Clutching At Straws

Fish Clutching At Straws Lyrics
1.Hotel Hobbies

Hotel hobbies padding dawns hollow corridors
Bell boys checking out the hookers in the bar
Slug-like fingers trace the star-spangled clouds of cocaine on
the mirror
The short straw took its bow

The tell tale tocking of the last cigarette
Marking time in the packet as the whisky sweat
Lies like discarded armour on an unmade bed
And a familiar craving is crawling in his head

And the only sign of life is the ticking of the pen
Introducing characters to memories like old friends
Frantic as a cardiograph scratching out the lines
A fever of confession a catalogue of crime in happy hour
Do you cry in happy hour, do you hide in happy hour,
The pilgrimage to happy hour

New shadows tugging at the corner of his eye
Jostling for attention as the sunlight flares
Through a curtains tear, shuffling its beams
As if in nervous anticipation of another day


2.Warm Wet Circles

On promenades where drunks propose to lonely arcade mannequins
Where ceremonies pause at the jeweller's shop display
Feigning casual silence in strained romantic interludes
Till they commit themselves to the muted journey home
And the pool player rests on another cue
Last nights hero picking up his dues
A honeymoon gambled on a ricochet
She's staring at the brochures at the holidays
Chalking up a name in your hometown
Standing all your mates to another round
Laughing at the world till the barman wipes away
The warm wet circles

I saw teenage girls like gaudy moths a classroom's shabby
butterflies
Flirt in the glow of stranded telephone boxes
Planning white lace weddings from smeared hearts
And token proclamations, rolled from stolen lipsticks
Across the razored webs of glass
Sharing cigarettes with experience with her giggling
Jealous confidantes, she faithfully traces his name
With quick bitten fingers
Through the tears of condensation that'll cry through the night
As the glancing headlights of the last bus kiss adolescence
goodbye

In a warm wet circle
Like a mother's kiss on your first broken heart, a warm wet
circle
Like a bullethole in central park, a warm wet circle
And i'll always surrender to the warm wet circles

She nervously undressed in the dancing beams of the fidra
lighthouse
Giving it all away before it's too late
She'll let a lover's tongue move in a warm wet circle
Giving it all away and showing no shame
She'll take a mother's kiss on her first broken heart
A warm wet circle, she'll realise that she plays her part in a
warm wet circle


3.That Time Of The Night

At that time of the night when streetlights throw crosses
Through window frames, paranoia roams where the shadows reign
Oh, at that time of the night
At that time of the night your senses tangled in some new
perfume
Criticism triggers of a loaded room. at that time of the night

So if you ask me how do i feel inside
I could honestly tell you we've been taken on a very long ride
And if my owners let me have some free time some day
With all good intention i would probably run away
Clutching the short straw

At that time of the night when questions rally in an open mind
Summon all your answers with an ice cube chime
At that time of the night.

At that time of the night
Pretend you're off the hook with the telephone
Your confidence wounded in a free fire zone,
Oh, at that time of the night

So if you ask me where do i go from here,
My next destination isn't even really that clear.
So if you join me and get on your knees and pray,
I'll show you salvation we'll take the alternative way
Clutching the short straw

If i had enough money i'd buy a round for that boy over there
A companion in my madness in the mirror the one with the silvery
hair.
And if some kind soul could please pick up my tab
And while they're at it if they could pick up my broken
heart....


4.Going Under

Is it wrong to talk to myself even when there's nobody else?
I'm just checking out that i'm not gone under the water
Thrown on the beach like a seal ready for slaughter
Can't you understand that the way things were planned
It never worked out so i just went crazy
I took to the drink, like something says 'it's maybe'

I ain't got no excuse and that's really the news
Got nothing else to say, that it's my way, it's always my way
I seem to be running away so often
I'll try anything once and that's the way we should be
But it's always the same getting caught up again in a habit,
A habit i just can't shake off
The way it always turned out
Can you understand it's the way i choose to be
Everything seems so easy this way but i'm going under fast,
Slipping away, am i so crazy?


5.Just For The Record

Many's the time i've been thinking about changing my ways
But when it gets right down to it it's the same drunken haze
I'm serving a sentence to write life's sentences
It's only when i'm out of it i make sense of this

Just for the record i'm gonna put it down, down
Just for the record i'm gonna change my life around

Just a revolutionary with a pseudonym
Just a bar-room dancer on my final fling
Just another writer paying off my dues
Just finding inspiration, well that's my excuse

Just for the record i'm gonna put it down, down
Just for the record i'm gonna change my life around
Just another empty gesture with an empty glass
Just another comic actor behind a tragic mask,

But i've got no discipline, got no self control
Just a little less painful here when my back's against the wall

It's too late, i found, it's too far, i'm in two minds
Both of them are out of it at the bar

When you say i got a problem that's a certainty
But i can put it all right down to eccentricity
It's just for the record it's just a passing phase
Just for the record i can stop any day


6.White Russian

Where do we go from here?

They're boarding up the synagogues, uzis on a street corner
You can't take a photograph of uzis on a street corner
The dj resigned today, they wouldn't let him have his say
A surface scratched where the needles play, uzis on a street
corner

Where do we go from here?

Terror on the rue de st. denis, murder on the periphery
Someone else in someone else's pocket, christ knows i don't know
how to stop it
Lay poppies at the cenotaph, the cynics can't afford to laugh,
I heard in on the telegraph there's uzis on a street corner

Where do we go from here?

The more i see the more i hear the more i find the fewer answers
I close my mind, i shut it out but you know its getting harder
To calm me down, to reason out, to come to terms with what it's
all about
I'm uptight, can't sleep at night, i can't pretend everything's
alright.
My ideals my sanity, they seem to be deserting me
But to stand up and fight i know we have six million reasons.

They're burning down the synagogues, uzis on a street corner
The heralds of the holocaust, uzis on a street corner
The silence never louder than now, how quickly we forgot our
vows,
This resurrection we can't allow, the uzis on a street corner.

Where do we go from here, where do we go from here?

We buy fresh bagels from the corner store
Where swastikas are spat from aerosols
I sit in the bar sipping iced white russians
Trying to score but nobody's pushing
And everyone looks at everyone's faces
Searching for signs and praying for traces
Of a conscience in residence,
Are we sitting on a barbed wire fence, racing the clouds home
Racing the clouds home

We place our faith in human rights
In the paper wars that tie the redtape tight
I know that i would rather be out of this conspiracy

In the gulags and internment camps
Frozen faces in nameless ranks
I know that they would rather be
Standing here besides me chasing the clouds home

You can shut your eyes, you can hide away
It's gonna come back another day

Racing the clouds home, are we racing the clouds home?
Racing the clouds home


7.Incommunicado

I'd be really pleased to meet you if only i could remember your
name
But i got problems with my memory ever since i got a winner in
the fame game
I'm a citizen of legoland travellin' incommunicado
And i don't give a damn for the fleet street afficionados

But i don't want to be the backpage interview
I don't want launderette anonymity
I want my handprints in the concrete on sunset boulevard
A dummy in tussauds you'll see. incommunicado

I'm a marquee veteran, a multi-media bonafide celebrity
I've got an allergy to perrier, daylight and responsibility
I'm a rootin-tootin cowboy, a peter pan with street credibility
Always making the point with the dawn patrol fraternity

Sometimes it seems like i've been here before
When i hear opportunity kicking in my door
Call it synchronicity call it da vu
I just put my faith in destiny - it's the way that i choose

But i don't want to be a tin can tied to the bumper of a wedding
limousine,
Or currently residing in the where-are-they-now file
A toup on the cabaret scene
I want to do adverts for american express cards
And talk shows on prime time tv,
A villa in france
My own cocktail bar
And that's where you're gonna find me
Incommunicado

Sometimes it seems like i've been here before
When i hear opportunity kicking in my door
Call it synchronicity call it da vu
I just put my faith in destiny it's the way that i choose
Incommunicado
It's the only way
Incommunicado


8.Torch Song

Read some kerouac and it put me on the track
To burn a little brighter now.
It was something about roman candles fizzin' out,
Shine a little light on me now,
I found a strange fascination with a liquid fixation
Alcohol can thrill me now
It's getting late in the game to show any pride or shame
Burn a little brighter now

Doctor says my liver looks like leaving with my lover,
Need another time out now,
Like any sort of hero turnin' down to zero
Standing out in any crowd
Pulling seventeen with experience and dreams,
Sweating out a happy hour,
When you're hiding twenty nine you know it ain't a crime
To burn a little brighter now, burn a little brighter now

(spoken - doctor:) 'and my advice is if you maintain this
lifestyle you won't reach thirty'
(torch:) 'it's a kind of romantic way to go really, part of the
heritage.
It's your round i'n'it?'

We burn a little brighter now
Read some kerouac and it put me on the track to burn a little
brighter now
It was something about roman candles fizzin' out,
Shine a little light on me now,
I found a strange fascination with a liquid fixation,
Alcohol thrill me now
Getting late in the game to show any pride or shame
We burn a little brighter now, burn a little brighter now


9.Slainte Mhath

A hand held over a candle in angst-fuelled bravado
A carbon trail scores a moist stretched palm
Trapped in the indecision of another fine menu
And you sit there and ask me to tell you the story so far
This is the story so far

Shuffling your memories dealing your doodles in margins
You scrawl out your poems across a beer-mat or two
And when you declare the point of grave creation
They turn round and ask you to tell them the story so far

This is the story so far

And you listen with a tear in your eye
To their hopes and betrayals and your only reply
Is slnte mhath

Princes in exile raising the standard drambuie
Parading their anecdotes tired from old campaigns
Holding their own last orders commanding attention
We sit here and listen to all of the story so far

This is the story so far

Take it away, take it away, take it away, take me away

From the dreams on the barbed wire at flanders and bilston glen
From a clydesdale that rusts from the tears of it's broken men
From the realisation that all we've been left behind
Is to stand like our fathers before us in the firing line
Waiting on the whistle to blow, we stand here waiting
On the whistle to blow
They promised us miracles, and the whistle still blows
Broken promises, and the whistle still blows
The whistle still blows


10.Sugar Mice

I was flicking through the channels on the tv
On a sunday in milwaukee in the rain
Trying to piece together conversations,
Trying to find out where to lay the blame

But when it comes right down to it there's no use trying to
pretend
For when it gets right down to it there's no one here that's
left to blame,
Blame it on me, you can blame it on me
We're just sugar mice in the rain

I heard sinatra calling me down through the floorboards
Where you pay a quarter for a partnership in rhyme
To the jukebox crying in the corner
While the waitress is counting out the time

For when it comes right down to it there's no use trying to
pretend
For when it gets right down to it there's no one really left to
blame,
Blame it on me, you can blame it on me
We're just sugar mice in the rain

I know what i feel, know what i want i know what i am
Daddy took a raincheck
Cos i know what i want, know what i feel i know what i need
Daddy took a raincheck, your daddy took a raincheck
Ain't no one in here that's left to blame but me
Blame it on me, blame it on me

Well the toughest thing that i ever did was talk to the kids on
the phone
When i heard them asking questions i knew
That you were all alone, can't you understand that the
Government left me out of work, i just couldn't stand the
Looks on the faces saying what a jerk

So if you want my address it's number one
At the end of the bar
Where i sit with the broken angels clutching at straws and
Nursing the scars, blame it on me, blame it on me
Sugar mice in the rain, your daddy took a raincheck
Your daddy took a raincheck


11.The Last Straw

Hotel hobbies padding dawns hollow corridors
A typewriter cackles out a stream of memories
Drying out a conscience, evicting a nightmare
Opening the doors for the dreams to come home

We live out lives in private shells
Ignore out senses and fool ourselves
Into thinking that out there there's someone else cares
Someone to answer all our prayers

Are we too far gone, are we so irresponsible
Have we lost our balls, or do we just not care
We're terminal cases that keep talking medicine
Pretending the end isn't quite that near
We make futile gestures, act to the cameras
With our made up faces and pr smiles
And when the angel comes down to deliver us
We'll find out after all, we're only men of straw

But everything is still the same
Passing the time passing out the blame
We carry on in the same old way
We'll find out we left it too late one day
To say what we meant to say

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the water
Those problems seem to arise the ones you never really thought
of
The feeling you get is similar to some sort of drowning
When you are out of your mind, out of your depth
You should have taken soundings
We're clutching at straws, we're clutching at straws clutching
at straws

And if you ever come across us don't give us your sympathy
You can buy us a drink and just shake our hands
And you'll recognise by the reflections in our eyes
That deep down inside we're all one and the same
We're clutching at straws still drowning


12.Tux On

Tux on, tux on, tux on, tux on, tux on

He has eyes down at the bingo on that lucky friday night
The match was rained off saturday but the panel came in bright
And on sunday your mates were toasting you with champagne down
the pub
And on monday you went to london
To pick the cheque up with your mum

You had a tux on, mmm, you had a tux on
The first time you had a tux on, lucky man

There's a photo on the mantlepiece, when you bought your first
guitar
And your girlfriend came to see you when you were the rising
star
You knew your luck was holding when you filled the local hall
The first time and the last time that you thought you had
control

You had a tux on, lucky man, you had a tux on
You got a tux on, tux on

Now you're touring stadiums, you've let it go too far
Standing with your manager, your back to every bar
Burning all your credit cards, chopping out the pain
Crowding into toilets with a host of your new-found friends

You got a tux on, nothing's changed, you got a tux on
Lucky man with a tux on, you're still the same with a tux on

It was eyes down in the parlour, they prayed it wouldn't rain
A brother pulled his cuffs down to hide the blue-black vein
He'd razored more than lines out, they found him just too late
The final performance, the main man lies in state

With a tux on, look at him now with a tux on
The last time with a tux on, take him away with a tux on

Somewhere in a tenement, in a well-thumbed magazine
Someone finds a photograph that triggers off a dream
The uniform that symbolizes the comfortable life
He's always known his luck's in but now he's found the drive

He's got a tux on, look at him now with a tux on
He's gonna get one with a tux on, free admission with a tux on
Get it anyway with a tux on

He's got a tux on the easy way with a tux on, tux on, tux on,
tux on.


13.Beaujolais Day

I went to morrison's grave at pere lachaise cemetery
The stony flowers and the matching graffiti were guiding me to
the steps inside of me

And what will you do if i got down on my knees to you
What will you do if i lied to your face
Could you still hold your dreams
Could you live in your silent face

So what would you do, would you walk right through me
Would you stand in the way like the others before
Get in the way
Would you drink to me next beaujolais day

Tell me the truth, save a prayer for me
I would love to leave you but you would cry all night long
Eternal romantic, victory failed on beaujolais day

I heard a wheelchair whisper across a stale silent gymnasium
Trailing an ivy league jacket like a matador
Through the jitterbug steps of the night before

Through the chalk white chill and the tear fandango
Heading away to the inner wrangle
Do we cry for a cell
Do we need for a sell

What would you do, would you cry for me
Could you set off (?) could we go gently
Blame it away
Do you really want to head for the open door

Got to crack a bottle while you dream for me
Just an absent friend and a misery
Laying awake do we stay right there
'till beaujolais day

On beaujolais day

So what will you do, would you lie to me?
Would you sit right back in a victory
Would you play for me
Could you die for me

So what would you do, would you walk right through me
Heading away saying it's just another victory
This is beaujolais day


14.Story From A Thin Wall

I heard the battle raging on the other side of the wall
Buried my head in a pillow and tried to ignore it all
Every night when i hear you i dream of breaking down your door
An avenging knight in shining armour to rescue you from it all
From the family business

When i see you in the supermarket
With sunglasses in the shade
Averting your eyes from those staring questions
How were those bruises made
It's family business

Children clutching to your legs
They've got so much they want to say
But daddy's sitting home and drunk again
So they bite their lips and pray
And daddy don't like no strangers prying
And noses in his private affairs
And if anyone asks from the social
Well, you fell down the stairs
It's family business

So i become an accessory
And i don't have an alibi
To the victim lying on my doorstep
The only way i can justify
It's family business

'cause every day it's getting harder
Try to see, to go away
To all the people that surround you
You have to sit them down and explain
To be the writing on the wall inside
To be the pledge you call your own
And if you run into the day
You sure you know you'll find a home
You sure you know you'll find a home
Find a home
You sure, you sure

The traffic lights shine upon
(?) and the broken home
Everyone could be oh so far away
(?) and the white lines lead the way
Lead the way

And the writing on the wall
They're carving out the martyrs in stone

Could've been the same this way
It could've been the same this way
Tell them it's the same today
We could have been much younger
It could have been much longer
Into the real time
Too far
You run away today
Tomorrow
You take away the time
You took away my mind

Something to the light she said
Everyone is burning
We could have been much younger
Should have


15.Shadows On The Barley

Storm clouds cruising cross the blue skies
Shadows float across the fields of barley
I find myself an island in an island
I have to sort things out just my way

And all i find is my bar
To laugh to me i say
Like all you know is true
Is for ever time we know it's mine

I saw clouds cruise floating cross the blue sky
Shadows float across the fields of barley
(?)
Everything will come out soon my way

Now i know, i see, i find
It's the only way i ever felt, the way i do today
All i say, i play the game
I know i never could be sure of all the places that i've seen

Clouds cruising cross the blue skies
Shadows float across the fields of barley
Every self an island in an island
Working every problem out my way

Now i see, i feel, i know
It's the only way that anything could sort out to the way
I say you'll find it's out of mind
It's the only way i could have been
It's the only way i stand

Clouds cruise, float upon the barley


16.Sunset Hill

Everything to decide
It's time i came up with some answers before i can carry on
It's time i made my mind up before we can go along

And i thought it was so simple
And i knew that it could be so fine
I know that the places that everything comes

Rose beds scattered across the lawn
Like the squares at waterloo
With the bayonets of thorns repelling
Small children in search of lost tennis balls
Seeing everything and giving their all

I used to be scared of heights
I used to get dizzy
I never felt safe with my feet on the ground
They said that up there the air would be clearer
They said more space and more room to breathe

Everything to the side
I knew that something would happen
It's better off than being alive
I knew the standards decline
I knew that we had to decide
All the places, that's all we'd ever seen
And the place that we thought about
And the road that you travel has never been seen

Rose beds scattered across the lawn
Like the squares of waterloo
With the bayonets of thorns repelling
Small children in search of lost tennis balls
Giving everything and giving it all

I used to think everything was coming up roses
But i couldn't see the weeds that entangled my feet
I couldn't see the trees
'cause my forest was burning
I couldn't see the bridges for the fire in my eyes
They sold me the view from the hill
Sold me the view from the hill

They said that up there the air would be clearer
They said there'd be more space and more room to breathe
I used to be scared of heights
I used to get dizzy
They sold me the view from the hill


17.Tic-tac-toe

We are led by the light at the end of the tunnel
We are guided by the fires of our burning dreams
We're inspired by our ideals and driven by conscience
To cross what the cynics perceive as naive

We the people want it straight for a change
We the people are getting tired of your games
We the people want the answers laid out on the lines
Better no more of your cheap propaganda
And stop talking tic-tac-toe

We the people fight your arms dealers wars
We the people want our futures secure
We the people want a peace staying all the way
So cut out your message
And take all your talking tic-tac-toe

Everyone needs a symbol of their own, the truth
If you don't know of the reason
Well how can you take a stance in this way
You need to be sure
You need to return to an open door
Taking a lesson from me
Taking a lesson from me
The children that play tic-tac-toe


18.Voice In The Crowd

There's something i have to tell you
Before it's too late
There's someone needs a timing
I could be the same
Got to listen to you clearly
Would you understand it all
Would you hold it all together
Do we run up in the bar

Everyone needs someone to listen to
If you don't want to shine on
Could you know it all
And if someone lay before you know it could be true
A voice in the crowd

You came upon a (?)
Just an alibi
Did you have to go do it
Do you feel you want to try
But if you'd only see the reason why (?)
When someone came, someone rose, someone left

I don't know if you could be sure
But you don't understand
And if the days were good
You'll never know the way we planned
And if the time is there for severancing and sentiment
A voice in the crowd
A voice in the crowd


19.Exile On Princes Street

I saw a blue umbrella in princes street garden
Heading out west for the lothian road
An evening news stuffed deep in the pocket
Little did i know that he had a heavy load

I found i was walking grierson's dockyards
Where the only thing working was the foreign film crews
Making an impressive documentary
For the news, for the news
To the satellite

And all we're left with is the black, black oil
With a sense of pride and identity
The waters left behind we shouldn't forget
Laid low in the books of history

I saw the starlings wheel round georgian spires
They're gathering on patrol in the skies
In the distance burns the flame of grangemouth
And the dream is lost
Everything
What it could inspire
When we take, you know there is no distance
How we're talked about in the secret affairs
Taking our ride into the distance
To be what it was or could have been
What i should have said

And all we're left with is the black, black oil
With a strong sense of national pride
'till we take some more steps to unity
Take it back to me
Take away
(?)

And all we're left with is the black, black oil
With a strong sense of national pride
Calling the (ministry?) for identity
What it meant to me, what it said
What we could have had

I saw a blue umbrella in princes street garden
Heading out west for the lothian road
An evening news stuck deep in the pocket
Little did i know that he'd fall
Carrying a heavy load

And all we're left with is the black, black oil
With a strong sense of national pride
Calling a name in the sake of unity
What it meant to me you'll never know
You'll never know

I see myself forced in servant exile
Turning around at another's command
All i want to see is identity
What i could have been
What i did
Could have been

Internal exile
Internal exile