wot_i_wrote

Mickey Mouse came to my door -
I saw him on my Ring.
He said, "Don't worry, mister,
I'm not selling anything."

I said, "I don't believe you!"
He said, "No, you heard me right,
but have you heard the good news
about extended copyright?

Here, I've got some pamphlets
and it's written in each one.
We didn't pay the writers
but they got free hats and gum.

There's aircon in the writers' room;
it keeps them off the streets;
the art's all by MidJourney -
take a few, they're kinda neat!

Best of all, it's work-for-hire:
the rights belong to us!
And with some friends in Congress
we'll still own it when they're dust.

We're gonna make some adverts,
all scripted by AI
and trained on diverse focus groups:
the scores are getting high^*.

Robots drive the cameras;
We won't pay the actors too:
They can whistle for their rate card
and God help them if they sue

'cause we own all the lawyers
and we've paid the judge's fee -
he likes to drive a motorhome;
we give him gas for free."

I said, "Mouse, you've got the wrong guy
unless you want a fight,"
and I showed him my union card
and said, "You see that, right?

There's power in a union,
power in the land.
You're messing with some forces
That you'll never understand."

The mouse said, "Hold on, mister, now,
I didn't mean to rile ya,
You know me, I'm just a clown and
trying' to raise a smile, yeah?"

He grinned at me and in his teeth
I could clearly see the shreds
of a million artists' dreams
And their plot-lines hung in threads.

So I said, "You ain't fooling' me
with soda and saccharine.
You're nothing but a parasite
on all our childhood dreams.

You come in through my TV
where I can't make a sound,
but you're stood on my porch now,
so I can stand my ground.

We've got some bullshit laws that
say the po-lice ain't so strict
and seein' how you're a rodent
ain't no jury would convict.

This right here's my shotgun,
though fuck the NRA,
and I got it set with buckshot
to keep vermin away.

So fuck you, Steamboat Willie,
and this scheme you've run for years."
I stuck the barrel in his mouth
and his brains blew out his ears.

So, now I'm on the run
and I had to leave that house
but I guess at least I'm famous:
I'm the man who killed the mouse.

Most of this came to me when walking to the House of Blues, Anaheim, past the Kingdom of the Rat. I was heading to the open mic at Lost Evenings VI, and performed it there (although that was a slightly earlier draft, about five verses shorter, in which our unreliable narrator was in the NRA).
*: I considered "the marks are getting high" here, for the sweet ambiguity, but in the end it didn't make the cut.

Eins, zwei, drei, vier.
Eins, zwei, drei, vier.

Berlin, 17.
Skinny Lister and some Beans:
man standing on a chair
somewhere deep in Friedrichshain.
Wegbier walks at half past two,
one for me and one for you;
Fresh graffiti in the loo;
Steven got a poke tattoo.
Pfeffi shots and then some more.
Sleeping on a Legion floor.

Eins, zwei, drei, vier.
Eins, zwei, drei, vier.

Berlin, well, well.
Fly back in for Arkells.
Max and Felix seem to gel.
Glitter and a pint of Hells.
Streetlife beckons, hear it say
"Follow me across the Spree,
Down the steps to Cassiopeia,
We can dance the night away."
Stumble back to Friedrichshain;
on the Legion floor again.

Eins, zwei, drei, vier.
Eins, zwei, drei, vier.

Berlin, 22:
Back to do the things we do.
Band of brothers, happy few
Four more evenings to lose.
Here to break this long blockade.
Air lifted, duty paid
Viral nightmares seem to fade
Vital memories are made.
Come together to the task
finally without the mask.

Eins, zwei, drei, vier.
Eins, zwei, drei, vier.

Berlin in the day is cool -
pavement cafes, avenues -
but at night it truly rules,
when the humdrum world unspools.
Then the walls come down again:
Ossi, Wessi, mein Liebchen,
all the women and the men
und alle Dazwischen,
join together, love and beer
Eins, zwei, drei, vier.
Eins, zwei, drei, vier.
Eins, zwei, drei, vier.
Eins, zwei, drei, vier.

We all need a place to sleep,
  to rest our weary bones
  and bruises from the mosh pit:
  it's no time to be alone.
A festival in Camden?
  No field to pitch a tent?
  I could book some sketchy hostel
  or a hotel down in Kent.
But wouldn't it be good if
  someone could find a spot,
  could book a big apartment
  and fill it with us lot?
Yes, might it not be better
  to find yourself a pack
  and head down to the Roundhouse
  with a Legion at your back?

They soon signed up from Glasgow
  Nottingham and Norwich town,
  from Switzerland and Portugal
  the Legion gathered ground.
Liam worked in merch sales
  so he could sort us out:
  we've Legion shirts and hoodies (... and hats, and bumbags, and flags - come find me afterwards)
  and you'll know when we're about.
So, twenty-seventeen, Lost Evenings:
  last minutes, can't be beat,
  sixteen new best buddies
  in a house on Oakley Street.
And yes, it's so much better
  when you've found yourself a pack
  to head down to the Roundhouse
  with a Legion at your back.

Then: YNot, Trees, and Reading
  and a hundred random gigs:
  Punches, Marwood, Felix, Skinny,
  all the others in the mix.
Twenty-eighteen: back to Camden,
  thirty-nine strong we go
  to fill the whole of Legion house
  and a pop-up garden show.
Then mini-tours of Germany,
  and Belgium, Luxembourg:
  flights and trains and hostels
  with our growing mongrel hörde.
And everywhere it's better
  to have yourself a pack,
  to head down to the venue
  with a Legion at your back.

Twenty-nineteen, Boston,
  the Legion hopped the pond.
  New faces, Jameson pancakes
  to seal the common bond.
Then twenty-twenty Evenings -
  new chapters to begin ...
  So FUCK CORONAVIRUS
  and: _next year_, in Berlin.
Which brings us back to Camden:
  survivors, limping home.
  What even is a mosh pit,
  after two years on your own?
Yes, it's always better
  when you've found yourself a pack
  to head down to the Roundhouse
  with a Legion at your back.
So if you need a place to sleep
  to rest your weary bones
  and bruises, from the mosh pit,
  get in touch: you're not alone.

Up on the Chalk Farm Road,

Pint of Blue Moon with an orange slice,
Or the Lagunitas is pretty nice,
And a veggie burger at a decent price:
Lost evenings in the Monarch.

Dan from Norwich raises ghosts,
Jay gets up for some Beans on Toast,
Marwood's singalongs are the most:
Lost evenings in the Monarch

I come in with a broken mind:
Anxious, twitchy, driving blind;
Desperate to somehow find
Lost evenings in the Monarch

[chorus]
Tracey Wise is by the merch,
Safe Gigs badges, plectrum shirts.
This is the Monarch, this is our church;
This is the Monarch, this is our church.

The RPMs are scary young
Barry's very Non Canon
Apologies, I have none.
Apologies, we have none.

Jumping up and down will fuck my knees; my
brain is painting on a different easel;
Who walks in but a massive weasel.
Lost evenings in the Monarch.

Stagger out to catch my train
broken body, working brain
The goddamn Monarch did it again
Lost evenings in the Monarch

[chorus]
Tracey Wise is by the merch,
Safe Gigs badges, plectrum shirts.
This is the Monarch, this is our church;
This is the Monarch, this is our church.

[singalong]
This is the Monarch, this is our church:
This is the Monarch, this is our church:
This is the Monarch, this is our church:
This is the Monarch, this is our church:

[outro]
And the toilets are up - sta - a - airs.

For Mary and for Catherine, on this their wedding day,
a shoddy piece of doggerel, a quick scribble to say
how glad I am to be here, how honoured by the chance
to celebrate your union, with Phoenix Gold and dance.

Marriages are tricky, we don't always get them right
(or wrong, exactly, given how our offspring bring delight).
But love's hope springs eternal, as all of us can see
and Catherine and Mary have now forged a unity.

We Quakers are a funny lot, there's nowt as queer as folk:
my role today is witnessing, it's God as makes the yoke.
Though I'm not much of a Quaker with this pint here in my hand
the still small voice inside me tells me she will understand.

Accepting one another, each her weaknesses and faults.
Her toplessness at parties or her yen for single malts.
An artwork stands as metaphor, for marriage to the max:
a corkscrew and a strawberry, bound up with melted wax.

We all know who's the strawberry, her sweetness not in doubt
her patience and her willingness to understand about
the corkscrew's latest project: the new artwork on the wall;
the mattress on the staircase; who's that dog out in the hall?

The melted wax? is all of us: society of friends,
supporting and embracing both, round all life's dangerous bends,
enfolding this sweet union, this key and harmony,
this drumbeat and this heartsong, this pocket symphony.

Is this parallel too strained, all this from that drunken mess?
but the answer's where we seek it, even innocents confess.
Always speaking truth to power, says that voice in playful dress,
as with glorious affirmation, the universe shouts YES!

In Pink Wood, on my father's land, a tree
stood fifty years (as you will stand, we pray)
and then was chosen, felled, seasoned for me
to make a log, to give to you today.

Ash is the world-tree: roots in separate lands
but branches in the single world above;
converging like this party: joining hands
to celebrate your union and love.

Ash symbolises strength and vital force:
absorbing blows, in sickness and in health,
sustaining, bearing, jointly holding course
through everything, in poverty and wealth,

'til knowledge pass away, 'til tongues be stilled
and prophecies all cease. Three things remain—
faith, hope, and love—and with them you are filled:
they run through you as through this wood runs grain.

A log's not much, so I resolved to find
what lay within: the heart-wood's hidden line.
With saw to cut and sandpaper to grind
I took away the rest, left you this sign.

Serena, Christian: strong and fine and true
and bound together—one formed out of two.

Something in the air, the moist
and yielding opening earth, she sighs,
she stirs awake, cries out for boist'
rous love. The fresh shoots rise
and thrust into the lover's rays,
the buds engorge, the sap flows
rich with winter's stores, the ways
that wordless timeless lust knows
well. Before the saint, before
all saints, before the word, this vast
eternal love, this force more
powerful than death, this fast
yet slow dance drives us all,
brings us to life, to shine,
to seek, to find, to call,
to ask you, be my valentine.

Yes! I do know that I'm rubbish, very poor,
unworthy, unreliable, the rest:
inattentive, barely fit to sweep your floor
and that you deserve far better than my best.
But this is who I am. Aching and stained
with mud and rabbit shit, weary and old,
preoccupied and burdened, conscience strained
with all the world to save and kids to hold
when I'm allowed. No, I can't put you first
as you would like, as we all need and long
for and should have. I know that pain, the burst
of jealousy that bites and burns so strong,
I've lived that life, I've been where you are now
when gratitude is not enough somehow.

We'll raise a glass and give a cheer
for Jonny Leonard now.
For while our eyes may not be clear
we well remember how
he loved this life, its richest taste,
the sweetness and the salt,
and he would think it such a waste
to leave a drop of malt.
So drink and sing and fill your lives
with pleasure, joy, and flavour.
Dear Jonny's gone but love survives
for all of us to savour.