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Dworkin's Bastards

by Onsind

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1.
It’s raining again, and it seems like this city gets drearier everyday, Perhaps it’s the weather or maybe I’ve been here too long, still I defiantly stay, And they’re building more upmarket riverside housing, when there are streets down the road with no people to fill. A regional hub of prosperity committing character suicide, and there’s not much more of it left to kill. They won’t be happy until every city centre looks the same, Helplessly trapped within homogeneity, I want to tell them they should be ashamed, but I’m not sure who to blame, You know the day’s a write off when even the Durham advertiser is getting you down, a local kid just got beat to death drinking with his mates at a club in town, and is this the price we pay? Was he a worthy sacrifice to make? I’m not gonna leave the fucking house today, I’ll just stare at the ceiling, I’ll just lie on the cold, cold ground. One more metre of concrete, One more local shop closed down, No matter how much they change it, This is still our town.
2.
You won’t see a lot of me this year, cause I’m so tangled up in fear- a hypocrite, I talk the talk, then I hit the ground, at the line between ‘picking battles’ and ‘copping out’, I wish I knew where I stood today, though it wouldn’t help me anyway, I’m out of line, and it’s scary how much this will matter in 10 years time. So hang me out to dry, this is not a situation I ever thought would help me realise, the last thing that we need right now, could be the best thing for our future, the only way that we’ll turn this around, but we keep dragging ourselves down, This feeling lives in me, oh my word, it hacked me off, all that litter on the path we’d take to town, that walk was something else, I always wanted to go back, after things had settled down, but they built a bypass there last year, puts the litter in perspective, pushes me into despair, I don’t recognize this place anymore, concrete road signs and superstores.
3.
I tried to call you up last week; I lost you when I lost my phone, (the pitfalls of this damn ‘digital age’). So many filthy fat-cats to take down I need you by my side, And I can’t leave the house when you’re away, So I’ll join the picket line tomorrow, tonight I’ll highlight all the sorrow, From the comfort of this swivel chair, Who could criticise such selfish courage, (Saint Theresa’s woe), When I call your other number there ‘aint no-one there at all, Reminders clog my pores; I know this claustrophobic town is laughing at me, We took a giant leap today, I try my best and yet the things that I forget just serve to trap me, We took a giant leap today, Technophobia is where I’m headed all these static shocks, Are playing with my pulse for heaven’s sake, And yet I’m still compelled to keep you up to date with all those minor, Thrills and spills and ills that fill my day, So I’ll buy my self a ledger or a contact book to save me from, The robots and machines that I can’t stand, And even failing that, when you’re in doubt and you just need to know, You’ll find it written on the back of my hand. When I look at the sky I see a thousand wasted wishes staring at me, we took a giant leap today.
4.
I hit the streets for the first time in too long, and it felt so strange, I did not belong, but I could see that nothing much had changed, When I think back I’m forced to ask myself, where all of my enthusiasm went, Did I just get too jaded by the same old faces and the same old banners of contempt? But those routines they did mean something, And we weren’t just fucking around, Conceited and self-important but, We weren’t just fucking around, Moving through the city I saw a friend, Who didn’t want to catch my eye, I could tell that he was uncomfortable, As he discreetly nodded then hurried by, When people started leaving, I felt it had ended much too soon, I’d been missing the fun, Of shouting slogans on a rainy Sunday afternoon, But those routines they did mean something, And we weren’t just fucking around, Conceited and self-important but, We weren’t just fucking around, I called into the bookshop where I got tapped on the shoulder, A stranger smiling like she knew me, kept calling me by someone else’s name, Then out of nowhere an anxious old man rushed over, He said “don’t worry son, she’s getting on”, and he led her away, It knocked me back but I still raised my hand when I saw her turn to wave. There is so much in my life, And if you like I’ll share it all with you, Don’t believe them when they say, That this is just a phase we’re going through, Cause this is real, And we’re entitled to the anger that we feel, And we’re entitled to the sadness that we feel. Those routines they did mean something to me, We weren’t just fucking around, Though our anger was sometimes misdirected, I know that our intentions were always sound, it’s safe to say, We meant every word we said, And if I am sure of anything, It’s that I know that we having nothing to regret.
5.
Temperamental tools don’t disappoint me as I look ahead, a 5:30 skyline and a sinking sense of dread, this bridge has become more symbolic in my dreams, my apocalyptic imagination guides me to the scene, and I’m not as lost as I hoped I’d be, an unconscious sense of direction is guiding me, but it’s clear that I’m here for a very different reason, I refused to queue up, yet they parade their expertise and I’m sold. Last night I woke up terrified, blue lights were floating around my walls, only to later realise, it’s just an ambulance on a late night call, a grim 2 a.m. reminder of my own mortality, I only wish that I could find a way to accurately describe, the effect that this has on me. A canopy of comfort crumbles, helplessly I watch, soaked but I’m not drowning, I’m enamoured to this porch, your company is warmth enough we talk the night away, a towel and some kind words keeping me afloat today, and when I’m like this I can’t cope with myself, and I realise that this is probably hell, and I apologise, oh how I do, I’m just thankful that you’re prepared to soldier through to the end. I take a walk down by the river, but the night before it breached its banks, and now the path’s absolutely covered with branches and leaves, and I can barely get past and I’m in heaven, I’m in heaven, this is the best thing I have ever seen, I see no concrete, see no buildings, it’s like I’m walking through a dream, “Like the darkness of closed eyes on an August afternoon…”
6.
Neck-ties strangle me beyond my parents’ grasp, And I’m not just being awkward, I insist, ‘Respectability’ that sacred virtue, Is a construct oh-so subtle that it’s tricky to resist, Public invisibility is not a paradox, For a better Oxymoron: try ‘catwalk amputee’, And I don’t think that I’ll be ready for the front page, Till they invent some kind of airbrush especially for me, The panoptic gaze is keeping me in check, There may be no gun to my head but nonconformity equates to no respect, But I’m not the only one who’s sick, Of aspiring to a fabricated norm that just won’t stick to who I am, ‘Normality’ is such a fucking scam. The average British woman is a size 16, but the average British model is a 6, and Dove might say it’s campaigning for ‘real beauty’, but Dove is Owned by Unilever, who also own Lynx. And we’re familiar with the women in the Lynx adverts, they’re examples of what we expect from women on TV, skinny, young, objectified and silent, We’re drowning in the Beauty Myth, we’re trapped within deceit. I’m tired of seeing life through this male gaze, So terrified to drop our guard, the whole world is a stage, Passivity to judgement as constraint, A re-examination of the aspects of ourselves that we can’t stand, ‘Normality’ is such a fucking scam.
7.
The income gap is rising, I saw it on a colour chart on News 24, It’s getting really hard to act surprised, When you’ve heard the same old story 50 times before, And it’s such a dreadful shame, and we know it, Just like the missing children and the casualties of war, But I don’t lose much sleep, I’ve got my high-speed broadband, And my good-health to be thankful for. And if poverty’s a cancer, then surely that means Band Aid was a Chemotherapy wig. And we’ll all smile and tilt our heads and say, Your cheeks are looking rosier today, And we won’t need our bravest faces for too long, In 20 minutes visiting hour is done, And we can go home and put our TVs back on.
8.
I think I filled in my last form today, pretty soon I’ll be adept at making origami planes, no compromise I’ve had enough, And this songs is invincible like me, it’s fucking bulletproof and totally guilt free, ‘Ya Basta’, Sack it, I give up, I can still remember tentatively reaching out to grab your hand, Baffled by bureaucracy, we felt like never letting go, It seems like you won’t ever get fatigue from asking how I am feeling, 9 times out of 10 I honestly don’t know, There’s only so many walks that I can take to try to clear my head, But anytime you want to talk just let me know, I’d sooner help clear yours instead.
9.
I took a drive tonight, I drove past all the houses of the friends I had in school, and it was sad, 12 years of hard learnt lessons in an hour seems so cruel, It took an awful lot of courage, but I smiled on my way back, One big housing estate, one thousand cul-de-sacs. I’m not the sort of person to get impatient, when needlessly delayed by the traffic lights. On such a frosty evening, you take it steady, Cause to go like that would just be trite, Faulty speakers kill the lower frequencies, Reminds me of the tape deck that we tampered with that night, But today the photos fade like my affinity, And the songs that last the longest mean the least. So here’s a doll, and here’s a map, please point to where she touched you, Point to where I touched you and then where you want to go, Cause there’s petrol in the car, and I’m in that sort of mood, It’s a chance to relearn all those stupid songs we used to know. Like the one about the two old friends who end up going off to war, A broken hi-fi spewing tired analogies, and nothing more. Some old song comes on the radio, a song that’s kitsch and meaningless that everybody knows, (so between you and me this means nothing).
10.
Gretchen grabbed her copy of ‘the catcher in the rye’, And she put it in her rucksack with her packed lunch and a Ruger .45, The tube was crowded but she didn’t really mind, She liked the close proximity it made her feel alive, Cause she didn’t want to waste another fraction of a second, Isolated from the people that she saw, Today was different, she could feel Westminster beckon, She wasn’t staying silent anymore, As she sat thinking ‘bout the dream she had the night before, The crowds were gathered ready to shout heckles and abuse, Gretchen squeezed her way up to the front so that she had a decent view, A head of state on foot about to wander through, 200 angry people with complaints long overdue, And they didn’t want to waste another perfect opportunity, To give this lousy, lying sod what for, and Gretchen’s heart was pounding faster than a bumblebee, As she reached for her gun and she had a thought, A funny thought about the dream she had the night before, Gretchen cleared the fence just as her prey was walking past, She shouted “Oh Prime Minister!” and aimed the gun and heard an instant blast, And as she hit the ground she realized her fate, A bullet to the chest from a young copper by the gate, And he knew he couldn’t wait another fraction of a second, To neutralize the threat he saw appear, As she lay dying she was calmer than she’d ever felt, She waited for the world to disappear, It disappeared into the dream she had the night before, The one thing that no one could have predicted, Was the content of the letter that she had inside her coat, But that’s the thing the morning papers went with, “The girl prepared to die just to send us all a note”, And Gretchen knew the gun was never loaded, She simply couldn’t live on feeling frustrated by life, So she wrote an open letter to the public, And the public had it read to them by newsreaders that night, And this is all it said, Dear Public, They get big by making us feel small, I’d rather play this game by my rules, or not play this game at all, They forced the world into millions of boxes, & I can’t help but feel the squeeze, So I’ll take my cue from Thelma and Louise.

about

Discount Horse Records, 2008.

Trigger Warnings: Sexism, Mental Illness, Suicide.

credits

released November 1, 2008

Recorded by Michael Bridgewater in Consett and Pity Me.
Additional vocals by Rachel Sweeney (of ITN Tyne Tees fame). Banjo and various other instruments by Mikey B.
Cover Art by Ryan Woods.

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Onsind Durham

Onsind is a punk band from Pity Me, Durham (UK).

We are very lucky to have the help of 2 amazing labels: Specialist Subject records (UK) and Salinas records (USA). Support them!

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