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Ricky Ross - So Long Ago (1984)

01 Something About Ireland
02 A Week In Politics
03 Checkout Girls
04 Don't Look Back
05 Little India
06 Suprised By Joy
07 Some People Last Winter
08 Vision On
09 Love You Like A Son
10 The Germans Are Out Today
11 Chairman Mao's Vacation 


Something About Ireland

Driving through the frocess in the snow
two lines of trees consent to let us go
it tells a story of long ago
another love that won't let go ....it told me

Something about Ireland
something I should know
something about Ireland
something makes me want to go

Standing in the suberbs at midnight
out of the warm of dim TV light
a cold shiver gripped on hearing the distant sound
these dangerous places can turn your head around
thet tell me ....

Families meet families mutter
backdrop radio news stutters
dead body in a dead-end street
men media on while widows meet

In sunlit morn crossing the red sea
two lights laugh from a hillside and beckon me
"mythical light of the ever present hope"
bidding farewell,letting me know, telling me
APRIL 1981


A Week In Politics (Is A Long Time)
(Undiscovered Kingdom)

In a windy street in a bitter morning
a seagull flies into a fire of blazing sun
in the minutes after midnight
when humans let go
only cat and litter move without fear

Undiscovered Kingdom

Underneath an awful stern
above dark dock water
and anchor hangs wounded from a ragged body
in a seething pub at midday
a boy has lost his way
from a hundred empty faces
a hundred gazes glare

Undiscovered Kingdom

Sometimes I touch
sometimes I see
sometimes I feel
sometimes I really know

Undicovered kingdom

In an angry alley
the paints been left to run
from a daubed swastika on an abandoned VW
a cathedral door is opened
a woman wipes away a tear
sunlight streams in
as a priest puts out a brief candle

Undiscovered Kingdom
MARCH 1981

Checkout Girls

Stay with me now
I feel like you're slipping away
there's a song in the air
that no-one is singing today
there are places to go
but somehow I feel we should stay

And the checkout girls sing a a song for the world
that goes round and round
and the anthem of the keys in the tills
makes a soothing sound
and the eyes and the ears aren't on the sky~
they're on the ground

Talk to me now
there are words in your mind worth saying
there's a something happening over here
even though the actors might only be playing
life is the thing
that can't be lost by delaying

Live with me now
I'm ready to hear your crying
risen again like the phoenix the ashes defying
in the silence we know
there's something beyond the dying

And sometimes I'm ready to know
sometimes I'm willing to go
for someone its happening slow
didn't you know
JULY 1979


Don't Look Back

Billy can you see the light?
can you feel the sun
waiting to shine on you?

Oh Billy here comes the night
here comes the walls
ready to fall on you

So don't look back thats all right
don't look back until the morning light
Don't look back to hear the noise
don't look back
until the madness turns to joy

Candy can you feel the pain?
can you feel the same love you had?

Oh candy you're running from the old
running to the new
let me run with you

I stand alone
it happened so long ago
the shape of a skull
it happened so long ago
beneath the cross
it happened so long ago
I saw my reflection
MARCH 1981


Little India

I could be king
you could be queen
I'd give you all the flowers
that are evergreen
but now there are no flowers to be seen
in little India

Memory fades
time slips away
who saw it happen?
who has to pay?
no-one
in little India
ELECTION DAY 1979


Suprised By Joy

There's a million roads that I'd not taken
till you caught me with my eyes closed
looking over my shoulder to see whats behind me
I didn't see the promised land

I fell back into your arms
(its hard when you don't know)
I was so suprised by the joy
(it was all that I could do)
to trust you with my life

As the road goes on the paths get steaper
a light begins to shine
though I pass by and miss the turning
you'd walk with me over the edge

On the road and bound for glory
but I'm a fool when I forget
I'm on the route where travellers seldom meet
its so easy to slip

And fall back into your arms
(its so easy when you know)
but I'm still suprised by the joy
(though it happens all the time)
anytime,anywhere
(when the wind is blowing cold)
when there's nothing left at all
(its all that I can do)
to trust him with your life
JUNE 1978


Some People Last Winter

She looked so far away
when she stood at our door
she sat frightened and frozen
and covered her eyes

But when you hide
no-one knows you deep inside
but when you cry
we can love you like a child

She started to tell me
what I tried to ignore
she acted her nightmare
and I suddenly saw

Its so easy to cover
its so easy to smile
but some people last winter
we're really broken inside

In the covering darkness
he turned from taking his life
one night in a thousand
we never knew why

His jokes are the fortress
for the hollow heart
it lets him hear the anger
but he won't feel the good
AUGUST 1981


Vision On 

Hold my hand in your hand
let my thoughts be your thought
I want to find the fire upon my face

To the centre to the heart
retreat ,retreat they said
within the core the voice replied

I will folow
I will follow
I will follow
Vision on

Mind games , war games
relationships and battleships
nothing else here but everybody else

You can live without the outside
but not without the insight
but never live without the voice within
MARCH 1981


Love You Like A Son

Early in the evening there's a sun in the sky
everybody's happy but there's a tear in your eye
the times I never wondered
the times I never knew
I'd live them all again
if I could live them all for you

And when the walls are broken
and when they're on your back
when its scapegoats that they're after
and they know you'll attack
just remember,boy in the silence of the night
something I never told you

I love you like a son

Later in the evening in the light of the moon
everyones found lovers ,its empty in the room
when polite conversation
goes screaming out the door
and understanding people
leave you lying on the floor

They ask me why
they ask me why
analyse it, analyse it
they ask me why
they ask me why
but don't tell
just don't say
APRIL 1981


The Germans Are Out Today

Its dark in the car
we're deep in the garden of England
its dark in the car
they're all asleep but you and me
there's time to talk
we're only on holiday
and I think you said this to me

The Germans are out today
they won the war you know
I didn't look for salvation
but,boy I found it there
in and RAF bunkhouse
I borrowed a bible
the fellow who owned it
wanted it shared

Outside a locked door
in front of a dusty store
outside a locked door
we talked through the drunken singing in the rain
there's no time talk
not while we're standing here
but even now I thought I heard you say

Hey it don't last forever
hey were we there together
its so dark in this prism life
take back the years
hold back the tears
on all of these days
that might not have been there at all
AUGUST 1982


Chairman Mao's Vacation

They painted us up
and shouted us down
they wanted us to be
just a face in the crowd
and all the time they never saw
the people we are
in a world of fast cars

every time you pass
you try not to laugh at me
you don't want to love me out sympathy
I guess that you admire me
for my humility
in a world of fast cars

We don't hear the jokes
that eveyone else hears
when they walk behind us
on our holidays
we just don't fit into deckchairs
and take walks along the pier

Even the lonely people
deal us out
think I'll walk down town
and sit on a roundabout
and drivers will keep driving
cos' they're too polite to shout
"hey look at that fat boy"
in a world of fast cars