THE FATIMA MANSIONS
LYRICS
Lost In The Former West

Samples are in {brackets}
Questionable phrases are in [these brackets]

Belong Nowhere  -  (4:51)

No dates to miss, no home to phone
no face to kiss, no good alone
no family, no history, a permanent deliquency

No will to smill, no room to cry
no time to think just watch don't flinch
you murder every time you blink

Some flee disasters for their lives
you flee the spawn of grubby lies
At one with graveyard dust and shipyard rust
too loose to trust
You'll heal so much faster if your
Homeland is your master

No dirt-cheap Adriatic sun, no heart of gold back of the gun
no dathcamps built for less than fun
no white man's bond, no civilization
no right to more than birth and death
For the drivelling drones of the former west
Their credo dead like Brezhnev's bones
Their headless spears and special malnutrition zones

No deathcamps here, I tell you
Just grey "convenience" hell
Ten Civil wars unended
Neath billboard signs which yell
"You need someone pretty, 
someone English and shifty..."

Let the dirt cover all....
you're dirt, dirt
always know your worth
as you roam the mirthless earth

No sleep the 'phone god knows what time
Just a wordless click on the end of the line
and a thud at the door our back in the dark
as some wirehair creature spins round the yard

Why do you run why do you hide
Why do you bruise and then decide

You didn't mean it, you didn't see
well, now you're run to rags and so is she

You'll drink the Balkan brandy
You will forget your name
you will become a captain and
you will lose all shame
you need someone pretty
someone english and shifty

Let the dirt cover all, cover all, cover all
Let the dirt cover all, cover all, cover all
For it's the Mother of us all and our bed when we fall
we belong nowhere

Let the dirt cover all, cover all, cover all
let the dirt cover all
from the veil to the shawl
from the flirt to the brawl


The Loyaliser  -  (3:12)

The model volcano be the giant gas-tank
the street corner gun-market next to the robbed bank
The poorhouse next to the Uniroyal palace
A tower of riches, beside it the abyss

Sit in the gridlock, under the stopped clock
long for a new taste?  suck on a breeze-block
your brain is a doughnut, your spirit's a dry cup
This place has the poison to fill them all right up
Lockdown London, Lockdown London.
Lockdown London - headbutt the pebble-dash.

The girl with the bit nails and fondness for blackmail
you made her a secret, now she knows she can't fail
Your weakness was known well, she earned her a bombshell
Her life's worth of grievance now hangs from your coat tails

The little drummer-boy sadly (though eloquent) bitches
Too old for the bluff game or overnight riches
He meets with your pen friend, they speak of your badness
And compose a duet:  sounds like Tarzan and Callas

I've been a victimizer and I've been victimized
I've been a sly betrayer who has been demonized
I've been an instrument of all I hate
So here's to all you absent leeches - safe
I'm not around to hear you pious speeches
While you're waiting for a date from the loyaliser.

Waiting for a date from the loyaliser
Crying for a sign from the loyaliser
Time's always on the side of the loyaliser
Into thinner air with the loyaliser
You get older, you get scared but you get no wiser.

Now you must
Adjust your ears to the sound of trouble
Getting louder and louder and louder and louder
forget the "like-with-like" now there is only other
as the walls begin to buckle and to turn into powder

Cowed figures under railway arches
wait for the coming storm
They've already seen your great provider.
In his true bloodthirsty human form
Time to et criminal-minded, take any way out when you find it
And those who stay do so because they're blinded
No light at all when you're waiting for a date from the loyaliser

Waiting for a date from the loyaliser
Crying for a sign from the loyaliser
Time's always on the side of the loyaliser
Into thinner air with the loyaliser
You get older, you get scared but you get no wiser.

Lockdown London, etc.


Something Bad  -  (3:05)

I was raised to expect continuity.  Instead I get this..

The monster has red hair
The monster has green eyes
She laughs and bites her quarry's nose 
as she pulls herself astride
Her double-jointed hips now do their tricks
and you can hear his plaintive yells
from the plane-crash craters in the Scottish hills
to the burning oil wells

Something bad is giving birth to a thing which won't melt to your touch
Something bad is giving birth to something worse and it's gonna hurt

His Reebok shoes let in the rain 
and he coughs into the dawn
as he searches for space on the synagogue wall 
to draw swastikas on
Job descriptions change on the firing range
All generals are friends
So it's down to the dole with the molotovs
It's problem time again

Something bad is giving birth to a thing which won't melt to your touch
Something bad is giving birth to something worse and it's gonna hurt

You built the metal birds who shrink the skies
and bring your waitress from the other side of a world 
All these birds bringing death
You find all of our good, there's only death left

Big black hawk swinging low 
over the rat-run streets of the English ghetto
Clean spirit of the island, home at last
Come on, come on, come on -- crash!

One man felt ashamed running guns and cocaine
for his short-term gain, so every one of us must pay
In his New World Order, you can have some nerve gas with your air
Thanks to the CIA pussy in the President's chair!

Something bad is giving birth; in the sky its belly bursts!
Something bad is giving birth; it calls for wounds to slake its thirst
Something bad is giving birth; no more decay, no more dirt
Something bad is giving birth; in therefore's name it stalks the earth

Do you feel?
You can deal?
Can you fuck?


Popemobile To Paraguay  -  (4:38)

The postmark read "Ascunción."
By the foul Adriatic there can be some dramatic
variations in the temperature
so you can't recall which S.S. dress to wear

but the king of the Papists is a friend of the rapists
and they're upside-down crucifixion squad 
so escape from sure defeat is thus arranged.

a man with your knowdledge of electrical goods
should not be condemned because he's misunderstood
Trip from Zagreb to Rome and on to Ascunción
in the clothes of the bishop the new beard being your own

they may think we look stupid, but we're paying the rent
and we won't trade our fortress for a hippy tent
we've been all colors of angel with both wings on the right
and we've supped and we've coupled through our mystic life

eternal city firm and true
no naked crimson lights
constant like an anthrax bomb
honest like a knife

all of this must never die
Popemobile to Paraguay

It's been a while since you said "heil"
the CIA-bred necrophile
No Russkies left to rail at, not for now

ah, but the Slavs in their millions
with their scrapheaps and children
must replace your South Americans
some skulls to keep your Mafia
in the Mafia Top Ten

they'll mass when commanded.
they'll hate when they're told
they'll murder their neighbors for the good of their souls
they'll punish your enemies if you read out their names
they'll be adorning the bridges from the Don to the Thames

you may think we look stupid, but we're paying the rent
and we won't trade our fortress for hippy tent
We've been all colours of angel with both wings on the right
and we've supped hard and we've coupled through this mystic life

Cleansing faces of thier smiles, butchers sheltered and praised
meeting pain with fairy-tales, dead bank-balances raised.

All of this must never die;
Popemobile to Paruguay

You may think we look stupid but we're behind with the rent
How much am I bid for this real piece of  Jesus'
polyester tent, polyester tent, polyester tent
which my dad just sent
and it's lock up the women 
burn this book for me, man
send sweeties and flowers to Teh-huh-ran
Lock up the women
burn this book for me, man
Send sweeties and flowers to my pal in Tehran
In Eye-ran, etc.
[????]
[????]
[In I ran, in I ran, in I ran, ran, ran...]


Walk In The Woods  -  (5:10)

A walk in the woods after a storm
through waves of steam and graveyard gas
come overground
The unwaled path, the dimming light,
not day or night, just always.
While life remains on hold.
Everybody's sorry, everybody's sorry,
if words can be believed
World without mercy, world which deserts me
faces gone, just trunks of trees
faces gone, just trunks of trees.

You can do and say whatever you like
I can take it, I can listen, but I've only
got one life.  What am I going to do?
Every year, find another place?
Get out, get out, get out of my face.

A walk in the woods at the birth of night
where soft shapes seem to fill the glowing space
and now the book in my hand
is closed and sealed
to wander blind is all this walker needs
everybody's sorry
everybody's sorry...
well, you can keep your form of words
world in an exit
I'm there and I know it
It takes me in its arms
you'll knowme by the knives sticking out of my back
I'm a traitor to my friends and race, a traitor to my class
Want to see my blood? well, there won't be long to wait.
Maybe by then you'll get your cover-story straight.

A walk in the woods after a storm.


Nite Flights  -  (3:48)

There's no hold
the moving has come through
the danger brushing you
turns its face into the heat
and runs the tunnel

It's so cold
the dark dug up by dogs
the stitches torn and broke
the raw meat fist you choke
Has hit the bloodlite

Glass traps open and close on nite flights,
broken necks
featherweights press the walls
Be my love,
we will be gods on nite flights,
With only one promise
only way to fall

(words and music by Scott Engel)


Go Home Bible Mike  -  (4:40)

{"One was taking the gate down today and one reads the Bible."}

Welcome to Apeville!  
Now you're a citizen, too
Meet Mrs. Doreen Pompidou
She'd like to do the shimmy on top of you
The wall is coming down
The one which holds the house up
A brass band playing in a dumptruck 
is visible through clouds of brickdust
as people dressed as cows form an orderly queue
for a drug that makes you dead for a second or two
I raise myself from my punchbowl, drowning:
"The Yakuza are singing -- it can't be true!"

Go away, Bible Mike!
Go home, Bible Mike!
Go home, Bible Mike!
Go home, Bible Mike!

Her hand squeezes mine and I shudder
She says, "That was one shock, now here comes another
You really don't remember, do you?" 
I said, "Why?  Am I supposed to?
Me, the slut of dishevelled women
whom fun has made sad and careless?"
and she's knocked me onto the greasy floor
and a eunuch is barring the only door
Pilar, in her room above the pharmacia, 
smiles as she pictures your little thing 
Imagine her surprise when she looks through the window
and sees you riddled with bullets while the cops all sing

Go home, Bible Mike!
Go home, Bible Mike!
You preach without a right
Go home, Bible Mike!

You don't make me laugh, you don't make me horny,
so what the hell are we doing here?
Gasping all night in this Nazi city
You bit it, I'm bleeding, we're sliding in my blood
Humping in my blood
Market my blood!
Market my blood!

You got a tourist mind
Deaf, dumb and blind 
to all the pain you bring
This is more than just sin
"Am I really such a nightmare?  
If I had a home I'd go there."

Anytime you like
This court says, "Take a hike"
The slate will not be wiped
Just go home, Bible Mike
Go home, Bible Mike
Go home, Bible Mike
Go home, Bible Mike


Brain Blister  -  (3:57)

In rags in their normal place
Where diesel machines roar by
Pale dawn, at the scrapyard gates
Fast food parks and hardware mines.
Not smiling or frowning they
The shades on the fringe of town
unpaid, idle, lending shape
To the gravity which they say has
Dragged this country down
this beautiful country down.
Close off the backstreets, no-one goes,
Bring on the ice, the game-shows:  brain-blister.

The bigger the roadside crowd,
the denser the gameshow cloud
there's nothing real on that churning screen,
just nonesense which might mean;
"Like it" good.  no? tough!"
Pen them in and shut them up.
Quick March, eyes right,
Save all your revolution for your sexy little Saturday

You earn but you feel oppressed,
the armour could do with a test
Why not betray your lover's trust
Go ahead and push it until it bursts
You're back on the streets again,
No armour, no dreams, no friends
The worst pain is behind the eyes
Wherethe killer of futures hides, still hides
They've closed the backstreets, you can't hide,
If you feel brave, just step outside
Where all tomorrows stink the same
Where night vibrates with cries of:
Brain-blister
The patient is fading fast
oh but ignore it 'cos it's just an act.


Walk Yr Way  -  (4:57)