<- Page des Paroles... Lyrics Page...

Citizen Fish

Wider Than A Postcard


Sink Or Swim

Let's go down to the beaches
And run from the edge of the sea
See what the movement teaches
A frail sense of autonomy

Cold toes in the water
Two steps from freezing feet
Feel the strenght as you go in deeper
And the cold consistency
And if there's anyone watching
You dare not turn around
Til your arms are doing the clutching
As your feet leave the ground
Control or capitulation
A new sense of affinity
Having lost all the hesitation
But back there it was just the sea

Just a blue mass on the postcards
Just a place to race the boats
Just a waveline on the blackboard
And now see how long the illusion float
With risk co-ordination
Swim half as far as you can
We lose control of the situation
When we think we've got it all pre-planned

Back in dead-air building blocks
We lose the urge to take a risk
And calmly change our sandy socks
Wishing there was more that this
Stuck in these concrede houses
We dry out in the heat
Invent the worst excuses
To stay there permanently

Too many regulations
Too many rituals
The biggest risk was taken
Deep-ending in the swimming pool
The structured sand and water
Reflects our structures lives
We swim but never further
Than the constraints of our minds

Let's get back to the beaches
Wider than a postcard
And run straight into the sea
Longer than a holiday

That's what the movement teaches
Sink or swim spontaneity

You'll see what citizen can be
If we recall the deep blue sea
That evolved our weary brains
Getting shrunk from too much stress
We either get back into swimming
Or we sink into a mess!


Language Barrier

Weel you know nothing will ever get solved
If you feel you shouldn't get involved
Claiming ignorance of what to say
Or how to say it the 'proper' way
Well you're noding your head but building walls
By keeping your thoughts invisible
And blaming ignorance from everyone else
For leaving you stranded by yourself
Well they presumed that your happy like that
If you dropped the scowl you'd be in for a chat
Maybe -- it's as simple as what they see
And they can see a lot

So don't point the finger til you shaken the hand
Get to know to way these people understand
From strangers at a party -- Who's that over there?
To those in a different country where the language makes you scared

If you're in a solo situation
Face to unknown face
Start a walking conversation
And then increase the pace
The walls get built by silence
But are easily replaced
Cos in every style of language
It is easy to relate
And a smile or open signal
Can lay the barriers to waste

Pack a few less self-images
And make it less of an ego trip
And the distance will be nothing
Between visitor and visited
Words used such as 'strangers'
Make us sink in hesitation
But the language of intention
Speaks out loud in all directions
Once you've cleared your inner fears
You can carry on for years!


Same Old 'Starving Millions'

There's a lot of people
There's a lot of food
There's a lot of money
All being misused

You feed the starving millions with donations of a quid (a pound sterling)
You buy another telly, that's what the neighbours did

You flick across the channels
An catch the evening news
All those starving children
Are staring right at you

You're no longer feeling guilty cos you've given to the cause
And there's another royal baby to help you ignore

Who's doing very well thank you
And that's all from the news at ten
We'll be back with the sordid facts
Covered over with trivial crap
To help you stop thinking
To keep you relaxed
Same time tomorrow night
See you then
See you then


Conditional Silence

Silence
Considering musical violence

As the airwaves break those anytime pauses
Quiet reflection on the nature of noises
Disturbing suburban platitudes
Heards a yell that created a solitude
Outside
Opened the window wide

My curiosity satisfied
It was no-one I knew so I carried on hiding
My instinctive reaction to join in the shouting
And increase the volume, but a sense of doubt in
My head
Told me to shut up instead

Return to the previous peace I'd been seeking
For no other reason than to work out a theory
That noise is just a sound on a different scale
To what we expect, so I started to yell
Out loud
Soon a curious crowd

Was standing outside looking up at my window
I looked out, they could see I was no-one they knew, so
Their instinctive reaction to be part of the noise
Or part of the reason for the silence destroyed
Got hid
"Nobody does" what I did

Except for the first son whose total immersion
In this social excursion was more than diversion
With a similar yell I could tell who he was
The voice with a noise that I'd heard, and because
One yell
Had sort of broken the spell

So we laughed and we shouted in a lack of respect
For the conditional silence that has come to connect
All the neighbours as strangers living under the treat
Of discovering life beyond what they expect

What do you expect from this?


Big Big House

Picture a scene and pull it apart
Who owns this field? Who drives that car?
Who put up the sign saying this is mine
Keep of the grass and keep in line

Big big house in the country side
Souvenir shops don't close til nine
Postcards do when the sun don't shine
Please be gone by closing time

Picture a scene and pull it apart
Who built this house at the very start?
Who was forced to work for some food in their hand
And some space in the corner of the master's land?

Big big house in the country side
Souvenir shops don't close til nine
Postcards do when the sun don't shine
Please be gone by closing time

This exploitation based on class
Is here in the present like it was in the past
History builds an image that we never look behind
Someone's giving orders while the rest are kept in line

Here it is your heritage
Based on class and privilege
Mr. and Mrs. Average
Are thinking "Well this is fine"
Living somewhere in between
The cardboard box and the limousine
Part of their same society
Conveniently re-defined


Mind Bomb

I've got a mind bomb disposal unit knocking on my head
Checking out the rumour that I meant just what I said
They've drawn so many chalk lines that I may as well be dead
On the blackboard, on the pavement, but I won't eat what I'm fed -- what I'm fed

I've seen the public access but they wouldn't let me in
Conformity has dress code and I'm two stone overthin
And anyhow the chances are they wouldn't let me in
Presumptions give the innovator no chance to begin

It's either "Be one step ahead" or "Keep up with the rest"
There's so many messages telling me they know what's best
I've got a mind bomb disposal unit knocking on my head
I've got a mind bomb disposal unit knocking on my head

They've opened up the corridors and left the doors ajar
With anoraks and plastic bags the consumer can go far
Ashtrays fill and pinballs tilt to emphasise the scars
Of a society raised on promises, falling back on credit cards -- credit cards

So let's go on a cathode raid and steal some empty minds
Fill 'em full of hopes and dreams and call it leasure time
There's a guy who's got no T.V. and we've got him on the line
Stay detuned for further progress, here's a few things you can buy -- you can buy

I've strolled across the empty roads as pedestrianos stare
At lights to turn from red to green, to get from there to there
Billboard faces mock attention given unaware
Reliance on subliminals and a defiance of being scared

And there's a token comic strip at the bottom of the page
It isn't very funny but we're laughing anyway
Smiles are hard to come by when the picture starts to fade
And someone's favourite punchline is another person's wage

It's either 'Be one step ahead' or 'Keep up with the rest'
There's so many messages telling me they know what's best
I've got a mind bomb disposal unit knocking on my head
I've got a mind bomb disposal unit knocking on my head

I've thought in terms of relaxation, giving things a rest
Cos the constant realisation leaves presumptions in a mess
But every turn in the situation seems to be a test
A dotted line for the mind to sign away its intellect -- but not me not yet

The altered state of reality that's printed screened and said
Is feeding time for the mind that knows of nothing else instead
Keen to kill the essential will of refusing to be fed
I've got a mind bomb disposal unit knocking on my head -- knocking on my head


Chili Pain

Chili Pain!

The heat is hot like desert rain
Floods of fire as I pespire
All sensation feeds the flame
"Did it before... Do it again!"

Something transmits to my brain
Through chemical sparks that quickly drain
Into the arteries and veins

And throat! The scarcity
Of any type of other need
Like the cut without the bleeding
Some intensity of feeding
From the mass slowly reeling
With physical mental sharpened feeling

I could attack or defend
Choose the time I spend
Without counting the cost
Without feeling a loss
Almost any space increases
As the twitching face decreases
So puch the essence and feel the gain
Trace the source through the fire and pain

Chili Pain! -- Pain
Chili Pain! -- Pain
Chili Pain! -- Pain
Chili Pain! -- Pain


Give Me Beethoven...

Give me Beethoven or give me death!
Give me Beethoven or give me death!
Give me Beethoven, give me some air...
Give me Beethoven...

Give me Beethoven or give me death!
Fasten your seatbelts hold your breath
I don't wanna think about watery graves
Blow me away on the turbulent waves
Earphone chatline to the creator
Keep this plane up a few hours later
The C-60 cycles the number five
Across the air as we wave goodbye

Give me Beethoven or give me death!

To having any destiny control
A new sense of fear with a love of the old
Being able to gain from a shaking plane
A proximity to death and maybe living again
In musical form!
Unconsidered before!
Well that's quite a lofty ambition kid
To be shaking up the aerospine like Ludwig did!
Shaking up the aerospine like Ludwig did!
Shaking up the aerospine

But while the neighbours, unattached
To Ludwig Van, were unrelaxed
By thoughts of turbulence making cracks
In their temporary home -- temporary home
Me! I was gone... despatched -- despatched

Give me Beethoven or give me death!

To the flights of fancy nightmare edged
That grasping strings, leap from the ledge
And punctuating air with fists
Like orchestrated masochists
Cry "Freedom from all rational fear!"
And hit the waves prepared to dive
For what goes reaching down as deep
As that which takes us all so high?
So high -- so high -- high

Give me Beethoven or give me death!


Talk It Over

If all the things you say to me
Were steps towards some unity
I wouldn't keep on staring
In semi disbelief
Because as you say you'd do one thing
You behave so contradictory
So don't propound your theories
If they don't reflect reality

I don't know you very well
I find it hard to even tell you
That you don't do what you could do... if you wanted to

So drop the image you have of me
And talk a bit more openly
We'll sat across the table in an empty house
Are we ever really able to talk it out?
Don't stop to count the amount of times we've tried
Watching the wall as the conversation died

Open the windows and look outside
A million strangers walking by
And us creating alibis
For what we really feel inside

You don't know me very well
I don't know you very well
We find it hard to even tell
Each other that we'd like to talk it over
Remove the cover, talk it over
Find a corner, talk it over
Remove the cover, talk it over
Find a corner, talk it over


Offended

Grabbed by the shoulders he shook his head in desperation knowing whatever was said in this situation would only lead, like it had already led, to having his shoulders shaken again, by those that believed that when nothing was said then nothing was meant: yet by the shaking they could only prevent any one-to-one making clear of intent.

Not that merely waiting would've guaranteed a different state in this latent situation, and no amount of patience can replace a caring statement lined with an indication of the kind of slow frustration that no offered explanation of an action, lying beyond the comprehension, builds.

All the will in the world is never enough, nor the animosity that gets rough -- some nameless touch is needed to calm the gaps between the offender and the offended, until the cracks that nature unintended in the minds of those where any hope has ended, are closed.

And once where necks were almost wrung the voices sing things never sung together, maybe not so much forever, but enough to keep unsevered the connections once begun.


Central Nervous System

Confort? Sofa chair pacifying words
A touch on the shoulder to tell me that you'd heard

Understanding to attention just in case you heard it wrong
A fear of contradiction cos your feeling can't belong
To this given situation that no-one can take away
A smile, a nervous glance, "Well I'll be back some other day"

But you really had to go and left this atmosphere behind
So now it's back to circumstance, solutions hard to find
As I turn the burning enbers of a past that recently
I'd found harder to remember than I thought was good for me

But once confirmed the truth had pulled that 'recently' to shreds
Now the obvious lies bleeding and the future holds my breath

Shall I turn the page and start again?
Or throw the book away
Shall I tell you of these feelings?
Or find something new to say?

It's the act of making choices
Asking questions, hearing voices
Mixing pain and self-resentment
With a knowledge that contentment
Is a process of selection
Cos in every situation
There are good and bad directions you can go

You can wallow in the fantasy
Regenerating memories
Or use the open scenery
Impulse flow more easily

If all the good things disappear for what seems like eternity
Remember you created them by being what you'll always be
Receiving input, giving back what makes you tick in time
Natural instinctive tack running up the spine

Use your central nervous system
To help make up your mind
Looking out with indecision
Wastes a lot of time

If it feels good take the risk
And here I am talking like this
And saying 'you' instead of 'me'...

Experience is globally perceived as being basically a common sense capacity to understand the variety of influence upon the way we are
Having gone so far
There is no reasoning can stop us once we've reasoned what we've got


Traffic Lights

When the traffic lights turned red
And a car kept going, well, nothing was said
It was quietly understood
That if he could do it, anyone could
I can do that, I can do that, I can do that, yeah!
But the queue remained and we felt the strain
Of being the majority obeying the authority
Of traffic lights turned red -- traffic lights turned red

When the traffic lights turn green
And the car in front couldn't start, it seemed
Like he was holding us up to show
We were happy to stop until told to go
Oh no! No! No!
And the queue remained and we felt the strain
Of being the majority needing the authority
Of traffic lights turned green -- traffic lights turned green

When the traffic lights broke down
There was a whole lot of cars reaching out of town
We were all too scared to move
Until a man in a uniform told us what to do
And as we drove on by
We wondered why
We hadn't gone the other way
Or gone ahead and said "Hooray!
Gone ahead and said "Hooray!
Gone ahead and said "Hooray!
Gone ahead and said "Hooray!
Gone ahead and said "Hooray!
The traffic lights are broken down!
The traffic lights are broken down!
The traffic lights are broken down!"

"The traffic lights are broken down!"

Beep! Beep!


Smells Like Home

You can't see the moon above the city
The sky is always full of clouds
Even when the sun's gone down
It's like living on the underground
Black and white in shades of brown

And you can't breathe the air in the city
With the fumes of cars and factories
Your lungs ain't what they're used to be
Breathe in the new complacency
At least it's good for industry
At least it's smells like home
At least it's smells like home

And you can't get a job in the city
With all the new technology
Robots run the factories
It's sanitized economy
Robots don't get lung disease

In the cit-ty, in the cit-ty-ty

In the city you can't get a job
In the city you can't get a flat
You can't get much of what he's got
And he can't get much of that

Give you a deal, was fair and square
Four walls, ceiling and floor
Thing to keep you from getting more
???

In the cit-ty-ty-ty, in the cit-cit-cit-ty-ty

How big is that hole around your head?
How big is that hole around your town?
How big is that hole around your lifestyle? -- lifestyle

How big is that hole around your head?
How big is that hole around your town?
How big is that hole around your ??? ?
??? the ideas of pulling it all down
Pulling it all down, pulling it all down, pulling it all down

???
???
???
???

And you can't get healthy in the city
The sky is so grey
It's like forty fags a day
And the water is hard beneath the foam
The despondency inside
Merely reflects the concrete sky
So let's go out
Let's stay in -- at least it smells like home


Family On The Beach

Father hot and bothered by the cameraman's insistence on gelling this one just right cos he's been given one last chance to get a photo that assimilates all that the generaal public think they need, that is, a cardboard reminder from their relatives or friends that depicts families just like theirs having a lovely time somewhere else, not withstanding the off-chance of some ex-miner-turned-photographer turning up offering very useful supplementary spending money in return for a postcard snap that he hopes will keep his ass in this job for another month cos he really has got an aunt dependant on him for an operation cos she drank to much tap water and the memory of her retching into the stagnant sewage pool at the side of the pier is enough to keep him on his toes and fingers. Click. Mother, luxuriating in her new-found role as model for a role-model, graciously accepts that all good things must take time so long as the sun keeps on costing her husband his beer-ration in non-biodegradable plastic bottles of ozone-friendly suntane lotion to ward off the radioactive effects of unfiltered sunlight and, of course, top up where she left off on the sunbed sessions back home. Should I look sexy or happy or maternelly twitch, and she succesfully fails to combine all three in a perfectly proletarian postcard pose of suburban vanity and coastal discomfort - "Lovely! Just one more! O.K.? It's looking great!" - She smiles encouragement at her children but the boy is now engaged in throwing alternate pebbles at a dead jellyfish and a semi-buried coke can, wishing he had parents who could speak the language and avoid the burger-speak of the local McDonalds in order to eat, then he wouldn't feel hungry all the time... Snd the girl is facing the wrong way into the camera cos she just turned round and sasw the sewage pipe and drunken tourists and dead fish in rotting nets and police cars and the immobile grey surf where the tide stops and the old men asleep despite the noise and 'No bathing' in six languages and a mother pulling her children in off the street and it's nothing like on the postcards and why are we here and why do adults lie so much and no I don't want to "Smile!". One unified reflex action and every mile away over the next postcard season both victims and instigators of the global recession received falsified momentoes of other poeple's temporary escape from their largely self-imposed drudgery, and wish they were there.


Citizen Fish.
Dick -- vocals & words.
Jasper -- bass & voice.
Phil -- guitar.
Trotsky -- drums.

No need to go further!! It's just Tripod publicity!!
Pas besoin de descendre plus!! C'est juste de la publicité de Tripod!!