She’s black lace, on sweat, she sucks you in like a cigarette | Two birds, one stone, she’ll blow your mind then free your soul and | You won’t win so don’t try, sweet smooth thieves and the cocaine lies | She’s a dirty little rock’n’roll | She’ll have you on your knees and blow your self-control away | Don’t you wanna be a sinner like me | I don’t wanna be the footnote on the back page of your history | When I saw her in the sky you know she looked peaceful to me | But then I caught her with a hammer and she brought the whole thing to its knees | Well I know that you like my style yeah | I know that you like my shiny shoes | The type of girl that goes out for the day | And leaves you drinking in the hotel room now | She got things she knows you want | She’ll twist your mind she’s an atom bomb | Just like a drug that takes its hold | It brings you to your knees and blows your self-control away | Don’t you wanna be a sinner like me | I don’t wanna be the footnote on the back page of your history | When I saw her in the sky you know she looked peaceful to me | But then I caught her with a hammer and she brought the whole thing to its knees | Go rock’n’rollin’ it’s a Saturday night | You gotta lose yourself ‘cause the feeling’s alright | Go swing those hips and get it into the groove | Me my friends and Jack only play here to watch your ass move | The strangest sensations come over me | So come and join in the wonder of insanity | The swinging of her hips it makes my heart go boom | With the rock n roll infusions that could fill a room | I don’t wanna be a pauper I wanna be me | If that means I’m rock’n’rollin’ then that’s fine by me | But the clown inside my heads keeps on spending my cash | I’ve asked several times and he wont give it back | I said hey you! Why do you do the things you do | And don’t you! Have anything better to do | Than to come around here and twist my already crazy mind yeah | Well there she goes just a strutting her stuff | Seductive eyes and body oh so slender | I was jamming just a mindin’ my business | And couldn’t help but notice her splendour | She got style she got class she knows just what to say | More entertaining than TV she’s a dirty little rock’n’roll cabaret | I know what I want and I want what I need | There’s a million different voices singing ‘give in to me’ | She standing there a teasin’ standing out a the pack | A pretty thing like you shouldn’t dance at the back | Won’t you come on over | She said ‘we’ll see’ | I’ll let you meet my mother and I’ll take you to tea | But then the clown inside my head started smashing a chair | And I think she must a heard him ‘cause she looked quite scared | What a square | Messed up hair | From the stress | I digress | Welcome to the show | And have you got the rocks to try to stop the rock’n’roll | Just Another Rock n Roll Hootenanny

Rock’n’Roll Hootenanny

No point in talkin’, I’m not listenin’, sittin’ at home | I’m overcome with boredom and it’s startin’ to show | Kick start my engine and I’m ready to roll | Gotta get out there, get my wheels on the road instead of | Sittin’ back and kickin’ shoes and drinkin’ moonshine | I re-hydrate my whistle can I count by the time | Or work for cash just like a dog and get barked around | For some old bitch that needs to put her feet on the ground | Well that’s ok, I feel fine, there’s no point in talkin’ and wastin’ more time | I’m going out for the day, chasing sunshine | I put the key in the ignition give a turn accelerate and then | Flying by like a satellite with the momentum of a speeding train | But the reserve tank hits you right in the face, slows you down | And takes you outta the game | As I head out on that highway | Im pushin’ that fuckin’ thing | There ain’t no station for miles around | To miss me wouldn’t be to blink I got reserve tank blues | Like a deer in the headlights I just don’t know which direction to go | Everybody’s moving faster than me and my angers getting’ ripe to explode | As I head out on that highway | Im pushin’ that fuckin’ thing | There ain’t no station for miles around | To miss me wouldn’t be to blink… I got reserve tank blues | I don’t care what you think of me, hey I got soul | Put the fist to the paint and its like Harvey Dent | Yeah I lose control | Don’t worry none baby I’ll get us home, thumbing for a ride but everybody is made of stone | Is it my imagination, there’s gotta be a station, somewhere here you’d think | Its turning dark, will the engine start and put me out my misery | Cause’ she’s sat in the back with the head in the hat and I can’t get back on track | I’m a fool to begin, shoulda checked what a sin now look at the state I’m in | Sit down like a clown with the radio loud and I am not amused | Cause’ now I’m just sat here with my reserve tank blues

Reserve Tank Blues

I feel like I’ve been here before | The sirens a screaming blood and ash upon the floor | Well I can’t break or walk away from the scene | You know I’m dusting for prints to find that everything’s clean | There ain’t no suspects and I’m looking too deep | Cause’ there must be a clue in a city that never sleeps | At 3:15 I left the murder scene | To tail some smoking punk with twitching hands upon the wheel | Well I can’t break or walk away from the scene | You know I’m dusting for prints to find that everything’s clean | There ain’t no suspects and I’m looking too deep | Cause’ there must be a clue in a city that never sleeps | He looks at me with a shake of the fist | No room for mistakes in a place like this | Foot to the floor he’s up for fun | Get the blue light flashin’ the chase has begun | Well I can’t break or walk away from the scene | You know I’m dusting for prints to find that everything’s clean | There ain’t no suspects and I’m looking too deep | Cause’ there must be a clue in a city that never sleeps | I bring him down but he ain’t the man | I’ll prove he is anyway I can | Cause’ back at the scene there’s ash on the floor | And I’ll sneak in and place his prints on the door | When there’s pressure from the chief I’m an instigator | I’m not here to be a moral deliberator | No point in wallowin’ in my frustration | I’m just here for the investigations

Investigations

I don’t want your time in the chair of control | It would only echo on my soul | I don’t have your respect and your breaking the bind | But something tells it’ll be alright | Monday morning and a week of insults to slap right in the face | Well I’m sorry I forgot you’re the one who never ever makes mistakes | Well that’s the thing about you | Yeah the thing about you (doesn’t matter what you do) | You leave me confused reading yesterdays news (she only comes in shades of blue) | Well that’s the thing about you | Yeah the thing about you (doesn’t matter how you try) | You leave me confused reading yesterdays news (everything will be alright) | I’m walking in reverse mode | The cities lights trick overload | The mind control of pale moonlight, tomorrow the sun will rise | And everything will be alright | I wake in the morning, your there laying next to me | Its another day and the sun is shining bright | Am I still in the shit, a friend, or is it made to be | I’ll take from the silence that I am still the enemy | Something tells me it’ll be alright | Something tells me it’ll be okTell me it’ll be alright, there’s no reason to be afraid | Exaggeration in the need to re-act and the monologue of what’s been said | Irritation in the form of escape left me sleeping in a flower bed | Association with the waving of arms has given me the cause for concern | And confirmation that there’s flies on the wall in a car that keeps on missing a turn | Well that’s the thing about you | Yeah the thing about you (doesn’t matter what you do) | You leave me confused reading yesterdays news (she only comes in shades of blue) | Well that’s the thing about you | Yeah the thing about you (doesn’t matter how you try) | You leave me confused reading yesterdays news (everything will be alright)

The Thing About You

Throw your dreams into the sky | Like the winged goddess Ishtar you gotta get high | The human race rediscovery vision | Created by God after celestial collision | Oh I’m tripping Sumerian | Oh I’m tripping Sumerian | Once a hurtling rock left torn apart | Born from the ashes of Tiamat | It’s the craft of Adam and genesis yet the media excludes it from the TV set | A test tube image of the Annunaki | Oh won’t you come back to earth and set us free | Whole nations are left paranoid | Surveyed from the skies by the ones called androids | Well we’re not a fluke | That means jack shit | Go read the deciphered pages of Zacheria Sitch | They showed Sumer began chronicle earth | From the heavens they came and gave its birth | Oh I’m tripping Sumerian | Oh I’m tripping Sumerian | Well the tower of Babel couldn’t reach their land | Washed from the pages by war and storming sand | And I’m a smoker of green and molasses | They were masters of the classes so it blows the mind | The ancient astronauts are no longer seen | Oh won’t you come back to earth and set us free | Nibiru’s in thirty-six-hundred year cycle | And I’m left tripping till its arrival

Trip In Sumerian

Every time winter comes around | I feel that cold rain coming down | And in my head I sit and think about the time | That you looked into my eyes | And the regret I felt inside | To live my life not being | Who I am | Well in the city, she sleeps tonight | Somewhere out there, out of sight | Behind the mask that’s painted velveteen white | Oh lord take me home | I need some time on my own | ‘Cause I can’t sleep | These city streets are bleeding me | Come on and take me home | Well in my head there sits a clown | And all he does is joke about | What he thinks I should be doing with myself | And by the river, where we sat | And talked about those plans we had | And you told me ain’t it good to be free | Well I don’t care for apologies | And it don’t matter that much to me | ‘Cause in the end I’m sitting where I want to be | Oh lord take me home | I need some time on my own | ‘Cause I can’t sleep | These city streets are bleeding me | Come on and take me home | Oh take me home | Oh take me home | Oh take me home | Oh wont you | Oh wont you take me home | Take me home

Take Me Home

From the shadows she come unscratched from clouds of old and golden | While I evade the eyes of rage and all that are now the fallen | For those who knew would surely seize the love, the promise she came for | And in the vengeance, the hate, the sorrow, the oath, the burden that I have bore | So we escape to our hiding place | the quiet retreat where we show our face | My heart it longs for your garden gates | Among the trees where my memories of your are safe | From watchful eyes we feel the strain | I’ll break my back and I’ll see you again | Through burning rain I return to deed where the evil applaud destruction | While she washes the sin away hidden from the knowing instruction | The eyes of rage have grown suspicious in the reading of my soul | On wings she comes and we escape for this allegiance cannot be told | She takes me to our hiding place | The quiet escape where we show our face | And walk among the garden gates | Where she tells me that she will not let me return | To watch me burn or denounce her faith | She breaks my wings and flies away | Now in the fallen | I was an angel’s fool | She’s smoke in the mirrors | And I didn’t have a clue | Yeah I had nada | You left me here it’s worse than hell | You broke my wings to save yourself | You don’t return and I can forget | But if you do I’ll break your neck | I’ve smashed the gates | I’ve torn the walls | I’ve burnt the trees and uprooted them all | Now all that’s left is the stars in the sky | I’d break them too if a could fly | Now in the fallen | I was an angel’s fool | She’s smoke in the mirrors | And I didn’t have a clue | Now I’m in our hiding place | A burning plain that scars my face | My heart still longs for your garden gates | Long before my memories of you where stained | By blood and tears the watchful eye forgot my name | You’ve forgotten too | And now you’re safe I’m just your sin | You weren’t my friend | You killed me in the end

Hiding Place

Well in her tower she waits to watch over her land | That is her heart | Green and ripe but in the night | She’s haunted by her dreams | The guards they hold the key | And they’re not willing to let it be | Or set me free | I’m not alone stuck in this embrace | The bridge is up the doors are tight | No one comes and no one leaves | That’s the order this is her keep | And what she says goes | And if her love is an ocean | And I don’t have what’s left to fight it | Just take this devil from my back | Well you treat me like a bag of bones | Trapped inside like a fire in stone | These castle walls keep me feeling contained | Unlike your ticking clock I’ll fade | The clouds have formed to build a storm to wash away the greed | I see you there between the walls | And you’re stuck for all to see | You cannot leave | And I don’t have the strength to tell you | Or make you change the way you feel | Well you treat me like a bag of bones | Trapped inside like a fire in stone | These castle walls keep me feeling contained | Unlike your ticking clock I’ll fade | Well I’m not sold on the matter keep the money | I see that gold cloud form behind the rain | And wont it stay | Watch it sway and fade away | Well like a bird in flight she takes height | Looking down on me with the mysterious eyes I’ve seen a thousand times before | As I fade away | In my darkened state I find the strength I need to fade | Well rock n roll can’t kill a man but your convictions will | And damn it girl I saw the signs but who can tell | If mine ain’t yours and yours ain’t mine I am letting go | Cause’ I fade away | And now the dawn it knows better | Than to break over her frozen land | Cold and stuck in time | Never will it shine so it obeys and it will not return | And although it may seem that she’s letting go she holds on | To every drop of snow | Ever tight her rein of this forsaken land | That is her world where she’ll remain | The Queen of Thorns

The Queen of Thorns

Rock’n’Roll HootenannyDrums: Ben Humphries | Bass & Electric Guitars: Richard M Gray | Vocals: Richard M GrayWritten by Richard M GrayReserve Tank BluesDrums: Ben Humphries | Bass: Patrick Boest | Hammond: Samuel J Bollands | Acoustic, Electric Guitars & Vocals: Richard M GrayWritten by Richard M GrayInvestigationsDrums: Ben Humphries | Bass: Patrick Boest | Electric Guitars & Vocals: Richard M GrayWritten by Richard M GrayThe Thing About YouDrums: Ben Humphries | Bass: Simon Wood | Electric Guitars & Vocals: Richard M GrayWritten by Richard M GrayTake Me HomePiano: Samuel J Bollands | Bass: Simon Wood | Acoustic, Electric Guitars, Synth & Vocals: Richard M Gray

Written by Richard M GrayHiding PlaceDrums: Ben Humphries | Bass, Electric Guitars & Vocals: Richard M Gray | Synth: Samuel J BollandsWritten by Richard M GrayTrip In SumerianDrums: Ben Humphries | Bass, Electric & Vocals: Richard M Gray | Dohl & Dohlac: Kamaldeep Singh MatharuWritten by Richard M GrayThe Queen of ThornsDrums: Ben Humphries | Bass: Simon Wood | Piano: Samuel J Bollands | Acoustic, Electric Guitars & Vocals: Richard M GrayWritten by Richard M Gray & Samuel J Bollands

Credits

Recorded & Produced by Richard Martin GrayMixing & Mastering by Richard Martin Gray & Samuel John BollandsEngineered by Richard Martin Gray & Samuel John BollandsAdditional Engineering by Dean Chodan & Matthew HowardRecorded at Leeds College of Music, RMG Studios, SJB Studios & Decoda StudiosPhotography by Richard Martin Gray & Samuel John BollandsArtwork & Design by Leigh Wortley & Hannah Jackson

Thanks to all the players who contributed and the engineers who helped. Thanks to Claire for my inspiration, my family and friends and everything else that inspired me (alcohol included). Those sandwiches at the bar, ‘Tommy’ the four-wheeled temperamental driving machine for carting the gear around and of course my central nervous system for which this would have been a real struggle without. Peace!

Credits

01 Rock’n’Roll Hootenanny 02 Reserve Tank Blues 03 Investigations 04 The Thing About You

05 Trip In Sumerian06 Take Me Home07 Hiding Place08 The Queen of Thorns