(Faragher/ Stevenson)

No plan survives contact with the enemy
We put in the wires, now here comes the telemetry
Who chose the measures by which we judge this machine?
There go the icecaps, but at least we got a couple of submarines

Is this the sum total of all that we dreamt?
Well come ring the changes
Let’s have a statement of intent.
Our engine should be the whole of the sky
Cos digging that dirt, digging that dirt, digging that dirt’s
…a century out of time

Keep calm and carry on, you said that we can stay the same
As the engines run down, as the feedback loops around again
Keeping the status quo is the state of the art
There go the icecaps but at least we got to fill up the shopping cart

Is this the sum total of all that we dreamt?
Come ring the changes
Let’s have a statement of intent.
Our engine should be the whole of the sky
Cos digging that dirt, digging that dirt, digging that dirt’s
…a century out of time

Eventually industry will no longer find in Europe the resources to satisfy its prodigious expansion. Future generations after the coal mines have been exhausted will have recourse to the sun for heat and energy. The sun will be the fuel of the future.

I’m watching those blades, I’m watching those blades turning round
While you keep your men, your men dying underground
I’m watching those rays, watching those rays coming down
A charge will be passed, a change will be found
A charge will be passed, a change will be found

(Faragher/ Stevenson)

Well you’re not stupid enough to get bogged down in questions of right or wrong
I guess it’s hard to hear the screams when your pay-check asks for deafness?
And you’ve no time for contradiction, no, you were just obeying orders!
And you feel sorry for all those left behind, but man, we’ve got to cut some corners

Well love’s not something you put in a box
The nation state, a job or the ticking of those clocks
Compassion’s not your annual purchase of The Big Issue
If you’re citizen, you’re state, so the problem stays with you….

Your family’s story is built upon lie
And the more the money comes in the more it’s magnified
And your children begin to ask you about the beating of that drum
So you tell them the story you learnt at their age, the story you’ve become

The nation state, a job, the ticking of those clocks
Don’t want to tell it, don’t want to tell it, don’t want to sell it, no
But here we go all the same:
So kids, love is something you put in a box
Your nation state, your job and the ticking of those clocks
Compassion is your annual purchase of The Big Issue
You’re citizen, they’re state, it’s got nothing to do you….

(Faragher/ Stevenson)

Part 1: First True God in the Sky

You’ve never seen anything like it
Your big book just got a rewrite
Do you want to know a secret?
This is gonna be bigger than Jesus

Seven miles a second chance grew
To build a God we can all sign up to
Growing pains are the reward for growing
You can’t un-plant the seeds your sowing

Here comes the new horizon
Hold on tight, keep your arms strong

Sagan’s dot behind you
Now it’s gone
Yes it’s gone
Bright black night ahead
So pick a star
A star or two to call a sun

So you put our best foot forward
Across the line that we all border
First shot in the war to kill the atlas
And one new star against the blackness

Thin steel skin that keeps you breathing
Dividing lines that really mean something
From Mercury to the Dark Side of the Moon
Now you know why Gods abhor a vacuum

Well, here comes the new horizon
Now you know where you belong

Sagan’s dot behind you
Now it’s gone
Yes it’s gone
Bright black night ahead
So pick a star
A star or two to call a sun

Part 2: Fear of Drowning

Rising with the sunshine
Last time I will see this shore
Got to catch the first tide
See it all

Wondrous floating machine
Carry me, until I’m nobody
I’ve given myself
To the sea

My eyes to the world
And my back to the wind
My mind open wide
But terrified
Something stirred in the machinery
I can no longer claim
To be part of the scenery

I am the medium and the message
I act on our intent to become
Something more than history
Starting the long run

Three billion letters back to base
And my descendants will see
How an ocean full of fear
Listened to me

With our eyes to the world
And our backs to the wind
And our minds open wide
Always terrified
Something stirs in the machinery
We’ll never be
Part of the scenery

With our eyes to the world
And our backs to the wind
And our minds open wide
Always terrified
Something always stirs in the machinery
Cos we’ll never be
Part of the scenery

Part 3: Long Letter Home

Walk with me
Onto the beach
Under alien skies
Now do you believe
That a long time ago
And long way away
A brilliant people
Got stuck in their ways?
Though they’d crossed the oceans
Though they’d touched the stars
Somehow they got stuck in their cars
Trapped on the freeway
So ironically named
While chattering classes
Belittled and blamed
And told them their dreams
Could never be claimed

So a girl built a rocket
And a boy built a raft
And together they loved
And together they laughed
They said, ‘such dirty gravity
Is all in the mind’
And these new Gods were challenged
And shown to be blind
So when you look at that sky
And when you look at those suns
Spare a thought for the hearts where it’s always begun
And when you feel your blood flowing
And possibilities rise
Look in the mirror, look in those eyes
They’re still sending…
…that long letter
Home.

(Faragher/ Stevenson)

They buy security over happiness
And they get it at that price
So obedient to their cynicism
Nothing changes so why roll the dice?

That voice, so quiet deep down inside of you
Listen, listen
The signal’s weak but it’s getting through
Listen, listen

You’ll hear it in the kindness of strangers
In time and a word you can’t say
There’s light in the heart of the darkness
Not what you own, what you make

Sun rise high, high in the sky today
And show us the shadows we miss
I’ve found something, something bigger than me
And I dedicate my life to this

Hear it in the kindness of strangers
In time and a word you can’t say
There’s light in the heart of the darkness
Not what you own, what you make

If you open your eyes
You soon realise
This world can’t be ours
Keep a dead brain still dreaming
Or open our beating hearts?

There’s light in the heart of the darkness…

(Faragher/ Stevenson)

The zero-sum is here again
The black swan’s on the loose
You’re the one to save us
So how can we refuse?

Will reality bend and break
Now you claim your right of way?
Well the tail can wag the dog a while
But the dog will have his day

I guess that things, things make the most noise
Just before they die
Just before they die
(I guess that)
Things, things make the most noise
Just before they die
Just before they die

You say it’s not our fault
Though it could be soon
We can choose any colour that we like
If it’s red, white or blue

And complexity’s conspiracy
Simplicity has come
You say diplomacy is best conducted
Down the barrel of a gun

Because you know things, things make the most noise
Just before they die
Just before they die
(You know that)
Things, things make the most noise
Just before they die
Just before they die

The cause of our sickness you can diagnose
The cure for our illness is a stronger dose

Empires fail
Republics cannot last
If there’s regression to the mean
If there’s regression to the past
Shout it all you want to
Shout it till we’re cruel
Here’s something you might think about
(Yeah) I learnt it back in school…

It’s just that things, things make the most noise
Just before they die
Just before they die
(Don’t you know that)
Things, things make the most noise
Just before they die
Just before they die
Before the die…

When you compete with the truth you lose
Hear the screams building up inside of you…

…making the most noise
Just before you die
Just before you die
(Don’t you know that’s you…)
…making the most noise
Just before you die
Just before you die
Goodbye, goodbye
Goodbye, goodbye

(Faragher / Stevenson)

I got this cough before the boy was born
A keepsake from when we kept the nations warm
Now this place is one long sunset
So pass me another cigarette

Everyone wanted to be one of the 28
We marched to the church and a different State
Today we laid the last trombone to rest
So pass me another cigarette

Trapped between
The old world and the new
Trapped between
The facts and the truth
Trapped between
The City and the State
Trapped between
The flood and the floodgate
Trapped between
The pride and the fall
Trapped between
The show and the curtain call

Who we were you can’t understand
A man knew his place, but the place knew the man
But this town has no memory, yeah the town forgets
So just pass me another cigarette

We got trapped between
The old world and the new
Trapped between
The facts and the truth
Trapped between
The City and the State
Trapped between
The flood and the floodgate
Trapped between
History and change
Trapped between
Nostalgia and rage

Here come those tranquiliser lies
That everything was perfect when we worked down the mines
Or that the jobs that are left won’t soon be automated
While teachers are trained to stop our kids getting too creative

Sell me your dream of more of the same
And ask me if I want to leave or remain
Travel, they say, is fatal to prejudice
But if you stick us in a box then what you get is this

We got trapped between
The old world and the new
Trapped between
The facts and the truth
Trapped between
The City and the State
Trapped between
The flood and the floodgate
Trapped between
History and change
Trapped between
Nostalgia and rage

Well I’m not going to do it anymore
Not going to fight this uncivil war
’Cos it’s the complex harmony I most recollect
So this is gonna be my last cigarette

Won’t get trapped between
The old world and the new
Trapped between
The facts and the truth
Trapped between
The City and the State
Trapped between
The flood and the floodgate
Trapped between
History and change
Trapped between
Nostalgia and rage

(Ross/ Stevenson)

So we gave up dancing to this tune
The promised land became the moon
But maybe one for the road?
So we sleepwalk lonely to the fall
No-one claps the curtain call
Or comes to take us home

In the dirty old engine
How we do love you
Light of our lives
We can’t let you go
You power our dreams
With your dirty old cough
Hey merry-go-round
We scream, can’t get off
Off the dirty old engine

The tune still ringing in our ears
A lonely blues we played for years
We all know the words
We really thought we’d got it made
On the right side of the game
But we were split into thirds

By the dirty old engine
How we do love you
Light of our lives
We can’t let you go
You power our dreams
With your dirty old cough
Hey merry-go-round
We scream, can’t get off
Off the dirty old engine

And if I tell you I don’t need you no more
Will you fill up the sky?
Will you blacken the shore?

Dirty old engine
How we do love you
Light of our lives
We can’t let you go
You power our dreams
With your dirty old cough
Hey merry-go-round
We scream, can’t get off
Off the dirty old engine