The TANGENT

i. The Radio Amateur

Keying his mic' as he searches for life,
A gentle old man sits alone In the dark,
He's scanning the waves,
Looking for memories he can share.

His correspondents collect him like stamps,
Adding his callsign to their trophies and maps,
And none of them wonder just who it is they're talking to,
None of them think to ask the kind of man he was.......

"I was a pilot, in a war long ago
and it ail seemed to matter way back then....."

And now and then he feels the ground-rush,
As his plane hits the air,
Or feels his ground crew rally round him once again.

ii. Worthy Of Memory (part one)

He remembers everything about flying Spitfires, sending Morse,
The crackle of the radio, the tension of the news reports,
He flew to save his people !
His people do not want to know him now.

He remembers every detail about those sand-bagged days,
But every chapter that came after, vanishes in blurry haze,
He has no great love story, just medals and a glory, gone for good.
He gave his youth - just like he should,

iii. Demobilized

He demobbed in 1945 as the world he'd fought for came alive,
He looked for his friends to find that most of them had gone.
He scanned the radio the next few years, until the last ones disappeared,
When no-one was left, our Earnest looked to pastures new, from his viewpoint
A mile above the ground,
He looked down on his oyster, green and blue.

iv. Dehumanize

He sits in a hundred countries, counting off his latter years, while... Leaders sit in panelled War-Rooms, fuelled by their peoples' fears,
ThfU/'ll ÏïÍ tzrv òýò/ injillinn
They'll find so many willing,
So many, ready to do what he has done

v. Flights of Fancy

He rembers smoky jazz bars in the years after the war,
The feeling of nostalgia was creeping up and taking over.

And after that it all just seemed the same,
How could he ever equal it again?

And in his flights of fancy he's still the captain of his crew
His navigator on the double bass?
Is that Lofty up there with him too ?
But it all came down so fast,
And this bebop won't last
And in hts flights of fancy he never even left the RAF.
It all came down so fast, and
Earnest only has the past,
He's a hero in November
But all year long he's last in the Queue

vi. Worthy Of Memory part 2

He remembers something - about a motorbike in Lincolnshire ?
A rally - for Ham Radio ?, his kids on a trip ?, to Brighton Pier ?
His heart is in the 40's
His roaring engines still sport his name ....
In Earnest, we all had a friend.

vii. The Silent Key (Instrumental)

( instrumental )

viii. Earnest Dreams of 617

Lifelong memories as he hits the dam
of Bouncing Bombs and slide rules,
Radio cans .....
It's Earnest in the cockpit and he'il never know
A moment to compare with this one,
On the Earth.... below

ix. Some Crazy Old Guy

Sipping his pint as he sits at the bar
A lonely old man sits alone with his thoughts
Around him we buzz, and never notice that he's there.
He's in the way when we order our drinks,
He's there every night of the week,
Some Crazy Old Guy who tells those stories all the time......

... But he's not with us, he's miles away from here, In the only past we gave him worth his thoughts.
So we'll never see his Spitfire as it makes its final roll,
And we'll never learn the lessons he was taught.

x. In Earnest

Don't leave me nostalgic for the wrong things in my life,
I don't want adventures among your grand designs of war!
I'll take a clear morning with the wind in my hair,
I beg you, In Earnest, for nothing more.

2. Lost In London.
A true story from 1987

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I ended up in London several hours ahead of time,
In the small hours of the morning and they'd even closed the Circle Line
I'd hitch-hiked it in one lift! The kind of trip of which;you dream
Until one day you don't need it, then you get it ! ... so it seems !

I wandered in from Acton, even passed the BBC,
Imagining that one day they'd all be interviewing me,
I've got a rendezvous this morning with Virgin A & R:
I'm a hopeful with a bag of tapes, and Shank's Pony for a car.

I'm a Yorkshire Kid in London - and I need lots of space
Winding roads and open fields you don't have in this place,
I'm here to see your empire, is it true what I have heard ?
You've got more people here than Sweden,
But it's the loneliest place in the world.

Found an "all-night-cafe" but
I didn't stay too long, I didn't have much money (besides, this was someone else's song)
I saw the aisles of Knightsbridge, I even gigged the Albert Hall !
But in all the hours of wandering, talked to nobody at all.

McEnroe was losing, for the first time which seemed - wrong !
And the Virgin guy was watching while he listened to my songs,
I don't know if he heard them with so much drama on the screen,
But I didn't sign a contract, - it was Andy: "Love-Fifteen!!"

I was a Yorkshire Kid in London, I didn't understand,
All the chaos and the "MIND THE GAP!!!" in your gold-paved business land,
I was so small you could have eaten me and never sensed the taste, . é
I was David, you - Goliath,
But my stones just went to waste.

( instrumental ... )

At Brent Cross Shopping Centre, thumb pointing up back home,
A wiser man is waiting for some kindly soul to pull over,
I end up with protesters, who tried to stop a war,
But they went ahead and fought it, and I guess to me that matters more.

We're all Yorkshire Kids in London when it comes to being heard,
We give our all but no-one hears or notices one word,
And though a million voices tell us not to go and take Iraq,
We still went in, and we still haven't come back.

( poignant instrumental )

AUTHOR'S NOTE to "Lost London".

This song was written in January' 2005 in France, based on experiences I had as a young musician during the early 1930s.

There was a war in the Faiklands at the time, and no-one was listening to the protesters then - just as in 2003 no-one listened to my son when he hitch-hiked to London to take part in the Iraq war protests. It's a song about no-one listening to you. Six months after completing the song, some other Yorkshire Kids went to London and started killing people,

If anyone is the least bit concerned that somehow this song advocates my approval their actions then please read It (and "Follow Your Leaders") again.

Many of my friends have suggested that I should change the lyrics to this song - but I feel that had I done so I would have let foiiy win, again.

I wanted this song to bring a smile to people's faces, but even that small pleasure has been tainted by stupidity and a crass belief in "being right"

I shall let another, infinitely more wise man have the final say: "When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it - always". - Mahatma Gandhi

3. D.I.Y. Surgery

---

Some days it almost seems as if I could operate on myseif
Nurse! The screens!
I could scrape barnacles from connective tissue
Open up, clear off the muck
In a trice I could slice myself back to health
Reach in to shave blisters off aching muscles
Breathe life into anaemic corpuscles
Smooth out crevices, no waiting lists, no fuss

(Ahhh ..) Releasing all the tension on which cluster headaches play
Soothe creaking joints, just anoint with gentle balm
Police the flashpoints, keep them from harm
And wipe the pain away
Pop back keystone vertebrae
With my very own keyhole surgery

A quick Op, then dancing - all day
Dancing alt day, dancing all day

Do it yourself, do it yourself
Do it yourself, do it yourself

4. G.P.S. Culture

---

Through seas of eountiess choices Ãò chosen once again.
To fill the air with crafted sound.....
You give me space, in your space, a window in your time,
At a level which your soul allows

But when I look around,
We seem tired of all this ....

We flick the GPS on now to find our pastures new.
Follow directions on the screen,
And find our way to something we never knew was there,
And keep it on our machines.

But when I look around,
We seem tired, uninspired by all we have to choose,
And each day there are more new people at the door,
They wave their products in our faces,
We've heard it all before!

Through dislocating TV and the glossy-printed word,
We sample culture in small spoons,
We think we know that riff but where in the world ?
Did we ever hear that nagging tune?*

But when I look around,
We seem tired, uninspired by all we have to choose,
And each day there are more new people at the door.
They wave their products in our faces,
We've heard it all before!

* During the writing of this song, band members spotted at least 5 tunes including "Whistle while you work", the-Easterners theme tune and an advertising jingle for "PC World'' in this song.

5. Follow Your Leaders

---

Ten million people who all want to see.the same movies
Ten million more who buy the same brand of shampoo
A whole generation just follows its leaders
Wearing the logos and pledging allegiance
To a culture that's spiralling into (and out of) control
As our leaders take hold

With Oscars and Nobeis we hand out our thanks to the famous
With Pulitzers, Grammys we give our plaudits to our peers
Make governments from a few distinct choices
Create new methods to siience our voiceis
Hand over our own thoughts to systems we cannot control
And it's time to take hold

Billions of people with faith in some power almighty
Biiiions of others who call the same thing a different name
Then everlasting wars to follow the leaders
To satisfy their whims and the lies that they feed us
On a planet where there's enough wrong
To keep us busy for years

6. The Sun In My Eyes

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Let me tell you about a place I. knew
Where the fields were green and the skies were blue
In middle class suburbia with a swimming pool
And all the other trappings of a public school

I'd get a size-6-rugby in my face
For not liking games that much and "being out of place
Or get my head kicked in for liking Yes
Instead of Suzi Quattro, or The Rubette
But they didn't realise that the Sun Was In My Eye

All the instruments were out of tune
Except a grand piano in a forbidden room
Which is of course where I spent all my days
Except when writing lines because I'd disobeye

And the media kick our faces again
Bill Bailey takes the piss from us on "Prog Top Ten"
Class discrimination's gone, (little by little
Unless you happen to be the man in the middle
it they didn't realise that the Sun Was In My Eye
"Nous Sommes De Soletl"
We Love When we Play" - Jon Anderson, 1977

7. A Place In The Queue

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i. Silent Screams

( instrumental )

ii. Two For The Queue (part one)

You'd been alive for thirty minutes when you filled in your first form,
With blood taken from your left heel just to prove that you were born,
And they filed away the papers and you took your place in the queue.

Through the years of quiet childhood they plotted out your fate.
They had you on their system, there was no hurry, they could wait !
So by the time you'd finished schooling,
You'd learned your place in the queue.

Shaping the line into order, filtering the ones who will rule,
Positioning their appointed marshalls,
In the churches, the youth clubs and schools ...

They were there when you got busted and they now have prints to say,
That you spent three weeks in the U.S. and you stole a coat from C&A
They can look you up at any time,
And gauge your place in the queue.
I walk this world as a number,
No face, no name, no character, no point of view,
And they tick me off and file me and save me to their drives,
But never know completely why or who ....

( Spectacular Saxophone Solo )

I walk this world as a number,
A statistic in the spreadsheet on the pile,
I interact with others who they let cross my path,
We entertain each other for a while.

iii. Shaping The Line

( instrumental )

iv. Heirarchies

In every situation there's a heirarchy,
Someone IN CHARGE, some ladder to climb,
From collecting stamps to national government,
there's always a front and a back of the line.

You may say that you're immune,
The worid dances to your tune,
But be honest, is that your name on the score ?

The mastermind "dons" of the East-End gangsters,
The president of your local Round Table Club,
The man who represents you on the local council,
The technician who controls your local network hub. (No offence Adam)

And you may try to "break on through",
It's sometimes good, but when you do,
You just find yourseif moving one place up in the queue.

v. The Escher Staircase

You could walk that Escher Staircase.
Or push the Sysyphean Stone,
You could stand on bridges, screaming,
For a place to call your own,
or you could call it "fiction",
(feel the roughness of the sands of time in your hands again)
Give no heed to false position,
(Stand and observe ail the colours and the feelings in these lands again)

You might never find the goaf that you were hoping for,
You might search for rites of passage but never see the door,
Outside the world is waiting, bated breath, for any words that you have to say
While you sit contemplating the queue and the problems that face your world today.

And far away in a (and we built when we were younger.
Our dreams stand tall and our hopes still flare with youth,
But we sold them, we sold them all for the price of a B.M.W,
Adding our names to the spreadsheet and
Taking our place in the queue.

Take on board the lying commercials, the promises of kings,
We're inviting the ver/ virii that hold our feelings, in.
Or we couid take the high road, look down on the cheating and the con-men,
Who've held our lives so long,
or we could "Do As We're Told".
Wait in line forever, until the end of our life's little song.

vi. An 'elping hand

( instrumental )

vii. Two For The Queue (part two)

Fools and politicians, paupers, Kings ano Popes,
All guided to their futures by the eternal purple ropes,
Taking castoffs from the man in front and
Passing them back down the queue

I walk this world as a number
A statistic in the spreadsheet on the pile,
I interact with others who they let cross my path,
We entertain each other for a while.

viii. The Escher Staircase

( eprise )

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