Here are the lyrics to Shirley’s debut album, and here are the lyrics to “Winter Autumn Summer Spring”.

Below are the lyrics to Spearmint’s new album, “News From Nowhere”.

It’s Not As Far To Fall

I keep my expectations low
Though there is a risk I know
I may never live at all
But it’s not as far to fall

My heart stays protected
No danger of rejection
Ambitions low and small
Because it’s not as far to fall

The third cut is the deepest
And I believe that it is dangerous
To look down into the blue
To imagine dreams come true

So I don’t get my hopes up
You say I’m jaded, that I’ve given up
But I don’t get hurt at all
Because it’s not as far to fall

The Gleaners

Did you ever try to visualise
One million milk bottles on your front step?
Would you have a plan what to do with them
Maybe make a mountain which you can climb?

Maybe crush it up and ship it off
To another country out of your mind
The Gleaners are right, the Gleaners are wise
To use the things everyday folk leave behind

The Gleaners are right, the Gleaners have rights
All hail the magpie, the second-handers
There’s something wrong if we provide
Enough to live on from the waste we leave behind

And by the by, would you recognise
The voice of Al Bowly blaring out of a caravan?
Defiantly distorted in
The morning sunshine across the canal

The Gleaners are right, the Gleaners are wise
To use the things everyday folk leave behind

The Gleaners are right, the Gleaners have rights
All hail the magpie, the second-handers
There’s something wrong if we provide
Enough to live on from the waste we leave behind

The Gleaners are right
The Gleaners are right

Light That Shines From A Dead Star

Fed so fast, grown so large, crippled under their own weight
Ghandi said “The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated”
In this country of so-called animal lovers, we treat them with hate

Break their bones, cut off their beaks, crush them together, shackle their feet
The meat industry damages the climate more than all the world’s transport added up together
If you want to save the world, stop eating meat

Acts of human kindness are light that shines from a dead star

Wings and legs, atrophied, dunked into scalding hot water
Amonia burns their eyes, they live their short miserable lives
Then they’re shipped off to slaughter

Acts of human kindness are light that shines from a dead star

This is worth fighting for
We are not superior
All things being equal, this land is not our land – you know it is wrong
Sixteen kilos of grain produce one kilo of meat while millions of people starve
Fifteen times as much water to produce your food if you insist on eating meat
And if you want to change the world stop eating meat

If you want to save the world stop eating meat …

Tony Wright

I put on the saddest music I can find
Only sad will do, the cheerful songs sound phoney now
Late afternoon I sit here and thoughts drift back
To all those years ago…
Tony said “Back then what we were doing
Seemed so important but really it meant nothing”

I don’t agree
The songs he sang mean everything to me
Wednesday nights we’d meet in the bar
And Tony Wright sang the songs that made me who I am

At least he had the grace to give it all up
While I carried on for years, dodged responsibilities
Hiding in the songs we sang, now the songs is all I am
And if the person you were then met the person you are now
What would they think of the things you’ve done
Of what you’ve become?

What did you do with your economics degree?
Ended up working in your dad’s spring factory
Do you ever play those songs any more?
While a four-inch dinosaur runs around the kitchen floor
Now the sky is orange like the labels on my old Bowie albums
But the light is fading…

And I sit here, thoughts drift back to all those years ago
Wednesday nights we’d meet in the bar
Tony Wright sang the songs that made us who we are…

Children Of The Sixties, Children Of The Seventies

Children of the sixties, children of the seventies, you’re still here, you’re not old. You talk as though you’re old, but you’re not old. I remember even back then I felt like I was getting old, but now when I see the photos from then I look so young.

I remember sitting cross-legged at a Christmas party, such wide-eyed hope – that night we really felt we could change the world, we really felt that anything was possible, like after one more drink anything becomes possible… but in the morning we felt different, in the morning we came to our senses.

Children of the sixties, children of the seventies, what happened to us?

Now the kids are grown and we watch TV list-shows: Talking heads talk Talking Heads… when Bono climbed off that stage I wished he’s never got back up, I wish he’d walked off into the crowd with his cockatoo hairdo. On the dole, dancing to Rio with your umbrella hair… This isn’t what you dreamed of…

We’d gather round the radio, and when we were unhappy,
a song said it for us

I turn back to the typewriter and my cassettes, as VHS played Betamax, now all the cassette tapes are wrapped round trees, or lying in a charity shop.

1981 wasn’t like 1980 or 1982: each year had a different personality. We all moved to London, we all worked in Our Price, we all moved to London and lost a decade or two, cried London tears, politics got blunted until we felt shy about how principled we’d been.

We’d gather round the radio, and when we were unhappy a song said it for us
We were so sure we could change the world
Our principles escaping us like slow punctures

Our friends in the north: we got so drunk, so wasted, reined in by America, infected by American angst; the smell of caps fading away, flared and peaked with New Labour – how did we get to where we are now?

It’s like finding an old letter you wrote: so full of passion, so full of fire, like a stranger to yourself – it’s time to rise up, you’re still here, you’re still the same person, rise up!

Inside you’re undimned, I will not be restricted, I will not accept this apathy – every little decision you make changes everything. We’ve so much to rebel against – they make it so that good news becomes no news in no time at all.

We’d gather round the radio, and when we were unhappy a song said it for us
We were so sure we could change the world
Our principles escaped us like slow punctures

Children of the sixties, children of the seventies, we made the very mistakes we vowed we’d avoid. Breaking rules angrily, then breaking rules quietly, then breaking rules from within, then not breaking anything.

And what would the person you were then think of the person you are now?

Conclusion of the foregoing.

Not Small, Just Far Away

Are you looking round endlessly
Trying to make any sense of it
Trying to get to the heart of it
Looking back at the things you’ve done
Looking out at the world outside
Looking in at the man you are

Think how long you might last
Think of the things you want to do
Your days are spread in front of you
So many possibilities
So many paths you could choose
What are you going to do?

Are you looking round endlessly
For an answer to it all
Always trying to find something
That gives meaning to it all

I’m so scared of messing up
I’m so scared of growing up
That I end up giving up
I never ever really knew
What it is I want to do
So I just muddle through

They all know what they want to do
And they’re doing better than you
And they are all so confident
And they are always doing great
And they are all so sorted out
And I’d like to wipe them out

Are you looking round endlessly
For an answer to it all
Waiting for the part that means
Something, oh, something

Bring a child into this world
To witness all the pain to come
To live with all the things we’ve done
Share the terror that awaits
Fix mistakes we have made
Solve the problems we have caused
I don’t feel small just far away
I’m waiting for my calling
But it never seems to come…

Are you looking round endlessly?

Are you looking round endlessly
For an answer to it all
Always trying to find something
That gives meaning to it all
Are you looking round endlessly
To find an answer to it all
Waiting for the part that means something, oh, something

My Anger

I’ve got my anger; it feels like the only thing that’s left of me now
I love my anger: the taste of metal in my mouth
Trying to sort these feelings out

I’ve got my anger; I keep it close to me, protecting me
I need my anger: the boiling blood runs through my veins
Keeps me sane

Ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, barbed, barbed is how I feel
Ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, barbed reminds me who I am
Who I am…

That’s not a dog howling, that’s someone pretending to be a dog howling down the bottom of Preston Street.
October wasps, September days, walking through the morning haze after a short summer.
You always looked at the ground; I always looked at the sky, uncomfortable in your own skin and never any good with authority
Remember to feed the right wolf – don’t feed the bad wolf

I’ve got my anger; it feels like the only thing that’s left of me now
I love my anger: the taste of metal in my mouth
Trying to sort these feelings out

Ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, barbed, barbed is how I feel
Ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, barbed reminds me who I am
Who I am…

It feels like everyone else is in a club that you’re not a member of – detective Shirley Lee
Sometimes we’re fine for a while, but it all comes back: darker horses, sixteen lights, and while we were worrying about something trivial, something really bad happened
Impending doom, always a sense of impending doom
Lying there watching the lights move across the ceiling as the cars drive by outside
And nobody seems to have noticed all the magpies gathering in the fields
Remember to feed the right wolf – don’t feed the bad wolf

Punctuation

Everybody knows this is nowhere
Everybody knows this is nowhere
Start telling your friends
Start telling everyone you meet
You’re going to disappear
You’re getting out of here
Because this is nowhere
And you’re never leaving
Say what you will but you’re never leaving
You don’t have to be mad
To work here but it helps
Smiling at the suits
Jumping through your hoops

Words! Alliteration
Helps you hide inside your head
Typewriter taps: use it as punctuation
To escape every grey degrading day of your life

Everybody knows this is nowhere
Everybody knows this is nowhere
Start telling your friends
Start telling everyone you meet
You’re going to disappear
You’re getting out of here
This is nowhere
And you’re never leaving
Say what you will but you’re never leaving
You don’t have to be mad
To work here but it helps
Smiling at the suits
Jumping through the hoops

Alcohol! Abdication
Chocolate drop and coffee grains
Drink them dry: the words are punctuation
Giving space for things to grow

Detective book and religion
Side-step, dig a hole
And your friends: you use them as punctuation
To escape every grey degrading day of your life

Daddy’s been fighting again
In for the lock-in again
Daddy’s been fighting again…

The Dolphins

I’m nodding to say that I’m listening to you
Not nodding to say I agree with you
We’re slaughtering the dolphins

It’s time to face what we already know
There’s a tenth of the fish there were fifty years ago
We’re slaughtering the dolphins

We dynamite the coral reef
While trawlers drag the ocean
Destroying everything in their wake
The bottom of the ocean
Mercury, copper, pesticides
We dump them in the ocean
Fish change sex, gradually die
In the polluted ocean

We took the gift and abused it until it couldn’t last
We’re selling the future to pay for the past
We’re slaughtering the dolphins

The poster is ripped… a calm clear sea shows through
One day the oceans will be pristine and blue
We’ve had our time with the world
We’re slaughtering the dolphins

Ship the fish around the world
Over-fished to extinction
The by-catch killed needlessly
Outnumbers what is eaten

You claim a fish feels no pain
To justify your behaviour
But no matter how they are caught
Every fish will suffer…

News From Nowhere

He hoped it would be perfect
We’d overcome obsession
With greed and growth and ownership
He thought it could be heaven

He dreamed of a utopia
A fair and equal future
The realists has had their chance
It’s time now for the dreamer

And all the honest people say…

We’re running out of water
They take it and they sell it even in a drought
This is the news from nowhere
We know we’re running out
What will happen when people can’t afford the water?

Just like oil…

He hoped it would be perfect
We’d overcome obsessions
With greed and growth and ownership
He thought it could be heaven

And all the honest people say…

Nestle don’t own the water
Like they don’t own the air
This is the news from nowhere
This future is unequal, this future’s unfair
What will happen when people can’t afford the water?

I Will Sleep Tonight

They took us out today
I don’t know where we went
We walked around the lake
And then came home again

And we sang a song
I knew all the words
We all joined in
And sang along

The best day of my life
And I will sleep tonight

We had such fun today
They took us for a walk
We were so happy there
Sitting in the park

And we sang a song
Then they brought us home
I’m tired now
My work is done

That was my life
And I will sleep tonight…