Los Campesinos! - Sick Scenes [LYRICS]

1. Renato Dall'Ara (2008)

[Verse 1]
Turn up pissed up, a pariah, uninvited to his all-dayer
His new girlfriend works the door there, he does not intend to pay her
Pictured reading Karl Marx beside his parents’ pool, facing ridicule he bleated:
“that doesn’t make me rich, no way, it’s only outdoor and it isn’t heated”

[Chorus]
Renato Dall’Ara, living off 2008
Renato Dall’Ara, once up then back down again
All I want tonight is a friend and a fight
Say it to my face if it satiates your appetite

[Verse 2]
Daddy came out of retirement, he took a hobby as a PCSO
Let me level this as an indictment: only a part-time grass, but a full-time asshole
They would play my requests at the guest list’s behest, any disco all across town
But things change, now Stella’s a lager and boy she is always downed

[Bridge]
14 hands upon the paddle, seven asses sitting side saddle

[Chorus]
Renato Dall’Ara, living off 2008
Renato Dall’Ara, once up then back down again
All I want tonight is a friend and a fight
Say it to my face if it satiates your appetite

2–OH-OH-OH-A-N-D-E-I-G-H-T

2. Sad Suppers:

[Verse 1]
Don't call it a come-on, in spite of if not because of whatever
In extent of my ambition is a lawn to mow, a charger to tether
Introed at the braggers' amnesty, "the greatest lover in the cloisters"
When the neutrals started cheering me, that is the moment that they lost us

[Chorus]
Never once a miser with the misery
Clever compromise I replant potted history
You can't eat from spinning plates
Can't lick clean the mess it makes
Seen all there is to be shown
Darling, I'm coming home

Still flutters pitter-patter
Feeling embittered, battered
Behold the once and future me
Sad suppers for the saudaddy

[Verse 2]
Frogmarch through the city, ascend another synthetic summit
Until I see the route crows fly to you, then I will want no part of it
Save your epiphanies for sea level
Save them for Broadsands
Save them for throwing out time at Scribes West
Save them for chucking up in your own hands

[Chorus]
Never once a miser with the misery
Clever compromise I replant potted history
You can't eat from spinning plates
Can't lick clean the mess it makes
Seen all there is to be shown
Darling, I'm coming home

Still flutters pitter-patter
Feeling embittered, battered
Behold the once and future me
Sad suppers for the saudaddy

3. I Broke Up in Amarante:

[Verse 1]
I found a home away from home
As I broke up in Amarante
In the Campo do Carvalhal
Centre circle every day
Erratic kamikaze
I co-piloted the swift
Dreamt I'm anchoring that midfield
Like the anchor in my midriff

[Verse 2]
I drifted through a month alone
As I broke up in Amarante
Nursed a two-beer buzz four whole weeks
'Cause it's the only way to feel sane
The newspaper front on the counter top
Emblazoned spot kick miss
I couldn't even hum in your mother tongue
Just a thumbs down raspberry kiss

[Chorus]
(It seems unfair) To be a rotten horn of plenty
(It seems unfair) To be cadaver for a curse
(It seems unfair) To be an overflow for empty
(It seems unfair) To try your best but feel the worst

[Verse 3]
I threw an empty bottle from way up
It thudded into the maw
Truth be told, I spent the afternoon
And I threw fifteen more
I'm woken by a honking horn
Hungover, spread-eagle
Strength between the clicking crickets' knees
Enough to crush my skull

[Chorus]
(It seems unfair) To be a rotten horn of plenty
(It seems unfair) To be cadaver for a curse
(It seems unfair) To be an overflow for empty
(It seems unfair) To try your best but feel the worst

[Bridge]
You really can't complain
It's just a holiday
You fill a wall chart out
Thirty-one days away

[Chorus]
It seems unfair to be a rotten horn of plenty
Seems unfair to be...
(Nah, I'm gonna need you to help me out here)
(It seems unfair) To be an overflow for empty
(It seems unfair) To try your best but feel the worst

[Chorus]
(It seems unfair) It seems unfair to be a rotten horn of plenty
(It seems unfair) It seems unfair to be cadaver for a curse
(It seems unfair) It seems unfair to be an overflow for empty
(It seems unfair) It seems unfair to try your best but feel the worst

4. A Slow, Slow Death:

We felt a chill from the breeze move in from the east, London pat its own back
Those with the means for the megaphone, will always provide us the soundtrack
I started to diarise the coming of flies when gloom is descending
So when it’s back round again I know it’s a false start and not an ending
Some days I struggle to move in elephant shoes, unwilling commuter
Anxiety in my chest, heart under duress taps out of sharpshooter
Preoccupied now for days by nostalgia waves I hated the first time
A gambler’s fallacy the more I repeat I won’t be the punchline

You. On a lilo. Are an island. Of the pacific
And then me, me, me. I am face down. In a puddle. On the high street

I got your initials inside a heart tattoo
We two in vermilion, we two a lovers’ coup
I know little but I promise:
There’s a slow, slow death if you want it

In time will I have to lie these memories are mine, not in fact my father’s
A schoolboy hero replaced, domestic disgrace, a sad sack, a martyr
We here are common as dirt, three lions on our shirt, with high expectations
Absolve this land of a Queen who feasts while we wean a small hopeless nation

5. The Fall of Home:

Parent pick up from off the train
Empty high street in pouring rain
Funeral for a family pup
Teenage pubs all boarded up

Left your home town, for somewhere new
Don't be surprised now it's leaving you
Another weekday night alone
The rise of rent, the fall of Home

Battery dies on your monthly call:
Budget cut at your primary school
Another family friend fell sick
Gave the fascists a thousand ticks

6. 5 Flucloxacillin:

[Verse 1]
Five Flucloxacillin rattle in the pit of my purse
Among the ones and the twos, I never finished a course
Doctor said, "Don't drink on antibiotics"
Reply, "It doesn't matter, hangover's always chronic anyway"

[Pre-Chorus]
A peloton of OAPs cycling up behind me
Shouting, "Step up your paces, we've got places to be"
A pile-on of OAPs crashing in my slipstream
I turn, "Shut up your faces, I'm not your domestique"

[Chorus]
They say if they had got the victory
They'd act with so much more humility
They say if they had got the victory
Well, I guess we'll never know

[Verse 2]
Am I a piggy bank of obsolete currency?
An order of merit from country known for tyranny?
Another blister pack pops, but I still feel much the same
Thirty-one, and depression is a young man's game

[Verse 3]
Found a fiver screwed up inside a prescription receipt
From the salbutamol (No, a gift from the sertraline)
Hallowed be somnolence brought on by the tramadol
Damned be the knowledge that's it, now you have tried 'em all

[Pre-Chorus]
A peloton of OAPs cycling up behind me
Shouting, "Step up your paces, we've got places to be"
A pile-on of OAPs crashing in my slipstream
I turn, "Shut up your faces, I'm not your domestique"

[Chorus]
They say if they had got the victory
They'd act with so much more humility
They say if they had got the victory
Well, I guess we'll never know
Well, I guess we'll never know
Well, I guess we'll never know
Well, I guess we'll never know

7. Here's To The Fourth Time!

We fell out bad on the first night that we tried for the third time, over something in between
By time trains back running off peak, half cut in the Gatekeeper, feeling more serene
In full: Just over a fortnight, nude, drenched in the lamp light curtains let in from the street
We lay cross legged on a mattress, no questions about us, she serenaded me

And all we got’s the need to breed before we rot
When all is spent and all is lost, when all is said and done

All these sick scenes played out in my memory
Wake up, I’ll tell you everything honestly:
“Hirwain, Minny, Tewkesbury or Brook Street. What I’d not give just to have another week”

Here’s to the fourth time! Call it ‘The Time Before The Last Time’, or ‘Good News For Her Mother!’

8. For Whom The Belly Tolls:

May I have a moment please, before the guillotine, to lament on her wet hair
Tousled over her left shoulder wearing a Corfu t-shirt she took as her nightwear
I could slip on my own salt sobs seeking the cold embrace of the fridge freezer aisle
Catwalk into the dog pound, now with my flesh wounds, dressed to spring-summer style

For whom the belly tolls
For who the tap drips dry and the bath water runs cold
For who all time ticks by until one joke becomes old

There is beauty in the world, I have been told by people I’ve nothing but trust in
Piled up with the cotton buds, among the toothpicks, inside the dark of the dustbin
Waited outside of ‘Jersey Boys’ for what seemed like a year, a life lived in the vestibule
Scout yourself as a one man team, you’re a one club man denied a testimonial

(No knot in the waistband) Persuade me to give up and leave quietly
(No reason to grandstand) File me alongside the obscene
It’s 7:20 Monday morning, I look to the man with no suit for a warning
If open to reason/collusion, may the way that I go be regrettable, gruesome
In exchange for one thing: “I beg do not take me today”. Babbling “please let me stay”

9. Got Stendhal's:

Got Stendahl’s bad, it struck me dumb. Venus in steel toes with fake furs in hand
Your doorstep, first place podium, I stood in awe, carrier bag of cans
Two puckered lips and a t-shirt suntan

I assembled former ghosts at a seance
Said I missed ‘em, you only have to say it once
What I truly fear, maybe selfishly
When I finally rest, someone will summon me

In time a monument will cast two shadows in the middle of a square
Mistold when thousand years have passed as clima-fit suit, as towelling bridal wear
Four puckered lips and some vows to swear

I don’t know, I don’t wanna know now
Trusted heart pumps blood around a monolith that lets me down
I don’t wanna know

At least when we’re encased in concrete we’ll be safe

10. A Litany // Heart Swells:

A stack of words in my throat, a trail of slime
Forehead on fruit machine, three bells will not chime
For lovers who line the beach whom moon entertains
Their’s always waxing while our crescent wanes

Outside a chicken shop, a ceiling of stars
A nostril of Diet Coke, I’m back in your arms
Now I feel the misery in your breast and mine
Is one and the same and I feel close to fine

Heart swells

I’m shouting out a litany an echo calls back
Your hand is on the pen but you can’t sign the pact

11. Hung Empty:

They’re singing Bread Of Heaven but they’re baking it with our dough
Living as common criminal, but acting local hero
Wish I’d savoured that awkward little silence that grew up to be a deafening hush
Curling up, cuddling a big red button to push

He’s playing dickhead’s advocate and every date’s a house show
I’m dropping my defences ’til libido’s my libero
And if you’re keeping track of the notches, even if he had a four poster bed
He’d be sleeping on a pile of woodchip, plucking splinters from his head
The students spilling out at the bus stop are forcing me to walk in the street
I move against the tide of the tourists, I am lacking but they’re looking replete
My vision is fading, it’s blurry. There are finger prints all over the sun
We’re glad to be loved but we’re lonely and we feel like we’re the only ones

I’m hung empty: all night, all afternoon
Hung empty, horse and, not bride and groom
Hung empty, the world spins but we’ll barricade the room
Hung empty, hang onto me, and we’ll quarantine the gloom

I’ve been penning odes to continental bottled lager
Bring its mouth to my lips: “oh holy holy, I do not know what I’d do without you”

We kneel at different alters but we all desire the same:
For someone else to seize the bow to find a truer aim
We’re small steps down a steep slope. Exist as living proof:
Not right to call this old age, but it certainly ain’t youth no more
This certainly ain’t youth

I wanna shrink to a size to be coddled ‘tween the cobble stones
For you to grow to a height to drape a shadow over all of us
Oh would you let me rest in your flesh rolls? Lay my languor in the calm of your shade?
Sink into its dark until I lose my hands in front of my face

Feels like I’ve been waiting on it, nearly all my life
But what, if this is it now, what if this is how we die?