What we doubted was their competence In the one job that they didn't put first If they couldn't show each other Then what the fuck could they show us?

The Day I Write That Song Every summer, every weekend, every fucking night I tell myself today’s the day The day I write that song The one that starts the album The one I’m gonna write myself Because I can come to terms with the fact the band went to the morticians While I teach kids at the academy But I won’t come to terms with that’s it When I still have something to say Even if I don’t quite know what it is Because sometimes feelings are too big to condense And you fear garbled words won’t make quite enough sense Or, worse, will be met with indifference And I’m only just one guy Who can barely play a bass guitar So who am I? To write an album when I can’t even read music? Just been banging these same four strings since ‘96 An old dog with no brand-new tricks Still tuned badly in open E The way my best friend once showed me Because that’s what his dad taught him And we’re all so strangely shaped by fathers Even when they’re not our own When your dad’s not around Because he’d rather be fucking around You make do with what you can So Every summer, every weekend, every fucking night I tell myself today’s the day The day I write that song The one that starts the album The one I’m gonna write myself

86 They say there’s no return You can’t go home again A haircut proved them wrong My trimmings fall on local paper A familiar front door I was six when I first saw it Said goodbye at twenty-nine Dead people don’t need their houses I used to think the place was haunted1 Couldn’t have guessed I’d know the ghosts Back when we lived, for all those years at 86 That new chapter that never quite turned the page Back when we lived, for all those years at 86 Until the cracks could just not be contained They called it a new start Back when we were kids Thought changing house might change each other Pretend the marriage wasn’t over A new address to mend old wounds Barely speaking, seldom smiling An elephant in every room We were trained to just ignore them Painting lipstick on a corpse I used to blame the architecture Back when we lived, for all those years at 86 That new chapter that never quite turned the page Back when we lived, for all those years at 86 Until the cracks could just not be contained Daddy not around Cuz he’s fucking around Mom buried in work To avoid how much it hurt They wouldn’t even fight Which made it somehow worse Living separate lives As the house became a hearse and not a home An appointment after work Faking first time buyers A long sleeve shirt to cover up My new eighty-six tattoo The one that matches with my sister’s The one that brands us as survivors They’d spent a lot to do it up But 86, it still felt haunted Plush new carpets aren’t enough To mask those same old creaking floorboards Back when we lived, for all those years at 86 That new chapter that never quite turned the page Back when we lived, for all those years at 86 Until the cracks could just not be contained

WELL KEPT Privilege can sometimes be A burden of its own We were so lucky but in all the wrong ways Maintaining a façade Could break the bank for some But we had money to throw at our problems Someone to clean the house Someone to mind the kids Someone to deal with all that dirty laundry Someone to organise Someone to buy supplies Someone to do it all so they don’t have to We were always so well kept When you outsource care it’s not called neglect We had a lot of toys To keep us company Those endless nights when mom was working upstairs We had a lot of books To keep our minds off why Dad never seemed to spend his evenings with us We got used growing up To doing what we’d want Raising ourselves and setting our own boundaries We visited our friends And made our mental notes Of how a real family was meant to function We were always so well kept When you outsource care it’s not called neglect How old are you supposed to be The first time you realise that you need therapy? We always just assumed That it was natural That everybody had insomnia The same anxiety The same panic attacks The same depression, the same thoughts of suicide We wanted for nothing Except a mom and dad Who actually felt like a mother and a father They gave us everything Except the things we need Just like their own parents had done before them We were always so well kept When you outsource care it’s not called neglect It’s just the price they paid to pay the prices Of all their cowardice and vices

MOM If I had listened more Then I would try to make a clever Shakespeare reference here But I just used to roll my eyes Whenever she would try To tell the tale of how she came to England from America Her stomach full of butterflies Voice of Olivier Through soliloquy, seducing her far across the raging sea He spoke to her and her alone The Bard was her first love And she would meet her second in the library studying the first 3,000 miles away from home Blinded by love she could not see That this production was not to be Some wry and witty comedy That she was starring in a tragedy The first two broken hearts Were of her forsaken mother and the father she left behind Abandoned back in old New York The third heart was her own Discarded once again and crying by herself another night For the man she’d left them for The man she hoped would change That a ring would change everything was the tale that she would tell herself To try to get to sleep at night A writer by her trade Published in every paper but always her own best audience No need to fight when she could write Blinded by love she could not see That this production was not to be Some wry and witty comedy That she was starring in a tragedy Hoped a baby might work? And when the first one didn’t change him maybe another would? Fuck two lives for the price of one If you repeat a lie Often enough it starts to feel like it might be something true She said they were young and in love Until she understood That this would never be the fairytale she’d always thought it could be And she returned across the sea Her mom and dad long gone Dead before they knew their little girl had finally found real love Like I said – a tragedy Blinded by love she could not see That this production was not to be Some wry and witty comedy That she was starring in a tragedy They married on the beach I gave her away, my sister maid of honour, mom in white Her stomach full of butterflies

DAD Dad did not choose the life he got He was not happy with his lot His own mom bound to his sick dad He did the best with what he had Learnt life was cruel; always taking Learnt rules were subject to breaking Lost his accent, and gained some degrees Started writing poetry An angry boy becomes an angry man The life he lived, not the life he planned A compromise: that withered, ugly thing All symbolised within a wedding ring Thought that his words might make the grade To one day be published on the page Turned out that he was far better Piling up rejection letters The failed writer’s focus went to sorting Once writing books became thwarting The Oxford qualified grammarian Became instead a librarian In the shelves he fucked frustration away With different women, on different days Like Jagger once said, no satisfaction But at least sex offered him distraction Yet even when he finally found romance Dad could not keep it in his pants And when he said “I do”, in his heart he knew The vows that he’d made would not stay true DAD DAD DAD DAD

JESS I stood alone in my room Broken bass bashed in my hand Mic turned loud Amp aiming out of the door “Why did you have me I want to know?” A lyric that wasn’t rhetorical Falling on unresponsive ears They had their own problems More troubling than ours We were just collateral They were the carnage We suffered as spectators but got to enjoy the intervals After-show dissections Arguments with friends They were stuck in the performance Each and every night Twice on weekends In character even offstage Sometimes we would laugh about it How awful it all was “I’m off to university,” I grinned, “You won’t be my problem anymore” My sister’s face darkened Condemned alone to the encore

THEIR COMPETENCE There are no drugs in this story No broken bones or any straying hands We never went to bed hungry And the wolves were always kept far from our door I didn’t grow up on the streets The car it always started Rooms were always warm The only fights were ever on Nintendo We never doubted we were loved What we doubted was their competence In the one job that they didn’t put first If they couldn’t show each other What the fuck could they show us? A Sunday morning A ringing phone Stranger informs me That dad ain’t coming home Rebelling body Shaking hands and feet Numbly I listen; Ask them to repeat Once again your dad is not around Because their marriage finally unwound And in the rubble of your parents You try to smile through bleeding open wounds But you’re just another kid Fending for yourself Fucked up but far from fucked There were worse childhoods than mine But mine was all I had And what we doubted was their competence In the one job they didn’t put first If they couldn’t show each other What the fuck could they show us? Three years pass by now A phone it rings again My best friend’s wedding day: The day I am orphaned Rebelling body Shaking hands and feet Numbly I listen; Ask them to repeat Ten years after leaving 86 Teacher training in a freezing hall They taught us how to spot the tell-tale signs When you outsource care it’s not called neglect Except in legislation Passed too late to safeguard me When no-one’s around Cuz they’re both fucking around It turns out the victim is you

THIS CHORD PLUS THAT CHORD I can’t count how many times I’ve picked up my guitar Since the day I picked up that phone How many ideas, how many lyrics, I have scribbled down, Crossed out and eventually thrown How many notes I’ve plucked seeking to drown out my grief Hoping this chord plus that chord will somehow equal relief It’s always been how I deal with everything I feel Until it’s been put in a song I don’t think that it’s real Ever since I was a teenage kid living in an “Anti Me World” Yearning for love, yearning for mystery, for an “Unknown Girl” Raging at God, raging at life, raging at hypocrisy Raging at the universe, raging at my fucked-up family While the rest of society may be “Culturally Dead” I found solace translating all of the thoughts inside my head Into art, that somehow kept most, of the darkness at bay A guitar on my shoulder, a pen, a mic and stage No “Reality Casualty” no “Too Lazy To Live” I’d write myself out of the holes that life always gives Each romance, each heartbreak, each precious moment in time I have always found the right chords and always found the right rhyme From school days, to college, to uni, to career, to every brand new walk of life My wedding day gift was a song that I wrote dedicated to my wife Yet nearly ten years have now passed since the day my life changed with a ringing phone And still I am nowhere near closer to ridding myself of this stone Up the hill, just like Sisyphus, a task I cannot complete An impossible mission, doomed for defeat on repeat If looking, for evidence just, hear the song I sing now The plan was my grief song but I just didn’t know how I started this project precisely to mourn But all this time later and still no grief song is born It’s there at the edges, a peak every now and again But far more than shadows are needed release my pen I’m done setting scenes while avoiding the plot My next song must be all the grief song I've got

GRIEF SONG The first time I told you I loved you Was in your eulogy We weren’t ever that kind of father and son Were we, you and me? More high-fives and the occasional hug Than words such as “love” And all those years of poison didn’t help You cheated on her, but never on us But when that voice whispers into your ear Day after day, year after year That you were never here A child finds it easy to believe But if you weren’t around When you were fucking around Why are you so frequently found? In weekend memories Parents’ evenings Teaching me to ride a bike Football matches, cricket games Lakeland walks and mountain hikes Sharing favourite books and music Family holidays, Fish and chips You financed our first album – Shallow Permanence: a Christmas gift Not the best father But the best that you could be And good enough for me Only – by the time that I could see You were gone A Sunday morning A ringing phone In a hotel room in Gothenburg You had died alone Meanwhile mom used the word like a weapon “Love?” with a question mark Emotional blackmail abuser A narcissist at heart Her love always attached with some strings Love that’s demanding of proof Love, once pure, corrupted by heartbreak His cheating on her; taken out on us And we were lumbered with all her fears Day after day, year after year That he was never here Fears a child finds easy to believe But when he wasn’t around Cuz he was now in the ground Why was it that she was not around? Except whenever money was mentioned Selling 86 and his pension Souring memories; recrimination Making worse the devastation In ancient wounds that had not yet healed Her true character was revealed In earlier years: our primary care But when we needed her most she wasn’t there Little did we know she was dying And soon our anger would turn to crying Not the best mother But the best that she could be And good enough for me Only – by the time that I could see She was gone Three years pass by now The phone it rings again My step dad informs me Cancer wins again They’re gone so young And I’m here

SOMEWHERE THERE’S A TABLE Somewhere there’s a table Sitting empty The one I thought that one day Would be ours Mom, Dad, Jess and Me A reunited family One last meal to put the past to bed Reminiscing the good times Those precious few we had And laughing now about the bad Mom and her new husband, Dad and his new wife Each now finally happy For the third act of their life All of us at peace With those years at 86 What seemed so awful then Having now led us to this The one we missed the chance to fill Because we chose not to forgive Quick enough for them to live To see the day time healed our pain Each year a softening Of a disappearing stain Where we could reconcile and finally break bread Because grudges seem so pointless When the ones you hate are dead The one I thought one day Would be ours Mom, Dad, Jess and Me A reunited family Having one last meal to put the past behind us But instead I have a hole Where a mom and dad should be A half-sister in a drawer And a step-dad overseas Two phone-calls and two funerals And a pair of eulogies Two sets of ashes that I’ve scattered Two premature obituaries An empty table waiting For a meal that will never be And an 86 tattoo For all the memories From when we lived For all those years at 86 That new chapter that never quite turned the page From when we lived For all those years at 86 Til the cracks just could not be contained