Salt Coast

(album: The Line Is A Curve - 2022)

Salt coast, foul wind
Old ghosts, scrap tin
Leaves, rain
Leaves, rain

Salt coast, foul wind
Old ghosts, scrap tin
Leaves, rain
Leaves, rain

All dressed up with nowhere to go
I love your sleeve-pulling nervousness
I love the way you crumble into chalk at your edges
I love the way you fade into a sky that is as endless
As your willingness to try

Keep going and it will get better

I love the way you push to get clear
I love the way you dance to get strong

Ancient
Slick clay, rock-formed, wet sand, moss-borne
What came before
And what will come after

Beneath the orderly queues, the bad moods, the nice views
The have-nots and have-twos, the night shifts in flat shoes
The discarded masks, the empty tubes
The colds, the flus, the reds, the blues, the Buy-to-let, the Play-to-lose.
The White Ace, the Grey Goose, the Michelin-starred, the fast food
The straight lies, the strange truth

I can hear the deep rasp of your laughter, joyful

Beneath the stifled resentments
And micro-aggressions
All part of the fabric
The tension woven so tight it defies its dimension
The see-but-don't-feel
The know-but-don't-mention

There you are; hedonistic, self-destructive, insecure
Trying to get away from the mistakes you've made before

Salt coast, foul wind
Old ghosts, scrap tin
Leaves, rain
Leaves, rain

Salt coast, foul wind
Old ghosts, scrap tin
Leaves, rain
Leaves, rain

Veering into change
I appreciate your efforts
Acknowledging your privilege
But prone to back-stepping

Sure, it's not by our past that our future will be measured
It's by the very moment that we're slumping in, dishevelled
Six hours in to some TV show that tastes like the feeling of pizza
I know what you reach for

All dressed up with nowhere to go
Benched, waiting for a path to open up
Waiting for a thing that might make you old enough
To get into the pub
Where people drink to lost youth

I see you, scraping the gravel in your Air Max
So beautiful, so chaotic, so grounded
Home
Concrete and loam
Brick-dust and loans
Wood-floors
Screen-doors
And a place of your own
Pay it off the rest of your life, but who's asking?

Restless, the damp night approaching
Distilling the heat
Too long on your feet
Now you want to be free
From the strain of what's done in your name
Every single inch of you is somebody's claim

The familiar refrain
Of their glory and your shame
You just want to keep moving, the energy contained
Is spilling out and making trouble for you
Nothing is the same

You got out from underneath the weight of suffer and obey
The tyranny and hate of Britannia rules the waves
And now you swing your hips as you go strutting down the lane

I love you when I see you this plain

Your salt coast, your foul wind
Your old ghosts, your scrap tin
The browning of your leaves
And the greening of your rain

Salt coast, foul wind
Old ghosts, scrap tin
Leaves, rain
Leaves, rain

Salt coast, foul wind
Old ghosts, scrap tin
Leaves, rain
Leaves, rain