English Settlement lyrics

(Colin Moulding)

I am the fly on the wall,
My prying eyes are looking through your bottom drawer.
I just came flying through your door,
You didn't notice that your number had been called.

I see the mother who's beating the babe,
I see the money,
The pennies you save,
Stored on computers,
From birth to the grave.

The fly on the wall,
He's seeing it all.

(Colin Moulding)

People rushing round with no time to spare.
I'm so dizzy,
I'm neither here nor there.
In this traffic jam,
I just want to shout,
Let me off o' this English roundabout

English roundabout

And all the the horns go 'beep! beep!'
All the people follow like sheep,
I'm full of light and sound,
Making my head go round, round.

(Andy Partridge)

Leisure

They taught me how to work,
But they can't teach me how to shirk correctly.

As you see,
Science once again robs us of our jobs.
They've put a micro-chip in my place,
I hide behind screen of aggression nowadays,
It's just a way of saving some face.
So now I'm permanently drunk,
Like the rest of the race with,
Leisure.

(Andy Partridge)

Knuckle down,
Love his skin,
It doesn't matter what colour skin he's locked in,
Knuckle down,
Knuckle down and love that skin.

Knuckle down,
Love his race,
It doesn't matter if you win or lose a little face,
Knuckle down and love that race.

One bright morning the world might end with a big bang,
And you'll never get yourself another chance.

(Andy Partridge)

Man acting like a farmer and,
He's treated the woman like a poor cow,
We got to treat you better from now,
But man is just a baby and,
He's needing your milk of kindness.
I vow to drink as much as you will allow.

All the way through history,
Man, machine, no mystery,
All the way through history,
Girl have the brain to act like the weaker sex.

(Andy Partridge)

It isn't even winter and I'm freezing, freezing,
This sort of feeling isn't pleasing,
And what I want to know, man,
why, oh why,
Does she treat me like a snowman?

She's been building me,
Up quite steadily,
Seems like I've been here years and years and years and years;
I wait patiently,
Froze in history,

(Andy Partridge)

Chant your spirit free;
Rush to greet truth like a dart
Shake your bag o'bones,
Shake your bag o'bones.
That's not traffic roar,
That's a leopard in your heart,
Shake your bag o'bones,
Shake your bag o'bones.

Go tell your stale friends,
go tell false prophets,
And drug traffickers,
Not to try to push our bodies any faster
We're dancing with disaster,

(Colin Moulding)

Oh run-a, oh run-a, oh runaways,
(Please come home)
Oh run-a, oh run-a, oh runaways
(Please come home)

Daddy hit you in a temper,
But he's sorry now,
(Please come home)
Just a quarrel had with mummy,
Just a family row
(Please come home)

You caught mum chasing dad with a knife,
(Don't cry, don't cry)
You ran away to escape from the fights,

Hey, hey,
The clouds are whey.
There's straw for the donkeys,
And the innocents can all sleep safely,
All sleep safely.

My, my,
Sun is pie.
There's fodder for the cannons,
And the guilty ones can all sleep safely,
All sleep safely.

And all the world is football-shaped
It's just for me to kick in space
And I can see, hear, smell, touch, taste

(Andy Partridge)

The insect-headed worker-wife will hang her waspies on the line;
The husband burns his paper, sucks his pipe while studying their cushion-floor;
His viscous poly-paste breath comes out,
Their wall-paper world is shattered by his shout,
A boy in blue is busy banging out a headache on the kitchen door.

And all the while Graham slept on,

(Andy Partridge)

What can I say?
Why do we starve a thing thats near extinction?
From day to day,
These weeds of fear,
Are choking our conviction,
Life's like a jig-saw,
you get the straight bits,
But there's something missing in the middle.

All of a sudden,
We find the cupboard's bare.
All of a sudden,
We find heaven's not there.
All of a sudden,

(Colin Moulding)

Save us from the ball and chain,
Save us from the ball and chain,
Save us from the ball and chain,
oh yeah,
The diggers and the tower cranes,
The diggers and the tower cranes.

Don't want demolition,
Don't want your compensation,
It's not just bricks and mortar,
We are lambs to slaughter.

Save us from the ball and chain,

(Andy Partridge)

There may be no golden fleece,
But human riches I'll release

Oh, my head is spinning like the world and it's filled with beasts I've seen,
Let me put my bag down and I'll tell you it all right from the start,
Like the scarlet woman who would pick on the boys she thought were green,
And the two faced man who made a hobby of breaking his wife's heart.

(Andy Partridge)

We, we will dance like tiny boats with cotton sails upon the tops of the seas,
That would pull us down to the depths and crush us flat if given half a chance.
No need to look back to pictures of lost, when all was rust.
We, we will skim across the surface of the mud as if we're spinning pebbles
Oh, in our yacht dance
Oh, in our yacht dance

(Andy Partridge)

Programmes of violence,
As entertainment,
Brings the disease into your room.
We know the germ,
Which is man-made in metal,
Is really a key to your own tomb.

Prevention is better than cure,
Bad apples affecting the pure,
You'll gather your senses I'm sure
Then agree to,

Melt the guns,
Melt the guns,
Melt the guns,
And never more to fire them.