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Waving and Drowning

by Steve Butler

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1.
WAVING AND DROWNING I'm on an island but I'm watching the sea people swimming - they're waving at me it's so inviting - it's so enticing I've heard the stories and I know that it's true about the sharks and the rip-tides too but those people out there they just don't seem to care But they're waving and drowning I'm in a cafe where they sneer at your clothes you eat garbage and you pay through the nose it's so devinely sweet - you pay not to eat where they're waving and drowning fickle feeling - fickle heart leaves you reeling - tears you apart I'm telling truth and I'm being despised smiling mouths preaching empty lies they're just doing their best - happy more or less but they're waving and drowning
2.
TIME AND TIDE (a love lost) I dare not see you - I do not trust myself wildcat emotions won't be tamed I dare not talk with you - words just betray me and I won't risk my heart again You are the moon and I am the ocean you are the sun and I am the dawn and this small world can't survive such crazy motions the tides and the seasons going wrong I dare not wonder just what you're thinking if you despise me for my fear I'd rather be afraid than deaf my love to a voice that you can't hear You are the moon .... So there's a letter in the mail tonight half of me is hoping it gets lost there's a price to pay for loving you and I can't live with the
3.
SUNK IN LONDON This thorn of love twisting inside of me this undefined longing fear never a natural part of me instinctively reaching out handwriting so familiar to me one flesh halved - torn by self - a trail of burnt promises Out there at night do you need some company when the morning comes I will sing for you Fast city stains your innocence - I know it well sly fortune's logical illusion - it's the hardest sell die poor pride - take it to your first love and I tell you - he will find a way Out there at night do you need some company when the morning comes I will sing for you
4.
BACK IN FRANCE 40 Gitanes every day they look at you in that hungry way don't take prisoners they just do what they say no work - no rest - just play, play, play Back in France - down Cours Mirabeau love just comes and goes – back in France Musk coloured shirts and dusk tight skins you play the night and see what comes in wide eyed creatures that come out in the dark feed the fire and touch the spark Back in France .... Void of grace there's only danger here beauty fades and disappears the whispering mockers of love go by they may walk but I will fly Back in France ....
5.
CHILD'S TEARS Spring scent laden trees - a last flourish for you all life begins again - all except for you each step I take reminds me - of another year of ours the child's laughter - the child's tears - the child's love I would have loved you more I'd love to stop it but your life has just walked out Echoes in this street - echoes in this room - and in my head the whole world has settled down respectfully for you no calls, no words - just the two of us and our pain it's over now and I must never come this way again
6.
CHECKOUT GIRLS Stay with me now - I've a feeling you're slipping away there's a song in the air - that nobody's singing today there are places to go but - somehow I feel I should stay And the checkout girls sing a song for the world that goes round and round and the anthem of the keys in the tills makes a soothing sound - and the ears and the eyes aren't on the sky they're on the ground Talk with me now there are words in your mind worth saying - there's something happening over here even though the actors might only be playing that life is the thing that can't be lost by delaying And the checkout girls .... Sometimes I'm ready to go sometimes I'm willing to know for someone it's happening slow didn't you know didn't you know Live with me now - I'm ready to hear your crying risen again like the phoenix - the ashes defying in the silence we know there's something beyond the dying And the checkout girls .... and the ears and the eyes of the God in the sky they're on the ground - he can be found
7.
HEAD AND HEART There's just no way to say how much I love you you never make me cry and that's just fine I only have my fears to burn above you You know we all get scared from time to time Love me with your head and heart love me from the place it starts love me with your head and heart - love me like a child There's just no way to say the things I'm feeling no way to tell you all the things I mean and every day I only feel like stealing away to where I know I can be clean Laying down the ways to say I need you scared of looking tall and feeling small running through the days I have beside you scared of being wrong and that's it all
8.
SEASONED WITH YOUR LOVE Branches snapped and wind bit hard on a winter's day ten thousand feet below zero little children played blowing smoke without cigarettes in the freezing air deep down the warmth of knowledge that somebody cares We are seasoned with your love we can taste it on the lips of the world Low sun caged behind tall trees gave green on gold maybe in a week or so it won't feel so cold after a shower the streets ran silver and overflowed sometimes you can feel so rich by just letting go Green on green rests against sun on blue airplane cuts incision and disappears from view time heals the scar left high above 'til it's lost from sight in the evening the sky turns red and bleeds into night Just one ripened apple will bring the fall and the silent migration will say it all back where we started another year gone seasoned with your love - another year on
9.
Gonna Fly 05:00
GONNA FLY All people hover, having resigned themselves to a subsoil end intelligent people - mesmerised by the repeating patterns of how it's always been the assumption is made of the assumed human need for independence - and the gin and jag team and the guys who walk the streets only complain Mercy mercy get me out of here mercy mercy I need your love - mercy mercy, gonna fly Hallucination - that's just a man in the moon just complication - putting off what must be done I know a great guy - ten years older than me he tells me what to do living, walking, success - breathing the very particles of commercial application Two guys in the alternating light of the subway looks like they're stuck to the wall zowie hair and long grey coats that might just walk by themselves in a plastic bag , a black album by an unknown skynard band - and a B+ for a paper on the economic reorganisation of the world
10.
BEST IS STILL TO COME Sweat it out, I'll burst my brain trying to do the best for me lying awake, worried sick that everyone is better than me going out I'll shoot my mouth off impressing nobody but mestop stop - will I ever grow up? lord, rescue me from me You don't want me just trying hard or even free use of my bankers card so I try to bring my broken heart but the best is still to come Coming here that way, how did you do it lord? everything you said is everything I need to know I don't need no invitation I just need my usual second chance I believe every word is true about you and that I can leap this final fence No use me just being alright content to settle down no writer could ever write all you've done but the best is still to come

about

All songs published by Sticky Music 1983 except "Head and Heart" published by Warlock Music (used with permission)
Recorded and mixed at Park Lane Studios, Glasgow, June - August 1983
Produced by Steve Butler
Engineered by Kenny Macdonald and
Graeme Duffin
Executive Producer, Dot Reid
Cover painting, Carol E. Moore
Digital remastering by Graeme Duffin 2011

Steve Butler - Acoustic/Electric Pianos, Synthesisers, Acoustic Guitars, Background Vocals
Malcolm Duffin - Drums and Percussion
Stuart R. Duffin - Bass
Graeme Duffin - Guitars and Background Vocals
This reissue is dedicated to the fond memory of Malcolm Duffin

credits

released January 27, 2015

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Steve Butler Edinburgh, UK

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