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Ah, Cremenville

by The Exploding Jazzookahs

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1.
Welcome to Cremenville, Factories closed, broken junk, this rust costs money and time consigns your dreams to dust. Buy a car or buy a TV Or talk about love with a gin in your hand, But in the end, you’ll understand That nothing ever changes. The stores are closed now, Down in Cremenville another day gone, Another round the corner, The bars all fill with gin-soaked strangers. Buy a car or buy a TV Or talk about love with a gin in your hand, But in the end, you’ll understand That nothing ever changes. It’s all some lazy old B-movie, A B-town bad dream, Where you work your days raw, To buy the things you can’t afford, For the life you never wanted.
2.
Submarine 04:17
Condition green, condition red You might forget the things you said But what you like and what you write Track you through the day and night That automated ‘thank you’ voice The stores already know your choice With perfect algorithmic sight Of all the data on your life Devices on, let’s go beneath You won’t need air down here to breathe Sub-aqua dreams of what you’ve been Will let you live up on a screen We’ve reached a whole new age of man Where we recede from our own plan Where every life is sub-marine Beneath the ocean of machine Condition black, condition blue A cold call from the human zoo Are any left out there at all? Behind the digital life-wall One day we built the Great Machine It was to serve us but we’ve seen; It only ever served itself Turned every life to sub-marine Deep dive, deep dive to inter-space Don’t need a connection just use your face Just pray your data lets you in Cos here you sink or here you swim We’ve reached a whole new age of man Where we recede from our own plan Where every life is submarine Beneath the ocean of machine Condition Fake, condition True There’s really nothing you can do Just watch the screen don’t feel a thing Don’t try to think, just trust machine There’s a brand new kind of fame where every device knows your name It sells the secrets of your day To shape a part for you to play So if you try to talk to me I’ll only hear the swelling sea The background roar of submarine Drowns out the people we could’ve been We’ve reached a whole new age of man Where we recede from our own plan Where every life is submarine Beneath the ocean of machine
3.
Dark Ocean 03:10
We were monkeys Digging in the dirt So pleased with ourselves We were cats Catching our tails So amazed at ourselves While a slick black liquid sleeked the world An ink that wrote a million names We were snakes Singing in the mirror Enchanting ourselves We were rats Who danced the polka With their own shadow While my name and yours Were added to the list And the tide rose up And carried us out Into a dark ocean A dark ocean At the boundary of sea It is midnight We have lost our way The finger pointing to the moon Was not the moon The lost sound of the dawn The lost dance of eyes and hearts Unmoored, we cling to driftwood out here Where the cry of gulls is drowned out By the silence of the ocean Dark ocean
4.
Fever Dream 05:03
5.
God is a ghost, who rattles the bedposts, Down in old Cremenville, There are those that He chose, But those He outgrows Are all wasted, down in old Cremenville. But someday the sun will rise And the days will be long and filled with surprise And the children will play in the streets once again And smiling girls, will sing them to sleep, Smiling girls will sing them to rest. Our hearts have grown cold, Our dreams have been sold Down in old Cremenville. Love turns to shadow, Despair runs mad down in old Cremeville, But someday the sun will rise And the days will be long and filled with surprise And the children will play in the streets once again And smiling girls, will sing them to sleep, Smiling girls will sing them to rest.
6.
Little Green Clock Tick, tick, tock Goes the little green clock Running out of minutes ‘till the clock is going to stop You’d better listen, you’d better listen Sing, sing, sing While the bird is on the wing You’re running out of air But you just don’t seem to care You’d better listen, You’d better listen Chor 1: The world’s on fire And you’re dancing on the pyre You dig our grave With a smile upon your face You’d better listen, you never listen v3 Tick tick tock Goes the ticking time bomb Ignoring all the data Like it’s someone else’s problem Better listen, you’d better listen Trump, trump, trump Goes the oil down in the sump Pouring out the petrol On the flames that were our hope You didn’t listen, you never listen Chor 2: You say mass extinction Well that’s just some liberal fiction And the ocean’s rise Is a conspiracy of lies You’d better listen, you never listen
7.
It’s a cold cruel world You make a cold cruel world You make a cold cruel world in a world without love You didn’t start the wars that Were the cause of people seeking refuge So you close your door without a pause That stream becomes a deluge Then you rebrand them as migrants Not just families fleeing violence And you pass yourself some new laws To make damn sure they stand no chance It’s a cold cruel world You make a cold cruel world You make a cold cruel world in a world without love You speak of kindness to the stranger But the destitute are scroungers And the homeless are just vagrants And the dying lack insurance Such a high view from your tower Let’s test the power of your world views: See you walk each waking hour When your kids don’t even have shoes And every Sunday you get up and preach That someday there’s a reckoning For all hypocrites who talk of love Yet turn away its begging Well if God is love where is your love? The hope you give your brothers? I think God is just your ego A tower you stand on to judge others Go on and fashion your compassion Round ideas that make you look good You can tell your friends to fear those Fleeing people who have no food You’re a hero in your mirror Every time you check out your lies But that mirror will break one day Pray your God sees it through your eyes It’s a cold cruel world It’s a cold cruel world It’s a cold cruel world In a world without love
8.
Nix 05:15
Someone is watching you From the dark side of a screen We know what you dream of We know what you’ve seen And we know what you fear most And we want you to feel Unless you take our path That fear becomes real That facts are lies That your life is at stake That our way is the way And all others are fake It’s all about winning And yes there’s a price We broke up the system To get to the prize But I’m not some Bond villain From out of a book Fomenting hatred for money Doesn’t make me a crook People are stupid So easily led Always so greedy For the bullshit they’re fed I’ve nixed your decisions To count on the facts To swing some election To let fall the axe So don’t count on politicians To look at this too hard Cos you’ll find their fingerprints Are all over the yard People hang themselves I just profit from the rope Cos hate and division Sell better than hope
9.
Death took a room at the border house across the street. He sat there all day, quietly drinking his cups of tea, as though on a stakeout, though it was hardly a secret. Occasionally I'd even tip my hat as I walked by and he, unsmiling, would acknowledge me with the same gesture, or raise his teacup. And he is there to this very day, watching me, and I watch him watching me and wonder what his first move will be. And I wonder what his first move will be.
10.
There’s a lack of balance in the world The scales are tipped to the absurd Your creditor is on the phone So work your fingers to the bone You’ll feel your world has ended when he’s done The deal you signed said ‘easy pay’ Who reads the small print anyway? Now he’s calling in the loan He wants your car he wants your home His salary’s the same number as his phone A lack of balance in the air There should be trouble But who has the time to care? Some will have more Some will have none Some will spend their lives on the run You’d better work you’d better not sleep Or try your luck out in the street Cos tears don’t pay your rent arrears Or all the debt from early years And stress and pills don’t wipe away the deal A lack of balance in the air There should be trouble But who has the time to care? Some will have more Some will have none Some will spend their lives on the run Lack of balance Lack of balance Lack of balance Lack of balance Gone is the raven, a-crying to the trees Gone is the prophet The principle and priest Gone is the promise of everlasting peace Love has been burned up It’s churned up and deceased There’s a lack of balance in this world The scales are tipped to the absurd Burn down the house to keep it warm Sell your one coat to beat the storm These are accounts you never see The price is more than just the fee The days that finally drain your life away A lack of balance in the air There should be trouble But who has the time to care? Some will have more Some will have none Some will spend their lives on the run
11.
Big Game 02:51
Well the crooks got smarter and the World got harder And the punks got pissy and the Streets got messy and the Fights got bigger But the tax got cheaper So the rich got richer While the broke got broken And it’s all a big game try not to go insane The world’s on fire Pouring petrol on the pyre So the trees gets burned up And the air gets choked up And we vote for mobsters Who put kids in cages Then they blame all the people Outraged in their rages And it’s all a big game try not to go insane There are nazi’s marching There are lynch mobs singing The president tells us These are good guys, this is winning His team’s in prison He just wrote them a pardon Cos they pay off his hooker Every time he gets a hard-on Like it’s all a big game, try not to go insane Pooh and Putin Are just laughing off their asses Cos it makes cheap war When democracy’s your whore Just own the network It’s the way to win the fight When you can lock away the people Who don’t write the things you like And it’s all a big game try not to go insane It’s all so fucked up You sold your soul for profit Whatever you once dreamed of I promise you you lost it But fuck all the sages, huh? Who needs wisdom? Don’t bore me with your bullshit ‘bout equality and freedom Cos it’s all a big game The whole world has gone insane
12.
Here is where the dead have died and the dust has reached out to the sky, where the only sound in the unobserved town is tuesday afternoon sliding by. Heave-Ho, Heave-Ho, this town will cost you your soul. Heave-ho, heave-ho, this town will swallow you whole. Where rags and dogs and papers dust the blowin’ wind and that cold wind speaks to each man like a falling star and the bare trees scratch an angry patch of ugly sky, like a ravid scar. Har har. Blood and gut and shit and bone, we sing it’s lulling overtone, dragged from its cloying earth for an hour, to lie beneath its dirt forever. Heave-Ho, Heave-Ho, this town will cost you your soul. Heave-ho, heave-ho, this town will swallow you whole.

about

Based on the original theatre production 'Cremenville' for Opera North in 2006.
Cremenville itself was originally based on the Greek myth of Oedipus; the cursed town of Thebes became the town of Cremenville for this production.
But over the years it has come to feel a little like a lot of people are living in Cremenville

credits

released July 22, 2020

Music written and performed by Pete M Wyer with additional vocals by Lynsey Tibbs

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Pete M. Wyer New York, New York

For information about Pete M. Wyer please visit www.pmwmusic.com

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