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Share Your Toys

by Gavin Osborn

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1.
Well he stands so tall in the hardware store, with a faraway look on his face Looks around, like Doctor Emmett Brown, but you never know what he’s gonna buy An old workbench, a monkey wrench, a torch and a bicycle chain Word gets around, in this little town, that Roger’s inventing again Yeah yeah. Uh-huh. His shoes on the ground make a flip-flop sound, like the Chinaman in Cannery Row And his shirt is spoiled, with dirt and oil, he’s forgotten more than we’ll ever know Hornby railway set, an old football net, a vacuum hose he imported from Spain You can see through the cracks, in his shed out back, that Roger’s inventing again Yeah yeah. Uh-huh But Roger’s never said a word, since his time machine failed And he wanted to travel the world, but the ship he made out of pub ashtrays never sailed, so Roger’s inventing again. He fixed my car so sweet, just the other week, so it doesn’t need any fuel And look at Sue and Jim, going for a swim, in their waterproof swimming pool There’s a man next door who’s never smiled before, now he’s laughing just like a drain It’s been a ten year wait, but it sure feels great, to see Roger inventing again Yeah-yeah. Uh-huh. Everyone here’s got theory, but nobody here’s got a clue And the only thing that we know for sure, is that we don’t know what he’s gonna do Out in the street, all the people meet, all the men they wait in the rain As do all the girls when they hear those words, Roger’s inventing again Yeah yeah. Uh-huh.
2.
Carl returned to his hotel room, opened the door, threw his keys down on the floor Fell right back into bed, on an uncomfortable mattress, blinking red just to his right, was the answer-machine light He pressed play on the machine, there she was excitedly, playing a song called ‘Flowing Stream’, an ancient Chinese tune, filling his cheap hotel room and it was the perfect track, so he called his colleague back, their code finally cracked, and their Voyage had begun She said “The sound of a kiss, will travel, beyond the heliosphere And if we send them Jonny B Goode, well I can already hear the cheer The chances of anyone finding it, are one in a million” And he said “No”...”Billions and billions” Everything moved, Everything moved, And at the end of that phone call they knew That on our tiny world, for just a few moments, In the immensity of time They were one, Eureka Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, they will never return, from Jupiter or Saturn Moving through interstellar space, the space between the stars Where the best stuff always occurs, even right back here on Earth and those gold records they deserve, their one chance to be heard, Stravinsky and Mozart, the sound of a human heart, thunder earthquakes and lightning, oh to hear a blackbird sing, tractors and a car horn, a mum’s first words to her unborn, all of our different languages, and if they get bored of this, they can always fall back on, the Chuck Berry She said “I love you so much I want to record the impulses in my brain And send those waves of love, into space The chances of finding love like this are one in a million And he said “No, actually billions and billions” Her brainwaves, no word of a lie, sound like a string of exploding fireworks One glorious minute in time, of a 27-year-old woman totally in love And if you can’t fall in love, making a mix tape for the universe Then you can’t fall in love, not ever ‘Cos the beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it It’s the way those atoms are put together What greater might, do we humans possess, than the ability to question and to learn from all the best things, we’ve accomplished here so far, so far from other stars, by sending out a piece of us, into the great cosmos, sending heartbeats into the black, we’re finally giving something back, ‘cos we may have been to the moon, and planted all our flags, our telescopes take photographs, our robot footprints leave their mark, but that gold record’s who we are, those brainwaves among the stars And still they move, And still they move Two revolving records of proof, That on our tiny world, for just a few seconds In the immensity of time, They were one, Two were one, Eureka
3.
I’ve been blown up, many times before, but I think this is gonna be the last time You’re all grown up, don’t need me no more, I guess you need a bigger sleeping partner Removal men are picking up the sofa, goodbye old friend I guess that it’s all over The tenancy has run out on the love you lent me, so let me down gently When I feel flat you give me oxygen, and then you suck the life right out of me I got feelings, you made me feel cheap, when you put me in the lounge with all the ashtrays I know I’m just a lilo, that much I know I know I’m supposed to lie low, and just watch you go But I’ll be handed down to charity and you will just forget about me I’ll have a new home next to hand-me-downs, and you’ll have a new home in a nearby town Well your friends snore and smell of stale beer, but at least they paid some more attention to me I’ve been let down many times before, but I know this is gonna be the last time
4.
I don’t occupy buildings I don’t start campaigns, I write rhyming couplets in tiny cafes, It’s your job to get out and make it all happen It’s up to me to sing songs by Tracy Chapman As innocent prisoners sat in Burmese jails, Amnesty tried, and Amnesty failed I write one protest song then months later they’re free. Coincidence? Maybe? No, it was all down to me You’ve rattled the walls but I’ll raise the roof ‘Cos governments fall, with four chords and the truth Relax revolutionaries, no need to fear Thanks for your effort, but I’ll take it from here I’ll take it from here Bolsheviks, Castro even Mao Tse Tung Without folk singers they’d have got nothing done And don’t get me started on the Arab Spring No-one paid attention, ‘til I started to sing When gay marriage passed, bankers’ bonuses gone You can guarantee it was ‘cos I sang a song And I hope kettling tactics are here to stay Now you’re all contained, there’s no getting away As Britain was raging with riots and looting I sang No Woman No Cry to the people of Luton Then I hopped on the train to save the town of Bedford With my outstanding Twist & Shout La Bamba medley Flyposter the rally, arrange all the marches, I’ll stay at home, listening to the Archers And when you are struggling to tear down the wall, You won’t be alone, if you give me a call At every protest, all the streets are rammed, But is this the best place to be heard? Maybe I should sing ‘I Am What I Am’ outside Westboro Baptist Church Hotel California in a B&B, At a ‘no petting’ pool, Prince’s Kiss They’d both be better, I think you’ll agree, Than Fuck The Police outside Smiths Rage Against the Machine, in a fully functional lift If you know what you want or if you’re not sure yet It doesn’t matter; I’ve got a song for it Singing protest songs is certainly worth it Even though I’m preaching ...to the converted They may all look the same, all of those little boxes Ticky-tacky they may be, but the paradox is To change the system and to spread the word You need the system, to make yourself heard Downtrodden, downhearted, outnumbered, oppressed Give me a guitar, I’ll take care of the rest From Tahrir Square to Petrograd and North Korea Thanks for your efforts, I’ll take it from here
5.
According to Cosmo, it’s just as sexy as a skinny dip Good for your relationship, a bastion of bliss But now my back’s against the hot tap, and I know they told you that the scalp Was an untapped erogenous zone, let me tell you...they were wrong You’re trapped between my legs, squeezed like a business executive’s Stress-relieving tennis ball, covered head to toe in oil Peppermint and pomegranate, grape seeds and jojoba Were never meant to be one scent, what the hell’s jojoba? Is this some kind of joke, when did we stop using soap, That magazine came with free cream, meant for massaging my earlobes But who drinks wine in the tub, holding a handful of salt scrub While giving sensual head rubs, with an electric toothbrush? And I hope, that it shows, just how much I love you But I don’t, ever want another bath with you They say “chillax, go with the flow” but that candle’s burning near my robe And there’s carpeting in here, I’m seeing fire hazards everywhere Can’t you just massage yourself? My knees are wedged under the bath shelf, It‘s not heaven this is hell, and I can’t reach the shower gel Sade’s on the iPod, with Morcheeba and Massive Attack If this is the cost of bathing, I want my 96p back I should be excited, but it’s just my hackles rising ‘Cos it’s a bathroom not the Nineties, at The Ministry of Sound And we miscalculated, our water to weight ratio. Climbing in behind you I caused an overflow And now here we are pretending, that we hope it’s never-ending Both secretly concerned, mould on the tiles is getting worse Let’s leave the issue of deep tissue, to a trained therapist As knots in our shoulders tighten, thinking of TV we’ve missed We’d get out, But we’re stuck, And there’s an imprint of a plastic duck On my left butt-cheek, Let’s never speak of this again
6.
Here’s a story I like about two hikers, from the human race Under the desert sun, nearly frying When they felt sure they heard a roar, then came face-to-face With a hungry, salivating, mountain lion Quick as a flash, one man took off his backpack And took out some running shoes to replace his hiking boots The other man looked down, and said with a frown “There’s no point even trying, you can’t outrun a lion” The first man stood up, having laced his running shoes And said “I don’t have to outrun a lion, I just have to outrun you” So the moral and the lesson, that this tale can teach us Is forget the competition, just beware of your own species.
7.
If you heard his voice on the radio, you’d be like “That’s familiar but I don’t know him, I don’t know his name” - That’s the perfect kind of fame He’s omnipresent but invisible, a TV deity who knows it all but never makes a scene In any of his scenes Never taken to the stage to milk the applause but he’s been nominated for 2 British Soap Awards, and never won, that’s not how he gets things done We’ve known him since he was a boy and we should acknowledge his loyalty Can you imagine how it feels, being Ian Beale? From 1985, Through all your working life When the only thing you really want to be good at is being Adam Woodyatt Like tight-knit family and good friends it’s sometimes hard to know where Ian Beale starts and Adam Woodyatt ends, it’s enough to drive you round the bend Is Adam just a name he made up in a dream, ‘cos everywhere he goes people call him Ian off Eastenders, there’s no way to end this Through him we can mark our lives, through Beales Wheels and his four wives He’s been there when we’ve been alone on over two thousand episodes We have known him since he was a boy, and we should acknowledge his loyalty
8.
Pick A Team 05:59
To the casual observer, I’m your average, hulking football-playing meathead Size, strength, athleticism all wrapped up with a photogenic bow There was a time when that was all it took, to get attention from cheerleaders These days I play to empty stadiums, there are no cheerleaders left to see me throw And I threw everything I had, to make you see past all the laptops and the glasses As you sat with the cool kids; gamers, mathletes, birdwatchers, historians On the field I was the quarterback, hurling sixty-five yard passes But in school no-one looks at Superman, they’re far more interested in Clark Kent I bought a motorbike, but you didn’t look twice At me when I was leaning on it, looking like a God You wouldn’t talk to me, so rather awkwardly I knew beyond reason, it was time for the even to get odd Pick a team, just pick a team. All you said to me was, pick a team So I got frameless specs, a cardigan, and quoted sections from the work of Tolkien But you laughed behind your hand, when I saw you in the library that day During Science class I stood and recited the Prime Directive, all in Vulcan Wrote “Photosynthesis is Phun” on walls, I even spelled the Fun with a P.H. I pitted Marvel against DC comics, learnt to build 16K ZX Spectrums Sent love letters, poured my heart out to you, exclusively in binary code But your friends called me a faker, a pretender; my advances were rejected I was a nobody, an outsider, so I went back to playing football on my own I sold my motorbike, but you didn’t look twice At me I as retreated into being who I was Pretending to be, in the World Series, Hitting the home run of the season There was simply no more reason to get odd Pick a team, pick a team, all you said to me was, pick a team So one night you came to meet me on the pitch, and in the rain But instead I played a message to you on the Jumbo screen (and I said) “While you host NASA role-play games, oh-so-realistic I pour over Sergei Federov’s ice-hockey statistics In my fantasy world, I embrace my outcast status Collect NFL passing yards facts and interceptions data Alone, I throw footballs through the tyres of a car As alone, you wonder who would win, between Kirk and Picard And while I may not understand cascades from Kinase receptors I know stereotyping is the only thing that’s kept us From seeing similarities between so-called geeks and jocks Where I see Peyton Manning, you see Dr Spock I know how to use technology, but you really understand it Still we’re swimming in the same space on a Venn Diagram Where intelligence and obsession, meets social ineptitude I may not be a Whovian, but there’s no need to be rude I’ve thrown my Nerd t-shirt into the trash But if you can’t see that my knowledge and my craft Is equal to your own, then that’s just daft Go fuck yourself and your knowledge of Schrodinger If that’s success, I don’t wanna be a winner” I picked a team, I picked a team, just like you said, I picked a team You’ve got Berners-Lees, Zuckerbergs, Sinclairs, Teslas don’t forget Bill Gateses You picked your team you won. Well done, congratulations, it’s the end You’re Gordon Gecko with html code, instead of power-braces Still it turns out that you liked me after all, you just had a boyfriend.
9.
There’s a reason to start a revolution, on every news bulletin But though there’s something compelling me, there’s something else telling me to stay in I could chain myself up outside the House of Commons, Or write to my MP But I’ve got to do the weekly shopping, And the house could do with a clean So Maybe Tomorrow I’ll go on the News At Ten Maybe I’ll overthrow the government But someone’s gonna have to feed the fish, And there’s a great TV show that I’ll miss If I start a revolution today, And I don’t own my own red star beret And if free speech is being suppressed, I’ll probably have to go swimming And when old men are getting beaten up in the street I’d look up and help but my iPhone’s losing battery And though dictatorships control the world’s economic plans I can’t miss my appointment with the British Gas man, it’s as tricky as the 13th mission for Apollo So I guess I’m gonna make a difference maybe tomorrow
10.
Emptying the shopping, from her recycled bag She found a tattered envelope, Between the toilet roll and the bleach Inside it was a letter, written in red biro, So she read it, aloud to herself “Dear Stranger, I am sorry, if this comes out all wrong I really promise I don’t mean to offend you, But when you walk in the supermarket, and you pick up one of our shopping baskets, I feel like you are meant for me. I think you’re lovely, my heart is jumpy as I check barcodes on your buy one get one free. Seeing you, always makes my day. And I’m the man who served you today. I put this letter in your bag when I gave you change. I think of you when I’m on my night-shift stacking, I always help you with your packing, I know that you feel the pressure of people behind you in the queue. I understand, I feel that way too. I know I’m sticking my neck out and I love it whenever you choose my checkout But I’m not just the man on the till I’m a chef. Well at least I should be. I did a six-week course in cookery and I’d really like to cook for you. You know my smile. I’ve seen you catch it. You know my name because we wear them on our badges. I just call you supermarket lady. I promise, you won’t miss out. I’ll make sure you can use my ten-percent discount. But if you don’t want to, I will understand. I will see you soon. Anyway, this letter may have been a big mistake. And if you don’t feel the same I get it. But please pretend you never read it. I’ll try and keep my feelings back in, and always help you with your packing. Love Gavin. p.s. you really should get a Nectar card”. And when she’d finished reading, she put the letter on her bookshelf And made the assumption that it was meant for someone else.
11.
Before you were born I played accordion on a roundabout in East Dulwich, and made 47 pence, Your Mum fell asleep on the 176 nightbus, and ended up in a depot in Penge. I pretended to be a fireman come to fix a fridge in Malta. Your Mum had a birthday party that was hotter than the sun, and everyone began to boil, Cos she covered the house in kitchen foil. For my birthday she made me a treasure hunt, starting in bed and spreading all over London. Then one time I got drunk and threw prawns behind my Dad’s fridge. Then forgot and went to Poland for a month In another lifetime, In another lifetime, in another lifetime, in another life Your Mum was on Eastenders as a doctor. And when I dressed as Mr Wobbly Man people watched as I rolled down the stage onto a drum kit,, crashing into the orchestra pit. Your Mum drove all the way to Warsaw in a van. I broke the little finger on my right hand. I bought a hamster to try and impress a girl in Canterbury. And it worked. Your Mum fell off a bike trying to impress a boy she liked, who bought her The Bodyguard on VHS. He wasn’t impressed. And we don’t recommend watching The Bodyguard. I had a hernia operation on my nutsack. Your Mum made costumes for West End shows, cycling there and back, She made animal doorstops and sausage dogs for strangers, I had a byline once in the Hitchin Gazette pages I did magic mushrooms but it was accidental, I thought it was soup, and it made me go mental. Your Mum pierced her belly button, changed her surname, and even piloted a bi-plane. Now we’re running round picking up toys and bits of train track, You slip and trip , we run for plasters, pack your school bag. You sing songs from Frozen in the car, As our friends climb Kilimanjaro. As they samba-dance on Brazilian beaches, We check sell-by dates on your tin of peaches. And it’s exhausting and joyful and brilliant like it should be, and we wouldn’t change it for a single second. But I once mooned my friend underwater in Sydney and your Mum almost played pro-Netball. Before you were born we danced to jazz in Paris clubs and your Mum wrote a song about a dinosaur. Which frustratingly for me was really very good indeed, and I’ve been living in its shadow ever since. I broke my collarbone playing football. That’s why I don’t play professionally. That’s literally the only reason. I was a visionary. Like a young Jan Molby. I swam in wild rivers in my pants, Your mum was a great Irish dancer. Before your kids are born you’ll do far more than this, and create your own stories to tell. But don’t feel like you have to tell us all about it, after all it’s a long way away, such a terribly long way away, it’s in another lifetime.
12.
The sky is so blue, cloudy and grey, As sunshine beats down, so does the rain All our hopes and our dreams and our grass so green, Happiness so full of tragedy I’ve never seen, anyone so beautiful, and so disfigured, or so young or old You broke my heart, then you mended it and died, Then you were born, Too hot and too cold And I want you to live forever. And I hate you so much right now And I love the way you look at me. Even though we’re both blind I’m a high school jock; I’m a mum of two I’m a grandfather with Alzheimer’s; I’m a murderer with a heart of gold I’m a lawyer taking his last case. And I long for your embrace Over this Closing Montage, playing at minute thirty-nine Closing Montage, guaranteed to make you cry, especially when my voice goes high There must be an angel smiling down on me, or a devil, crying in the corner My life is brilliant and my love is pure. My life couldn’t get any worse right now And look, there’s a happy family, As a car crash injures a teenage girl And a kid makes his first catch, of the baseball season Two lovers kissing at a bus stop, reminds me of when I shot a cop Accidentally changing, all our lives for good and bad and good and bad and happy and sad and happy and sad Just in case the lyrics don’t match the picture Something multi-purpose really needs to fit here, over a kiss, something like this... I’ve got the key to your heart, I’ve got the key to your heart If you’ve seen it on a show then I guarantee I wrote it If you think it sounds generic, that’s what I intended

credits

released April 12, 2015

Thanks to:
Vinnie and Mark from My Little Owl Records and The Mini Skips.
MJ Hibbett .Grace Petrie. Tour buddies and mega-legends.
Daniel Kitson. Alun Cochrane. For unwittingly letting me use songs from our shows as these absolutely huge album tracks. I hope I haven’t devalued our brands.
John and Paul for making the album. (Ringo and George were unavailable).
My family and friends. Especially the best ones: Amy, Humph and Bert.

This album was recorded in the summer, in my house on Newbridge Road, Bath.
So thanks to my neighbours too, I guess.

Mastered by Gareth Price-Lewis at Chatterbox Audio

Gavin Osborn – vocals, guitar
John Hare – piano, trumpet and backing vocals
Paul Hodson – bass guitar, backing vocals

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