Get all 5 Michael O'Neill releases available on Bandcamp and save 20%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Citizen 107 (Alternative Demo Version), The Binary Order, The Situation, Wet Hands On A Light Switch, and Michael O'Neill.
1. |
Bleak Northern Roads
04:18
|
|
||
Bleak northern roads
Hold autumn dawn raids
Street level dealers
In cuffs on parade
A short show of strength
About 2 hours in length
Will fix monthly figures
That have risen by a tenth
Does nothing for relations
In the concrete reservations
Where the big picture is bypassed
For small time violations
Economic Stimulation
Needs a drug trading nation
And 10 billion pounds
Is a lot for consideration
For the corpses in Whitehall
Where money makes the real call
Legislate accordingly
Then hide behind a brick wall
A visible success
Or so the newsreel suggests
The truth gets constructed
And the disparate accepts
A narrative that is set
By a powerbase corrupt
Back scratching bureaucrats
Let nothing interrupt
The abuse of civilians
In pursuit of more wealth
A subtle form of slavery
By the cold hand of stealth
The dark side of progress
Ghost town logistics
No state investment
Just corporate dialectics
Chewed up and spat out
Targeted and watched
Retained only for the benefit
Of a system that is locked
By politics and law
There is a war upon the poor
And the impacts of the 80’s
Is only just through the door
We got social mobility
For those with the ability
So far from reality
It’s a joke in the ministry
Who Mediate reaction
And play down the impact
Who introduce a threat
The cement it with playback
Reinforced repeated
Occupied and cheated
24 / 7
Until the truth is deleted
|
||||
2. |
One Rule
05:23
|
|||
The educated are useless
There’s nothing on the line they couldn’t care less
There not in the trenches with me and you
And they don’t see the horror show that we do
Comfort in careers won’t change this
Realign the way that we define progress
Medicated nation at the mercy
Of big business where’s the controversy
Can’t rely on politics it unfit
Get the money out and then we might change it
Corrupt it doesn’t do what it’s supposed to
Serve the people not just the elite few
One rule for us
Another one for them
Who are they to condemn
One rule for us
Another one for them
Relegate the diadem
One rule for us
Another one for them
Who are they to condemn
One rule for us
Another one for them
Relegate the diadem
They’re leading on the back foot too scared
To tackle that power base power doesn’t care
For planet or for people they benefit
From the fact that were unequal
Debt apartheid we pay all the interest
Why the banks don’t doesn’t really make sense
State bailout now we it’s really bent
When they gamble without consequence or consent
One rule for us
Another one for them
Who are they to condemn
One rule for us
Another one for them
Relegate the diadem
One rule for us
Another one for them
Who are they to condemn
One rule for us
Another one for them
Relegate the diadem
|
||||
3. |
Breakneck Pace
02:31
|
|
||
Race
Running at a breakneck pace
Don’t look back
Don’t look into the face you
Blame
Things are never gonna be the same
Wipe that thought don’t
Lose it in a vein or a
Nose
Not the first caught in the throes
Of a toxic culture
Trying to recompose and get
Past
You knew it could never really last
Stop right now take a breath
Stand back
Keep face
But you know it’s a fall from grace
Ten foot tall then it put you in your place
On your back
Now it’s just an all-out attack
Count one two three smile cover up the crack
With a drink
Anything at all to stop you think
Endless front and you know its doublethink
As you drift
Hoping that the cloud might lift
Reified lost life
Far from a gift right now
Race
Running at a breakneck pace
Don’t look back
Don’t look into the face you
Blame
Things are never gonna be the same
Wipe that thought don’t
Turn in to the ghost of a
Fraud
Scared of the scorn getting poured
So you run like a sheep with the flock
But your bored of the race
And always feeling bang out of place
Fuck this front
Fuck putting on a face
For what?
Head case
You could disappear without a trace
Can’t face up can’t
Fill the suitcase
Just yet
Feels like you only just met
Time just goes and never gets set
When you’re high
Got to do it all before you die
No dead time no closing of the eye(s)
It’s a waste
Everything your never gonna taste
Fuck that memory
Leave it in its place in the
Past
|
||||
4. |
Cultural Capital
02:59
|
|
||
Your Cultural Capital
Dwarves mine like a giant
You’re a freelance artist
Who’s still trust fund reliant
I’m intimidated by your intellect
And your air of sophistication
Your levels of self-control
And splendid articulation
You collect rare vinyl
And read philosophical books
Your wardrobes worth thousands
To compliment your looks
You drink in hip establishments
With like-minded chameleons
A classless set of liberals
Hiding right wing opinions
You say what’s expected
In every single situation
You’re dishonest but you’re perfect
For successful integration
You smile and you tell everyone
That there work is great
You call this networking
And think you’re being straight
You scale the social ladder
With a strong first impression
A second natured ease
And appropriate discretion
Synthetic relationships
With an air of prostitution
It’s public image maintenance
With your made up constitution
Your drug taking casual
And always recreational
Then your daddy pays for rehab
When you’re no longer functional
Your command of the queen’s English
Is a mark of your intelligence
But your perfect execution
Lacks content and relevance
|
||||
5. |
Skeleton Convention
03:38
|
|
||
Skeleton convention
Deadly pain retention
In critical condition
And she ain’t got no answers
Paranoid from powder
And waking every hour
Cultured but useless
The delegation’s twisted
Suffocate the senses
Everyone’s a target
Overload consumption
A biblical derangement
Undercut the mason
The corporation psycho
Terrorise till empty
Then moulded with a mystic
Death by distraction
Death by distraction
Death by distraction
Death by distraction
Terrible Intention
And no road to redemption
Typical of human
And there’s only one conclusion
Surgical removal
Got met with disillusion
Cynical in nature
The creature has no master
Celebrate a saviour
To regulate behaviour
Delinquent
Who taught it
It’s too late to abort it
Terminal Believer
He knew one day he’d need her
Deluded disgusted
Now no one can be trusted
Death by distraction
Death by distraction
Death by distraction
Death by distraction
Death by attraction
Death by attraction
|
||||
6. |
|
|||
Four white male no marks
All dressed up for glory
Feather cuts and postures
With a very bland story
Its music as a career choice
Supported by a trust fund
Its fine-tuned banality
The liberty of the privileged
Reproduce the reproduction
Reinforcing ‘life as it is’
Familiar sounds and images
Conceal what it really is
A cover band ticking boxes jumping through
Hoops that are set by the industry
Suffocated by an art form and
And the blueprints from its history
4 Chords and no offence
A fake attitude and confidence
Worked on with the label, who are
Concerned to hide their affluence
With lyrics that allude to nothing
And a self-conscious delivery
The proof is in the pudding
It’s a band that trades on mimickery
Familiar sounds of the 60’s
A bit of post punk a bit of psych
But when the market shifts
They’re reshaped to be more alike
Its orchestrated entertainment
Mass produced for profit
Supporting an ideology
Of produce consume then drop it
So know we living in reruns
Where PR teams make magic
Based on market research
Like a science so very tragic
Be absorbed or be excluded
It’s not art but entertainment
It’s a mass indoctrination
We are cheated on engagement
Y’know what I’ve had enough of this avant-garde shit
|
||||
7. |
Modern Industry
04:13
|
|
||
He was known locally
As the alcoholic priest
After sermons on Sundays
He’d head straight to a brothel
Using parish collection money
To fund his alcohol addiction
On four or five bottles
Of single malt a week
Not even seven am
And sweating like a marathon runner
Jimmy walks three and a half miles
Just to keep the curtains drawn
Straight down Elizabeth Street
Right across and through the park
Knocking on the dark door
Of Chris the pharmacist
Widow of a drug dealer
Recently deceased
She’s got everything need
If escape is what you want
Cook it up quick
Keep the wolf from the door
This is modern industry
The only one around here
Cook it up quick
Keep the wolf from the door
This is modern industry
The only one around here
Jane talks to herself
When there’s no else around
Long term day release
Both her kids are in care
Victim of economics
She fell pregnant in her teens
Before a violent former boyfriend
Tried to burn the house down
A twelve month relationship
Of sex drugs and crime
Left her with an addiction
Two kids and broken
Cook it up quick
Keep the wolf from the door
This is Modern industry
The only one around here
Cook it up quick
Keep the wolf from the door
This is Modern industry
The only one around here
|
||||
8. |
Citizen 107
04:10
|
|
||
Catastrophic Wake up
To Beauracratic Bleep
Penniless and thoughtless
The world is dead asleep
Centercom sees everything
Careful what you do
Citizen 107
We’re addressing you
State control by default
A democratic mask
Be careful who you talk to
And careful what you ask
Show it what it is not
Answer with a question
Take it as a compliment
When you suffer their rejection
Centercom sees everything
Careful what you do
Citizen 107
We’re addressing you
Centercom sees everything
Careful what you do
Citizen 107
We’re addressing you
Craving sex with Skeletons
At the chemical Pinnacle
Face Operations
Looking 16 when you’re 60
Tight tight T-shirts
Arms defying gravity
Abnormal muscle
And faceless interactions
Internet Ejaculations
And coffee shop mantra’s
Upper class ambition
All weightless and privileged
Personality shopping
All choice is manufactured
Working just to fine dine
On expensive dead animals
Pornographic Prisons
Civilised by bodies
Embryonic lifelines
Find them in the MARGINS
|
||||
9. |
Insecure Subordinate
02:26
|
|
||
Insecure subordinate
And self-policed to fear
The potential consequences
If he does no adhere
To the Rules and the regulations
Of the institute he serves
He carries on regardless
Of all the filth that he observes
Insecure subordinate
And bullied by a structure
A system of inconsequence
With minimal disrupture
Agency is outlawed
The ritual is all
And language no reflection
For a life behind a wall
Insecure Subordinate
Completely overcome
No time left to realise
To reflect on what’s become
Every voice incorporates
The dialectic mist
It’s a nightmare in the daytime
And pointless to resist
Insecure subordinate
And self-policed to fear
The potential consequences
If he does no adhere
To the Rules and the regulations
Of the institute he serves
He carries on regardless
Of all the filth that he observes
Disco lit euphoria
A nightmare though and through
It’s a cultural placebo
Constructed to subdue
|
||||
10. |
Saddled With Fear
05:15
|
|
||
Fuck the history of Rock and Roll
With its self-defeating nostalgia
Retro fetish cycles
And comparisons to Icons
Glorified drug addicts
And self-obsessed no marks
Only given status
By a passive pack of idiots
Saddled with fear and sent out to labour
Perpetually presented with a brand new saviour
Change comes from the ground up don’t you know
That man is a Charlatan!
Quite happy to be a weirdo
In a culture full of normals
Cerebral Hygiene
The only way to combat the mind games
Culture being used
To pervert our state of consciousness
Omadorns and Idiots
Line up to amplify the ignorance
Pregnant with contempt
And ready to give birth
Can’t lose
Cause there are no rules
No supreme beings
Just equals and tools
The advert should actually read
Must be a team player
But willing… . . .
To fuck over your team mates
Self-reflection will get you nowhere mate
We measure life in metric
Questions will get you nowhere mate
We measure life in numbers
Percentages
Targets
Success Rates
And Quotas
Production
Consumption
Growth
And Efficiency
Care for social etiquette
Like I care for central government
After a hard day avoiding all forms of social interaction
And official forms of public life
I like to return home
And masturbate over house plants
Whilst listening to Whats the Story Morning Glory
Cranked up to 10
Alternatively
I like to use split screen stimulation
Group sex and European Philosophy
A psychological association that is so strong
That I now ejaculate at the very sound of Herbert Marcuse’s voice
There is no you
There is no me
There is no I
We are each about as unique as a Jaffa Cake
In a world full of Jaffa Cakes
|
||||
11. |
It Burns
05:55
|
|
||
He needed constant recognition
Just to feel good about himself
The ego had landed
And it needed Feeding
A very costly confidence
He went straight for the jugular
All eggs in one basket
Ready for the market
A coma at the crossroads
Still every bill got paid
Who took the investment?
And who got betrayed?
Build the Insular world
Then cut off the outside one
The Act of Removal
And the incest that ensued
The Train caught up with him
And he called out for his Mother
The infant was an astronaut
And the Imprint was terminal
The contract got honoured
But only after threats
His influence was co-owned
By a man named Flu Eric
This is the crossroads
Where all things go down
The Wall St of Soul
The doors out of purgatory
Concrete stories
From a concrete existence
Worked right to the bone
The hours seem so terminal
A signature on the document
And a noose around the neck
Cold sweats and insomnia
Visions, possibilities and regrets
Every face had a mask
No detail unexplored
No real names were being used
There was nothing on the walls
A symbol of agreement
With shadows all of its own
Every thought from this point on
Molested by a handshake
Found the body freezing
In the decomposing air
Throttled by a wish
But the handshake didn’t care
(Outro)
Be careful what you wish for
And who informs your wishes
If you dream of a dystopia
That’s exactly what you’ll get
DO NOT LET THE SPECTACLE
SPECULATE ON YOU
|
Streaming and Download help
If you like Michael O'Neill, you may also like:
Bandcamp Daily your guide to the world of Bandcamp