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DJMC (NC edit) (2009)

by nev clay

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1.
nostradamus 04:33
nostradamus may have predicted the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, but his quatrains omitted to mention the display in this butcher's window, where a pink plastic pig in a hat is carrying a baking tray. Nations rise and fall - will I ever scale your city walls? Mother Shipton saw ships in the sky, but she never prophesied the paper-girl's fluorescent satchel hanging froma satellite dish, and she never warned me that the end of your nose would twitch when you got drunk. I read your stars in the Chronicle to find out how you're doing. They say that now's a good time to travel, but you've already gone. And mine said "look to the future, and give up on a lost cause".
2.
I was thinking how much I love to see you, and how I've never had the guts to tell you why. I was thinking of myself. Hurting you was the last thing on my mind. I was thinking about the state my life's in, and how knowing you makes it bearable some times, then I got it wrong again. Now I don't need much to keep me breathing, and I keep things to myself most of the time, but I need you to know - hurting you was the last thing on my mind.
3.
4.
i hope you know i'm not indifferent to you. i hope that you can read the signs, though an electron microscope would struggle to detect them. And though this dyslexic heart of mine will never spell it out for you, if it could, I hope you'd read between the lines - then you would know.
5.
is that all it takes to knock me out of orbit: a left-handed girl with brown hair playing the piano? apparently so. and might a study of the constellations of her freckles lead to the discovery of some new and distant star? it's possible. when I find myself wondering "who coined the phrase 'to coin a phrase'?" and stuff like that, i know that it's time to go back on the tablets. Strawberry Brunette, is that a haircolour, or another name for a language that i don't understand?
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i was watching Time Team last Sunday evening, so i let you talk to the answerphone. Tony Robinson was getting misty-eyed about a Celtic brooch worn by some woman 2000 years ago. An edwardian archaeologist destroyed the facts that didn't fit, and erased the golden city that he sought. I'm not looking for Troy, just a little j-o-y. Under the foundations of this pub, little Romans in little leather sandals drank with the locals, played dice for coppers, wrapped themselves in blankets, blew out the candles and dreamt of someone a long way away.
9.
search me 01:43
i'm not the best friend you ever had, and i'm never going to be now, but if i'd been that friend, what could i have said to keep you here somehow? and if i'd been that friend, what could i have done so that things ended differently? what could i have said or done? search me
10.
11.
fathers' day 02:52
after the accident, we went down to A & E. the first time i'd seen you naked since i was two or three. beneath the blood, i recognised the swirl of hair on your chest - i see the same thing when i'm lying in the bath. not yours or mine, or some hairy ancestors' - just a body doing what bodies do, trying to survive the wars we put them through. Fathers' Day.
12.
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14.
you know i don't believe. i hope i never do. i left that baby jesus stuff back at sunday school. and i don't want to take the leap of faith you made: i'm not a jesus freak on a new crusade. but last night i knelt and prayed like a little kid again - i had to thank someone for you. and i don't know or care if anything was listening. i had to thank someone for you.
15.
16.
I hope you know I'm not indifferent to you. I hope that you can read the signs, though an electron microscope would struggle to detect them. And, though this dyslexic heart will never spell it out for you, if it could I hope you'd read between the lines, then you would know.

about

this is my section of this 2009 album, released on Richard Dawson's Pink Triangle label, and recorded over the space of about 4 years in at least four of his various residences and resting places. You should hear his five tracks, astonishing... I've taken the liberty of including Ally May's lovely poems on here (the cheque's in the post, Ally). Dawson and me both love Ally.

credits

released October 10, 2009

Ally May - voice.
Richard Dawson - laughter, biscuit tins etc

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nev clay Newcastle, UK

Nev lives near Newcastle and until 2018 was a mental health nurse. He's been clarting around the local music scene for 30 years, and once supported Keith Emerson out of ELP. Cover photo - Stan Bonnar concrete hippo, Killingworth, Newcastle, photo by Narbi Price 3 Jan 2023. Secret guitar tuning: CGDGAD ... more

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