Frank Turner

[fox69]

"To Absent Friends"

"To Absent Friends"



Lunchtime Friday, leave work early
Rushing through the suburbs to the station to catch the train
Heading up to town to Dave’s to get my glad rags on
Because lately I’ve been running down, little things catching up
Excuses stretched thin and it’s hard not giving up
Tonight we’re going to get it right, we’re going to have us a good one

And the roll call is missing a name
Since you left things haven’t been the same
But I don’t blame you, there was nothing here to make you stay
But I remember the way that you’d light up a room when you walk in,
The way that you’d lead a crowd when you sing
Jamie, this one is for you.

Pre-club beers at Dan’s before we hit the road
Nicely warmed up, pleasantly half-loaded
Ready for a night on fire, we’re going to get out the big guns
And I run down the numbers, scan through the faces
Run through the plans, scout out the places
I’m electrified, surrounded, but still missing something or someone

I’m wide awake in the cityscape

You did your time out on the road
One day you stayed away for good
You found a home down by the shore
A place to hang your hat and more
You sent me postcards to tell me of
Slowing down and finding love
The thrill has gone from the city life
I’m not far behind

So you can strike my name from the roll call,
When night falls I’m leaving
There is nothing here to make me stay
When I get to the coast I will send back a postcard
To tell all my old friends all about my new start
Jamie I will see you soon.

 

[fox69]

"To Take You Home"

"To Take You Home"



I come from the land of the Wessex down
From the Hampshire hills near Winchester town
In the country where the soft South rivers flow down
To English channel I roam, this is where I call home
I sing for my supper and I'm pretty well fed
My cross is silent and I make my bed
Where I can find a crown and somewhere to lay my head
And the travelling day is done, and all my songs have been sung

But honey I was lonely on the road, I was all on my own
Hanging outside at the back of a death metal show
I saw you standing there with your hair down low
A kink in your step that made me want to know
If you would like to take me home
Who'd of thought that a French kiss from a Parisian girl
could capture an English boy

She comes from the channels of a distant shore
From the land of revolution and Agincourt
From the Kings blood stain on a tricolour
And the culture a little too high, for an English boy like me
She doesn't know the Island I grew up upon
The valleys and the hills that I've roamed along
And she doesn't like my clothes and she doesn't like my songs
But she's still my Mademoiselle and it goes to show you never can tell.

Cos she was a quiet one
She was a shy one
She was the prettiest at the show
She crept up so slowly
She crept up behind me
But still she pretended that she didn't know
But all that she thinks of me, and she kissed me
And she's yet to let me go though I'm far away
Across of sea I'm singing for the hope that she would ever remember me

So honey when you're lonely on the road, you're all on your own
Hanging outside at the back of the country show
Picture me there with hat down low
A smile upon my face to let you know
That I would like to take you home
That I would like to take you home, to the hills that I know
I would like to take you home, to the places I go
I would like to take you home
And that's the way that a French kiss from an English boy
can capture a Parisian girl

 

[fox69]

"Try This At Home"

"Try This At Home"



Let’s inherit the earth, because no one else is taking it.
Come on, do your worst, before the moment’s passed.
In bedrooms across England, and all the Western world,
there’s posters and there’s magazines but the music isn’t ours.
Because we write love songs in C, we do politics in G,
we sing songs about our friends in E minor.
So tear down the stars now and take up your guitars:
come on folks and try this at home.
Let’s stop waiting around for someone to patronize us.
Let’s hammer out a sound that speaks of where we’ve been.
Forget about the haircuts, the stupid skinny jeans,
the stampedes and the irony, the media-fed scenes.

Because we write love songs in C, we do politics in G,
we sing songs about our friends in E minor.
So tear down the stars now and take up your guitars:
come on folks and try this at home.

Because the only thing that punk rock should ever really mean
is not sitting round and waiting for the lights to go green,
and not thinking that you’re better because you’re stood up on a stage.
If you’re oh so fucking different then who cares what you have to say?

Because there’s no such thing as rock stars, there’s just people who play music,
and some of them are just like us, and some of them are dicks.
So quick, turn off your stereo, pick up that pen and paper,
you could do much better than some half-arsed skinny English country singer.

Because we write love songs in C, we do politics in G,
we sing songs about our friends in E minor.
So tear down the stars now and take up your guitars:
and come on folks and try this at home.

 

[fox69]

"Undeveloped Film"

"Undeveloped Film"



Sorting through my things the other day
I found an old film camera that I thought I'd thrown away
But there it was covered in dust
I checked it and the film inside still had a few pictures left
So I just snapped it off and then
I found a place on the high street that could still develop them
I dropped them off and clean forgot,
It wasn't until this morning that I picked the pictures up

And there before my eyes in vivid colour
Pictures of her stood smiling bold on the edge of a cliff by the sea
On the south coast somewhere,
Wind in her hair wrapped against the cold

There were many other pictures in the set,
Most of them were taken in the first months after we met
When we were lovers like happy drunks
Stumbling for each other with each step, each breath in our lungs
Pictures of nights from soho bars
A weekend in the country when she bought my sister's car,
Her naked, serene on a hotel bed
Smiling at the camera, her beauty like a word unsaid

And there before my eyes on the glossy paper
Quiet whispers of something I had lost or put aside for the longest time
The hope that I might find some kind of peace

Oh oh oh where did it go go go
I just don't know exactly where I kept it
There right there under the stairs oh please
Darling I swear swear swear that's where I left it
Secret little things that you keep locked away
In a small wooden box that you barely even mention to yourself
It's not exactly hope, nothing quite as simple as youth
Perhaps it's just a way of looking past the truth
We're all fading away
The truth I can see in the very last frame of that long lost roll of film
A picture of me, a young man holding a camera up to a mirror

And there before my eyes in that old reflection a declaration bold
We won't stay gold, all that's left of her and rest
Is a small locked box of undeveloped films and photographs

 

[fox69]

"Vital Signs"

"Vital Signs"



This country is my canvas –
I leave paint trails as I go.
I’m painting a picture
That you can only see from outer space.
My bedroom is your sofa,
I take my breakfast on the train.
I’m tired and I’m dirty, and not a second goes to waste.

I’ll be dead but never dying, and I say that with a smile
It’s just my way of trying to be alive.

Well I’ll never get to grey hair
And I’ll never be in the black,
But I can tell stories that most can hardly dream.
Dreaming is a luxury,
Like stopping-staring and beauty sleep.
I’ll stop when I’m finished,
And sleep is for the weak.

Heaven’s in the half-light, and that’s where I reside,
A whiskey and a wry smile –
I check my vital signs.

And when I’m gone,
The worlds revolve, and life goes on,
So mark no grave,
Forget my name.
If the song remains
And everybody’s got a drink and a smile,
Well, that’s just fine by me.

 

[fox69]

"Wanderlust"

"Wanderlust"




I have wept until I've slept
Into the lap of the lady that I love
And though she begged and she cajoled
I couldn't tell her what I was thinking of

I didn't chose, no I was chosen
By a life that must be lived in passing through
And though she changed so much for me
Changing this is the one thing I cannot do

Darling, I'm leaving
The distance keeps calling me on
Darling, come morning
I'll be gone

She is beauty, she is graceful
In a poison she is gentle in her care
She is the calm in the centre of my storm
She has her fingers through my hair

She has my heart but it is breaking
Cause it knows that deep inside she still believes
That there will ever come a morning that I'll stay
And not gathering to leave

Darling, I'm leaving
The distance keeps calling me on
Darling, come morning
I'll be gone

Baby let's get out of the city
We need to breathe some cleaner air
That creeping feeling starting like I miss you
And we're both of us still here

There's a sadness in your smiles now
And an edge of desperation in your voice
We have all this independence
But it still feels like we never had a choice

Darling, I'm leaving

 

[fox69]

"We Shall Not Overcome"

"We Shall Not Overcome"



The bands I like, they don't sell too many records
And the girls I like, they don't kiss too many boys
Books I read will never be best sellers, yeah
But come on, fellas, at least we made our choice, hey!

Hey, hey, hey, hey!

What do we want?
And when do we want it?
And how would we feel if we knew that we were never gonna get it?
And where did we start from?
And where are we going?
Can anyone here say with any certainty that they know what they're doing?

Ever feel like an awkward understudy thrown into a cast where you just don't get along?
Crowd and the crew all standing silent staring and you can't shake the feeling that somehow you're doing it wrong

What do we want?

Mum and dad always seem like they had a plan
Everything fell apart when mum moved on, now dad's a broken man
And all these decisions that keep getting made
I can't remember making them and nobody wants to explain

We're all awkward understudies wearing comfortable shoes getting comfortable with doing it wrong
Missed the dress rehearsals and we had too much a drink before the show but now it's show time and we're singing our song!

Because the bands I like, they don't sell too many records
And the girls I like, they don't kiss too many boys
Books I read will never be best sellers, yeah
But come on, fellas, at least we made our choice, hey!

The bands I like, they don't sell too many records
And the girls I like, they don't kiss too many boys
Books I read will never be best sellers, yeah
But come on, fellas, at least we made our choice, hey!

Be a fan of every band who ever made you want to move your feet
Fall in love with every person who ever made your heart want to skip a beat

So come on, come on, come on!
What do we want?
We shall not overcome!
We shall underwhelm!

Hey, hey!

Because the lives we lead may not be so very perfect
And the plans we make may not us serve some kind of purpose
But the hearts we meet still beat the way they used to
If you're doing it wrong, yeah, well what you gonna do?

What do we want?

 

[fox69]

"Wessex Boy"

"Wessex Boy"



Let me tell you all a little story of the things I've found,
Hanging out and drinking with my friends in the cathedral grounds,
And later dodging drunks as we dance along Jury Street,
As we wander up town to the railway our friends to meet,

There's something about coming back to your hometown again,
The place where you grew up and where you found your firmest friends,
And though none of them still live here, I've got nowhere to go,
I'm a Wessex Boy and when I'm here I'm home

Let me tell you all a little story of the things I've lost,
Huddling for warmth on the top step of the Buttercross,
Sitting on the benches by the bridges at the riverside,
Of counting down the hours for the buses cause I missed my ride

There's something about coming back to your hometown again,
The place where you grew up and where you found your firmest friends,
And though none of them still live here, I've got nowhere to go,
I'm a Wessex Boy, a Wessex boy and when I'm here I'm home

And one day I will hear this song anonymous and sweet,
Ringing out from a buskers guitar on the ancient city streets,
I'll stand along while and smile before I continue on the road,
And somebody else will sing the words and I'll feel like I'm home

There's something about hometowns you never can escape
The triumphs and the tragedies and those of little faith
The welling of nostalgia and feeling kind of strange,
Cause despite the little changes yeah this place still feels the same

There's something about coming back to your hometown again,
The place where you grew up and where you found your firmest friends,
And though none of them still live here, I've got nowhere to go,
I'm a Wessex Boy,
I'm a Wessex boy and when I'm here I'm home

 

[fox69]

"Wherefore Art Thou Gene Simmons"

"Wherefore Art Thou Gene Simmons"



A mother said, "Beware of boys in bands
And certainly don't let them write you songs
For they will come to you on bended knee and kiss your pretty hands
When the singing's done, and the suns up they'll be gone."
While her mother has a point, I might resent the implication.
That every boy who plays guitar plays women like Gene Simmons.

4600 photographs, stuck into a scrapbook beneath your bed.
4599 broken hearts, and one more you can't get out of your head.
And though you swear you can remember every pair of lips you've kissed
Deep down you're scared there's 1 or 2 you might've missed.

Oh, Chaim Witz, wherefore art though?
Does your mother know who you are now?

Not that I can point a finger, I've been a sinner just the same
Fallen hard in love in motels and by sunrise lost their name.
And I have crept out into cold air in the smallest hours to leave
And in the pockets of my jacket I've kept my last infidelities

A navy coin and a broken plastic compass that someone gave me.
That can't find north anymore. Just like me.

Oh, Gene Simmons, wherefore art though?
I could sure use a hand on my shoulder now.

'Cause when fedelity runs low that theres the moment when you choose
In the life of things you love, some you keep, some you lose.

 

[fox69]

"Who's Got A Match"
(originally by Biffy Clyro)

"Who's Got A Match"
(originally by Biffy Clyro)



Which of the witches do you belong?
The one with the eye patch or the one who's highly strung
I know you can't trust anyone
How do you capture a photograph?
Put it to sleep pretend you're having a laugh
I know you thought you'd have the last

I'm a fire and I'll burn burn burn tonight
I'm a fire and I'll burn burn burn tonight
I'm a fire and I'll burn burn burn tonight
I'm a fire and I'll burn burn burn tonight

The midget is frigid I put it to you
Who's got a match I've got the petrol to set it too
I know I shouldn't have trusted you
It's making me tense when you're telling me
It's just the facts that don't compute the classic way
I guess I'm wrong again anyway

I'm a fire and I'll burn burn burn tonight
I'm a fire and I'll burn burn burn tonight
I'm a fire and I'll burn burn burn tonight
I'm a fire and I'll burn burn burn tonight

I'm a fire and I'll burn tonight
I'm a fire
I'm a fire and I'll burn tonight
I'm a fire

I'm a fire and I'll burn burn burn tonight
I'm a fire and I'll burn burn burn tonight
I'm a fire and I'll burn burn burn tonight
I'm a fire and I'll burn burn burn tonight

I'm a fire and I'll burn burn burn tonight
I'm a fire and I'll burn burn burn tonight
I'm a fire and I'll burn burn burn tonight
I'm a fire and I'll burn burn burn tonight