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About Bloody Time

by Zatopeks

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1.
One Evening 02:27
ONE EVENING adapted from the poem by W. H. Auden (1907-1973) As I walked out one evening I walked down Bristol Street The crowds upon the pavement, they were fields of harvest wheat And down by the brimming river I heard a lover sing Beneath the railway arches ‘Baby, love has no ending’ He said I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you ‘Til China and Africa meet And the river jumps over the mountain And salmon will sing in the street The years shall run like rabbits, girl ‘Cos in my arms I hold The flower of the ages and the first love of the world Oh, but all the clocks in the city They began to whirr and chime ‘Oh let not Time deceive you, son, you cannot conquer time’ I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you ‘Til China and Africa meet And the river jumps over the mountain And salmon will sing in the street I’ll love you ‘til the ocean is folded and hung up to dry... Plunge your hands in water, plunge them in up to the wrist Stare into the basement, mate, and wonder what you’ve missed Oh now look, look in the mirror, baby, look to your distress Life remains a blessing although you cannot bless I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you ‘Til China and Africa meet And the river jumps over the mountain And salmon will sing in the street In headache and in worry, vaguely our lives leak away...
2.
Alert! 02:58
ALERT! No es sueño la vida. ¡Alerta! ¡Alerta! ¡Alerta! Federico García Lorca*, Brooklyn Bridge Nocturne Alert, alert, ‘cos life’s no dream... She sits around smoking Polish cigarettes Playing with her hair and taking bets On the date of the end of the world Stare up at the stars instead But light pollution’s glowing red There’s nothing, baby, nothing up there at all Stuck beneath the New York sky tonight Dig Lorca in the shadows kiss the hangman In the gallows of my mind I stared up at the harbour lights Watched an angel jump from Brooklyn Bridge last night Taking all of us, all of us, all of us down... Alert, alert, ‘cos life’s no dream Hudson-side, New York’s a glowing mess Chain-smoke black market cigarettes In this dive bar on the edge of the world 7-Eleven stop, we sup this piss-weak beer from coffee cups There’s nothing, baby, nothing in there at all Stuck beneath the Brooklyn sky tonight Dig Lorca in the shadows kiss the hangman In the gallows of your mind Alert, alert, ‘cos life’s no dream *Federico García Lorca (1898-1936), Spanish poet and dramatist.
3.
THE ROMANCE OF A BUS STOP IN THE RAIN Nearly 17, sat in Ealing Broadway The pictures on the screen doing nothing for me Don’t know what to do, my heart was just dropping Thinking about something and it ain’t fucking shopping Beneath a star-strangled sky in the Tesco car park The world we found was funny strange and funny ha-ha Cometbus our laureate, isolation the dictum Learning fast that fact can be stranger than fiction Familiarity is just a lie To kill the wonder in our minds The romance of a bus stop in the rain This dye’s leaked from my hair into my brain Nothing’s ever boring, nothing’s plain I’ll never see the world that way again Zone 3 into Soho with the same old faces The Intrepid closed at 11 but those nights were endless Bus home through the streets of our suburban wasteland It’s like the driver’s driving just for us alone The romance of a bus stop in the rain...
4.
Politics 02:32
POLITICS “Fret di satt and sup di dick and hul dien Mul von Politik” (Low German proverb) I watch the darkness from the inside of this under-heated train And see these villages I promised I would never see again My family used to till this soil, well now they lie beneath Catch my reflection and I wonder what the hell they’d make of me Wrought-iron bridges, Kiel Canal, well they’ll outlive us all We’re just shadows trembling softly in the calm before the storm My grandfather was a chess player and an honourable chap And he worked hard and he was wise, with an exquisite taste in hats Oh and he once told me how they’d toast in dialect Just like a king who is on the black square and he knows that he’s in check Drink it up and fill your gut, but politics Son, keep your trap shut All these villages I’ve walked before, the mudflats and the lanes And the greyness and that sea air that does something to your brain I guess I’m just a humanist, humanity’s OK But I cannot keep my mouth shut Man, I wasn’t made that way Drinking in that pub the minute we were almost grown Not grown enough to realise I was no Sly Stallone ‘Cos punk rock wasn’t popular with the local Nazi fools I fled the punches and ended up hiding in the flowers behind the wall Drink it up and fill your gut, but politics Son, keep your trap shut
5.
Acetate 03:21
ACETATE It was just me and you, arguing about Camus* By the fountain in the centre of the town And it was fair to construe from all the looks that we drew That we would never be invited back around It was too close to call, you said the laughter in The Fall Sums up a problem that we never will escape I muttered something vague about morality in The Plague And then you kissed me, I saw everything your way So I commit my voice to acetate Let’s hold that thought forever A love letter sent ten years too late, I know Is still better late than never Now that you’re gone, which implies you’ve moved on To push your rock like Sisyphus up your own hill I hope you kept the absurd and you’re still digging Albert’s words ‘Cos I dug them, I dug you and I always will It was too close to call, I said the laughter in The Fall Sums up a problem that we never will escape You muttered something vague about morality in The Plague And then you kissed me, and then you kissed me So I commit my voice to acetate Let’s hold that thought forever A love letter sent ten years too late, I know Is still better late than never *Albert Camus (1913-1960), French writer and philosopher.
6.
Neu-Isenburg 02:26
NEU-ISENBURG Hanging out beneath a bloodshot moon At a bus stop on a side street in a suburb of a city I know it’s a long, long way ‘til dawn Just a battered-up copy of Catch 22 A six-pack and a Walkman, it’s always seen me through Electric lights roll on and on Last train’s gone, man, the temperatures are dropping This place is one big mall, but there ain’t nobody shopping tonight So all dressed down and nowhere to go I see a mohawk silhouette through the Nightliner window As the band rolls out of town I see the band roll out of town And I’ve seen them rise I’ll watch them fall I wrote their lyrics on the car park wall And I’ve seen you come I’ll watch you go One night in Neu-Isenburg for that gig twelve years ago Forward wind a dozen years or so I find a bus stop on a side street in a suburb of a city I know It’s a long, long time ago I see that battered-up copy of Catch-22 The six-pack and the Walkman, man they always saw me through Electric lights roll on and on... And I’ve seen them rise I’ll watch them fall I wrote their lyrics on the car park wall And I’ve seen you come I watched you go One night in Neu-Isenburg, I fell in love twelve years ago
7.
WAIT FOR THE FALL The Lowlands are aglow with mist and lantern light Rain is crackling in the drains past silhouettes of passersby Amsterdam gripped at the throat by the fog As I whistle two bars of an unwritten song Evening is ringing like laughter across the canal As I wait for the fall This city’s been ghostwritten, and it’s just as well A wiser man than I found here the seven rings of Hell Bikes drifting past black like funeral swans Red lights on the river, the list could go on Cross over the bridges, you’ll feel half indigenous now As you wait for the fall When the clock has stopped for me and I’m in my grave I was never a friend to Jesus, he’ll have one less soul to save Redemption is going for a song Pretty girls are transient, they pass and joke I light a cigarette, let this whole scene go up in smoke I’ll tell you once and I’ll tell you no more Follow your heart, man, that’s the only law And waiter, please cater to flawed human nature tonight As we wait for the fall
8.
Chequerboard 02:07
CHEQUERBOARD Adapted with alterations from the Edward Fitzgerald (1809-1883) translations of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyám (1048-1131), Persian philosopher and polymath. It’s a chequerboard of nights and days Where destiny with men for pieces plays And here and there moves, and mates, and slays And one by one back in the closet lays When I was young I did frequent Doctor and saint for argument Around and around forever more We came and went through the same damn door And lately through the tavern door agape Came stealing through the dusk an angel shape Bearing a casket on his back and he bid me taste He bid me taste and it was - the grape! Some we loved and we loved the best Who nature’s vintage from time has pressed They drank their cup a round or two And one by one they crept to rest So make the most of the time you spend Before you too into dust descend Dust to dust and under dust to lie No wine, no songs, no singing...
9.
Exile Blues 02:57
EXILE BLUES My home was nothing fancy, just a room and a half A worn communal kitchen, a bookcase and a bath In a requisitioned apartment that used to be a ballroom I wandered through the cafes and the milk bars and the nights Threw my words off countless bridges, let them swim against the tide One day they came to get me, took me from my city home I dream it from afar amidst the din of foreign tongues A world of coffee and neon, heavens torn asunder Standing mute on unknown bridges, I watch their rivers and I wonder Will I ever see my city’s streets again? I dissect other people’s stanzas for the girls sat in the crowd They’re like the ones I used to run with but they seem so young and proud I guess I’m just getting older My exile heart still beating here a thousand miles away And all the riches and the prizes just can’t keep these blues away I curse the politicians and their bureaucratic slaves Who separate me from my home with cold Atlantic waves I close my eyes, I see the domes, the courtyards and the bay My old mates tell me ‘welcome back’ I never went away
10.
Baltic Moon 03:01
BALTIC MOON Staring out the window of the bus, I watch the limits fall away Dig the lights of the Volkswerft Stralsund come alive on the blackening sea The name might mean nothing to you, it meant nothing to me But I’ve got Rostock to the south of me, there’s no place that I’d rather be Fishing boats are stranded off the coast, their blinking lights send warnings home There’s a campfire somewhere miles along the beach but I’ll just dig this scene alone Tonight might mean nothing to you, it means something to me I’ve got Poland to the east of me, there’s no place that I’d rather be And our world full of hypocrisy I will cast into the bay The Baltic moon shines down on all that’s lost to me The tide carries it away Things I dug back when I was a kid tonight just chill me to the bone Stars weigh heavy on my awkward heart, the tide is calling me back home The world might mean something to you, it means nothing to me I’ve got darkness straight ahead of me, there’s no place that I’d rather be And the world tonight is lost to me, just a reflection in the bay The Baltic moon shines down on our hypocrisy The tide carries it away
11.
Mechanised 03:09
MECHANISED “Beware the hours of darkness, when the devil himself lights the streetlamps in order to show everything in a false light.” (Nikolai Gogol, Nevsky Prospekt) I’ve got a Mayakovsky* headache going right now Watch a Vasilyevsky** busker singing Tsoi***, I’d sing along, I don’t know how Love, hope and daily bread Or half-baked dreams inside my head The bastard son of chronology The past, the present, the future gave birth to me Under the Neva**** and on to Nevsky***** now Stare through Gogol’s glowing eyes into the shadows and the basements of his town The modern city killed the night, embalmed it in electric light The futurists just wrote the last rites In the Russian night there’s one thing on my mind, it’s on my mind Mechanised, left out on our own Tom, when’s God coming home? We’re enlightened and alone And that’s why I sit here tonight In this cheap basement cafe Where third-hand gold spills from the lanes Nikolai, your devil lights the lamps I’d rather stay inside I saw Bulgakov****** in a dream the other day He told me “manuscripts won’t burn, but dig my glowing pipe tobacco fade to grey” The river runs this whitest night past windows lit by candle light The dreamless spires of industry The ghosts of old St. Pete are haunting me ‘Cos the clocks won’t stop for no-one in this town They run their course like Peter’s horse******* and stamp our sacred days into the ground Dark clouds, horizon’s end, ink spilled from dead writers’ pens Down the smoke-filled basement steps And then the Russian night unfolds beyond the screens Where nothing’s as it seems... __________________________ *Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893-1930), Russian Futurist writer. **Vasilevsky Island in St. Petersburg, Russia. ***Viktor Tsoi (1962-1990), singer from the Russian band Kino. ****Neva River. *****Nevsky Prospekt, the main street in St. Petersburg. ******Mikhail Bulgakov (1891-1940), Russian writer. *******‘The Bronze Horseman’ statue of Peter the Great, which comes to life in the Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837) poem of the same name.
12.
LIFE IS ELSEWHERE In a generic chain hotel room, all dressed up like a bridegroom Doing crosswords torn from cafe copies of The Times Sixteen down: ‘verbose invective’, Oxford Dictionary’s defective Nothing fits, nothing works, nothing’s right They call me Mr Saturday Night So four across says it’s a synonym for lost, ‘misplaced’ When staying home is saving face From the eyes of friends and strangers you’ve been meaning to avoid It took me years ‘til I could see that there’s no us, no them, just we Now this third person makes me feel like royalty Tonight we’re here alone, ‘cos we’re just me I get the feel life is elsewhere tonight So here we sit alone again, East Berlin winter’s kicking in Hot coffee in my hands and all these questions in my heart Self-improvement’s just a compound verb To drag ourselves above the herd Of ragged average shadows on the streets Who mutter as they shuffle to the beat of city madness that - I get the feeling life is elsewhere tonight Beneath these twitching neon signs we carve new Mason-Dixon lines across our minds I get the feeling life is elsewhere tonight For all the pulses in the park who sit around, wait for the darkness to subside Conclusion’s drawing nearer, ‘three words - novel by Kundera* They must be psychic, must be nuts, must be reading my bloody mind Four storeys down and one to go I head out ‘neath the falling snow To join the other strangers in the night Isolated but together, we’ll be right, we’ll be fine... Sunday morning, 4 a.m., room trapped in the window pane And the lamplight ushers in distorted doubles of a nocturne scene Sunday morning 4 a.m., room trapped in the window pane And the lamplight ushers in distorted doubles of a nocturne scene Sunday morning 4 a.m., room trapped in the window pane Teapot squat on the sill contains lukewarm dregs of the night’s remains __________________________ *Milan Kundera (1929-), Czech-French author of the novel ‘Life is Elsewhere’

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Monster Zero Records / It's Alive Records / East Beat Records

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released December 11, 2013

Produced by Simon Baken and Zatopeks
Recorded and mixed by Simon Baken at Excess Studios, Rotterdam
Mastered by Justin Perkins at Mystery Room Mastering, Milwaukee
Artwork by Stefan Tijs

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Zatopeks London, UK

Since forming in 2001, Zatopeks have gained a reputation for well-crafted songs and a crazy live show to match. Their own distinctive blend of 70s punk, rock n' roll, pop-punk, folk gives them an original sound. The songs are also defined by the powerful, poetic and insightful lyrics of singer Will DeNiro, covering subjects such ranging from philosophy, love, death, politics and public transport. ... more

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