Get all 12 Russell Joslin releases available on Bandcamp and save 35%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of O Veisalgia, This Is My Home, Evidence, Streetfight: solo, Streetfight, Poet Queen, Hey Mathematician, Shackles (single), and 4 more.
1. |
Streetfight
04:27
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Walk out of the night shift
The sky, it never powers down
Look out for my ride home
Pull out in the cold night
The concrete is too young to moan
The street convulses down below
The mosque is open, church is closed
Every person is alone
It’s just another streetfight
It’s just another streetfight
The crowd it jerks like a shot
As we pull up to the tube stop
Like a violent ripple in a pool
If I get out, am I a fool?
It’s just another streetfight
As we sail past this storm
I catch my driver’s scared eye
We rate each other’s bravery
‘I see this every Friday night
At home I have a family
What am I supposed to do?
I’m being paid to take you home
Is there a girl or woman there?
I’m not a fucking hero’
It’s just another streetfight
As we sail past this storm
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2. |
Evidence
03:31
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There is life here, it is dawn in the city
And boiler smoke dances so pretty
With the freezing air as people wake
It’s far too early and hard to take
The bells they ring so gallantly
To the bleakest sunrise ever seen
And the sun it battles with the fumes
To only rise and breach the cloud
While you dance through sun and mountains
But you never warn me of your outings
You just send your evidence back
I cannot take this kind of pain
I am just trying not to lose this game
But you just send your evidence back
Staring o’er the fence
Into the field of all my past desires
I feel the warmth, a distant heat
Still beautiful like bales on fire
I see the kids, the sparks they fly
And singe their thrift shop clothes and smiles
You children keep it, have your fun
I turn and wander slow for miles
While you dance through sun and mountains
But you never warn me of your outings
You just send your evidence back
I cannot take this kind of pain
I am just trying not to lose this game
But you just send your evidence back
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3. |
Bridlepath Lane
03:46
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This dark bridlepath lane
No wonder this town is rotten
Look at its veins
No wonder it shudders in pain
Its heart is broken
Look at the pressure points, the bottlenecks
We’re in danger, out in the open
We’re in danger, out in the open
And no protection comes
From the ones we send our wages to
No it only comes from togetherness of me and you
We stand together like opposite shapes
We fit together like noses and napes
Breathe in the puddle mist
All the dirty mouths I’ve kissed
I taste the cough of a stranger so well
Tickled by another man’s beard
Hearing other people’s problems
That don’t sound as bad as my own
Cos I don’t even wanna leave this pub and go home
There's babies and blacks
Whites close to heart attacks
Stone cold crazies and mentally well
We all sit around together in hell
Looking at the pornographic neon
Telling us which kind of alcohol we need to be on
Beware the man who turns 180 degrees
In the middle of the night
Why would he make such a strange decision
If things were going alright?
I've been that man many, many times
I needed to wander the cobbles at night
Beneath the cosy beds and the clear heads
I go from feeling poetic to lying half dead
This dark bridlepath lane
No wonder this town is rotten
Look at its veins
No wonder it shudders in pain
Its heart is broken
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4. |
Queen of Queens
06:06
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My love, she tumbles slowly
On a wave of violent water
She remains the Green Isle’s daughter
But she journeyed with the crowds
And flew across the ocean
About as far as she could travel
Met with knives, cold snow and gravel
Stretched the cord of memory
And stretched the ties of family
Definitions of closeness
Just to keep two lives in play
Such a job to do each day
Re-creations of past lives
Within this harsh and bitter town
Poorly framed was my advice
And I began to let her down
And the ones that we call friends
Oh they are few and far between
And not every one of them
Will be around for our last scene
From the heart of the Clapton Road
All the way down to Bethnal Green
I was so flippant, without a clue
I almost lost my queen of queens
Such a brutal honeymoon
We were entwined as one so soon
I couldn’t bear to lose my solitude
Or work to find the tools
Didn’t realise my character
Had grown to be this cruel
This city's made me hard enoughTo call the meek the fool
But maybe my DNA
My tarnished home life, I could say
Maybe the things I saw and heardGave me this coward’s deck of words
Which pushed her away
My precious dream was almost slain
But she has the fortitude of oxen
Luckily for me
And the ones that we call friends
Oh they are few and far between
And not every one of them
Will be around for our last scene
From the heart of the Clapton Road
All the way down to Bethnal Green
I was so flippant, without a clue
I almost lost my queen of queens
And one day she stepped beside me
On a stage in front of few
Sang the same words as I sang
The same melancholy old tune
So much more than a song
It tied a knot between our souls
Over fire and violent water
We began to search for pearls
In the abscesses of memory
And the dangerous things we'd done
We sang beside each other proudly
In the jail cells and the pubs
And the ones that we call friends
Oh they are few and far between
And not every one of them
Will be around for our last scene
From the heart of the Clapton Road
All the way down to Bethnal Green
I was so flippant, without a clue
I almost lost my queen of queens
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5. |
To the Country
04:06
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To the country, this city’s sinking
Like a corpse covered in coins and gold lace
And they will only ever dish out the tools
To hide away our face
So we’ll build up in the wilderness as a savage race
Return with the toolsTo tempt away those with a little taste
Old soho, eccentricities of art, brick and booze
Now diluted by steelwork
Used to feel like writing songs
Drowning in gutters with John Hurt
To the country with our pockets full of dreams
Fresh earth and fuck work
Oh my old bride, sick of silver pits
As the life and the colour drips
From the alleys where we used to kiss
And we could stay, give ‘em hell each day
Whittle all our little lives away
To the country where we still fit
Now its digital, our better power lies
In correlation of plans, gathering of massesAnd death of lies
When we all are saying no as a chorus
And our empathy is finally tried
To the country and our flags, bibles and guns
They’re gonna burn on fires
Oh your dreams, so much louder than a symphony
Hard and jagged like black sand
But they’re delicate like bubbles
As you carry them round in your hand
Only let the wizards see the colour and shape
Cos they understand
Oh my old bride, sick of silver pits
As the life and the colour drips
From the alleys where we used to kiss
And we could stay, give ‘em hell each day
Whittle all our little lives away
To the country where we still fit
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6. |
This is my Home
02:49
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We live by paradises
Not by do-before-I-die lists
We live off paid-up tourists
And we smile into their eyes
You come for the blue sea
Polite waiters are amusing
You soak up the sunsets
And you bitch about the rain
Waltzing, playing music
All the events and abuses
Left us feeling battered, crooked
Dead behind the eyes
We cracked the piggy open
Spent some money, started hoping
We thought of being noble
But I saw it in their eyes
This is My Home
Down boulevards you wander
With red faces full of wonder
Did we make a blunder
Putting our land up to sell?
When you leave we shake the carpets,
Prepare restaurants, apartments
To make new sets of memories
That you carry back to hell
And they built a brand new city
Round the corner it’s a pity
All the booze is free and safe activities galore
The beaches they are private
Not sure how we will survive it
My town is as it’s always been
And already you seem bored
This is My Home
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7. |
The Spring
06:12
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Just one urination
Upon one blade of grass
One ghastly taste of human
And all will be lost
I stopped to drink the water
But I’d never drunk like this
Only bottled, clear blue liquid
From a factory run by a pig
Who pays his workers like children
Treats his children like kings
Treats his kings like his best friends
And his best friends like rival pigs
Oh all will be lost
Writing our tale, caught up in the spring
South of the border, where purity wins
Hang on for dear life, to the city we sing
Do what you want, just don't touch the water
And while this languid city water
Labours clumsily like puke
Over diseased, lumpy porcelain
From the old rich to the poor youth
Different shades, chemicals and blood
A million ways to poison us
There’s some water in there somewhere
But its energy’s all used up
Writing our tale, caught up in the spring
South of the border, where purity wins
Hang on for dear life, to the city we sing
Do what you want, just don't touch the water
Such a beautiful journey
Over pristine rock and earth
Over tumbling waterfall
Punctured only by beak of bird
To be dropped into a whirlpool
Spun around like a lovers’ dance
During their headiest routine
At the beginning of the sweetest romance
Oh all is not lost
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8. |
Waltz Back Again
06:02
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We had a good run
Drifting around ‘neath the stars
Top floor of Spooner’s, over bonnets of cars
Under pissy bridges to the dark bridlepath
Doin’ our worst, king and queen of these bars
From the back room of The Nag’s Head
Watching through the arch like a sage
As if I’m not on the very same page
But it’s me who drinks alone here
Amid the dark wood and stale beer
And the night, it explodes
In a white hot blur of street lights
Curious women who stand under lights
Looking at me like a victim of drugs
But I love this feeling
And it fits like a glove
But while I want my nights quiet
Oh, I hear sirens
And oh, why deny it?
You are to blame
So before I turn to leave you
Thanks for the good times
Together, we’re too dangerous
For this not to end
Until I am repaired
And I waltz back again
Well, we had a good time
Running around ‘neath the moon
11.30am we’re back on the juice
But it’s really kicking in this time
It’s quicker, it’s cheaper
And it’s way out of line
And if you were a wheel
I’ve spun you a thousand times
I bought your t-shirt
Committed my crimes
When hurting myself was a tragedy
Hurting everybody else was too easy for me
But I’m glad that I danced with you
As fearlessly as I did
Cos God knows now I am scared like a kid
Of your power to clip my wings
Send me down to the bottom of things
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9. |
Deep Blood
06:27
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Well, I dreamt you into life
Before the day that we met
Clearer than any vision I have ever been sent
Except the angels who
Returned to bathe in your deep blood
Dancing around this battered citadel with my love
Alone, ’neath ancient walls
That creak and shatter over us
Past the fallen statues
Waltz in the dregs of the flood
Smoke the ash of angels
Breath out the mist of their deep blood
But you tried to show me the world
You listened ‘til my throat was dry
You tried to dazzle me
When your blood red sunrise gallops towards me
And your gaze, it shelters like the empress tree
I see all your cities rebuilt on words
I follow new children and fledgling birds
And brothers and sisters I saw bleed first
The city elevates itself to temple status
Whispers within our ear ’til we believe our own fuss
Boulevards and gardens mesh together and lose us
You fade in like Haring neon dancing in the black light
Soothe me with all the violence of the best Basquiat
All the hearts and minds
Within this room are your toys
You worry about your age
But no-one else hears that noise
When your blood red sunrise gallops towards me
And your gaze, it shelters like the empress tree
I see all your cities rebuilt on words
I follow new children and fledgling birds
And brothers and sisters I saw bleed first
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