streets of Harlesden
Laverne and Shirley played round here
Back when we were just starting
Pushing envelopes
On the streets of Harlesden
They filmed some of ‘Spaced’ round here
Of that I’m pretty certain…
Mr City Fox
On the streets of Harlesden
He is making his way home
Slipping through people’s gardens
Out in the snow again
But I won’t get disheartened
I’ve been walking round for days
On the streets of Harlesden
Five a.m. again
Off to the streets of Harlesden
If I ignore you, in a daze
Then I beg your pardon
I dream of being asleep
But I won’t get disheartened
I’ve been walking round for days
On the streets of Harlesden
I’ve been walking round for days
On the streets of Harlesden…
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9. |
Holland Park
12:12
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They made a film about us. It started at the end, in that big house in Holland Park. Then it went back to the beginning: Yorkshire in the sixties.
I was into football when I was growing up, but from the age of twelve, I became music mad. I never bothered with football again. On a Saturday, I’d go into the market building in town. Down in the basement they had a record store in the round. They had listening booths, so if you’d read about an album, you could hear it properly.
Then hurry home clutching a twelve-inch paper bag. Get home, put the kettle on, make a cuppa, peel off the sticker very, very, carefully, sit down with your tea and biscuit and listen to it properly for the first time. Sit there reading the sleeve notes.
In truth I’d always be slightly disappointed on the first listen, but by the time I got to the third, those albums got me good and proper. They’d crawl in through my ears and live in my brain. I’d be walking to school and they’d be going round and round and round in my head. They’re still there now to tell the truth.
When I was fifteen Dad drove me to Leeds and bought me an acoustic guitar. That was it, I was off trying to write songs. I’d known Bugs from school. He met David at technical college, and we advertised in the market building for a drummer. That’s how we met Mole. We ended up rehearsing in the basement of my girlfriend’s house. We were in the shadow of the 1950’s really – everything was a reaction against it or an echo of it.
Nigel was one of the few who’d engage with us right from the start. He’d always come up and say “Hello” after gigs. He kind of became our manager and he’s the one who got us a showcase gig in London.
That first time we drove down to London, it was such a shock, like hopping onto a moving walkway. Everything was so much ‘more’ than we were used to. We were lucky – somebody quite famous was at the gig and championed us. It all happened quickly. Suddenly three record companies were competing to sign us. We went with the one with the best international connections. International meant the States. We were over-joyed: they said we reminded them of Pink Floyd.
We signed the deal in the record company office, a big mansion in Holland Park. We stayed in a pokey hotel in walking distance of Notting Hill, Ladbroke Grove, Latimer Road. We couldn’t believe all the different cultures, the different sounds, different rhythms, different voices speaking different languages. We had to step up, stay awake, keep our wits about us. We loved it.
Don’t notice me
I’m hiding in the city
Please don’t notice me
If you look at me
I might just run away
I don’t know where
So don’t notice me
Don’t notice me
I’m hiding in the city
Please don’t notice me
I’m so overwhelmed
I can’t tell what is real or anxiety
So please don’t notice me
I feel alien
Everybody else seems to know
The speed to walk and what to say
What to do and where to go
Don’t notice me
I’m hiding in the city
Please don’t notice me
If you look at me
I might just turn too stone or disappear
So don’t notice me…
The record company folk were funny. It was all or nothing – one minute it was folk rock, then glam rock, then prog rock. They’d just drop the last thing and move on. It did cross my mind what would happen to us when a new thing came along.
Making our first album felt like a dream. I remember we drove down from Yorkshire to the manufacturing plant in Hayes to pick up the finished album. We were so excited. We got a box and drove off, then stopped as soon as possible and got it out of the boot and opened it up. We couldn’t really believe that they’d have managed to get it right – to get the right music on the right side with the right labels. But they had. We pulled open the box and took out an album. I remember holding the record between my palms in the sunlight: black vinyl – the most beautiful thing I ever saw.
The first trip to America blew our minds – we had to hold on for dear life. New York in the 70s: a frothing broth of humanity. Everything brighter, everything louder. Again, we were hearing sounds we’d never heard before, trying to keep up.
We went to see what they called a midnight movie back then: Ted Kotcheff’s Australian film with dear old Gary Bond trapped in the Yabba. A few years later Bowie took Bond’s whole look for the ‘Let’s Dance’ album. I reckon they even made the video in the town they used for the Yabba. I loved it so much I started writing songs about it. They would have eventually been on our third album, but as it turned out, that never came to be.
We did five long tours of the States in three years – completely exhausting. We started off as innocents, determined to stay true to what we believed in. But by the third trip, we barely knew what we were doing or who we were.
Wake up
You’re going to miss it,
If you don’t live it at all.
Wake up
Don’t sleepwalk through it,
It’s only a short time after all.
My relationship at home lasted that long, and then it just fell apart. It was impossible. I defy anyone to hang onto themselves under those conditions. And we spent so long trying to break the States that we neglected things back home. The band not only ended up hating what we were doing but hating each other. We lost Nigel along the way too.
A lot of things I regret… we weren’t really in control, and it’s only as you get older that you realise you were wrong when you were younger.
I certainly never thought it would end as suddenly as it did. It literally stopped overnight. Punk came along and just blew the whole thing away. The world was suddenly a different place.
We found ourselves being called back to the mansion in Holland Park to be told we were dropped. We were destroyed - they said we sounded too much like Pink Floyd.
If I’d known it would end so soon, I’d have appreciated it more while it was happening. And the labels went on to saturate the planet with Disco, until everyone had had enough of it and they dropped that like a stone… but Disco didn’t suck, there was some really great music in there.
I know lots of bands got stuck in ongoing legal battles, but it was easy for us: it just ended. They said that the songs we’d starting recording for the third album were lost in a fire, but I’m not sure that’s true.
They made a film about us. In a big house in Holland Park, mosaic all over the walls. They used in in ‘Secret Ceremony’ and I think they filmed ‘Peeping Tom’ round the corner, so I was happy.
They got my son to play me – his name’s Shirley. Well, that did seem like a good idea at the time. He’s in a band too, not my cup of tea, you understand… funny music… he’s well into it though, just as obsessed as I was. His band plays our band: silly wigs and 70s clothes – all slightly off.
It always seems to me that it’s obvious what’s going to happen in a film when you’re watching it. If it’s so obvious to me, then why can’t the people in the film tell? But I lived it and I didn’t see what was coming. It was like being dropped back to earth from a great height. Back to Yorkshire, no money, no band, no dream, no relationship, nothing.
I went to see my mum and she said I should be grateful, “You’ve had this wonderful experience Billy, and you can always keep playing music as a hobby… but now, you’re going to have to find a proper job. I mean, what would you have done if rock’n’roll never was?”
I ended up coming back to London. We got the band back together a couple of years ago. It was just the same… but it just wasn’t the same. We talked about making that third album, but it didn’t happen, with one thing and another... and now, now that Mole decided to check out, I don’t see it ever happening.
Becoming a postman was the best thing I ever did. I get my space and the music’s in my head as I walk round Harlesden. The idea of music being reduced to a hobby is all wrong. What did Cocteau say? “Don’t think of it as a distraction, but as a religion.” That’s how I feel even now. I still write the songs, it’s just that now I don’t play them to anyone else. That was never the bit that mattered anyway.
In the end it was such a small space in time – six years in all, such a small part of my life. My generation were inspiring and eloquent, utopean and optimistic… quixotic really, meaning idealistic but unrealistic…. ultimately naïve and hedonistic, foolish and disappointing. Well, the past may be ours, but the future is yours now.
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10. |
Black Vinyl
02:16
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11. |
Mole
03:18
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All the Saturday afternoons
I spent alone as a child
All the music I found back then
It seems that I need it now
I’m so tired of being the odd one out
The only one who thinks this way
Tired of trying to communicate
Not knowing if you understand what I say
It was clear that we’d had our moment
We almost flew close to the Sun
When the music was good then I was good
But when it’s not…
We all knew how this would end
We grew up in a golden age
We didn’t know it at the time
But if you really look at those photographs
Then you can see the future in my eyes
You were the one who’d encourage us
Back in the early days
One of the few who’d come to the show
And you’d always come and say “Hello”
It was clear that we’d had our moment
We almost flew close to the Sun
When the music was good then I was good
But when it stopped…
We all knew how this would end
We all know how this will end…
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12. |
I Won't Try To Fix You
03:17
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We all have times when something
Suddenly seems too much
I won’t try to fix you…
I can’t solve your problems
And I shouldn’t try
But I can listen to you
If you like…
I can’t stop you tripping
Though I’ll happily break your fall
I’ll be right beside you
After all…
When something gets right to you
Throws you out your tree
I won’t try to fix you
I will sit beside you
I will listen to you
If you like…
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13. |
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She says she wants to save the pigs
And when they ask her why
She says “If we can show the best of us
Then the rest will follow”
She says she wants to save the world
“But if it’s OK, please
Can we start with the pigs cos they’re smarter than dogs
But they seem to get the worst of it”
She says she wants to save the pigs…
She says she wants to save the world
And this is the first step
To stop tearing to pieces such lovable creatures
When there really is no need at all
She says she wants to save the pigs…
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14. |
Albion
05:25
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To know you was to love you
We were lucky to have time with you
Running to me in the mornings, running to me in the night
And I know we will always think of you
Albion… you always knew the right thing
You knew what needed to be done
Albion… you always knew the right thing
You could always see the signs
You always knew when it was time
You changed me and I miss you
It was magical to have met you
But life just seems to carry on even now that you are gone
And I know I’ll never forget you
You climbed up on the wall
The highest point you could balance on
You looked back at me…
And then you were gone
You were damaged when we met you
My heart went out when we lost you
The only thing I could think to do
Was write a song that remembers you
And I know we’ll never forget you
Albion… you always knew the right thing
You knew what needed to be done
Albion… you always knew the right thing
You could always see the signs
You always knew when it was time
I guess you just knew it was time…
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