1. |
Playtime is Over
04:03
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So begins life on stepping stones
Playtime is over
Show us you can remember
This score determines everything about your future
No epiphanies, no snapping points, no reference
No mistakes to learn from, no breakthroughs
How could you choose from there?
Testing scores, your attributes and flaws
Your solitary source of guidance
Through a vortex of uncertainty
This is no time for childish preference
This is no time for talk of dreams
Real people don't make documentaries
Look at this Powerpoint
Why aren't you taking this seriously?
Are you making fun of me?
=3(Stress yourself ill)
It's a dumb way to die, but die we will
=2(Something of value
Choose something of reputation
Don't waste your figures on the stuff of conversation
The stuff of fads [Cut the right wire]
You must understand... [Cut the right wire])
No pressure
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2. |
Ambition
04:06
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People always asked you that
Thinking themselves helpful
As if there was some insight
You could never have come to alone
[The problem was] there was no answer
[That never stopped] the question getting asked
[What do you want?] What do you want to do?
Well clearly you were supposed to know
Clearly there should be some path to follow
A calling to which to aspire
A burning desire
Already failing at this basic stage of life
A decision must be made so you made a guess
Nominate your life before you're even dressed
That's when all the pretending starts
What else can you do? We're all faking from then on
Learn to make decisions
And you learn to speak with authority, conviction
Even when your knees went weak
No one knows what they're talking about
Just say it like you mean it and you won't get found out
Best get used to that situation now
You best get used to that situation now
And that's what we do to each other
Obsessed by notions of dreams and ambition
Success and freedom
Nobody wants to hear from an average person
Our interests are reserved for
Heroes and villains
Geniuses and catastrophes
So at age 17, where do you fit into all this?
Well you become the sum of your goals
Then you become the sum of your achievements
Then you become your missed opportunities
Then you become the sum of your regrets
And then you pass it all onto the next
[It's ok]
There's more to you than your ambition
There's more to you than four sides of paper
It's meaningless
People will love you
=2(And not for) your success
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3. |
Kids Never Call
03:37
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Are you making any money from this?
And what are you planning to do with this?
=2(Don't you think...)
=2(You ought to be...)
The kids never call
They don't want to hear it all
Someone they used to know has now got it all
They've been making a killing in the city
You wouldn't want to find yourself 50
=2(Insecure)
What does he do for a living?
And what do his parents do?
=2(Have you considered...)
We just want the best for you
We just want the best from you
The kids never call
They don't want to hear it all
Someone they used to know has now got it all
They've been making a killing in the city
Son you wouldn't want to find yourself 50
=2(Insecure)
The kids never call
And it's not surprising
They don't want to hear it all
The endless namedropping
Of that kid they used to know who's now got it all
They've been making a killing in the city
Sweetie you wouldn't want to find yourself 60
=2(Insecure)
Are you making any money from this?
And what are you planning to do with this?
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4. |
Mayflies
04:04
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Reminding, underling, your aimless life
By now you should feel less dissatisfied
The people who sell novelty wedding invites
Must go to bed laughing
We throw our savings at it
All this disposable shit
For a dream
A traditional dream with strict policies
Before you start a family
Must gather everyone you rarely ever see
In a rented room
In rented clothes
In rented cars
Oh, nothing here is ours
Reminding, underling, your aimless life
By now you should feel less dissatisfied
Sometimes a happy couple's the last thing you want to see
With a camera in the hands of a mercenary
Telling you to smile harder
It's not everyone's happy day
Arrived in stifling glossy clothes
Then flung them to the ground
You lost count of the refills
Every time you sat down
You were dragged back to the pit
School disco lighting and tacky playlist hits
Nothing can make us feel alone quite like
A room full of people sharing their positives
Reminding, underling, your aimless life
By now you should feel less dissatisfied
Reminding, time is running out
This tangling should be straight by now
By now you should feel less dissatisfied
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5. |
Saints
03:20
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Saw the world in 16:9
All romance and disasters
Careless and worrying all the time
Your quirks became concerns
They grew and grew
Anxiety soaked you through and through
It was ravaging, irrational as an allergy
=2(I'll be twitching the trigger when you get back home
I'll be twitching the trigger
How could you do this?
How could you do this?
How could you?)
A shock, a jolt of news that never leaves
It'll never leave
Stays with you forever
=2(I'll be twitching the trigger when you get back home
I'll be twitching the trigger
How could you do this?
How could you do this?
How could you?)
=2(How could you do this?)
How could you?
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6. |
Waiting to Hear Back
02:17
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Waiting to hear back
Building the pressure up
Asking for reports back
Offering their encouragement
Chaining whole seasons
Online all day and night
Scanning for openings
Never felt less alive
You feel their judgement in each supportive word
Can we talk about something else?
Desperate for something you barely even wanted
You'd move to any town
Consider any scraps now
You're desperate for something you barely even wanted
Is this a tunnel or a cave?
From here they'd look the same
=2(Desperate for something you barely even wanted)
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7. |
Trying to Sleep
03:31
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8. |
Museum
04:49
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A list of hobbies on a profile
The things you used to do in your spare time
When almost all the time was spare
Now they live beneath your bed
And the gaps between your furniture are teeming with treasured things
You have no time for
They're the children that you never see
So many of our little joys got lost
They got buried in dust
But we kept them as mementos
Proof there's more to us than just
=2(Working and drinking and sleeping)
Or at least there was
[Now pastime] is rest time
Our pastime is rest time
Where we =2(just want to switch) off
=2(Our havens for our beds
Our creations for some rest
Engagement for escape)
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9. |
The Fear is Back
04:52
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Hormone rage, blood flow
All your veins on show
=2(This is a new low)
Conversation stops
Scamper for rooftops
=2(This is a new low)
Where there's only room for one thought
The constant guard, trained never to blink
Always be ready with feline reflexes
And the hard-set in-built allergy
Water where it shouldn't be
Dimly-lit emergency
In-swarming old enemy
Steamrolling, bulldozing, surging, humiliating
Reducing your view to red-flag maps
Oh, monsters are patient
And when a flood comes
We all just stand and watch it come
And count the wreckage once it's gone
Frozen obedient
Soaked in headlight stun
=2(This is a new low)
The fear is back
And you feel foolish for thinking yourself victorious
Well now it seems inevitable as the tide
And all those steady days
They were just a brief respite
A luckless exchange
The city walls break
One moment of weakness and it all disintegrates
And among the ruins you lie curled up in time-killing comforts
Breathing =3(give me one more day) of escape
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10. |
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Look at us, we're ridiculous
Knotting ourselves in tribulations
Warriors of the trivial
Only comfortable playing the victim
Terrified of failure, we turn our lives into a terrible TV drama
The things that made us worry two years ago
What a waste of energy that was
And in the screen-light at night
All those paranoias prey upon our minds
Everybody else is doing so well
Am I the only one standing still?
It's too easy to do tortured
It's too easy to self-destruct
Be the one erratic with anxiety
Their own worst enemy
A breakup
A loss
A mistake
A disaster
A sickness
A brutal manipulation
A betrayal
A regret
An accident
An argument
A traumatic event
We all carry horrors, no matter how calm we appear
And we only collect more and more by the year
And some days it will all get the best of you
And people will all still expect you to just carry on
Like you do when it's them
But don't fan that fire forever
Because real heroes try to get their shit together
Again and again
As many times as it takes
As many times as their lives might break
As many times as it takes
[As long as you're still alive
There is still time]
Be brave!
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Alex Manchester, UK
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