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Album cover for the James Kennedy album, 'The National Health Service'

JAMES KENNEDY - THE NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE KONIC RECORDS 2013

WORDS & MUSIC BY JAMES KENNEDY

1) WICKER MAN


Life Inside a Snail Shell
Believing you’re a Prophet living in Hell
A cynical Wicker Man
Always got a better plan

But try and find him if you can

When the walls that saved you locked you inside alone
With the ricochet of the words you throw like Sticks and stones
Drifting through your days in a blinding cloud of rage at the sun
Turning all your windows into Microscopes
It’s only a choice

Life inside his frightened mind
Filled with all the negatives he can find
To save him from saying yes
And risk disproving he’s the best

But no actions will ever speak louder than his words

When the walls that saved you locked you inside alone
With the ricochet of the words you throw like Sticks and stones
Drifting through your days in a blinding cloud of rage at the sun
Turning all your windows into Microscopes
It’s only a choice

It’s only a choice
It’s only a choice

And he’s scared of the world ‘cos he thinks the worlds like him

When the walls that saved you locked you inside alone
With the ricochet of the words you throw like Sticks and stones
Drifting through your days in a blinding cloud of rage at the sun
Turning all your windows into Microscopes
It’s only a choice

2) THE JOES
You’re a thousand miles high
Chauffeured through the sky
But Joey wants to fly the Plane
‘cos he says he’s real good at computer games

And as you crashed
He was singing a song he wrote
About the movie that he made
Based on the book he wrote just yesterday

It’s a hard time to be new
It’s a hard time to be real
It’s a hard time to be you
When it’s just a good time for the Joes

And as the crowd invades the field
All promoting paper shields
In the stadium that hosts no games
Just the roar of a million names

And so they say
The spectator sees more of the game
So sit back, enjoy the scene
And clear the way for the players to play

It’s a hard time to be new
It’s a hard time to be real
It’s a hard time to be you
When it’s just a good time for the Joes

3) GOOD DAYS, BAD DAYS
It’s easy to be in opposition
And it’s easy to see enough things that ain’t right
And it’s to point the finger of blame
And it’s easy to feel the virtue having never played the game

But there’s good days and bad days
And there will be always
Good news and bad news everywhere you go
Good people and bad ones, but in the balance
You can see that it’s easy

Take a look at the bigger picture
Take some time on the other side
The truth you’ll find, if you’ll accept it
Is it’s a good time to be alive, even if it ain’t perfect

It’s easy to think and walk and talk in circles
And it’s easy to shout when you don’t say anything
And it’s easy to stay, always the same
And it’s to feel the bravery of being out of range

Take a look at the bigger picture
Take some time on the other side
The truth you’ll find, if you’ll accept it
Is it’s a good time to be alive, even if it ain’t perfect

There’s good days and bad days
And there will be always
Good news and bad news everywhere you go
Good people and bad ones, but in the balance
You can see that it’s easy

4) LIVE
Every day that passes by on this ride
Believe there’s a yearning always there, deep inside
When I wake up, when I wake up and I’m somewhere
When I wake up, when I wake up and you’re not there

I run and I climb
With the weight of the world bearing down on me
Always striving to get to who is always
Right behind me

I live today is always tomorrows yesterday
But how many years will pass you by, living this way
When I wake up, when I wake up and I’m somewhere
When I wake up, when I wake up and you’re not there

I run and I climb
With the weight of the world bearing down on me
Always striving to get to who is always
Right behind me

When I fall you catch me
But like a springboard
I’m back to chasing your shadow

Will I wake up, will I wake up and see the now
Will I wake up, will I wake up and turn around

I run and I climb
With the weight of the world bearing down on me
Always striving to get to who is always
Right behind me

‘Cos everyday that passes by…

5) INTERLUDE
When you have hoarded all there is to hoard
And you’re the only master of the board
There’s one thing that always remains
The box that it all goes in at the end of the game

6) FOLLOW THE LEADER
Buy me, Sell me
Use me, abuse me
Make me pay for the damage you’ve made
Sign all of your crimes in my name
‘Cos I don’t mind

Bend me, break me
Give me, take me
And no matter how many times it goes on
I’ll still be singing that same old song
“Everybody is free, ‘cos our leaders have set us free”
As we play Follow the Leader once more, over the edge

Enchain me, enslave me
Poison me, tame me
Spin me your lies and I’ll always believe
‘Cos I’m the beaten housewife that never leaves
And I don’t mind

Maim me, blame me
Foreclose me, dispose of me
And no matter how many times it goes on
I’ll still be singing that same old song
“Everybody is free, ‘cos our leaders have set us free”
As we play Follow the Leader once more, over the edge

Hire me, fire me
Rob me, silence me
Keep me chained up and out of your sight
Then send me to fight to the death for your prize
‘Cos I don’t mind

Cheat me, beat me,
Breed me, kill me
And no matter how many times it goes on
I’ll still be singing that same old song
“Everybody is free, ‘cos our leaders have set us free”
As we play Follow the Leader once more, over the edge

“Everybody is free, ‘cos our leaders have set us free”
As we play Follow the Leader once more, over the edge

And I don’t mind.

7) SLEEPING HORSES
She will be her own worst enemy
While a saint to you and me
She lives to give
Never acting to receive
And her words you can always believe

She gets deeper while she carries Sleeping Horses
She would never burden the causing hand with their causes
With her dreams on hold and feelings swallowed with a smile
She would never dream of waking up the sleeping horses

She could be anything she wants to be
But she’s weak to a help appeal

She gets deeper while she carries Sleeping Horses
She would never burden the causing hand with their causes
With her dreams on hold and feelings swallowed with a smile
She would never dream of waking up the sleeping horses

There’s no glory in being the Martyr
Your glory is in being just the way you are

Her open heart, the bystanders all agreed
Was her Achilles Heel

She gets deeper while she carries Sleeping Horses
She would never burden the causing hand with their causes
With her dreams on hold and feelings swallowed with a smile
She would never dream of waking up the sleeping horses

8) THE LABYRINTH
Through the twisted streets
Of tangled feet
Breathing walls that hide
Hungry Reptile eyes

Don’t step on the cracks
Resist their windy hands
Hurry while you can
Before it sucks you in

Melting tentacle trees
Where shadows creep

Don’t step on the cracks
Resist their windy hands
Hurry while you can
Before it sucks you in

9) PLANET EARTH
They flee from imaginary men in the sky
Like Flees under the Stars
You can see the innocence in their eyes
But believe they’re a ticking bomb

And they went from Tribes to Groups
Still controlled by the tiny few

Here on Planet Earth
Just a grain of Earth
In a Universe
Blind

With no-one to save them there
From themselves
You can see why they send their prayers
To someone else

When they still use the eyes of a hunting man
With the tools of Apocalypse

And they’re suckers for a trick
Though you’ll like them you’ll worry sick

About Planet Earth
Just a grain of Earth
In a Universe
Blind

10) THE LAST DANCE
It’s time for the last dance in Wonderland
Before the reflections all capsize
And slip through the landfill of your eyes
Into the desert of your hands

Through the ghost towns of wendy house condominiums
All bird cages for the cowboys and Indians
All traffic, no traffic no more, just sepia stills
And symbolism burned as fire paper

You fell inside and you’re never coming back, never coming back
You willed the tides to make opposites attack
You crashed your ride on the wrong side of the tracks, wrong side of the tracks
With nowhere to hide as the chemicals react

All the treadmills are running you inside a clock
On a paper boat inside a Jar
You see the hand that waters punchbags and boxing rings
Into flowers of holographic screens

You fell inside and you’re never coming back, never coming back
You willed the tides to make opposites attack
You crashed your ride on the wrong side of the tracks, wrong side of the tracks
With nowhere to hide as the chemicals react

And the theatre is set for the witches and the pets
Don’t pick the seems of the packaging
Or see the jack in the box again

Sunk through the landslide of your mind
Into the pistons of your tongue gun

You fell inside and you’re never coming back, never coming back
You willed the tides to make opposites attack
You crashed your ride on the wrong side of the tracks, wrong side of the tracks
With nowhere to hide as the chemicals react

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