1. |
Dangerous
03:17
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Dear Mother I’m in a terrible state
Not as good as I could be
Dear Mother I don’t get too much to say
But that’s just as it should be.
There’s a man in this cell
Says its only common sense
Why do you need a trial if you’re innocent?
Dear father I never done nothing at all
You do believe me don’t you?
Father I’ve got my back to the wall
Come and visit me won’t you
There’s a man in this cell and he looks a bit like you
He’s only 22 and he’s already dying.
I think I must be dangerous
I think I must be dangerous
I think I must be dangerous
For people like you and me.
Dear doctor I’m in a terrible way
With all the things you pump in me
I know there was something I wanted to say
But there’s so much rubbish within me
I know I stepped out of line
You’re re-educating me
Devastating evacuating, I can’t see
Dangerous.
I think I must be dangerous
I think I must be dangerous
I think I must be dangerous
For people like you and me.
It must be I’ve done something wrong
The way they’re treating me
Could it be I disagree
With the powers that be…
Dangerous.
I think I must be dangerous
I think I must be dangerous
I think I must be dangerous
For people like you and me.
You and me
You and me
You and me
© Jim Woodland
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2. |
I Talk Like That
02:30
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He was a teacher of some degree
Teaching English as it should be spoke.
Teaching everybody to talk like him.
Must be some kind of a joke.
When we met I said 'Hello'
He said 'Somebody spoke. Was it you?'
I said 'Thankyou'. He said 'Suit yourself'.
I said 'I always do'.
I talk like that.
I talk like that.
I talk like that.
I talk like that.
I’ve got no choice!
We started again about rain in Spain
And what some cat did on a mat.
I said 'How now?' to this brown cow
But I couldn't relate to all that.
He told me 'English is perfectly painless'.
I thought I'd like to choke him.
He said 'That's easy for you to say'
I said 'You must be joking'.
I talk like that.
I talk like that.
I talk like that.
I talk like that.
I have to!
I said 'Look, if I wrote I could give you a note
Or a telegram might do instead'.
He said 'Here's an idea, you could make yourself clear
with a note! ...Is that what you said?'
With a tear in his eye he started to cry and he fell down to his knees.
He cares about the Queens English...
I couldn't care if she's Chinese.
I talk like that.
I talk like that.
I talk like that.
I talk like that.
I may be common as muck
That’s my good luck….
© Jim Woodland
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3. |
Me & Betty
03:10
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Me and Betty sitting on a bench
I’m down in the mouth
She’s up at the other end
Between us like a very old friend
Sits my shadow
I’m talking to him
I say
Tell her I love her pass it on
He says
Tell her yourself
I said will you please
Tell her I love her pass it on
He says
Tell her yourself
I talk to my shadow
And he passes things along
But I heard him and Betty talking yesterday
And some of the things he said were wrong
I said
Tell her I love her pass it on
He says
Tell her yourself
I said will you please
Tell her I love her pass it on
He says
Tell her yourself
I know I should talk to Betty
That’s something that I should do
I really want to tell her
That I never told a lie
But I just can’t tell the truth
So I say tell her I love her pass it on
He says tell her yourself
I said will you please
Tell her I love her pass it on?
Tell her yourself
Betty! Betty! Where are you?
You can’t see me over here.
Talking to my shadow.
Well he looks like me.
He’s not really me.
He never says how much I care…
So I say
Tell her I love her pass it on.
Tell her yourself.
I said will you please
Tell her I love her pass it on
Tell her yourself
So now we’re sitting here
Like Morcambe and Wise
Like Burke and Hare
Like Jekyll and Hyde
I know my shadows telling her lies
About me….
It’s like roller skating over a mattress
Like tap dancing in my bed
Like talking with a flannel
wrapped around my face
I turned to my shadow
And I said just once more
Tell her I love her pass it on
Tell her yourself
I said will you please
Tell her I love her pass it on
Tell her yourself
Now Betty’s gone to Clapham Town
That’s somewhere she likes to hide
I really should have told her
how much I care
I couldn’t find the lies
to say how much I care
You should have told her that I love her
You should have told her yourself
You should have told her I care
You should have told her that I love her
Well she’s gone now…
Oh yeh……..
© Jim Woodland
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4. |
Men Don't Cry
04:45
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In the dark, in the dark
Something wriggling through his heart
Tonight, tonight.
There’s a game that he plays
to keep you all so far away
Is it you or a stranger here tonight.
You will act out all your lines
the way you done so many times
The things you said,
the things you said.
In the dark and in the gloom
Shortly he will wreck his room
He will wreck his room
and wreck his head.
And he wonders why
Men don’t cry
If he could cry like you do
He’d be crying too.
But he just sits there in the shade
Ice slides through his heart like a blade like a blade
You have acted out your heart
Like a statue he just played a part
Like a picture hanging on the wall.
But there’s this shadow deep inside goes looking for a place to hide.
And he’s screaming, deep inside.
And he wonders why
Men don’t cry
If he could cry like you do
He’d be crying too.
If he could cry like you do
He’d be crying too.
He will sleep in a while
Ice forms around his smile
Tonight, tonight
In the dark and in the gloom
There’s something nasty wriggling through his room
Tonight…
And he wonders why
Men don’t cry
If he could cry like you do
He’d be crying too.
And he wonders why
Men don’t cry
If he could cry like you do
He’d be crying too.
If he could cry like you do
He’d be crying too…
© Jim Woodland
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5. |
Ghosts Instrumental
02:11
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6. |
We Are Safe
05:01
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The street is lit from end to end
Twenty four hours a day.
There's soldiers standing at both ends
Just in case...
Atomic sunshine atomic rain
They say there is no waste at all.
But late at night I've heard the trains
Sneak by behind a wall.
And they say
'We are safe we are defended.'
How does it feel to be so secure?
'We are safe we are defended.'
These days you can never be too sure.
From time to time the searchlights shine
Right into the room.
And barbed-wire shadows hang like lines
Of music across the room.
And they say
'We are safe we are defended.'
How does it feel to be so secure?
'We are safe we are defended.'
These days you can never be too sure.
The street is lit from end to end
Twenty four hours a day.
But now the darkness never ends
It just looks like the day
And they say
'We are safe we are defended.'
How does it feel to be so secure?
'We are safe we are defended.'
These days you can never be too sure.
© Jim Woodland
'We are safe we are defended.'
How does it feel to be so secure?
'We are safe we are defended.'
But these days...
I don't really feel so sure.
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7. |
Don't Jump
03:21
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When the lift tips you out on the top floor
The lieutenant says it's time for you to talk.
You're walking in a daze
like a robot to the roof
Talking to yourself as you walk.
Now the lights in the city
wash around your feet
Like plastic bottles burning on the shore.
And the night in the city says
'Well come on in.
The water can be lovely and warm'
Don't jump unless you mean it.
It takes a long time
before you hit the ground.
There is time as you fall
for you to change your mind
What if it happens
when you're on your way down?
When your problems line up like a dole queue
And night time falls around you like a hole.
When the morning hits you like a policeman.
Standing upright gives you vertigo.
I've seen the clock on the wall say ‘it's 1984!’
And you've been here since 1979.
Do you curl up and die or give it a try.
Do you ever really make up your mind.
Don't jump unless you mean it.
It takes a long time
before you hit the ground.
There is time as you fall
for you to change your mind
What if it happens
when you're on your way down?
When the computer chews up your cheque card
And writes to tell your mother you just died.
Though you're trying to deny it
she calls you a liar.
Down-graded to unclassified.
And the cop who takes you up to the top floor
Is just a chip off the old H-Block.
He looks you in the eye
Takes off his hat and smiles and says
'Jump, all charges will be dropped'.
He says
'Jump, all charges will be dropped'.
Don't jump unless you mean it.
It takes a long time
before you hit the ground.
There is time as you fall
for you to change your mind
What if it happens
when you're on your way down?
Dont you jump!
© Jim Woodland
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8. |
You Know What I Mean
03:55
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I got this dirty job in a dirty town.
Started at the bottom
Now I think I'm going down.
I said 'With what I know I'm well in touch'.
But the Boss said 'Kid,
you know too much'.
The Boss said 'Kid,
you know too much'.
He said 'Kid, you know too much.
I've met you're type before'.
And I said 'Look...
I've got this friend says he's doing alright.
You know what I mean?
You know what I mean?
Alright?'
The Boss said 'Cheer up Kid,
things could be worse'.
So I cheered up kid. And things got worse.
After sixteen years
I was just about losing my nerve.
The Boss said 'Kid, you should be pleased'.
The Boss said 'Kid, you should be pleased'.
He said 'Kid,
you should be pleased to serve.
This is a bloody good job and besides
it's all you're worth'.
I said ‘I've got this friend says he's doing alright.
You know what I mean?
You know what I mean?
Alright?'
One day the Boss said
'We need some people to be out of work.'
He said 'You, you, you and you.'
He said 'You, you, you and you.'
He said 'You, you, you and you lot
just volunteered.
I know this is not your fault
there's no need to shout.
But now you're unemployed
and I don't like layabouts.'
He called the police and they threw us out.
But I said 'I've got this friend
says he's doing alright.
You know what I mean?
You know what I mean?
Alright?'
It was sixteen weeks
since we tasted a loaf of bread.
I don't like cake,
but I swallowed my pride instead.
Standing in this social security queue.
I thought I saw a face.
I thought I saw a face.
I thought I saw a face
of somebody there that I knew.
It was my friend down there too!
In the queue!
I said 'It's you'.
I said ‘My names Sue
How do you do?'
But there was something not quite right!
Something not quite right!
There was something going wrong!
I had to think! La La La!
La La La, La La, La La!
Think! La La La!
La La La, La La, La La!
I had to think!
Think! Think! Think! La La La!
La La La, La La, La La!
I had to think! La La La!
La La La, La La, La La!
I said
'I thought you said you was doing alright'
He said
'Well fuck it'.
You know what I mean?
Alright?
© Jim Woodland
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9. |
Ghost Story
04:27
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I've come here tonight to tell you
what all of you should know.
I was murdered in the Falklands.
I knew I shouldn't go.
And when you tell the stories
of why I died and how.
Don't say you've never met my ghost.
You're looking at it now.
I have walked back over the water
just to take a look around.
I can see that nothings altered
since the day that I went down.
The old are not defended,
and the young don't get a start.
The rich get rich and richer.
Its enough to break your heart.
I have slammed the doors
in Downing street
enough to raise the dead.
Well if I really died in vain,
then something should be said.
One night I raised the living,
and she told me why I died.
She scared me so I had to go.
I didn't sleep that night.
Cause the things I died defending,
are the things I valued least.
Tell me am I a ghost of war?
Am I a ghost of peace?
And when you fight for freedom
be careful and be sure.
Did I die defending freedom?.
Did I die defending war?
We sailed into Saint Carlos
in the middle of a raid.
And my friend Charlie crossed himself well, he was so afraid.
The oil in the water
was smoking like a town.
I was burned in the water,
trying not to drown.
But you don't believe I am a ghost.
I can see it in your eyes.
Do you think that ghosts just scream
and rattle chains all through the night?
Well I left the chains that bind us, where I left the rest of me.
It was chains took me down
In the South Atlantic Sea.
There were chains made of money.
The best that you can buy.
Chains made of newspapers...
They were chains made of lies.
Chains of employment
and chains on the dole.
And if they could I know they would
Put chains around my soul...
So I've come here tonight to show you
What all of you should see.
I think you should be frightened
But don't be scared of me.
I'll say goodbye to England
The land that wasted me.
I'm going back to the Malvinas
Before I start to...scream.....
© Jim Woodland
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10. |
Why Are You Dead?
04:11
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Why are you dead if you didn't want to be so?
I only ask 'cause we took such trouble
with your clothes and food and the like
And you didn't try to leave.
So if you liked us all that much
Why did you die.
Three days before my birthday
You could have said
If you didn’t want to buy me presents
Dying just seemed
A little bit excessive.
And anyway we missed the point
So why did you die?
Were you trying
to unhinge old uncle Sid?
Or was it something
Granny's kittens did?
Or were you just trying
to spoil my birthday party?
It didn't work.
You weren't invited anyway.
And even if you were
we didn't really mean it.
So if you did it out of spite
We didn't mind a bit.
Were you trying to express
your inner self?
Or was it just a vicious little dig
At somebody else?
Now you are dead there's no room for complaining.
It's for the best. Besides…
you're sort of stuck with it.
And I'll fill the gap that you left
by spending money.
And Granny's bought this whippet
And it takes your place a bit.
But I hope you know
the neighbours think we're odd.
I hope you're bleeding satisfied.
You rotten little sod.
But why did you go
and never said goodbye?
And if you liked us all that much
Why did you die?
Everybody loves you
when you're dead.
Everyone remembers
what you said.
When you're dead.
When you're dead.
When you're dead...
© Jim Woodland
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11. |
Broken Eyes
03:40
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My broken eyes still see you in the mirror.
In my broken dreams
I hold you through the night.
My broken heart still loves you like a lover.
Don't we ever, ever get it right...
Your photographs are fading in the moonlight
You will soon be out of mind and out of sight.
I'm looking for the sunshine in my future
But I think I must be blinded by the light.
My broken eyes still see you in the mirror.
In my broken dreams
I hold you through the night.
My broken heart still loves you like a lover.
Don't we ever, ever get it right...
I will throw away the flowers as they crumble.
I will keep no place for things that I can't hold.
But I close my eyes and I feel my spirits tremble.
I swear I felt you walking through my soul.
My broken eyes still see you in the mirror.
In my broken dreams
I hold you through the night.
My broken heart still loves you like a lover.
Don't we ever, ever get it right...
© Jim Woodland
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Jim Woodland UK
Hit & Run Street Theatre in the 1980's, Punk Band Red Rinse in the 90's, Fabulous Salami Brothers, Songwriter for Mikron
Theatre and Blaize for 20 years, performing solo, and with the Anti-Capitalist Roadshow.
Political, social, emotional songs and plays. Watch this space. Latest collection here and back catalogue to follow. Welcome to Band Camp and on we go...
... more
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