1. |
Awkward
03:17
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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
|
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2. |
High Art
03:52
|
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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
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3. |
Leonard's Got Bars
02:43
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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
|
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5. |
Mary J Poppins
01:46
|
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6. |
Another T-Shirt
03:22
|
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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
|
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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
|
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8. |
Come Down With Me
05:23
|
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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
|
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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
|
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10. |
Peter Vacant
01:14
|
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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
|
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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
|
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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
|
Elian Gray London, UK
Alternative rap for ageing nerds.
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