album name

We went to the bottom of the ocean

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by The Sound of The Ladies

We went to the bottom of the ocean Cover Art
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  • We went to the Bottom of The Ocean CD

    CD in handprinted card wallet (not the one with interchangable covers). Very fetching.
    Also includes immediate download of 10-track album in your choice of 320k mp3, FLAC, or just about any other format you could possibly desire.

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credits
released 11 August 2010
Music by thesoundoftheladies (thesoundoftheladies.com) and art by Consumer Revolt (www.consumerrevolt.co.uk)
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tags: acoustic alt. folk London
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Track Name: What we did with our lives
What we did with our lives
When every meal was a banquet
I was woken by the sound of the ladies
Riding into town, trying to be mysterious
I'm trying to be mysterious but we both know
I'll spend all day in the heat
Rifle in lap
Waiting for baby mouses to poke their heads out in the sun
'Till they return with the loot
This is what we called fun when every meal was a banquet

What we did with our lives
When each mistake was a given
I was woken by the sound of the ladies
Rousing around me
Fracture lines forming but hidden
When each mistake was a given

What we did with our lives
Every opportunity missed
I was woken by the sound of the ladies
They threw their clothes to the ground
And their hands in the air
Summer dresses unnecessary, and I didn't care
To open the blinds, no, my thoughts were elsewhere
With the girls who'd withdrawn in contempt and despair
And those scattered sweethearts still craving my kiss
Every action was a misstep
Every opportunity missed

Should have gone to Cambridge and been recruited as a spy
Should have hung around the Circus, telling tales of creatures the carnies described
Like, "There was a man in antiquity
With one million heads and one million hands
And he weeps for all the things he will never be
From his two million eyes, and his tears make the sea
And they keep him around so that children will see him and say,
'This is what he did with his life. This is what he did with his life'"

This is what we did with our lives
Track Name: We went to the bottom of the ocean
We went to the bottom of the ocean
To dredge the sand for the plankton
Which is the cure for male erectile dysfunction

And they gave me a tiny submarine
With a plough on the front
It looked just like Thunderbird 4 - only not as good

And if I’m lucky then I’ll die inside this artificial mollusc
With ten thousand pounds in the bank
And if I’m lucky I won’t see the cracks that are snaking through the glass
Like an underwater spider’s web, they’ll be covered by the peak of my recently acquired submarine captain’s hat

And if I’m lucky then my widow will be twice as proud of me
Than if my life had carried on the way it was panning out to be: Cabin-boy, Captain, Commodore, and finally the man
Sending greedy sailors down in aluminium cans

To be swallowed by a giant squid
Swallowed by the dread abyss
Swallowed up in deepest blue
An insect in a child’s hands

And eulogizing empty, once again my words would say:
"He died at the bottom of the ocean
Dredging the sand for the plankton
Which is the cure for male erectile dysfunction"
Track Name: Department of Homeland Security
I woke up, one arm still asleep
They found a body up on Arbroath beach
Seaweed sash all around it
Now it's all they can do not to shout about it

They'll be a plaque
A municipal award
From the bowels of the institution
For how close their storyboard
Is to the final execution

So I'll make a start if you get it out
I've a few ideas; how does this sound:

So let's say crooked militiamen
Were paid by local fishermen
To catch the poachers on their patch
And shoot the pirates BANG!

They said there were signs of fire, fire
They said the beach was covered in shells
From the guns from an army from the south sea isles
Sighted from the docks

Or jaws and tentacles dragged down
A tourist in a lonely town
Too close to hungry waters
Chewing on the chalky rocks

Got drunk, fell off an oil rig
Major Mincemeat's damp but daring diversion
A rambler turned their ankle on a clifftop path
A mafia hit on an innocent person
Track Name: Up! Went my dreams
You came in my window
You midnight accost
You rattled and rumbled, roared
“One day you’ll lose her”
It shook from my lungs a bubble of purest sorrow
And up! went my dreams, up and were lost!

You filled up my ears with your molasses
Paraffin, saltpeter and phoenix’s ashes
And a match struck out one -
One struck to my cost
And up! went my dreams, up and were lost!

At two I awoke
Eyes wide as the river
Everything jewelled in an icicle sliver
And I saw you there, lying sleeping and still
And I closed the window to take off the chill
Our warmth turned to steam the last of the frost
And up! went my fears, up and were lost!
Track Name: Every Single One
Hydra wash up on the beach
A fire will rise on its demise
Right before our slurping eyes
This monster into morsels slice

We let the flame invade
Great gleaming gobs of fish-fat fell
To coat our modish hairstyles well
In a submarine pomade

And like a wildcat geyser
From the belly of the beast
Burst an oily liquor
Blotting out the summer sun
The fiery pitch had burned us all
It works its magic where it falls
And turned us into demon's thralls
Every single one

Those who observed their neighbours
Believed they were in hell
And fought in terror to escape
With brands, and rocks, and fishing knives
Then we heard the gunshots coming from the town:
Soldiers seeing evil's march and fighting for their lives

And I fled madly to the sea
And many fellows followed me
And drowned amid the breakers
Far beyond my reach
The water closed above my head
To smother back that evil scene
Its mercy dragged me far away and left me on a distant beach

It took me many hours to stumble to spot I'd started on
Where the sea had washed away the dead
Every single one
Where the sea had washed away the dead
Every corpse but one
Track Name: Bank Burns Down
What do we do when the bank burns down
All of our money carried up in a cloud?
What do we do when the sterling smoke
Covers all our babies’ clothes?

When the air’s so thick and ashen
We can’t see to stoke the fire
We’ll take our many feet
To the Grand Old City Bank
And tramp around the embers
And take our warmth from that

What do we do when the sunrise comes
In the middle of the afternoon
And it starts raining cats and dogs
And all the people that we knew?

When waterfalls appear to fill the bowl where once the city stood
Sweeping up the mothers and the children from the neighbourhood
We’ll do what we have always done
We’ll hold on by our nails
Like poppies in fresh furrowed ground
And then recount the tales

What do we do when the tv stutters?
What do we do when the candle gutters?
What do we do when the premier utters words of looming fall?
We’ll do what we have always done
Take our comfort in the one
Thing that gives us comfort
In this carnival

What do we do when the soil has settled?
What do we do when it all gets better?
Will we only have the weather in common to complain about?
What will we do when we hear our voice?
Will we recognise the noise, or clamp our hands in horror over our distended mouths?
Track Name: <Hand Punches Air>
Dear Reader,
If this letter's travelled unperturbed to reach your hands then my tentative footfalls strike the flooded lands - but if my hands punches the air, it's to break the seal of foam on this stormy world, and if I'm standing tall, it's to suck a final breath from a broken lightbulb.
That's how I'll get sustenance for my journey forth to the islands of Snowdonia, far off to the north. In a land forgot and sodden I sat waiting for the other shoe to fall - behind the setting sun, it's truth is nothing but a fireball.
What chance has filled these lungs with the clammy breath of life picked this pair from plenty more deserving, then deserted me - leaving me with bellows to fill up all the stars. But at the highest point I can bellow all I like - and maybe we can start (after the fashion of our time).
But on the ocean floor, I can hear another call, and it isn't one of mine. It isn't one of man - and it isn't one of mine.
Track Name: Straight, boy
I walk around between elation and privation
And if I keep my station the mud would hold me down

They're predicting rain, and fire
And an army from the south
But all I see's the clouds around my mouth
And flecks of blood in endless mire

Last night I thought I heard the sounds of violence drifting over on the taught and frozen air
Then it left us to our loneliness, our hunger, our despair
And the next day no-one spoke, no-one said a word

We're expecting rain, and fire
And an army from the south
But all I see's the flecks of blood around my mouth
And rolling clouds on endless mire

I walk around between elation and privation
And if I keep my station I could camp here on the ground
Track Name: The '40s never died
It looks like a city, but it’s just the usual suspects
Dragging everybody ‘round
Running in a circle to look more like a crowd
Cousins, aunts and uncles lining up by the parade ground

We’re sat on the top step of the stoop
At the start of the slums and the shanty towns
The landlord is here shouting everybody down
Bring your brothers and your sisters and we’ll pack this place out

Jukebox joints and G.I. jive
It’s a wonder anybody thinks the ‘40s ever died

Here and now, I’ll say it:
“There’s not a single competition not arbitrary or pointless”
I’m the best at running twenty-seven metres with my left foot in a shoe one size too large

I’m the best at loving
I’m the best at guessing
I’m the best at singing
I’m the best at the guitar

I grew a beard to protect myself
From the unwanted attention of beautiful women
So far it’s shown only adequate success
But I’m hoping for improvement as I trim it less and less

Hail to the pedestrians! Martyr to their feet!
Ploughing their tedious furrow
They’ll never face struggles such as these
They’ll never know such sorrow

It looks like a city, but it’s just the usual suspects
Dragging everybody ‘round
Running in a circle to look more like a crowd
Cousins, aunts and uncles lining up by the parade ground

Jukebox joints and G.I. jive
It’s a wonder anybody thinks the ‘40s ever died
(Well, it looks like a city, but it’s just the usual suspects)
Jukebox joints and G.I. jive
It’s a wonder anybody thinks the ‘40s ever died
Track Name: Wash the sleep from my eyes, for one day I'll have to awake
You don’t have to look very hard to find people
Who’ll tell you how you should be living
So I’ll add my voice to the dischordant chorus
Like chimney-smoke proudly uprising:

Life is a dream from which we’ll all one day awake
In a manner most likely abrupt
And profoundly surprising
So wash the sleep from my eyes, for one day I’ll have to awake

And I think of those people who cut their own throats accidentally
Catching their razors on moles or recalcitrant stubble
They missed the chance to die older and lonelier eventually
And to think there are those who say life’s but a pitiless struggle
So wash the sleep from my eyes, for one day I’ll have to awake

This dream of a world wars, applauds mediocrity
Lies and brutality
Flight from reality
Poets and people who speak rationality provide me a sliver of hope

But you rain down your ribbons and furbelows
On your dumbfounded progeny
Who, if they wonder, lament the glacier holding them
By their powder blue toes
So wash the sleep from my eyes, for one day I’ll have to awake