Uneasy Listening

The 1998 compilation album.

...And In A Nutshell

It's a happy sound
And it's, uh, not doing anybody any harm
But I think, I mean, it's a nice sound
(repeat)

Mouthful of Shit

(Chorus)
Can't hear you 'cause your mouth's full of shit
Can't hear you 'cause your mouth's full of shit
Do something about it
(Repeat chorus)
Well I'm really back to basics right beside a bar
Choke the double trouble big one to the joker with the card
Good call
What's the crack, what's the damage done today
From the commons to the common a banana skin away
Knock it back knock it out
Chuck a nightmare dart
Quiet
Compere on the mic turns turning to the court
Putting beef vol-au-vents across the Union Jack
Bolinger and Bitter says the colonies are back
(Repeat chorus)
You think you're god's gift
You're a liar
I wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire
(Repeat)
(Repeat chorus)
Up your ronson
Take a tab
With a flash of Zippo light
Catch the hip parade passing to the Polaroids right
Check the manic little rebel with a bottle in his hand
A rhyming manifesto and a butty from his mam
Local lad made bad with cowboy charm
Claims he doesn't really mean every screw-'em-all barb
Pass the mic
Karaoke with the yesteryear stars
Time to weep into your beer 'til the fireworks start
(Repeat Chorus)
You think you're god's gift
You're a liar
I wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire
(Repeat)
(Repeat chorus)

Behave

Smiling angels on your milk-white shoulders
Scared of heaven and accusing whispers
Angles always get the worst advice
But they can hire the sharpest lawyers
Someone's always telling you how to behave
Boys and girls, come out to play
See Cupid fire his poison arrows
Mickey Mouse grew up a cow
You should hear the things they say about Minnie now
Someone's always telling you how to behave
Farewell to all the smiling angels
I have a date with some little devil
Girls will be boys and boys will be girls
I found a bedful of heaven in this hell of a world
Someone's always telling you how to behave

Timebomb

(Chorus 1)
Stop now, what's that sound?
Everybody look what's going down
Stop now, what's that sound?
(Repeat chorus 1)
(Chorus 2)
I am a timebomb
A ticking ticking ticking timebomb
I am a timebomb
A ticking ticking ticking timebomb
Unattended on the railway station
In the litter at the dancehalls
Sitting pretty near the fast-food counter
In the backseat of a Vauxhall
(Repeat chorus 2)
(Repeat chorus 1)
(Repeat chorus 2)
Hear the ticking of your heartbeat beating
Hear the breaking of their promises
Hear the smashing of your expectations
Hear the shattering of half-rhymes
(Repeat chorus 2)
(Repeat chorus 1)
You don't tell time--time tells you
And all the timebombs
They're all dancing to the same song
In a world full of no-ones
I am a someone
Timebomb, timebomb, timebomb, timebomb
(Repeat chorus 1)
London bridge is falling down

Morality Play In Three Acts

Act one, the smell of green leather, French polish, quite pristine, not a hair out of place, not a wrinkle, not a crease, the silverware all clean. Exquisite chaussures grace marble floors, be upstanding, for men of yore. But wait, who's this, sticky under the collar in Elsinore? Enter silent comedy geek with dynamite down his pants. Nervous, shuffling on his feet, leading a merry song and dance. A back seat driver of good moral fibre, holding up the light. He's made his own bed, now he's got to lie in it. Ha ha! Serves him right.
Act two, a new New England, watch the good seed grow. But who is this miss out-of-wedlock, with children of her own? Enter witch finder general, of melancholy humor, and irascible power, all dressed in goody-goody two shoes, pulling the heads of flowers. 'Let this be,' said he, 'a lesson, your dirty linen is your own reflection.' Said I, 'Somehow it just doesn't wash, away with your petty inquisition. In the vernacular, most unkind sir, fuck with me and you will see the flesh and blood and bone, the black eye of thine enemy.' Dance, dance.
Act three, 'I am the lord of the dance,' said he. John the Baptist, dripping wet, playing sir politick-would-be. Backslapping, backsliding, back to basic instincs, backfiring. By your own choice you're on a hiding to nothing, I ask you which is more comforting? The thought that I am bad seed, gone to seed, turned sour by TV sex and violence. Or even worse, am I unleashed by my own volition to do you ill? 'Condemn a little more, understand a little less.' Oh sad sir, thou jest! Ha ha! I am Prometheus, prepare thee to meet thy nemesis.

Enough Is Enough

Open your eyes, time to wake up
Enough is enough is enough is enough
Give the fascist man a gunshot
Trying and trying to get this damn thing done. It can't done. Come shoot the fascist with a gun. 'Cause it's stopping us from unity. We cannot see reality, just vanity, insanity, Fusion cannot stand it see. No man, fascist man, will ever get me outta the land so understand Fusion plan to stop them with a bang. We sang and sang to make the peple all unite. Not fight, but fight because the leaders don't think right. You burnt us in the past you know it won't happen again. So black and white take a stand and all try to defend. All of the people and the children who are living in the past, just blast, and blast, don't make the fascist man last.
Open your eyes, time to wake up
Enough is enough is enough is enough
Give the fascist man a gunshot
On and on and on you know the feeling's so strong, so long, it's wrong, I'm telling you it's wrong. Destruction, confusion, and blaming it on the color, I wonder, in horror, 'cause the people start to follow. All the leaders and the rulers who are putting up the fence, it's dense, immense, and you say you're talking sense. Bull, bull, I want to say it full, but people on the radio you know will make a pull. So I try to tone it down to make the whole world know that the language of my violence will proceed in my show. Flow, flow, to make the fascist man know that unity is here and unity will grow. Open your eyes, time to wake up
Enough is enough is enough is enough
Give the fascist man a gunshot
Open your eyes, time to wake up
Enough is enough is enough is enough

On Being Pushed

I never could stand to be pushed!

Hanging On The Old Barbed Wire

If you want to find the general
I know where he is
I know where he is
I know where he is
If you want to find the general
I know where he is
He's pinning another medal on his chest
I saw him, I saw him
Pinning another medal on his chest
Pinning another medal on his chest
If you want to find the colonel
I know where he is
I know where he is
I know where he is
If you want to find the colonel
I know where he is
He's sitting in comfort stuffing his bloody gut
I saw him, I saw him
Sitting in comfort stuffing his bloody gut
If you want to find the seargent
I know where he is
I know where he is
I know where he is
If you want to find the seargent
I know where he is
He's drinking all the company rum
I saw him, I saw him
Drinking all the company rum
Drinking all the company rum
If you want to find the private
I know where he is
I know where he is
I know where he is
If you want to find the private
I know where he is
He's hanging on the old barbed wire
I saw him, I saw him
Hanging on the old barbed wire
Hanging on the old barbed wire

Ugh! Your Ugly Houses!

Your ugly houses look so... ugh!

Look! No Strings!

Look, no strings--just paper, glue, and card
Hark, the angels sing 'Paste the Lord'
That was the Armley tabernacle choir. Next we'll be hearing the true story of an American housewife who claims to have taken mid-air photographs of Jesus Christ in the skies of Indiana.
High above the streets and houses
Misses Meta Battle, with one hand on the Valium and one hand on the bottle
Somewhere over Indiana, eight miles high
Meta Battle sees the good Lord wandering 'cross the sky
(Chorus)
Have your fun whilst your alive
You won't get nothing when you die
Have a good time all the time because you won't get nothing when you die
Look, no strings--just paper, glue, and card
Hark, the angels sing 'Paste the Lord'
Gobsmacked, William Shatnered
Meta does a double take
Come on baby, do the camera shake
Half expecting from the aisle a certain Mister Beadle
Watching you, watching us, watching Misses Meta Battle
(Repeat chorus)
Look, no strings--just paper, glue, and card
Hark, the angels sing 'Paste the Lord'
Meta Battle shot her Lord
And watched him tumble down
And now there's people out with Polaroids all around town
And who knows, that Jesus on the church near your house may well be the original
Kiss it as you pass
(Repeat chorus)
Look, no strings--just paper, glue, and card
Hark, the angels sing 'Paste the Lord'
(Repeat)
Susej em kcuf ho
(Repeat)

Big Mouth Strikes Again

I caught you with your head down the toilet as you were gulping up dirty words, then later dressed in suit and tie, whilst playing to the laughing crowds, you were gargling, spitting, fingers down your throat, making yourself so sick. Vomiting the words that you'd sucked and slurped all over the cops at the back!
Big mouth, big mouth, big mouth strikes again
Big mouth, big mouth, big mouth strikes again
Flucky now, flucky now, flucky now, oh my, it's a good job Fusion cannot spell. 'Cause if I could you know I'd get a lot of flack off the record company, always on my back. Well I thank God for watching what I'm doing. Whoops. Fusion watch what you're saying. Remember what happened before when you tried to thank God, um, Christ, um, Him--you had to scrap your lyrics and throw them in the bin. I couldn't win, it must've been a thing. Anyway I've been asked here not to give lip, but to talk about a topic which we call censorship. Musicians have no right to say what they want to. MC Fusion want to say some of the people say that blunt--nobody has the right to tell you want to do. 'Cause if you do it to them, it may be [?] on you. Whoever bought this record try and figure out what the flucking hell is Fusion talking about, but it makes sense to the A G I T, cause this is what happened when they try to censor me. Ha. Finally, Fusion, I mean we, got freedom of speech. Censorship is a load of bollocks, and that's what agitation propaganda and anything you can do, I can do better.
'To' is a preposition
'Come' is a verb
'To come' is a verb intransitive
To come, to come
Did you come? Did you come good? Good!
Did you come? Did you come good? Good!
Don't come in me, don't come in me
Don't come in me, don't come in me
It takes technique to thrill me!
Did you come? Did you come good? Good!
Did you come? Did you come good? Good!
Did you come, come, come, come, come good?
Big mouth, big mouth, big mouth strikes again
Big mouth, big mouth, big mouth strikes again
(Good Thief routine)
Stepford husbands, Stepford wives
With longer scissors, sharper knives
So sugar-sweet, they spend their time as censors, working overtime
This good-good culture
Bullshit motherfucker bullshit
Welcome Christ, judges, lone ranger
Bullshit motherfucker bullshit
Padres, pastors, popes, priests
Bullshit motherfucker bullshit
Critics, comics, you, me
Bullshit motherfucker bullshit
Big mouth, big mouth, big mouth strikes again
Big mouth, big mouth, big mouth strikes again

This Girl

This girl, she didn't turn out quite the way she was supposed to do
This girl, she got bored of all the things they brought her up to say
She never meant them anyway
This girl, she got caught out on the multi-storey car park
Throwing goodbye notes wrapped up in bricks
When they put her in the car she said, 'Jesus made me do it'
But all the priests in all the world couldn't save this girl
This girl, content with all the bloody noses, scabby knees
You get from fighting wars like these,
Running past the tidy houses pulling faces
This material world couldn't tempt this girl
(Chorus)
Now she entertains the world and all its mates
But she doesn't fit in
And everybody thinks this girl is great
But she's lacing all the party drinks with venom from a poison pen
This girl, she made a habit of habitually lying
Does everybody's head in
She knows what happens when the next stop that you see
It's not the one that everyone expected it to be
This girl, happy families 'round the supermarket check-out
She loves to be the odd one out
The party girl who stayed upstairs
Playing musical chairs
La-la, la-la-la
She doesn't care this girl.
(Repeat chorus)
This girl, she didn't turn out quite the way she was supposed to do

Smash Clause 29!

Oscar Wilde, Oscar Wilde, can you tell me where you've been?
I've been down to London town to pay a visit to the Queen.
Oscar Wilde, Oscar Wilde, can you tell me what you saw?
I saw the Queen and all her coutiers cooking up new laws;
I saw the corridors of power, with closets wall-to-wall;
And I saw the truth, the truth, behind the Emperor's new Clause!
So you burn the books, and close your eyese to every other possibility-- you got to keep your job for collaborating with the enemy. You keep throwing stones though your house is made of glass; you've helped to make McCarthyism popular, at last.
Blessed are the moralists, the Judges, the patriarchs. Blessed are the gutter-press, the AIDS-joke comedians. Praise to the guilt-mongerers, the fear-builders, the sin-fetishists.
Glory, glory, halleluia, His truth is marching on
One in ten driven underground, divisions getting wider. Hide your inclination behind a straight face and a Bible. Third Reich morality, and if the cap doesn't fit, there's a designer label for hypocrites.
Here comes the officer, knocking on your door. He's got a care order in the pocket of his uniform. Where's Radclyffe Hall? Now is the time to tear up clause 29!
Here comes the preacher checking your soul. Too late sir, I'd rather fall. We'll eat your bread and we'll drink your wine, and still tear up clause 29! Here comes the judge, hammer in hand, but we've all gone deaf to bigots' commands. Our justice will cross the thin blue line and tear up clause 29!
Here comes a brick, heading your way. A concrete opinion says all I want to say. Save your own soul, mine will be fine, once we've shredded clause 29.

Georgina

Is she really going out with him?
Not any more!
Georgina's cooking supper for her husband
All her friends are coming 'round to see the show
Because the thief she calls a husband won't be hungry
When he sees what's on the end of his fork
(Chorus)
Georgina isn't asking any more
And her lover isn't asking any more
And the cook isn't asking any more
Since the thief met a bullet on the way to the floor
Georgina's got a timebomb in her stomach
She knows that any minute now it's going to blow
With all the pain and the silence that she feeds on
With all the hurt that the bruises can't show
(Repeat chorus)
Georgina's got an appetite for vengeance
And she sings all the songs from 'Oliver'
But she won't be wanting seconds any more
As she tightens up her grip on her trigger finger
(Repeat chorus)

Waiting, Shouting

Just take a ticket
It takes you nowhere
They saw us coming
It's them and us here
Just keep your voice down
And light another
I am a patient girl
I wait, I wait, I wait
It's not your money
Don't call me stupid
Not big, not clever
Mean can mean awkward
It's Wigan Pier here
I'm not for jumping
See candid camera
Sees next to nothing
(Chorus)
You keep me waiting
I keep on shouting
You keep me waiting
I keep on shouting
You keep me waiting
I keep on shouting
You keep me waiting
My letterbox knows
Bangers and bad news
Good morning campers
Sees queues and queues and queues
They spell my name wrong
It's not for art's sake
And every truth told
Black mark on black mark
You love to chew on
This bread and butter
You crunch your numbers
And push your papers
Pile-up on pile-up
Malicious bad turns
I'll light another
Slow fuses, slow burn
(Repeat chorus)

Song Of The Mother In Debt

Song Of The Mother In Debt

I'm always waiting
I'm sick of waiting
For the day my luck will change
I've spent enough time
In queues and bread lines
In hope of better days
These thieves and scroungers
And lazy bastards
If I move they'll steal my place
Steal like this State does
And who's to blame us
When none of us can pay?
Will heaven's angels
Pull out the rent books
And ask me how I'll pay?
Behind their big desks
Misspell my kids' names
And file my life away?

Song Of The Hardworking Community Registration Officer

I knock on doors
See curtains move
Time wins wars each name is proof
I could tell tales
The tricks they use
Cut no ice, I take what's due
There are worse tasks
Than door to door
I take pride in taking more
I watch my back
Dark alleyways
When doubt calls I bank my wage
No easy choice:
The devil's boat or cruel sea?
I took the boat
When I knock knock at Peter's gate
Will he ask if I can pay?

Song Of The Government Minister Who Enjoys His Work

Test the water feel the ground
Send the tax collectors round
Fill the coffers pound by pound
A surer way to keep in line
The rabble who spend half their time
Wishing they could have what's mine
Stamping on the people's hands
This is where I'll make my stand
This is how I'll rule this land
I'll push and push a little more
I'll push and goad and tease the poor
A good excuse to fight my war
The war between have-nots and haves
My little game of smash and grab
Turn the screw increase the tax
Friend or foe, who goes there?
Turns his coat and takes the rear
Sings the Red Flag once a year

Song Of The (Now Determined) Mother

I've got this dream home
I'm queuing up for
In freshly dug brown earth
One thing I can swear
Before I get there
I'll kill the taxman first

On The Day The Nazi Died (live)

Give The Anarchist A Cigarette

Albert!
What?
Bobby!
What?
For god's sake burn it down
Nothing ever burns down by itself
Every fire needs a little bit of help
Nothing ever burns down by itself
Every fire needs a little bit of
Give the anarchist a cigarette
'Cause that's as close as he's ever going to get
Bobby just hasn't earned it yet
The times are changing but he just forgets
He's going to choke on his harmonica Albert
Nothing ever burns down by itself
Every fire needs a little bit of help
Nothing ever burns down by itself
Every fire needs a little bit of
Give the anarchist a cigarette
A candy cig for the spoilt brat
We'll get Albert to write you a check
And he'll be burning up the air in his personal jet
You know I hate every pop star that I ever met
Nothing ever burns down by itself
Every fire needs a little bit of help
Nothing ever burns down by itself
Every fire needs a little bit of
Give the anarchist a cigarette
Burn baby burn, burn baby burn
(Repeat)
Nothing ever burns down by itself
Every fire needs a little bit of help
(Repeat)

Nothing Knocks Me Over

I dreamt the cliffs and ride the waves
And no one comes to save me
My arms are sprawled against the tide
Nothing knocks me over
Nothing knocks me over
Nothing knocks me over
From the fire into the frying pan
I jump because I can
I choose to gamble with my life
Twice the risk, four times the prize
Nothing knocks me over
Nothing knocks me over
Nothing knocks me over

We Don't Go To God's House Anymore

Driving on the bypass to Damascus
I saw a preacher trying to hitch a ride
With a pair of broken wings
And a suitcase full of sins
He gathered up his dreams and jumped inside
Pulling Malatesta from his suitcase
He lifted up his voice and began to sing
'My songs of desperation lead to action...
And this is where the serious fun begins.'
We don't go to God's house anymore
Saw the light and walked right out the door
We don't go to God's house
It's more fun in the dog house
We don't go to God's house anymore
Well driving on, I tasted sweet salvation
As we sung away the pulpit and the past
The preacherman and me
We sang such harmonies
The highway of my life went by so fast
The preacher, he got off at the crossroads
He said, 'This is where I end, and you begin'
He left behind the wings and the Malatesta
And the memory of the songs we both did sing
We don't go to God's house anymore
Saw the light and walked right out the door
We don't go to God's house
It's more fun in the doghouse
We don't go to God's house anymore