Today Is A Good Day
   
TODAY IS A GOOD DAY
   
   
   
1. TODAY IS A GOOD DAY (Sullivan/Nelson/Dean/White/Gill) 2009
  
 
AThis storm is beautiful
It breaks the breakable
It blows unstoppable
They had claimed victory
They look so stupid now
It's ashes in their mouths

There are new soft people
For the new soft winters
But they cannot touch us
I was taught not to cry
I do not need to cry
I can hold myself inside

So today is a good day
Today is a good day

We love to dress to kill
They gave us uniforms
They say they suit us well
But these rules are not agreed
They're only sophistry
They don't apply to me

So today is a good day
Today is a good day

And the birds of prey love September
Flying like the harbingers of the winter
Swooping down through the azure perfect sky

We're drifting weightless
(We push our trolleys down)
Through the aisles of the Superstore
Like a couple of Stepford Wives
This joke is on us all
We all are laughable
We became what we despise

So today is a good day
Today is a good day
 
   
 
   
2. AUTUMN (Sullivan/Nelson/Dean/White/Gill) 2009
  
   
Across the land the air is still
The leaves are falling golden one by one
Like the paper money falls
Or the soldiers stealing homeward
There is only beginning
And there is beginning of the end
All the peoples are moving
Like the waters of a great flood

And everything is beautiful
Because everything is dying

So we went down to the beach
And built a fire to remember
We took the last bottle of wine
And drank a toast to mortality
And we scrawled across the cold wet sand
With our bare feet 'We Told You So'
And watched the waves steal it away
I caught you smile and I heard you say

Everything is beautiful
Because everything is dying

So who wants to live forever
When these moments will only come the once?
Staring into the embers of the fire...

And everything is beautiful
Only because everything is dying
 
   
 
   
3. PEACE IS ONLY (Sullivan/Nelson/Dean/White/Gill) 2009
  
 
I'm always restless like bubbling water
As all of Nature explodes out of the Earth
You only get a moment in the eye of the storm
You can catch your breath before stumbling on
I can feel the air, I can feel my pulse
And everything burning up on everything else

And where the grass grows through the concrete
It shows me where to follow, it shows a path to follow
I chose this way to follow

On the edge of something, there were you and I
Turning wild circles on a fairground ride
I couldn't hear what you were trying to say
I was falling in love but you were falling away
We arced into the city and back into the night
And now I don't know which is earth and which is the sky

Electricity crackles from pole to pole
From cradle to grave, from soul to soul
And where the grass grows through the concrete
It shows me where to follow, it shows a path to follow
I chose this way to follow

Peace is only for the dead and the dying
 
   
 
   
4. STATES RADIO (Sullivan/Nelson/Dean/White/Gill) 2009
  
 
88.2 is your Saviour station
God hangs like a shadow high above the nation
Like a phantom hurricane

91.6 is Classic Soul
Obama flyer still hanging by the side of the road
Like a long last prayer
And the pawn shops glisten like the porn girl stars
And the cheap imitation armoured cars
Roll up and down past empty bars
Showing re-runs of the glory years
But now the Champion of All Time is getting battered and bruised
The blows come raining down
He's standing there terrified to lose
But he's punch-drunk and he's going down

94.7 is the Weather Channel
Floods and droughts and plagues straight out of the Bible
And the scientists shake their heads
And the air-con unit rattles and dies
The golf course green but the wells are dry
All looking to heaven with anxious eyes
As the vapour trails drift across cloudless skies

96.4 is Classic Rock
Some of the kids that were sent are not coming back
It's like a ritual sacrifice
Pressed uniforms and body-bags
And the smalltown church all decked with flags
And the waiting beds unslept in
By the ghosts all up in Arlington
And as the leaves blow on an autumn day
The funeral gathering kneels to pray
Make it OK, make it OK, God, please, make it OK
101-point-nothing is the shock jocks
Where every week is Hate Week
And we can scream and rage about everything
Then get back in the box that they keep us in
As the great land stretches on
Where the endless hopes are born
All caught in a false dawn that lasts forever
And the great land stretches on
Where the endless dreams are born
All caught in a false dawn that lasts forever
 
   
 
   
5. GOD SAVE ME(Sullivan/Nelson/Dean/White/Gill) 2009
  
 
There's a drug that can make you feel
Like the greatest of the kings and queens
There's a drug that can make you feel
Like the happiest of slaves
There's a shadow that passes across the sun
There's a shadow that passes across my face

God save me from everything I really want
God save me from everything I really feel
God save me from everything I should have said
Crash down the reckless soul

In the desert it's hard to judge distance and time
The lights of town glisten tonight from forty miles away

God save me from everything I really want
God save me from everything I really feel
God save me from everything I should have said
Crash down the reckless soul
 
   
 
   
6. DISAPPEARED (Sullivan/Nelson/Dean/White/Gill) 2009
  
 
We were brothers there, we were running away
In a mountain town on the other side of the world
And I remember the night as clear as day
I wanted to leave but you had to stay
You were high on romance
And on a one-on-one with Fate
You stepped outside just for a moment
For a cigarette and to watch the stars
And that was all you said
And one by one we came outside, shouting for you, shouting for you
The laughter swallowed by the trees, shouting for you

Do the gods take the children, do the gods take the children
That belong to them, that belong to them?
Do the gods take their children, do the gods take their children
Their mark upon you, their mark upon you

The hours turned to days and the days began to stretch
And the shepherds combed the hills
The way they search for straying sheep
Before they're taken by the wolves
And I tried to think about who was there
Put pictures of you everywhere but there were only questions
And the local police shrugged their shoulders
Said the files are all still open, empty pages, nothing more

Do the gods take the children, do the gods take the children
That belong to them, that belong to them?
Do the gods take their children, do the gods take their children
Their mark upon you, their mark upon you

And for a while in hometown street
There were candles lit in every window
But soon it dwindled just to one
And the frantic phone-calls became shorter
And no one speaking English now
And nothing much to tell anyhow
And the wilderness we carry with us
It's like a dream of innocence

And the gods take their children, and the gods take their children
Their mark upon you, their mark upon you
Do the gods take their children, do the gods take their children
I miss you, I miss you
  
   
 
   
7. OCEAN RISING (Sullivan) 2002
  
 
I dream of the ocean and the beautiful skies rolling out to sea
I dream of the ocean and the rip of the tide west of Finnistair
The weight of the water pouring down, holding on to me
I dream of the ocean, rising, rising

I dream of the ocean - through the night the ghosts are sailing still
The James Caird steering east by north-east through the wild Atlantic swell
The men lie soaked and cold beneath the sail on a bed of ballast stone
They hear the boss cry out - I can see them now, the snow-capped peaks of land
But it was the ocean, rising, rising
A forty foot wall of water crashing down
They held their breath and prayed to God in the hour of death
To save them
From the ocean, rising, rising
I dream of the ocean, rising, rising

And so the years they flow and journey's end
The old crew sailed south again
And they buried the boss by the melting snow
In the summer winds on the island
And now the ice it cracks and falls away, driven in the storms
And I'll be there - where the sky touches the sea
At the edge of the ocean where the beautiful world fades into the grey
I dream of the ocean, rising, rising
I dream of the ocean, rising, rising
  
   
 
   
8. MAMBO QUEEN OF THE SANDSTONE CITY (Sullivan/Nelson/Dean/White/Gill) 2009
  
   
I get lost in the maelstrom
I lose concentration
I see fish in the water
But too fast for me
So I go climbing up the long road
That leads out to the backstreets
And in a great walled garden
Is the place that I'm looking for
I've come to see...

The Mambo Queen of the Sandstone city
She sees things that I cannot see
Breaks it down like a true punk rocker
Because nothing is ever what it seems

She's got a puritan angel
She brought back from the Congo
He stands guard over the virgins
He stands watching in my dreams
She sculpts things in the garden
Where there are trees full of wind-chimes
They start ringing when she walks by
Like a wild weather warning

She's the Mambo Queen of the Sandstone city
She reads signs that I cannot see
Breaks it down like a true punk rocker
To splinters of mirror glass at my feet

And I have always loved her
I just didn't realise
It's a world full of curses
That we carry to the grave
But she knows all about that
She takes weight from my shoulders
She breathes fire on the deadwood
She breathes fire in my blood
  
   
 
   
9. LA PUSH (Sullivan/Nelson/Dean/White/Gill) 2009
  
 
IWe live in a bowl made of sky and stars
Perched on the edge of the world
And around the Reservation everyone drives
In pick-ups and beaten-up cars
And the rattles and drums they rise and they fall
The circle unbroken in the village hall
With the flag of the conquerors high on the wall
And the sound of the foghorn on the island

Bury my heart deep in the forest
Perish my body in the cold, cold water
And bless what is left, bless what is left of the tribe

There were fish and there were whales out past the jagged rocks
Sharp like the teeth of the bay
And there are credit cheques cashed at the village store
And junk food and beer for the day
And the rattles and drums they rise and they fall
In the circle unbroken in the village hall
With the flag of the conquerors high on the wall
And the sound of the foghorn on the island

Bury my heart deep in the forest
Perish my body in the cold cold water
And bless what is left, bless what is left of the tribe

Look away, look away, the wolf transforms into a man
Some things should never be seen
And a hundred great birds swoop down across the breakers
And the Spirit Wind blows and things they just happen
So bury my heart deep in the forest
Perish my body in the cold cold water
And bless what is left, bless what is left of the tribe
  
   
 
   
10. ARM YOURSELVES & RUN (Sullivan/Nelson/Dean/White/Gill) 2009
  
 
Written up high on a Belgrade wall in 1991
I saw the words of a prophet in a ten-foot scrawl
Arm yourselves and run

Now the streets are quiet for the closing deals
And the Fimbulwinter days to come
And the beats all sound like the hammering of steel
Arm yourselves and run

You can watch revolutionaries/jihadists come
You can watch them fall
Year zero for another age as another age is born
Each fire must rise and rage
Until it burns itself to ashes in the dawn
In the cold smouldering dawn

So I remember the words on a Belgrade wall from 1991
Some backstreet prophet in a ten-foot scrawl
Arm yourselves and run
  
   
 
   
11. BAD HARVEST (Sullivan/Nelson/Dean/White/Gill) 2009
  
 
I was raised in the years of the harvest
There were fields to the far horizon turning to the sun
I have killed more than I could eat
I live in a house filled with bones
But now the rain doesn't fall
And the wells are running brackish and dry
We stare out across the shrivelling fields
At the pitiless blue of the pitiless sky

Bad harvest is come, we're gathering dust
The scavenger birds are returning
La Muerte parades through the capital streets
Soon they'll be hunting for witches for the burning

I can hear in the far-off distance
The sound of the men making ready to come
I can hear them saddling horses
And the sound of the hounds howling scenting the kill in the air
I can taste fear on my tongue
I can feel fear in my heart
We'll be running and stumbling through the thick dark woods
Through the barren fields through the empty towns

Bad harvest is come and the wars they are lost
Whatever is left will be returning
La Muerte parades through the capital streets
Soon they'll be hunting for witches for the burning

Beneath the towering clouds of rusting red
As the sun bleeds into the horizon
The churches of the new gods are closing their doors
And the hard old gods are vengeance-bent on their returning

The gardens of the ruined towers glow with burning crosses
While the kings are in their counting houses
Counting out their losses
Trust to the stories, my love - it's what they are for
What's happening now has happened before
  
   
 
   
12. NORTH STAR (Sullivan/Nelson/Dean/White/Gill) 2009
  
 
On the strand beneath the towering cliffs,
We said goodbye to the helmsman
The best man I ever sailed with
Across the seven oceans
Steering, gazing out ahead
As the ragged crew were singing
And the wild life and stories told
As the misty dawns were breaking

And the North Star is not a bright star
But a guiding star
It took us over mountains to the East
Through the maze of city streets
To the Sennen Cove shore

Tonight I stood in the empty street
As a heavy snow was falling
I saw a flight of geese passing fast and low just above the rooftops
Godspeed and I thought of him
As they vanished into the white-out
And Godspeed to all of us
Vanishing into the white-out

And the North Star is not a bright star
But helmsman's star
He took us over mountains to the East
Through the maze of city streets
To the Sennen Cove shore