PASCAL's
KEVIN COYNE HOME PAGE 
KEVIN COYNE LYRICS - BABBLE, LIVE
ROCK CLUB, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON, 1979
Kevin
Coyne, vocals, Dagmar Krause, vocals, Zoot Money, keyboards, Brian Godding,
guitar.
Thanks to Graham for proof-reading:)
The city is a house with rooms and people making tea, banging kettles, bringing their brains to the boil. The fencing rattles, streched flowers curl to the shouts of men. Children are everywhere, working up tantrums and spitting in drains. Oh how we goggle at the clouds of leaves, the vines, the clog machines. The pad pad of leaving feet is the drum beat of the age. Up the seashore mothers make dinners and fathers patch shoes. In the near distance, beribboned ships with shirt tail sail await the insect voyagers. Are we the last to leave? Family favourites are touched and retouched, walls are stroked and kissed. We talk with the cats, thrust weapons at their paws, ask them to care. Night arrives and off we go, sighing and singing and crying. There are no road signs or taxis, no buses with cheeky conductors. We follow the perfume of grass and oil, the slime from tears and munch at the last of the bread. And to where? To what? Maybe to Monkey Island where jaws and rules are rules are rules. Maybe to moonlight caves where the gibbering starts and starts and stops. Who knows. Please hold me tight my honey ones. Stroke my skin, touch my spine till we melt as a moon together.
SONG: ARE YOU DECEVING ME?
Life drifts through the skull, bone breaking, clawing at the fibers, pulling at the tip of the nose, crawling across the top of the lip, inducing sweet street pictures on the bedroom walls. Old grumbler arrives, moving limbs, filled with concrete, date stamped flesh, leadden with a daze and swears to change it all. He can do it. Watch the gas jet streaking, little straight lines from the fingertips, burning holes in the sheets willing death on the mood that's trapping his heart.
SONG: COME DOWN HERE
The washing dangles dead, bleeding multicolours on the grass. Dummies lie in the dirt, oversize socks point up and up and up. Bricklayers argue about anything, stare eyeball to eyeball, fighting off work and boredom, sweet ideas that soothe. The traffic shouts across cracked walls through bamboo curtains, roars into ears enlarged for the occasion. My head is the Houston astrodome, a muddle of green and lights full of people, pompous bullies. The street door stands open admitting no-one. The wife cooks food for the monster.
SONG: DEAD DYING GONE
Why am I so popular? Old friends come from the North bearing heavy puddings and strings of sausages. Shy friends from the Lowlands bring me bottles of strong lemonade, bottles of water, fishpaste and eggs. I didn't know I had so many many friends. The postman delivers parcels and letters every day. Nurse is very strict with the visitors and insists that they all wear face masks. Mumps and measles spread diseasles.
SONG: STAND UP
A hole in his heart, a hole the side of a mineshaft. He wears long clothes in order to make himself known. He hovers over us when we work. Jesus, could you take him away from here? I await the answer from the mighty one. I await the answer from the mighty one. The man in the next room coughs a lot because he smokes too many cigarettes. His mother provides him with everything. My mother provides me with nothing. My father tells bad jokes and wonders why I never laugh. There's a dance on in the ballroom tonight. I'm taking Lydia. Ernie's not going. Ralph is taking his harmonica. Jack tells jokes like my father. Is Jack my father? No, he just talks like him. Perk up buttercup, he says. Sybel sits all solemn. Simon sings out of tune. The bus to the town never ever stops here. What would we do without it? Shit ourselves, says Ralph. Ralph is a little dynamo who wears suits that don't fit him. He's too small to argue with anybody. Dwarf! Dwarf! Dwarf! It's sad being a short arse. Am I keeping you?
SONG: LONELY MAN
Goodbye old monster. Don't come back, will you? There I go again, talking to myself. I'm happy enough, I'm alright! There isn't a lot happening at home at the moment, it's pretty dead, they've taken all the pictures off the wall, they've burnt all the documents they could find. I'm safe here. I don't want to go home. I'm in the lap of the sods. I always was. Used to point at me in the street, spit on my coat and throw things at me. I was the brightest boy in the street and they couldn't stand it. I mingled with bricklayers and bus conductor but I wasn't happy. Isn't it funny? Anyone with brains is always regarded as a threat. Yes, I'm safe here. The security is too tight to escape.
SONG: I REALLY LOVE YOU
I believe in new state that takes on all comers, forces its way through their holes in their bodies and pumps up muscles like balloons. I believe in a new spirit that rattles the spider's web, brings down the spider and chews and fries his brain, his brain. I'm a big man today, I'll be better tomorrow. I'll be mad today, I'll be better tomorrow. A bit mad today but I'll be better tomorrow. A bit mad today but I'll be better tomorrow.
SONG: SUN SHINES DOWN ON ME
Someone
stole the moments. Sea, sand and sky. A table with plates and knives and forks,
a lamp shade thick with tassles. A quiet corner and a cozy chair, the radio
is on and laughter rises. Up the stairs, up the stairs, up the stairs, up
the stairs. Let me crawl into the void, let me crawl into the void, give me
the warmth of the bed and let me crawl into the void. Let me crawl into the
void, let me crawl into the void, let me crawl into the void. Nobody make
any noise.
- Interruption -
Tending that all is well but all you do is make monkey out of people. I hate your laughter in the corridors, ringing up the lift shaft, breaking into the quiet of our room. You should be ashamed of yourselves, you should keep a check on your nastiness. Life is hard enough without your constant attempts to make it harder. I am the God head. We're the big head. The organ grinder as the monkey, the mouse. You arseholes, pretending to love me when all you do is hurt our feelings. A pretty good curse on you all. It's the only thing to do. It's the only thing to do.
SONG: I CONFESS
To the King with the same results. After the King, I tried the Queen. She arrived at the prison with a party of servants, all of them dressed in uniform. They came in large cars with smoked windows and velvet seats. The town was very impressed. The good lady stayed for several days, seemingly happy and pleased.
SONG: SWEETHEART
The fat disease is made to destroy. Our life is precious to ourselves. We don't want to hear about them. We live in a world of our own. Our world is the best world. It doesn't matter what you do, you think or what you say or where you go. We exist for our own fibre, our own fibre and flesh. We live in a lump, we are a lump, we live in a lump inside.
SONG: SHAKING HANDS WITH THE SUN
Within the prison, grows the smallest tree acknowleged in the world. It has no leaves, no bark on its trunk. The tree is tended by an old gardener who is blind and deaf, a man who everyone thinks is crazy. How wrong they all are! His spirit is so strong that he dosen't need words to explain himself. His hearing is unneccessary because he has all the sounds of the world firmly locked in his brain. So, you may ask why does he water the tree? Well, it's because he doesn't care. Well, it's because he doesn't care. Well, it's because he doesn't care. Well, it's because he doesn't care. Well, it's because he doesn't care. Well, it's because he doesn't care.
SONG: MY MIND JOINED FORCES
We sing today because singing makes us happy, flirting fools who forget how dreary the weather, how dark the so-called sun. I feel sorry for those who can't sing. I feel sad at their silence. They sit and think and twist their fingers into knots while skin touches skin and no sound is heard.
SONG: IT'S MY MIND
Consider the state of the sickroom. The nurse and the decoration and the flowers. The grapes are inedible and we want to go out and play. But the town's empty says a voice through the intercom. All the children are ill. Consider the state of the child without friends. From where we lie, we can see the fields and goal posts. A flatten group of nettles by the wall. Nurse! we shout, let us stand at the window with our trousers down.
SONG: LOVE TOGETHER
Him:
Take it away.
Her: No, don't.
Him: I'll take everything away.
Her: No, don't do that again.
Him: You you me
Her: Kevin.
Him: Let's not act! Let's be thruthful!
Her: Tonight, could be real.
SONGS:
HAPPY HOMES
IT REALLY DOESN'T MATTER
WE KNOW WHO WE ARE