1. |
Iona
03:49
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Ascending - like a lantern from the deep
Lighting the way - showing the peaks
Beguiling - rousing senses from the haze
Running into summer – from the parting of our ways
And we’re going where saints and sinners lie
With ancient kings of these parts
And the Queen of my Heart
Swirling - with confusion in my heart
You said that you loved me… but that we must part
Hurling - me westward to the isles
In search of some peace - and a friendly smile
Sinking - a flower of the sun
You light up her face - when the day is done
Darkling - comes crowding from the east
With rest for us all - for Iona and me
Music and lyrics © Kevin McInally
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2. |
Blue Cockade
04:16
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'Twas on one Monday morning as I walked o'er the moss,
I’d little thought of 'listing, 'til some soldiers did me cross,
The company enticed me to drink their health all round,
And the bounty (and the bounty), and the bounty (and the bounty),
They gave me five guineas and a crown.
Now my head was full of drink, love, and I didn't think of you
And now I'm forced to go and join the orange and the blues.
Our ship she waits at anchor to take the flowing tide.
I'll return love (I'll return love), I'll return love (I'll return love)
In the springtime when I’ll make you my bride.
So early the next morning, before the break of day,
The captain gave his orders and my love marched away.
All in your ranks and files boys, all on your native shore.
Fare thee well love (fare thee well love), Fare thee well love (fare thee well love),
Fare thee well love, you're the lad that I adore.
Well, I hope you never prosper and I hope you always fail;
And at everything you venture, I hope you ne'er do well;
And the very ground you walk upon - may the grass refuse to grow,
Since you've been the (since you've been the), Since you've been the
Very cause of my sorrow, grief and woe.
It's true my love has ‘listed and he wears a blue cockade;
He is a handsome young man, likewise a roving blade;
He is a handsome young man, and he's gone to serve the king,
Whilst my very (whilst my very), Whilst my very (whilst my very)
Heart is breaking all for the love of him.
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3. |
Finite Difference Dream
04:08
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See the pictures, pretty pictures, lighting up the back of the cave;
Hear the voices, beguiling voices, telling me my name is Dave.
It’s a dream Please catch me if I’m falling
It’s a dream a finite difference dream
Interaction, push and traction, exchange of gauge bosons.
Dissatisfaction, reaction, my tiny heart is frozen.
See the electron, pinpoint electron, pretending to be a wave.
Can’t somebody, Heisenbody, tell it how to behave.
Ada Lovelace, Ada Lovelace, you’re my kind of gal;
Sweet logician, I’m your algorithm. You can call me Al.
Wentworth’s daughter, it was felt she ought to study maths and not poetry;
Child of Byron, muon, pion, to save her from insanity.
She had a dream, of a subject I hardly dare to mention;
Such a dream of an analytical engine.
At the Planck length, all our field strength fades like the morning dew.
Discretisation of your location makes software out of you.
See the pictures, pretty pictures, glowing in my head.
Decay chain in my brain, ticking down to lead.
See the pictures, pretty pictures, lighting up the back of the cave.
Hear the voices, beguiling voices, telling me my name is Dave.
Music and lyrics © David Banks 2018
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4. |
Happier than Hemingway
03:00
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Woke up in the morning with my head full of the blues,
And things went downhill quickly when I turned on the news,
But I suddenly remembered what my therapist did say:
That a Happy Song and major chords will send those blues away
I’ve got an altered attitude, cultivating gratitude.
Every day I’ll make a start with a glad and happy heart.
You can always lift your mood with a clichéd platitude.
But tomorrow’s just a broken dream away.
Sat down after dinner with my head stuffed full of dreams;
My Happy Song was drowning out the spiders and the screams.
I kept on remembering my therapist’s refrain:
A happy face and sunny smile will drive away the pain
I’ve got an altered attitude, cultivating gratitude
Every day I’ll make a start with a glad and happy heart
You can always lift your mood to high beatitude
But tomorrow’s just a broken dream away
Sing out a Happy Song and make it Happy
Sing out a Happy Song to last all day
Put on your Happy Face and keep it happy
Tomorrow’s just a broken dream away
Lay me down at bedtime and I drifted off to sleep,
And cast creation’s cares on my mental rubbish heap.
If I hum loud enough, rock my body to and fro,
I’ll be happier than Hemingway and Marilyn Monroe
Music and lyrics © Lorraine Lucas and David Banks 2018
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5. |
Sierra Kilo Base
04:21
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Diving down from the hillside; potholes kissing my wheels.
Stunted oaks in yellow suits: the air around me feels
like it’s buzzing with an EM pulse. My whiskers stand on end.
My heart’s antenna skips a beat. I'm clear to receive, please send.
Put one hand on your heart and the other on the mic
of your transceiver. You don’t know me, but I like
the sound of your voice on the Balkan ether:
Miss Jean Brodie in a broadcasting fever.
Sierra Kilo Base. I haven’t even seen your face.
I need to put a trace on you. Before you break up.
Ten channels of chaos, all full of soldier boys.
Romeo seeks Juliet in a haze of white noise.
I’ll take you out on the town tonight. I’ll take you out to dance.
A Tango or a quick Foxtrot and a spot of radio romance.
I take one hand from the wheel and I reach towards the set.
Do I dare to contact you although we’ve never met?
While half the world is listening, from India to Quebec?
Do I have the mettle - brazen cheek and brass neck?
She's picking up an unknown station! Who’s this deviant guy
who wants her to wilco his request? She's sorry but she can’t comply.
"Please keep away from the airwaves with your intermission
and I’ll try to disregard the irregular nature of your transmission."
Soldier boys are on parade.
Soldier boys all laugh at my escapade.
Victor and Charlie and Oscar and Mike;
Soldier boys don’t understand the things I like.
Sierra Kilo Base. I haven’t even seen your face.
I need to put a heat-seeking trace on your location...
Music and lyrics © David Banks 2000
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6. |
No to Love
03:15
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Love is malaise - Love is malaria
Love requires servitude - And I don’t really care for you
Just say no - Just say no, girls and boys
Just say no to love
Love is infatuous - Loving is infantile
Love requires action - And I just want to rest a while
Just say no - Just say no, boys and girls
Just say no to love
Love turns platonic - Love becomes platitude
Love shuts horizons - And I need my latitude
Just say no - Just say no, girls and boys
Just say no to love
Hi there, Rhine maiden, I am your Alberich
Cupid is Satan, Valentine makes me sick
Be on your way, go trouble younger hearts
Take careful aim, go spend your brittle darts
Just say no to love
Love is so saccharine - Loving is sacrifice
Love requires worship - But I just think your hair’s quite nice
Just say no - Just say no, boys and girls
Just say no to love
Love is all flightiness - Love is like flypaper
Don’t want a perfect home - I want a skyscraper
Just say no - Just say no, girls and boys
Just say no to love
Love makes me constipated, I need some Seneca
Quick dose of salts or an olive oil enema
Be on your way, go trouble younger hearts
Take careful aim, go spend your brittle darts
And just say no to love
River so wide - I cannot get over it
River so deep - I cannot get under it
Grass is green on the other shore
of this Lethe, this Styx, this Shenandoah
That’s the river of love
Music and lyrics © David Banks 2018
with some phrases taken from "Farewell Love and All Thy Laws Forever" by Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542)
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7. |
Vigo Lane
03:36
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Down about Birtley town
Under the sign o’the Swan
Lives a gentle barwoman
By the name of Alice Marley
From noon till late at night
By day and by lantern-light
Glass of ale and scran to bite
From the hand of Alice Marley
As the Swan does love the water clear
And man does love good ale and beer
All did love this woman dear
The lovely Elsie Marley
Marleys’ Inn was a handsome sight
Till the roving Dutch passed by to fight
And to subdue the Jacobite
And shot the Swan to pieces
But Ralph and Elsie respect no fate;
They kept the Swan with their children eight
Till the year of 1768
When Elsie Marley sickened.
As the Swan does love the water clear
That flows from the fells in the Tyne and the Wear
As man does love the amber beer
All loved Elsie Marley
Ah, tell the news and tell it plain
She’s been found dead down by Vigo Lane
She’s in a coal pit fallen down
Into the ochre water
Ah, tell the news to Geordie and Jane
The fearful news from Vigo Lane
Elsie Marley – she is slain
Drowned in the ochre water
As the Swan does love the water clear
That fills the pits down by the Wear
As man does love the ochre beer
All loved Elsie Marley
Now Elsie drinks the blood red water
For the coal has taken Harrison’s daughter
Drink ochre ale and coal black porter
In a toast to Elsie Marley
(traditional verse)
From Byker Hill to Walker Shore
We’re collier lads for ever more
We’ll dance a jig; we’ll rant and roar
To the tune of Elsie Marley
Music and lyrics © Dave Banks 2018, with verse from traditional song "Byker Hill"
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8. |
Travelling Water
03:44
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Travelling water, knew that I ought to
Serve time in the King’s Navy.
Travelling water, off to the slaughter
of the Syrian coast and Gallipoli.
Travelling water, yielding no quarter
at Jutland and the German Bight.
Travelling water, longing for port for
peacetime, my weans and wife.
Travelling water, travelling water,
Down there, ’neath the prow,
Submarine daughter, bring me to port,
a sailor, homeward bound.
Travelling home, Riding the foam.
Look out, man on high!
Travelling home, years I’ve been gone
from Kinghorn, where my heart lies.
Travelling water, riding a Dreadnought;
Guns proud against the sky.
Travelling water, into the Forth,
To anchor on the coast of Fife.
Music and lyrics © Dave Banks & Dave Roddie 2016
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9. |
Inertia and Stone
04:06
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You were turned up in some farmer’s field, by the curve of the plough;
Thrown out of your furrow, into day and snow.
All grit and clay and calcite, shaped by wind and rain;
Worn down by abrasion of words passing through your brain.
There is no sign in the desert, telling you not to drink;
There’s no one there to guide you, you run on pure instinct;
And you wage your wars for the long haul, against your wife and peers.
You don’t show much emotion, but you don’t show any fear.
Stoner Stoner You see why some folks doubt you’re a man that’s built of flesh and bone.
Stoner Stoner You can see why some folks ask if there’s anybody home.
And inside every heart of stone - a residue of summer heat,
Insulated by the snows of winter and the pounding of all those feet,
A tiny spark of fission from some decay of a nuclide,
The glow of love and lust and kindness finds some place to hide.
And given the run of many years, a stone will wash away
and disaggregate its hardened self to a bed of common clay.
Inertia versus entropy - we know who wins in the end.
You hardly tried to fight it - just welcomed an old friend.
Music and lyrics © Dave Banks 2016
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10. |
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Will Maggie may or won’t she? Will Maggie stay or won’t she?
Will Maggie say this time she’ll be always mine? Will Maggie may or won’t she?
Mary, Mary, quite contrary - What do you say today?
I believe you tell the truth, but you’ve a different truth for every single day.
Another day of lonely contemplation; only
She said in no wise she’d compromise. Will Maggie may or won’t she?
Mary, Mary, now I’m wary of all the games you play;
With cockleshells and silver bells; the rules of the game keep changing every day.
On and off and on and off we go. Now you’re high and now you’re way down low.
Maybe it’s my vanity that’s screwing with my sanity
Maybe now it’s time to let you go
You make me pay for phoney proclamations of the
love you say keeps you enslaved. Can Maggie play or won’t she?
Mary, Mary, you’re my dearie of all the pretty maids in the row;
With dragon shells and Liberty Bells - I love you but you’ve made me let you go.
Mary, Mary, Margaret, Magen-pie, whatever name you’re using today.
You make your nest and then you fly away to the blue inviting sky,
away along the ever-winding way.
Music and lyrics by © Kevin McInally and David Banks 2017.
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11. |
Barnard's Star
05:20
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My love has gone a wandering along the silky way
To Ashgebad and Samarkand and the road to Mandalay.
She bade come and join her, for ever more to roam,
But my heart is sore afeared and I yearn to stay at home.
My love has gone a wandering along the milky way
Past Barnard’s Star, Aldebaran and the moons of Gallifrey.
Her laughter pushed her skyward, a rocket fuelled by mirth,
Yet my feet remain stood foursquare on the earth.
This is a song to move you;
To play a trick on Cupid’s white dove.
A musician is an engineer of emotion;
And poetry’s a firesale of love.
My love has gone a wandering along the Pilgrim’s Way
To Oviedo and Léon, on the road from Vézalay.
She bade me come to join her, to worship Jesus’ shroud,
But I see Christ in every piece of toast and every passing cloud.
This is a song to move you;
Although its lyrics could mean anything.
It knows a minor chord will fog your senses
And uses clever words like “yearn” and “wandering”.
My love has gone a wandering along the Cuckoo Way
To Rotherham and Renishaw and Staveley-i-ay.
She bade me come and meet her to join our souls in love,
But I’m happy playing billiards down the pub
She said I have no heart and that I lack the human touch.
She talked of love and feelings. It seemed she spoke in Dutch.
She asked me how a poet can be devoid of all romance;
I plead my life’s experience as mitigating circumstance.
If you feel this song has abused you,
Then it’s time to read some Bertolt Brecht.
Trust less in empathy and emotion;
Trust more in engineering and intellect.
Music and lyrics by © David Banks 2017
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12. |
Holy Ghost
02:42
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The holy glow of the blue TV screen light
calls to the faithful every night;
Filling the sofas and filling the pews
Balancing dinner plates high on their knees
Bread and red wine, fish fingers and peas,
Communicants all in the evening news.
Oh, Holy Ghost, we beseech you, we pray:
to fill up our heads with the truth every day
to give us our Friends and give us our House
and to give us our thoughts and to give us our smiles
(Keep us amused. Keep us beguiled)
But for Christ’s sake, for God’s sake, don’t let us out.
Oh Holy Glow, be there when we wake;
Let us sit round your sofa when our fasts we break.
Be there in our daytime, be there in our rooms
Our lifetime’s commitment, our promise, our vow;
Our past and our future and our here and now;
A glass-fronted black monolith marking our tombs.
Music and lyrics by © David Banks 2014
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13. |
Hipster Kiss
03:18
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I was standing outside the cafe, on the night of the Old Firm purge
of dynamite in green and white, when I suddenly got the urge
to smoke, but by my side appeared
an elegant bloke and...I tell you no joke...he wanted to touch my beard.
Oh, won’t you touch your beard to mine? It’s just shared testosterone
in the Govanhill moonshine; hairy jawbone to jawbone.
I promise to be gentle; but just remember this -
We may never pass this way again, so let me give you a hipster kiss.
A Hipster Kiss! A Hipster Kiss!
He looked quite cute and was real hirsute,
and he gave me a hipster kiss.
I was rooted to the pavement, and shaken to my core
Dynamite in the fluorescent light of the nearby coffee store
and artisanal bakery, but now he’d disappeared
This Don Juan, this charming man, who’d asked to touch my beard
Oh, won’t you touch your beard to mine? It’s just shared testosterone
in the Govanhill moonshine; hairy cheekbone to cheekbone.
I promise to be gentle, but just remember this -
We may never pass this way again, let me give you a hipster kiss.
Music and lyrics by © David Banks 2016.
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14. |
Bridget O'Malley
02:30
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Oh Bridget O'Malley, you've left my heart shaken
With a hopeless desolation I'd have you to know.
It's the wonders of ador ation your quiet face has taken
And your beauty will haunt me wherever I go.
The white moon above the pale sands, the pale stars above the thorn tree
Are cold beside my darling, but no purer than she.
I gaze upon the cold moon till the stars drown in the warm sea
And the bright eyes of my darling are never on me.
My Sunday it is weary, my Sunday it is grey now
My heart is a cold thing, my heart is a stone.
All joy is dead in me, my life has gone away now;
For another has taken My love for his own.
The day is approaching when we were to be married;
And ‘tis rather I would die than live only to grieve.
Oh, meet me, My Darling, ‘ere the sun sets o'er the barley;
And I'll meet you there on the road to Drumslieve.
For Bridget O'Malley, you have my heart shaken
With a hopeless desolation. I'll have you to know
It's the wonders of admiration your quiet face has taken
And your beauty will haunt me wherever I go.
(Traditional Irish)
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Poke O'Swedgers Chesterfield, UK
Poke O'Swedgers are Kev and Dave. Kev sings beautifully. Dave fumbles around with guitar. They write their own rhapsodies - delicate folk tales of impossible romance, computer programming and quantum physics. Their songs have a slight Scottish tang.
Poke O'Swedgers recommends:
This is just great, considered, smart songwriting and beautiful melodies. Knocks spots off pretty much all else we've listened to recently.
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go to albumIf you like Poke O'Swedgers, you may also like:
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