Absent Friends

Release Date

Mar 2004

Absent Friends is the eighth studio album and features the singles: Come Home Billy Bird and Absent Friends.

Absent Friends Absent friends, here's to them And happy days, we thought that they would never end Here's to absent friends Little Jean Seberg seemed So full of life, but in those eyes such troubled dreams. Poor little Jean Woodbine Willie couldn't rest until he'd Given every bloke a final smoke before the killing Old Woodbine Willie Steve McQueen jumped the first one clean But the great escape he'd tried to make was not to be Maybe next time Steve Laika flew through inky blue Till Laika neared the atmosphere and Laika knew Laika's life was through Oscar Wilde was a lonely child He fought and won acceptance from the world They smiled, they laughed, they praised They drove poor Oscar to his grave Absent friends, here's to them, And happy days, we thought that they would never end, But they always end Raise your glasses then to absent friends

Sticks And Stones You and I go together Like the molar and the drill Flesh is weak, but darling we know That the ego's weaker still I've been hung, drawn and quartered Slowly slaughtered like a goat By the tongue of a woman Who just couldn't let it go Sticks and stones may break my body But words can tear me apart So be careful what you tell me Spare a thought for my heart Broken bones fuse together Bruises never last for long But once they're said words stay spoken And hearts stay broken from that moment on Sticks and stones may break my body But words can tear me all apart So be careful what you tell me Spare a thought for my heart

Leaving Today So suddenly awake No light from yonder window breaks No crowing cock Just my old clock Please make it stop I try to wrestle free But like the dew she clings to me, "No way Jose, you don't get away that easily" Leaving today, leaving today, leaving today "Release me let me go. I love you more that you could know. All I can do is promise to come home to you" I tip-toe from the bed And put my head around the nursery door to say good-bye It breaks my heart every single time I'm leaving today, I'm leaving today, I'm leaving today I could stay if you asked me So for God's sake don't ask me to stay My taxi has arrived Good-bye sweet simple life, good-bye The city's waking up Dreams fizzle out like raindrops racing down the glass They blur the street-lamps as we pass

Come Home Billy Bird William wakes with his clothes on The morning call has been and gone And he might not make the flight but he will try Bit by bit it comes back to him A bunch of Belgian business men And a strange drinking game, oh God why? Come home Billy Bird, international business traveller Come home Billy Bird He hails a cab but the driver sucks He drives so slowly and he talks so much That it hurts Billy Bird's aching brain He runs from the cab to the check-in desk She says, "no way??, but William begs On his knees, "Please, please, please" "Well ok" Come home Billy Bird, international business traveller Come home Billy Bird Drenched in sweat he finds his seat And with the luggage squeezed down beneath his feet He begins to think that things can't get no worse. But then a voice says, "bags that can't be stowed In the overhead locker must go below in the hold Please let go, thank-you sir" Come home Billy Bird, international business traveller Come home Billy Bird Come home William Come home He runs on past the carousel Screaming, "damn my luggage all to hell. I can buy a new shirt and tie any day" He rides from the airport into town To the high-school football ground Where his son has just begun his big football game Come home Billy Bird, international business traveller Come home Billy Bird

My Imaginary Friend Would you like to meet my little friend? Don't try to shake his hand he's just pretend His name is Benjamin, that's his name My Mamma says, "you're insane Boy you really are the end You and your imaginary friend" Daddy drives the mobile library He works peripatetically He doesn't get much time to play with us So we just read and make up stuff And it drives him round the bend Me and my imaginary friend One day we're gonna play hide and seek And Ben will be up the creek Never to be seen again He'll disappear the day that childhood ends And reality descends I'll never forget you my imaginary friend

The Wreck Of The Beautiful When the Beautiful set sail back in 1970 She was state of the art, the flagship of our navy But the salt sea took its toll and the rust began to show And with a heavy heart we took her to the breaker's yard I thought I heard her call Maybe I heard nothing at all I thought I heard her call From the wreck of the Beautiful But like the fattened cow can smell the butcher's knife She knew where she was bound, a sad end to a proud life That's when I heard her cry and the waves rose five miles high And the men who did not drown watched as the Beautiful went down I thought I heard her call Maybe I heard nothing at all I thought I heard her call From the wreck of the Beautiful

Our Mutual Friend No matter how I try I just can't get her out of my mind And when I sleep I visualise her I saw her in the pub I met her later at the night-club A mutual friend introduced us We talked about the noise And how it's hard to hear your own voice Above the beat and the sub-bass We talked and talked for hours We talked in the back of our friend's car As we all went back to his place On our friend's settee She told me that she really liked me And I said "cool, the feeling's mutual" We played old 45's I said "it's like the soundtrack to our lives" And she said "true, it's not unusual" Then privately we danced But couldn't seem to keep our balance A drunken haze had come upon us We sank down to the floor and we sang A song that I can't sing any more And then we kissed and fell unconscious I woke up the next day All alone but for a headache I stumbled out to find the bathroom But all I found was her Wrapped around another lover No longer then is he our mutual friend

The Happy Goth "The lonely road you choose to travel on It must seem awfully long Innocence all gone It must be wrong to hide your lovely face away That music you play, I'm not saying it's bad It just seems terribly sad Is everything all right? I'd like to think you'd tell me if something was wrong" Well her clothes are blacker than the blackest cloth And her face is whiter than the snows of Hoth She wears Dr. Martens and a heavy cross But on the inside she's a happy goth "Don't worry Mum, don't worry Dad The hours that I spend alone are the happiest I've ever had" That's what she'd say if she ever spoke to you But it's something she can never do 'Case it's only by herself that she'll find out What makes her different from the rest Well her clothes are blacker than the blackest cloth And her face is whiter than the snows of Hoth She wears Dr. Martens and a heavy cross But on the inside she's a happy goth Well her clothes are blacker than the blackest cloth And her face is whiter than the snows of Hoth She wears Dr. Martens and a heavy cross But on the inside ...

Freedom Road It's early morning on I-19 I ain't got much for company, A pick-up truck, a brown Volvo And a couple of jokers on the radio I wish that it could stay like this But soon I'll have to put up with The whole world and his Uncle Joe Cluttering up my freedom road When I was a boy I'd fantasize About the freedom road. I'd drive A thousand miles before sundown Father a child in every town But a hundred thousand miles have passed Between me and iconoclastic images Of the freedom road I wanna shed this heavy load Well I've seen the power of the lightning storm I've seen the endless ears of corn I've seen the lakes at the break of day And that shit takes my breath away But if I were to even start To tell them how it melts my heart Never more would my truck-stop friends Look me in the eye again It's early morning on I-19 A dreamer's waking from his dream A driver who has lost his way Parks up his rig and walks away

Laika's Theme Instrumental

Charmed Life When I hold you in my arms And look back on my charmed life, my charmed life I hope, I hope if nothing more That one day you'll call your life a charmed life Well I've never really worried that much About making lots of money and such And I always seem to land upon my feet And though there's been some difficult times The good times were never far behind I've snatched all of my victories from the jaws of defeat When I hold you in my arms And look back on my charmed life, my charmed life I hope, baby I hope if nothing more That one day you'll call your life a charmed life Well, the course of true love never ran smooth They broke my heart and I broke theirs too And breaking up is so very hard to do But I knew I'd find the one And sure enough she came along And not long after that along came you Well sometimes this life is like being afloat On a raging sea in a little row-boat Just trying not to be washed overboard But if you take your chances and you ride your luck And you never, never, never, never, never give up Those waves will see you safely to a friendly shore When I hold you in my arms I know that this is a charmed life A charmed life