OEP B-sides Lyrics

[Robin]

Distance Makes - Our Velocity
(A. Tiku/P. Smith)

Distance makes the heart dissolve
Like little pills cloud water
Dissolving inch by inch
Separating a fraction further
You helped to shape this space
Where we'd gaze at dancers
The view, it fluctuates

Flattened bodies
Prone on the floor
Within a rectangle
Of cool green light
We'll watch them in the warmth
We'll breathe beside each other

The stars are landmarks...and we don't use them.
The stars are landmarks...you can't swing from them.

I wish this was an endurance test
But there are no limits
I sent a letter to my own address
While you lived in it
You used to drink from that glass
Decorated in Scandinavia
You nearly ironed me out
But now I've changed my behaviour

This morning I saw a blue metal star
I was on tiptoes high above the back yard
Competing with the real thing
It ends up dominating

The stars are landmarks...

Everyone's got their own idea
Of utopia, and why we're here.

[Robin]

Pride Before A Fall - Our Velocity
(D. Lloyd/P. Smith)

If I gave you a name
Would you live up to it?
If I gave you a game
Would you play up for me
If I played with your heart
Would you respect me?
If I came on too shy
Would you reject me?

What did I do to you?
Why does it hurt when I hear your name.

Pride Before A Fall
None of us are perfect figures
Pride Before A Fall
You made me reconsider.


If I apportioned the blame
Could you hold up to it?
And if I ran out of strength
Could you forgive me?
I looked at you for too long the other day
It was then that I knew
That you weren't the one.

What did I do to you?
Why does it hurt when I hear your name?

Pride Before A Fall
None of us have got a perfect figure!
Pride Before A Fall
You forced me to reconsider

I looked at you today
I looked at you another way.

[Robin]

Mary O'Brien - Our Velocity


Bottle blonde
Until the end
Ground down
But not out

Found fame
Faded away
But came back

Influence rubs off
Whether appropriate or not

A less than perfect split

She lifts the cup to her lips
She tries to force it back
Something in her gut starts to react

Definitely, well it must be


Cheap crockery
That was tipped
From the top of the stairs
What did you do that for?

Easily swayed; unafraid
Can't turn back
Starting to crack

Her mascara is streaming
But the guests are not leaving

A less than perfect split...

I don't really know if I want to be
Part of this world- but I must be
I'm none of the above

[Robin]

Robert Altman - Our Velocity


Son of a wealthy gambler
The Mayflower haunts the mother
Employed by the Calvin Company
Before the Kansas City Escape
...Minus a letter 'n'.

When you were up in the air
Did it make you what you were?

He met a man who had a surname
That was the same as his forename
Who drained him of his dollars
Left him with a tattooed dog.

Your daily bread was hopeless dreams
On the cusp of eternal defeat.

In charge of Lion's Gate
"I'd rather die than play it straight."

A journeyman who sparkled
Fond of an easy target
Armed with a genre
And an overlapping ensemble.

[Robin]

Obstinate Ideas - Books from Boxes
(D. Lloyd/P. Smith)

These empty feelings
And late-night dealings
I've no more wishes
Just obstinate ideas
About the girl sat opposite to me.

I'll never get to know you
So there's little point in trying...

I've no more wishes,
Just obstinate ideas
About the girl sat opposite to me.


The city is spreadeagled
Eyes down to the trough
Avoid all slopes
Sidestep all crowds
Information's no education at all


The reddest mouth
The reddish hair
You said I loved the idea of you

[Robin]

Don McPhee - Books from Boxes
(D. Lloyd/P. Smith)

Two men in a double bed
Shifting uncomfortably
Beneath the Virgin Mary and the Sacred Heart

Developing fluid
Suspended in the air
It just worked out this way.


Don had to leave
Like the soft snap of a shutter
Don wore a nautical cap
Maybe the grandkids got it.


Further qualifications
Can cost you dearly
But lessons get learnt
And people even smile at funerals

Watersheddings and snowfall
Took almost every chance
It just worked out this way

Don had to leave...


My only history comes from the pictures I see

I've got the same memory as anyone else.

[Robin]

An Unknown - Girls Who Play Guitars


Here we are all in the same room
Smiling uncomfortably
I'm unreachable in this state

The fan sounds like an insect
Up close with clattering wings.
I'll be deafened at this rate

I might as well not exist.

Couldn't you have picked an unknown?


I can't be your friend
'Cause I want everything.
Go, please go
Watching events unfold
Between you both.
Go. Go...I don't want to watch this scene unfold.


The more this car vibrates
The sooner it will fall apart.
Shouldn't everything hit the mark?

Eye-contact became a task
But I wasn't trying to hurt you.
Couldn't you have picked an unknown?


I can't be your friend
'Cause I want everything...

[Robin]

Warehouse - Girls Who Play Guitars


You look up
With surprise on your face
The lamplight
Throws familiar shapes
Right and wrong
A fake partition wall
A slim hope
At the root of it all

How could I forget your name and your reputation?
How could I gauge how you felt with no indication?

I don't care what we've been through
I can't sleep without music
I feel strangled when I'm with you
The days are stacking up slowly

Life is a warehouse as much as anything else


So little left unsaid
Just the important things
You were the engineer
Of thoughts that I can't control
It's a conversation that's just been waiting

You thought that I was a hardback kind of guy
But paperback books are all that I ever buy...

I don't care what we've been through.

[Robin]

(I Remember) Joe Brainard - Girls Who Play Guitars


I remember Joe...
designed his mother's dresses
stumbled over his words
sold his blood so he could eat.
Memories feel like a first kiss.

never worked to take control

imagined life to be so still

remembered boys
with their freckles and navels

imagined life to be still

imagined life to be so still


so

still.

[Robin]

George Brown - Karaoke Plays


A tale of 2 acts
One in 1948
One in '62

There's no justice in trade and industry
Full of promise in integration

Dissolves.

Precipitates resentment.

When the boats that carry
Were built by decorated arms.
In rain sodden yards

Then the gulf appears wider

Two islands colliding


The past gets colored in
I find it frightening

A house of cards

[Robin]

Jean Baudrillard - Karaoke Plays
(D. Lloyd/P. Smith)

All these objects that are supposed to reveal
The hero we are when behind the wheel.
I've never identified with the kind of masculine drive
That others posess in a speeding car

Yet how do you engage
With the latest craze
When the most obsolete things
Are all the rage


How can you turn your back on the working class
When you've never faced them in the past?


The more energy we burn
The freer we become.


When work is the model and the core
Please marginalise
The harsh necessities that tend to arise


The more energy we burn
The freer we become

The masters of our own death.
The sun mocks the clouds.

But he had needs back in his real life
Is this what he meant by luxury?

[Robin]

Jonathan Cole - Karaoke Plays
(P. Smith)

It's a courtesy
But it's not that common
Jon in shorts and sandals
With a guiding hand
Just in case

Lateness in life
Too early this time

The colours lit up the paper.
I hope you were found in the forest.


From Romney Marsh to Hastings
He left a trail of independence.
Investigating torsos
A private life
Lived at night

Lateness in life
Too early this time.

The colours lit up the paper
I hope you were found in the forest
Always beyond you
Never quite on the same wavelength

I hope you were found...

in the forest.