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In the back streets of Northampton
Stops a limousine
Cue Jenny from the shadows
Makes her entrance in the scene
A window opens just a little
Jenny peers inside
A conversation out of earshot
The door then opens wide
Precious Jenny, lovely Jenny
Barely eighteen years old
Spends her evenings on the streets
Half naked in the cold
She hears a voice say in the half-light
“Shall we get started, my dear?”
A man who makes in idle minutes
More than Jenny earns all year
The road is straight, the path is true
The rules are there for all to read
The shirkers shuffle and slowly ramble
Hard workers build up speed
For every man and every woman
Will surely get what they are worth
Wealth is just hard work rewarded
Not a happenstance of birth
Among the shop fronts of Northampton
Simon sleeps outside
A ragged bundle wrapped in cardboard
Alone and terrified
Simon deep in drunken slumbers
Barely able to recall
The precious faces of his children
Are now lost to alcohol
The fascist thugs step out at night
To induct the new recruits
To play with knives and brass knuckles
And steel toe capped boots
A rough sleeper in a doorway
Oh they have their prey in sight
A flash of steel, then fists and boots
And it’s over for tonight
The road is straight the path is true
The rules are there to be read
The lazy loiter, listless laggards
Hard workers get ahead
For every man and every woman
Will surely get what they are worth
Wealth is just hard work rewarded
Not a happenstance of birth
In a school in Northampton
Little Billy starts his day
But he’s too cold and tired and hungry
To hear anything the teachers say
But at least the school is warm and dry
And he’ll get a hot meal later on
He feels safe just for the moment
Untill the school bell sends him home
Precious Billy, Simon, Jenny
Oh you never stood a chance
The game was over before it started
The winners chosen in advance
The game is rigged, the cards are marked
And the greatest lie on Earth
Is that wealth is just hard work rewarded
Not a happenstance of birth
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Well I guess we’re like two planets, together we spin
Around one another and the centre we’re orbiting
When I get too far from you, you always pull me in
When I get too close well you push me back out again
And the great wheel turns around
Time don’t make a sound
It creeps silently along
The minutes turn to years
The future disappears
The past will soon be gone
I am coming home, I am coming home
I’m a fish in a river, suspended in time
The river flows past me, but I’m stuck on a line
You try and reel me in, I try to swim away
The line holds fast, who’ll be the first to give way
And the great wheel turns around
Time don’t make a sound
It creeps silently along
The minutes turn to years
The future disappears
The past will soon be gone
I am coming home, I am coming home
Home is with the earth, and the dust and the clay
All lights fade, all songs all sounds decay
All things in common, all life is one
Our recycled bodies sing just one note in the song
And the great wheel turns around
Time don’t make a sound
It creeps silently along
The minutes turn to years
The future disappears
The past will soon be gone
I am coming home, I am coming home
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I walk with you along the road
Our fates entangled
Our futures intertwined
We often stumble, sometimes fall
We need someone to love to make us whole.
We live, we love, we suffer
Walk along the road together
The differences between us don’t run deep
But when we lose our fellow feeling
Compassion for all life and being
Then we’ll tear the world apart
We seem distinct but we are joined
Below the surface
Connected at the root
Our differences have not undone
The common bond of love that makes us one
We laugh, we cry, we hunger
Sleep and dream, and wake in wonder
The differences between us don’t run deep
But when our will to love grows weaker
And rips and cracks and claws at nature
Then we’ll tear the world apart
The sun and moon they light our way
And mother earth we hear her sing
Old father time counts down our days
We end and when we end begin
But when we lose the will to love
Then we find that our song has been unsung
We live, we love, we suffer
Walk along the road together
The differences between us don’t run deep
But when our will to love grows weaker
And rips and cracks and claws at nature
Then we’ll tear the world apart
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Against a plain pale background
The light upon your face
Action, Miss Falconetti, please
Adorned with woven crown
Your eyes imploring god
Tears glister on your cheek
But when I saw you cry
In sorrow and in fear
I could never forget
Those monochrome tears
Light undoes the darkness
The carbon arc ignites
Nitrate shadows start to breathe
Your image ever drawn
On panchromatic film
A ghost upon the silver screen
But when I saw you cry
In sorrow and in fear
I could never forget
Those monochrome tears
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In the beginning, the word it was said
It was written, and the word it was read
In the wilderness
The word was love, or was it desire?
The word was a spark, was a flame, was a fire
In the wilderness
Where ancient melodies played over ancient drones
Ancient trees encircled ancient stones
Ancient paths led the way back home
In the beginning, before the storm
Before the flood, before we were born
In the wilderness
Before we kissed, before we cried
Before our lives were forever entwined
In the wilderness
Forgotten voices sang forgotten songs
Forgotten words put right forgotten wrongs
Forgotten paths led us home where we belong
In the beginning, when the world was still young
Before we had danced, before we had sung
In the wilderness
Time stretched away infinitely
But now the end seems so much closer to me
In the wilderness
Where sacred visions connect to sacred dreams
Sacred flesh protects the sacred genes
Sacred paths preserve the way unseen
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Our lives a gift
What a strange and wondrous thing is to exist
But our time is brief
Too short to live full of fear, pain, and grief
For when we’re gone
All that remains is the effect we had upon
The ones we leave
Are their lives better for our having been?
So lay down your burdens
Lay down your cares
Lay down your sorrow
Lay down despair
Seek out the silence
Seek out the song
Of every living thing
Before all that you are is lost and gone
Each mortal thing
Emerges from the darkness with a song to sing
No song the same
Each one is heard a moment then returns again
Each song a spark
Illuminating, like an echo in the dark
Our brief candle burns
And all too soon to the darkness returns
So lay down your burdens
Lay down your cares
Lay down your sorrow
Lay down despair
Seek out the silence
Seek out the song
Of every living thing
Before all that you are is lost and gone
Since it is taught
That nothing comes from nothing, and naught returns to naught
That all life’s conjoined
And we are all of one body, matter in the void
As each leaf of grass
Contains within it the entire universe
So each thing that’s born
Is not contained within the limit of its form
So lay down your burdens
Lay down your cares
Lay down your sorrow
Lay down despair
Seek out the silence
Seek out the song
Of every living thing
Before all that you are is lost and gone
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No new songs in this collection, just a few recordings of songs that I enjoy playing. Produced as a sort of love letter to the audio cassette, and to simple, basic recording techniques. No overdubs, no edits - just live in the studio lo-fi, mono recordings, containing plenty of cassette tape hiss, moderate tape saturation, and a little bit of wow and flutter.
released April 14, 2024
Robert Farmer (Guitar, Vocal)
Album cover, 'Untitled' is by plochingen (
www.flickr.com/people/le_plochingen/) and is used here under the terms of a CC-BY-NC-ND licence.
All songs written by Robert Farmer
