1. |
Stone and bone
04:09
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Stone and bone
I'm made from flagstone, grindstone, knucklebone, thighbone, capstone, kerbstone, tailbone, whalebone, cobblestone, milestone, backbone, jawbone, crossbones, headstone, wishbone, tombstone
I'm built from stone and bone
Theres no monuments on these bone dry fields to commemorate those buried here
Just wretched poor on wretched poor a hundred thousand souls
The prostitute, the destitute those cast aside by institute
From the borough slum to the boiler rooms they've all been shovelled here
In the name of progress the city cries you may dance upon my stones tonight
But feed my slots with coins that shine you're all just bones to me
And I'm built from stone and bone.
Here comes London's forgotten dead crawling from the flower beds
Withered and sucked to a dusk dry husk by the roots of ancient trees
Then Landed gentry in wigs and gowns they run but then they're hunted down
And hung upon their apron strings all laid compass square
Pilgrim Fathers fill their plates on tables made from fractured slates
As they feast upon the greying graves of a hundred thousand souls
Then the earth below them starts to shake as the spectral form of William Blake
Storms into the Stock Exchange and fire fills the sky
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2. |
Save your pity
03:11
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SAVE YOUR PITY
He’ll be here soon I can feel his breath on my neck
But I don’t fear his call I don’t fear anything at all
You think I’m weak and I'm frail but I can still set my sails
Though my body has aged in my mind the seas still rage
And you men of God seem so sure you’ve got it right
But aren't you gamblers just like me?
placing bets and chasing dreams. Where were you in the war?
Out in the company of widows while I was burying their dead
on a battlefield painted red
So save your pity for yourselves cry those tears for someone else
Place your sympathies aside for I have lived
And I have never done goodbyes I always crept out with the tides
For I have lived a sailor's life and now I'm done.
And the day I die will be the same as any other day
I’ll close my eyes and think what tomorrow might bring
They're here by my bed I can hear a prayer being said
I turn my sails to the wind and I’ll be gone
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3. |
The exile of DH Lawrence
03:10
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I'm the ghost of the Pueblo adrift and alone
Sickly white skin hung on Mescaline bone
A savage pilgrim a long way from home
conjuring cobbles and coal
I'm an outcast, an exile, a pervert, a spy
hated by many with all that implies
nothing to give but the words that I write
I wander these deserts alone
CHORUS
Struggling to breathe, clinging to life
Coughing up coal dust as black as your eyes
Growing grey as an Erewash sky
Torn and wrenched apart from the country of my heart
Was like my pen was possessed I don't know what I wrote
Something about how a family might cope
As the presence of progress
brings an absence of hope
You've a nerve to be calling me filthy obscene
You colliery owners will never scrub clean
You've no airs and graces when you're mining the seam
That's when we're all the same
That's when we're all the same
CHORUS
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4. |
Billy's prayer
03:39
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With my face pressed hard on a sandbag as the trench starts filling with mud
Bullets are flying, grown men are crying I sense that these odds are not good
So I find myself reminiscing about the first time I sailed to New York
You see I wasn't always a soldier but I've been a fighter from the day I could walk
I was whistling 'the leaving of Liverpool' as the Pier Head disappeared
With the roar of the crowd and my true love's tears stinging in my ears
I soon found myself mid-Atlantic in a storm that had blown up from hell
As the wind cut my cheek I whispered a prayer and someone rang a bell
And the harder it blows the more I know it will not knock me down
So I turn my face to the ocean and stare the bastard down
A thousand miles up in the distance, someone's pasting a bill to a wall
It says “Battling Billy will box here in Philly” so come watch the Englishman fall
That first night I fought in Manhattan this Frenchman was giving me hell
As his glove cut my cheek, I whispered a prayer, and someone rang a bell
But the harder his blows the more I know he will not knock me down
So I turn and face my opponent and stare the bastard down
This century’s younger than I am, but already she's taken much more
I'm stuck in France sparring with chance but this time I'm fighting a war
I wish I was back on the fairgrounds but wishes won't rid me this hell
Barbed wire cuts my cheek, I whisper a prayer, and someone rings a bell
And the harder the blows the more I know they will not knock me down
So I turn my face to the bullets and stare the bastards down
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5. |
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Johnny Cash picked up the phone in his Tennessee home
and dialled a number he’d been given
At the end of the line was a man about to die
with no time for the priest but a need to be forgiven
Gary Gilmore said “Hello, I was hoping you might phone.
I guess by now you’ve heard about my crimes.
I killed two Mormon men, for no reason I can give.
Just like the man you shot in Reno, just to watch him die.”
He said I need someone to sing me back home
Someone who understands the pain of being alone
A plaintive cry to cut right to my bones
Warden get me Johnny Cash on the phone
Then he spoke about his mother and a picture on the cover
of a record they always played
Don’t take your guns to town – well I guess I let her down
went off the rails and I could not be saved
And they sang ‘I walk the Line’
Tears welled in Gary’s eyes
All his crimes could be confessed
This was Gary Gilmore’s last request
Will you sing one for Nicole? She’s my heart she’s my soul
She’s the reason I’ve chosen to die
On every word she ever spoke I will hang until I choke
Then saddle up with the Riders in the sky
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6. |
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Well the sky was ripe and fit to burst
When it heard the summer lift its curse
And it felt the forest’s dying thirst
So the clouds let forth their bounty
And underneath where that storm emerged
Stood a man who knew he was not the first
To watch his life go from bad to worse
Then back from bad to better
There are silver falls in a clear blue sky
And gold lies in the rivers
So if love should rise on the winter tide
May she choose to take you with her
May she choose to take you with her
From an Eastern sky came a wiley crow
Who knew the price of the lightening show
He'd buy it high and he'd sell it low
But he could never catch the thunder
There are treasures in this beaten earth
That are both a blessing and a curse
But you'll never know what each is worth
If all you do is count your money
Because a mystery that lies unresolved
Is so full of wonder, full of soul
But one whose tale's been clipped and told
Has no mystery left to offer
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7. |
Chains
03:15
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When your gains have all been ill gotten
When your crimes get easily forgotten
When your empire was made from cotton
Then your fortune's made from chains
Wherever men have built their nations
you'll find prisons and plantations
you'll find walls and segregation
And you'll always find some chains
Chains Chains Chains
You're only as free as they want you to be
and all your life's in chains
It's signed in ink that never fades
It's a balance that can't be weighed
It's a debt that can never be repaid
And these are your chains
Chorus
From the statues of the ancients, to the temples of the sun
And the pyramids of the Nile - inspire legends, myths and songs
That tell how Gods and Giants hauled these stones across the plains
But those tales are told by liars it was all built by chains
When this world finally goes under
In a blaze of flood and thunder
Nothing left but mud and wonder
And piles of rusted chains
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8. |
Four corners
03:23
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Four Corners
AKA damnation, ruination, education and salvation
(Spoken)
If you ever go down Radford
there's a crossroads near the old Players works
There used to be a pub, a pawnbrokers, a school and a church
And our Nana used to say at those four destinations
Lay Damnation, Ruination, Education or Salvation
Each corner would lead you to a different fate
but the choice? Well that was yours to take
Down the cellar, close to hell
Amongst the barrels, demons dwell
There they wait, to claim your soul
If you're soaked in the ale or down in the coal hole
If that's the choice you make – your damnation awaits
Above the doorway , three balls of bait
That lure the debtor to his fate
He's got no backbone got no spine
Just hungry children and desperate eyes
If that's the choice you make – your ruination awaits
Here on the crossroads we live and work
By the boozer and the broker, the schoolhouse and the church
One on each corner, for every occasion
Damnation, Ruination, Education and Salvation
Which corner seals your fate? Well that's the choice you've got to make
I'm a working man yet I burn with shame
When I leave my cross where others write their name
Don't be mistaken, I'm no fool
I make sure my children go to school
And that's the choice I make their education awaits
On these four corners we live and die
There's only one way to get out alive
Through blood and fire you'll find the truth
In the holy army of William Booth
If that's the choice you make – your salvation awaits
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9. |
Bendigo
04:29
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You never heard of Bendigo? You should've seen him peel
Half of him was whalebone, half of him was steel,
Fightin' weight eleven ten, five foot nine in height,
Always ready to oblige if you want a fight.
well he became a Methodist—he said he felt the call,
And he'd stomp the country preachin' you can bet he filled the hall,
And if you'd seen him in the pulpit, bleatin' like a lamb,
You'd never know it was Bendigo, the pride of Nottingham.
His hat was like a funeral, and he wore a waiter's coat,
With a hallelujah collar and a choker round his throat,
And his friends would laugh and say in jest that Bendigo was right,
Tekin' on the devil, there's no bogger else to fight.
But the devil he was waitin', and in the final bout,
He hit him hard below his guard and knocked poor Bendy out.
Now I'll tell you how it happened. He was preachin' down in Brum,
He was billed just like a circus, you should've seen the people come,
The chapel it was crowded, and in the front row,
Were half a dozen bruisers with a grudge for Bendigo.
There was Jack Platt of Bradford, Solly Jones of Perry Bar,
And Connor from the Bull Ring and Franklin Bagatah
Jack Bull the fightin gunsmith, Joe Murphy from the Mews,
And Iky Moss, the bettin' boss, the Champion of the Jews.
Soon he heard them goading him "Hey, Bendy! Let us know"
"How much do they pay you for this trumped up Glory show?"
"Come on Ben, you left the ring, it was mighty sly of you
Cause we all know the truth was the ring was leavin' you."
It was like the devil himself had spoken, this was the final bout,
He hit him hard below his guard and knocked poor Bendy out.
break -
Then Bendigo said, "Lord, since I left my sinful ways,
You know it is to you me duck I've given up my days,
But now, dear Lord"—and here he laid his Bible on the shelf—
"I'll tek, with your permission, just five minutes for myself."
Then he vaulted from the pulpit like a tiger from a den,
And they say it was a lovely sight to see him floor those men
Right and left, left and right, straight and true and hard,
Till the Ebenezer Chapel looked like a knacker's yard.
Platt was lyin' on his back and looking at his toes,
Solly Jones of Perry Bar was feelin' for his nose,
And Connor from the Bull Ring? It was all that he could do
To look around and find his teeth that lay around the pew.
Jack Bull the fightin' gunsmith was in a peaceful sleep,
Joe Murphy lay across him, all tied up in a heap,
Five of them was lying in a tangle on the floor,
And Iky Moss, the bettin' boss, had sprinted for the door.
You see Bendigo was waitin', this was the final bout,
Bendigo hit him hard and low and knocked the devil out.
And that's the way that Bendy ran his mission in the slum,
And preached the Holy Gospel to the fightin' men of Brum,
'Cause when it came to fightin for the Lord there was no stoppin him
He's bare knuckle Bendigo, the pride of Nottingham.
Adapted from the poem 'Bendy's Sermon' by Arthur Conan Doyle 1909
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10. |
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Chorus
Stand tall before the wagon circle me three times
Tell me everything that you've ever done wrong
Tell me every time you've crossed the line
Never knew about my mother, never knew my father
Never knew my righteous from my wrong
But I knew what a pistol could do and the doors I'd get through
If I held it high up to the sky
Chorus
Forgive me Father as you stand there in your holy robes
for the things you made me do
and the vow I made that one fine day
I would bring my vengeance down on you
Chorus
Now you can't outrun your shadow
so look me in the eye
I've taken all your sin and everything you did
and I've put it in a bullet and it's heading for your eyes
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11. |
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Hope fortune finds her smile
Hope good luck stays in style
I hope that hope prevails
Cause if there's one thing that I know
When you search high and low
Love will find her way
Then you can roll me out in the middle of the night
Bury me down on the boundary line
As they're falling on their swords
In the Commons and the Lords
I hope that sense prevails
Cause if there's one thing that I know
For all the lies they tell
Truth will find her way
Then you can roll me out in the middle of the night
Bury me down on the boundary line
Shine a light where a light don't shine
and roll me out in the middle of the night
When we storm the Palace gates
Tear down the flags of hate
Then justice will prevail
Cause if there's one thing that I know
Come the ringing of the bell
We'll hear that choir sing
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Matt Hill UK
QLR (Quiet Loner Records) is home to Matt Hill a storytelling singer-songwriter and community based artist who offers a
British take on folk and Americana.
‘Possibly the most important record of the year’ MAVERICK 5/5
‘An anthem for resistance’ AMERICANA UK 10/10
‘Delicate songwriting. Bleakly beautiful.’ UNCUT (4 stars)
‘Works of wonder’ R2 4/5
An absolute gem' MORNING STAR (Album of the year)
... more
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