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Awkward Awe

by Elian Gray

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1.
Awkward 03:17
It's like something sick It's like It's like scratching the head trying to figure it out It's like staring at the ground It's like finding your feet without looking down It's like the crowd below you screaming "don't look down" It's like a wink with a scowl It's like learning to swim Like learning to drown It's the little things So hold it down It's something else A self-help book without the help Something like selflessness without the self Half amazing It's the same thing conveyor belts [It's the same thing conveyor belts] It's a daydream It's like Akira waking up It's like Takashi's face the moment he got snuffed It's like a wolf in sheep's clothing munching pedigree chum It's like front-page news about celebrity bums It's like diamonds Forever, in the rough It's as if I didn't play clever dick enough It's like I'm fucked if I know It's like a bucket with holes It's like winner stays on I won one in a row Two two's it's nothing to see it's just something to show For all those sleepless nights Squeeze life in between lines on the page Something to hold when the creek runs dry And time sneaks by like a thief in the rain Or a face on the train - Jacobs ladder Tasteless and vain - Jane and Dada I don't know what that is but that doesn't matter I was busy being braggadocious patronising rapper It's like something ambiguous and deep Springing a leak Crack in the hourglass figure of speech It's little old me I'm punching in the coordinates Amidst a smorgasbord of 80s toys and assorted Indian ornaments Insubordinate Bored of the tournament Forced to contort to the laws of conformity According to sources we saw him consorting with Forms that he's drawn nothing short of transformative Or glorious Reportedly skin crawls at the mere thought of it Life's been awfully awkward I've been in awe of all of it
2.
High Art 03:52
I make moves like Donatello Versace Joie de vivre Empire of Armani Fleur de lis Army of Karl Kani Tony Heart on the sleeve We’ll all be gone in a heartbeat All these parties turning me into an idiot All these festivals giving me glitter dick Blithering idiot, pissing off a wind bitten Cliff Richard, sinister grin in a picture with a little kid Riddled with Ritalin, superficial and frivolous Flippant, fit as a fiddlestick in the mud Pig in the middle shit Find me online where the kittens is Residual images of boxes he didn’t tick Then in the middle of visiting Lidl Little did we know we’d be riddle to middle - Nah that’s some sillyness I swear I’m turning Super Saiyan My spirit animal is the singer from Future Islands Mutant hybrid, human computer virus - Nah nah White jeans might’ve been a mistake Pissed Shaking a fist Wrists thin as a rake In a daze gone missing like Rae’s killer tape Finn and Jake on a mission Intuition Give and take Like Heart on a dinner plate Reciprocate or nah? Silk scarf swimming in a river made of glass Tony Jaa’s kicking braes Ziggy played guitar When it’s art imitating life imitating art Art imitating life imitating art Skibba spitting in a rave Ziggy played guitar When it’s art imitating life imitating art Stone Cold Jane Austin Vorsprung durch Techno A flock of privileged kids shed tears of pure pesto Several sets of eyes stare back from the hedgerow Looking for that satisfaction But can’t get no From the get go She got the al fresco Top notch on the bedpost But flopped on the dress code Be cool - Seth Gekko Play the wall like a cello Or a Harp Lisa you’re tearing me apart [Oh hi Mark] It make sense if I said so I’m still Lefto Still looking for an echo Bodacious Cowabunga and some other such I puckered up but buttercup was stuck getting her stomach pumped Fuck a duck I sup another tall cup of nothing much I’d rather fill it with the type of change we can’t splutter up Like Heart on a dinner plate Reciprocate or nah? Big city living got me wishing on a star 50 Had a beef with Ja Ziggy played guitar When it’s art imitating life imitating art Art imitating life imitating art Beth Gibbons hid her face Ziggy played guitar When it’s art imitating life imitating art
3.
Everything you’re doing has already been done They lied when they said there’s nothing new under the sun Everything you’re doing has already been done They lied when they said there’s nothing new Passenger seat with my head out the window Thirty five miles per hour Best view of the city And it’s looking like something from the future From the bottom up Best view of the city Cold smoking area, notably cool Sipping overpriced drinks in my overpriced shoes Pink limo at the lights Essex lads on the raz All bants and that Kebabs and chang [nang] I’m pulling up a pew Sitting out the fraff Birdseye view on a citadel of ants A horde of walking migraines limping like a skank Or a troop of catalogue models skipping to the bank Sticking to the plan From the riches to the rags To the Al Simmons living in an alley with the tramps To the taking as we please when we're giving little back To the future generations needs slipping through the cracks Everything you’re doing has already been done They lied when they said there’s nothing new under the sun Everything you’re doing has already been done They lied when they said there’s nothing new On the night bus with my head against the window And it’s raining outside Best view of the city It’s vibrating my head like a dildo But I’m to lean to move it Best view of the city Flatscreen TV, notably large Snorting overpriced drugs in an overpriced yard Over enthusiastic All fraff no heart I’m telling some stranger how Leonard Cohen’s got bars On some blah blah yippie yah yah yippie yay With some foie gras yuppies living large sniffing yay When we jump at any chance at any ticket to escape From the sheer cost of living in the city we were raised in A habitat we can’t afford to inhabit Got the rat race feeling more like a forced marriage Who’s truly happy? Or Shooter McGavin? Selling out for the gold jacket Everything you’re doing has already been done They lied when they said there’s nothing new under the sun Everything you’re doing has already been done They lied when they said there’s nothing new So said the man with no jaw Broke forth in a sprawl of colloquial folklore He spoke in a drone that groaned like an oak floor Then adorned with the roar of a rapturous applause He toured shore to shore in a transatlantic tanker Lived by the sword Died by pancreatic cancer Man it’s dumb But if everything were doings been done Then we might as well ruin it and have a little fun
4.
Mango Lassi 03:22
The bedraggled vagabond staggers from the lavatory Tailor made paisley suit Frayed at the seams He stumbles on stage left Mutters an amen Cue sycophantic congregation clapping frantically It just takes one smart alec attempt to define anarchy To turn an otherwise mediocre night into a true catastrophe Thankfully he packed the knapsack of magic beans In a final act of blag he pulled the rabbit from his batty crease An ocean of mango Lassie lapping at is haggard feet A flaccid stream of travellers Gagging to have their chakras cleaned His back alley Darshan known to spark acts of savagery But s'il vous plaît Silence for the Satsang And have a seat And let Baba speak Prescribe to the doctrine Haphazardly As he weaves his spider silk tapestry A delicate plethora of stained glass images All depicting the very same fallacy Miraculously Something like a phenomenon An age old tradition Lead a blind horse to the river and whip him until he drinks it Despite my penchant for discord and tendency towards mischief In this instance I'm thinking let the man dream Don't pinch him Know the ledge Here we go again Invite old gods on the thrones of men Moments after we've stolen them His swollen head Bulbous with this with the calls of a thousand holy men Telling us to rub the lotion in Or else we get the hose again He claims to see the God in me It's more probable we'll find God in a laboratory Cotching in his boxers Horrified by what's on TV Let the man dream don't pinch him Existing somewhere between religion and quantum physics Yet here we all are singing hymns in Hindi As his minions eyes flicker like a million shattered mirrors Each one reflecting the same chilling grimace None made what we witnessed any the less horrific And man knows Because I was there in the back row Didn't raise my hand or ask a question For lack of a backbone But from time to time when drifting through the vacuum I ponder if he was pointing to something substantial God knows
5.
6.
I was born like this Six foot six Stepped out of the womb with a ready lit spliff Umbilical cord was dwarfed by my... List Of things to do Silver spoon ran away with the dish When you were learning to draw I was into strange shit And I never played sports That's how hippies raise kids I played video games so go figure 8 Bit Don't be a Phillip K Prick You've rewritten Matrix? Is it mate? Sick Get the millions raked in Wife an instafame chick Get the crib and raise kids who sip milk from fake tits Stick to the scam Pick a card any card Pick a pension get a yard Work hard break your heart Get the spinach and scram To some ridiculous land where you can sit and get tanned And you can eat till you're fat and you can drink till you're mad And look at the locals like primitive man Think I'll sit for a while and do some work on my mischievous smile Like "this means war" That peace shit died back in 64 And war means business And business means money And money means time but old people is poor Is it okay if I'm baffed? They saw slavery acts and two world wars Now they can't see no one to do the household chores Except for man like me Don't believe? Ask Brom, ask Jean But ask loud cos she can hardly hear And she can hardly see and she can hardly walk But every time I go around she insists on making tea And that's classy G But that classy shit died back in 93 I know cos I was there I'm not lying see I was shotgun you were in the driving seat We been there, done that Seen it all Bought the t-shirt One size too small Heard it all before And didn't really rate it much These days I kinda rate it more Well I guess that's ageing bruv Or you could break all the rules I was living in squats back in 82 I was a baby then, admittedly that ain't as cool As a backpacktavist with a case of the blues And a myriad of knowledges found on YouTube Of the ways they'll get you Things they'll make you do Tales to tell of impending hell That end of the world shit died in 2012 Well the world's still spinning And things will keep ticking if there's debt to sell If it ain't affecting sales go have you're little revolution Then move on back to your separate cells "What you reckon El? Will you ever tell your recipe for the quails egg bechamel? Or your method for the fail safe heads or tails?" Nah. Tale tells face hell Raise decibels "Reh reh reh" dies every year Certain man that hear might shed a tear I been around I ain't been every where I'm still London man I'll be buried here In fact I'll probably opt for cremation You can drop my remains off at Swiss Cottage station And when Hendrix Bold As Love is playing Rack a line of my ashes for old times sake fam Been there, done that Seen it all Bought the t-shirt One size too small Heard it all before And didn't really rate it much These days I kinda rate it more Well I guess that's ageing bruv
7.
Trapped in a gravitational beam Condescending down a well of motivational memes Every cloud has an add free upgradable scheme And an online persona with sensational teeth Lol The worlds biggest soapbox [Show-offs] Forgive them google for what they know not All post no post box It's like trying to convince a machine that you're not a robot Re-enter captcha Insert caption Update status Await reaction Make payment Upgrade to platinum Now you can actually Instagram it before it happens I can't wait to tell my friends what a sick time I'm having Dip online to re-remind them which fly I’m flagging Behold the electric sheep Behold the electric sheep Full of technicolor dreams Never getting any sleep In a plethora of screens Sending messages to Steve Why when I was seventeen then the net was just for geeks Not projected self-esteem F it, blessed are the meek With their eyebrows on fleek [Yeah] I need to pop up for air When they can charge you to breathe there'll be pop-ups for air [Yeah] Hit me with your algorithm stick I’m clicking it Swimming in conspiracies With little fish and kitten pics Narcissistic kiddies think it's realer than it really is Politicians take to it to twitter out their differences Entire databases of dinner pics and memes And x amount of messages from Steve Now with this access to boundless information I’m sat in my pants on my phone judging strangers Epic fail Blank stare Keep scrolling
8.
Just another party geezer Nostrils looking like a Margarita Face like last night Eyes like chivalry Hands like frostbite Smile like a guillotine And anybody can get it We out here In a field acting quasi-eccentric Like we're so care free and reckless Hiding in our crew Like a castle of friendship Blending in with the famouflage Bunning that green and Farage Judging kids in Kigurumis Rinsing mans over Instagram avatars Like “fuck your festivities You're all amateurs We're the life of the party Where's your stamina?” [Hold up] I need another bump of snufflepuss Before my demeanour turns from arrogant to vacuous Just another beer battered codfish Vacant cranium Face like a Boglin Jaw like Skeletor Hands like goblets Eyes like fishing lures Smile like a lock pick Show me what you're working with Real men blame their tools and don't learn from it So here we are in yet another circus tent Trying to prove what we've got left once our words are spent Cirque du so lame This whole crowds a cabaret Your face is a masquerade Are you the sharpest knife in the drawer? Or a canapé? Are you another brick in the wall? Or a can of paint? All gaunt and inanimate Good show of form All forced and inadequate Short straw drawn like a score on the manuscript Sure let me snort another door out this labyrinth It was the summer of love I was becoming a cunt And we were set in our ways But enough is enough And it wasn't the company And it wasn't the drugs It was something in the way that we got stuck in our rut We were run down up town running amuck Full of insecurities that we were covering up It was the summer of love And when I woke up It's all dead in Shimoda Two man on the sofa Bunning that Yoda Hung over Traces of an opium den The world loneliest friends In way over their heads Just older None the wiser, time is flying Bun the fire, fires dying But we're trying, why you lying? I ain't grown up I'm a giant, call me sire Super Saiyan, the messiah Be your guide, I'm so alive Until I'm sober And sober don't mean much These days sober means half drunk and lean up We're perpetually turning new leaves Like seven days without class A's is an achievement The realities of party life The suns out and we're inside half alive I love these people every fibre of my being And whatever state we be in your my heart for life It's just I've seen something underneath Very hard hard to ignore once it's seen It creeps in this very room as we speak It's weak and it's needy and brutally bleak What was once wild, impulsive and free Is now humdrum It's become routine It's where I'm at It ain't you it's me I gotta sit this one out You lot keep doing your thing It's all love
9.
Meanwhile 02:52
I was somewhere like post aperitif Pre just deserts Waving the Olive Branch All "shouldn't we discuss it first?" Proverbial peace talk interrupted as the musket burst My bubble All over your mustard shirt While I must concur there's nothing worse than suffering in silence I'd much prefer to come to learn to shut my fucking pie hole But what do I know? I was spitting pre-writtens in different time zones Glimpsing ideas like a flickering lightbulb Sniffing those lines I just rehearsed I was somewhere billing up some dry backy Unperturbed Wide-eyed thunderbird On a one way trip to the Underverse Fucked up the verse More a mumbled curse All that dirty talk Still ain't cum to terms Like “fuck the world” It's just dust and dirt Motherfuck Mother Earth In other words I was somewhere rocking burnt fingers transfixed on the bug light Potency so powerful it could interrupt the sunrise Cascading fractals in an interstellar mud fight Some ceremonial bloodbath It looks to be a fun night The older g's telling ghost stories Just sitting around the gunfire The young gods watch atoms Pinging back and forth like umpires I was somewhere in between them Looking for a place to run Riot A quiet nest space just to get my head straight While I sit and spectate in the sunshine We found music we hated and danced all night Locked ourselves in the hotel room And then we laughed till we cried It's hard to describe Harder with time Half of the sagas we started to write The dramas we harbour like cards in a line Until we move past them and cast them aside I was somewhere acting large all Billy Big Bananas Lagers and cartons of wine Singing "pass me the pipe" At the endless house party ciphers or nights in the park getting high Can't part from the vibe I was gardening planting a vine In a trance on a dance floor laughably high On a beach by a palm tree drafting a rhyme Right here living larger than larger than life
10.
Peter Vacant 01:14
11.
Pisces 03:09
It's the dawn of the dud Technicolor attention deficit Got all the answers Can't remember what the question is Every 2nd second tick he feel the light beckoning Seen the signs Seems like the scenery's sidestepping him 7-6-5-4-3-2-1 What you waiting for? The day of reckoning? I reckon you should settle down son Sun settle it Moonrise Kingdom [Insert movie reference here] Yep that'll do splendidish Now let's recommence pretending everything is serendip Hell yes I think the set up's rigged to benefit the mega rich And when it kicks the bucket I'll be glad to see the end of it Cheer in the moment the system falls down And we finally see what's been hiding beneath that ball gown Jaws all floor bound Scores all drawn out Now all we need's a good campfire to talk round Bun it all down, bun it all Kick some new ideas round like a rubber ball I knew something smelt Pisces Once the lie detector detected itself lying The polygraph it seems is not without a sense of irony And neither am I Although I can't define it [See?] We living in a world gone mad Off it's Rockefeller Halluminati in your mozzarella Now we got blogs to tell us how journalism lost its essence And Urban Outfitters are hosting ayahuasca sessions So much for forgotten teachings We built machines that can't be broken down in solid pieces I'm watching yoghurt weavers mingle with posh elitists While the real knowledge keepers masquerade as proper geezers Teachers Only visible to the trained eye That ain't tainted by preconceptions of a straight line Paid the price, pays to be hiding in plain sight Naked light bending perceptions of space time Take flight, take acid don't take sides Take heed, take advice - don't take mine Take two, he's penniless on a late night Fuck it I'd rather waste money than waste time Taste life Reality bytes Chunks of data, chicken and sage pie No such thing as a safe ride And isn't the stakes high? One decision can change life For millions of great minds The whispering grapevine Said we living in strange times Where villains get tax breaks And children get jail time
12.
Give 02:15
Give a man a fish And he'll munch it Teach a man to fish He'll get his munch on in blissful abundance Give a man a taste of a full stomach He'll soon see the profit in his fellow villagers hunger Give a man a minute to crunch the numbers And he'll do what it takes to encourage his business to flourish Give a man a gun and he'll go hunting Soon to be confronted with the potential that he can be the one to run tings Give a man the power and the money Until the power struggle leaves his brother bruised and bloodied Give him an alternative, he'll shun it Especially if it threatens his current standards of comfort Give a man some paper and a false sense of ownership And watch the way he turns to what he hates before he notices Give a man some documents and an air of authority Eventually he'll only believe in what he wants to see Give a man an answer and he'll cherish it And relish in the fact that he already knows the outcome of everything Give a man the notion he is separate Before long it's all on him And the whole world gets neglected Pay a man the respect To re-inspect and look again And glimpse that hidden smile that lies behind His crooked frame Place him in society That puts the head before the heart And naturally he'll adapt to be dispassionate and hard Give a man a second chance No punishment nor reprimands Let him reflect and take steps to reset his path Give a man some compassion Help him up then let him dance He'll thank you for your patience once he's seen how long forever lasts Give
13.
Awe 06:31
The dust is always settling The ending's dependent on perception as anything Everything is trembling There's tremolo on everything Gently Delicate as feathers on a bed of pins Tempt me I'll tentatively step within your temple if you let me Welcome in the spectacle you're beckoning Ready? Keep your spectacles steady on the Petri dish Ah the splendour Of spending mere seconds In the presence of a presence more present than we've ever been And voila! The moments gone before the second tick Another ancient relic left buried in the sediment Another long lost lofty LSD sentiment Too majestic to be compressed in mere sentences Definitions only serve to censor the respect that it commands Only the most intrepid jellyfish Ever get to swim in anything better than tepid piss Only the most sensitive of specimens Ever get to see the sense in living less separatist And they howl and they cry in the night like a theremin For the terrible angels and their heavenly hellishness And for all your intelligence and well-dressed eloquence I've genuinely never seen cherubs look so devilish I've never seen any sense in what you're telling us As science relishes the next best pessimist Priests pedal Armageddon and our day of reckoning I guess we wait for the serpent to shed it's skin Lend a quid to forever, as a gesture to our next of kin Until then If you need me come find me I'll stand beside you as the sky bleeds Confide in me, sing your song I'll weep for you in binary Silently Come close enough to feel it Close enough to speak our secrets Deep in privacy Then lie to me, please Imply some deeper meaning Give some pretence to this sequence Some ideal I can believe in Until I'm deep enough in dream that I won't wake when shaken violently Finally Ignorance is bliss and I'm wide asleep But dreams seem fickle in this scheme of society There's something wrong here You and I can both feel it Tarot readings spread in a bow show a chocked Phoenix A broke helix, un-cracked code in both pieces A homeless man holding a sign that says “hope” Weeping A boat leaving A cloned seedling A crow bleeding A gold throne on a globe depleted with no resource It's no secret the world’s outgrown its old leaders Yet I can't help feeling our defects might go deeper So I thoroughly advise you to deal with your own demons Is it them? Is it us? Some inherent dysfunction Is it fair? Is it just our benevolent comeuppance Who'd a thunk it? It's another classic who dun it We're all flummoxed Fingers pointed, brows furrowed Still coming up with nothing The same discussion through the ages Like are we moving towards something dangerous? And away from the cycles of nature that made us I can't help feeling we're missing something basic Something bigger, something sacred Something... [What was I saying?] The dust is always settling It’s us against them again It's never been more prevalent Impending doom is immanent Emanating, echoing Off the walls of tenements An endless drawl of "Its bad as it's ever been" And "everything was better then" Etc etc Maybe it's all better in remembrance Or maybe we're all edging off the precipice If so, at least we get to see the end of this It goes up down left right Simple designs Drawn by a school full of fools where innocence dies Well groomed for the box that they're thinking inside An army of ants trained to within an inch of their lives We pave the way Concrete and pillars of iron Building a shrine to the mistakes of our primitive minds The queen bees couldn't give a shit for the hive That's why they're willing to sacrifice millions of lives [The queen bees couldn't give a shit for the hive That's why they're willing to sacrifice millions of lives] For a cause that will be gone in the blink of an eye Mamma always told me, these are definitive times I don't like the cut of their jib, all glib with a smile They love the smell of their own shit Fucking pigs in the sty I'm not crying There's just some shit in my eye Trying to seeing the bigger picture while it's whistling by Sipping a chai, living life like I'm bigger than time I've been polite as a smile since chivalry died I've been contrived Too timid to skip to rhythm of life I've been so afraid of love it made me bitter inside But I'm alive Sitting with a grin of a child All Torvill and Dean On the thinnest of ice And I talk in my sleep and I twitch and I writhe Cos I'm torn by a dream where we literally thrive Not the same story repeated until it's riddled with lies And once I was finished with my trip in the sky I knew the first step to making a difference is inside Before you criticize maybe give it a try At the end of the day It's the beginning of the night And the dust is always settling
14.
Teapot 00:58

credits

released August 14, 2020

Written & Produced by Elian Gray
Mixed by James Preston
Mastered by Andy ‘Hippy’ Baldwin
Artwork by Flora Scott Wallace

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Elian Gray London, UK

Alternative rap for ageing nerds.

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