Go to Skull Orchard: sound files and reviews.
Non album song Verdun Hear it, read it

Tubby Brothers

Someone's dead in Blewitt Street
Down the stairs we chipped some paint
Declined sweet cherry, had some tea
And hovered silently.

Someone's dead in Caldicot
They dug their grave on a brand new plot
See the footbridge has been taken down
It only takes five minutes drive through town
But the flowers look like wounds
And the roads cut deep and direct
The railways change their names and don't connect

I remember Aberfan
ows of little crosses upon the hill
I wouldn't swim in the channel though now
People paralyzed at Oxwith Bay
Two containers full of chemicals
Can't take the boy down there,
what would his mother say?

Someone's dead in Clarence Place
A dry palmed handshake and a face like a well kept grave
There was some problem with the feet
But we were soft spoken, formal and discret
When the lid is down and you're underground
We wait and watch hanging around
And dream of horses in black feathers
Breathing heavy at the front of the motorcade

Penny Arcades

Mouthing obsceneties that cut like a knife
That's chosen for surgery, to rub out a life
And slice off the finger-tips, the planes of our face
As another identity sinks without trace
Into the cave of your features, the bridge and the jaw
You map out and calculate the width of a yawn
As the ugliest picture falls flat on the shelf
Strive for perfection, do away with yourself
And the eyes of a sinner will scratch and erase
As you walk like a winner through the penny arcades
From out of the water another one comes
The heart is a bubble that beats like a drum
The skin is an eggshell, a shiny blank space
This pen's full of ink now, to draw you a face
(Edith Frost - vocals, John Hyatt - vocals, Lu Edmonds - vocals)

Butter Song

Very very
Butter better very well
Butcher, wether it will sell
Well is well and silver sells
Sell a salted almond to Nell
That she will accept, and then
What does a fatty do?
She does not pay for it
No she does not
She does not pay for it
By this time they've learned how to spell
Very very likely the whole thing
Is extraordinary
Which is a great relief
All the time her name is Margeurite Ida

Sentimental Marching Song

In the barber shop
In the game
In the lair of the wrinkled old worm
All men the same
Born to brutalize on every scale
Passing down the iron line
Cocooned in a fist
Running through the tension rods never kissed
So stop all that moaning and sing
Along with the sirens outside
I'll be over at ten
We can take a ride
The beast lurches into the road
Breathing deep
Buckets of brains
Rooms full of sleep
He needs a little love at closing time
(Paul Martens & Wally Ma - brass, Tony Ray - ukulele, Tracey Dear - mandolin)

Youghal

Death to Moby Dick signed Gregory Peck
In and out of his make-up
With a whale-bone for a leg
And the bar down by the quayside
Was a goldmine everyday
Just like sitting on an oilwell
When the motion picture people came to stay

White whaler, big heart
Out there hunting with the hounds
Caught much more with a camera
Panned across the faces of the people hanging round
So all the local were extras and all the locals got paid
There's no acting in the flat black eyes
Of old women as the Pequod sailed aqway

40 summers dived out of reach
And on a TV round the back
We've got a picture on a videotape
Of the big fish that never came back
So far from the heart of Europe
The young left long ago
To look for work in London
Boston and Chicago
(Jane Baxter-Miller - vocals, Johnm Rice - fiddle)

Trap door

Too much music, too many buildings
Too many cars, too many lanes
Everything goes round in increasing circles
By remote control from miles away
I lost my footing and lost my way
Down the trapdor, down the drain
Our me out a coffee at four in the morning
I've read all the signs but I don't believe the warnings
What can I say?
I'm in splendid isolation through the whispers and the snoring
I wake up and I'm melting, I'm feeling like I'm falling
Down the trapdor, down the drain

Too many stations and corporations
Too many billboards, too many chains
The spice of life down ground to zero
It feels like Same Street USA
I lost my job and I lost my way
Down the trapdoor, down the drain

Inside the whale

We saw a better world just around the corner
Time's arrow pointing down some happy trails
Big clear dreams arising over the event horizon
But no light escapes
From inside the whale

Long blue summer nights, some basic human rights
The lunar landing craft, a donkey's ear and tail
All swallowed up as midnight struck
It's so dark down here
Inside the whale

An end to hunger, equality
Under the sea
Inside the whale

Progress, progress, rose tinted glasses
cock-eyed optimism all cracked and paled
And all the astronauts and the Kennedys got caught
Down in the depths
Inside the whale

So naive, this white boy's dream
Tucked up in bed
Inside the whale
(John Rice - fiddle)

I am the law

Can't you see
You're goinmg to spend your life with me
Yes it's true I'm going to twist and bend on you
Don't you understand?
I am the law and you are a man
Everyday Just out of sight not too far away
Every week
Talking a language you can't speak
Every year
Beat with a mallet in a poor man's ear
This money pump of power knows
The best defense is attack
But how can you climb back on the tracks
With the law riding on your back
There's the crack
Heads will bow and legs wil snap
Right down through history
It's one for you and a hundred for me
Don't you understand?

Pill sailor

A pit bull tattoo
One good eye of blue
That's wandering still
But what can you do
These ropes are all knotted and tangled round me
I'm a sailor who wandered a little too far from the sea
Did they raise up this child just to die
To stare for too long into the sky
Shirley Bassey's from Tiger Bay
But I spend my nights down in Pill
They shut down the docks
Thrown our lives on the rocks
But my good eye's wanderimng still
Past the pubs where I festered all day
Transporter bridge transport me away
'Cos these rope are all knotted and tangled round me
I'm a sailor who wandered a little to far from the sea

They passed in the channel great ships by the score
To carry out coal and to carry in ore
And at night these old sea legs were anxious to stray
They'd come from all over but never intended to stay
So tell me something I don't know
And find me a skipper with somewhere to go
(Rico Bel - accordion, John Rice - fidle)

The Last count

If I was looking for trouble
I know a place or two
And a hundred was to even up the score
A dozen ways to beat the devil
No matter how the dice might fall
But at the last count there's nothing I want at all

How many times did you sit alone staring at the door
I can't count those days on one hand
I'd need three or four
And how many nights did I sit and drink
'til the big one slipped away
Half past drinks at half past eight

It's 1 2 3 falling 5 6 7 hate myself

So play another number it's only half past one
And I'm a fraction of the person that you once counted on
At the last count my days are numbered
Chalked up on the wall
At the last count there's nothing I want at all
(Fred Armisen - percussion)

My own worst enemy

I wake up each day
To invent me again
Through the plots and deceptions
And perceptions of pain
One look in the mirror and what do I see?
Burning within My own worst enemy

I open my mouth
And what will you get?
A friend down the years
Or some bitter old shit
Who can't move a muscle
For the weight of some hurt
That's dimly imagined and fixin to burst
And cripple the one
Who's brought this on me
My walks in my shoes
My own worst enemy

I deserve better
But he demands more
Shot in the foot
That's nailed to the floor
But there's almost good reason
For this entropy
And I start believing
My own worst enemy
(Paul Martens - alto flute, Tom Ray - ukulele)

I'm stopping this train

I'm stopping this train
Let only dead men remain
Rolling on to forever I'm stopping this train
The way was so clear
But we got stuff in our eyes
Full speed ahead
Crackling through the night
Like a silver bullet
That nobody aimed
That you'll never see coming
Though it's struck with your name

Tearing up the rails
When the fuel is all gone
Getting faster and faster
Rolling on and on and on

I'm stopping this train
Let only dead men remain
Rolling onto forever I'm stopinmg this train
Stand up and yell
In the smoke and the flames
I can see in the dark now
I'm stopping this train
(Carlton B. Moran - harmonica and chat, Tony Ray - ukulele, Paul Mertens & Wally Ma - brass)

Deep sea diver

So hard to fathom
So hard to explain
Body so heavy I'm sinking again.
Down under the city
On a delicate line

There's a man on the pump
And I hope he's afriend of mine
Everything I ever wanted
The things I came to expect
they were all just on the surface
And now I'm down in the depths
Staggering round Cardiff
Just looking for sex
I'm caught in the wreckage
With the other old wrecks

Like a deep sea diver
I tried to come up too fast
I see time bend backwards
I see that nothing can last
Like a deep sea diver
The light is so dim
Now my vision is cloudy
I'll never come up again

Pressure is mounting inside my suit
Yellow water is oozing inside my boots
I've had a skinful of the rough stuff
And a capful of meths
Now I'm caught in the wreckage
With the other old wrecks

Like a deep sea diver
I tried to come up too fast
I see time bend backwards
I see that nothing can last
Like a deep sea diver
Face down in the drink
Where the dredgers are dredging
And the ships will all sink
( Mark and Zak Price - transatlantik talk, Dean Schlabowske - vcals, Paul Mertens - baritone saxophone, Tom Ray - ukulele)

Tom Jones Levitation

Whereever you wander
Whereever you'll be
Up there in the Rhondda
Down here by the sea
We're calling you home, calling you home
And this time it's to stay
And I, I can fly
Over the clouds and over the rain
And I see the greedy hand
Of the vandals who ravaged the land

It's just waiting to happen
The equation's the same
And the rules are as dirty
Though everything's changed
I see it all, you're still so small
And disasters will take new names

And I, I can fly
Over the valleys and over the hills
And I see the secrets, the kisses and quite
I see the moonlight in the valley
It's taking me back where the earth is still black
And the murderer lies under your feet taking me back
(Edith Frost - vocals, Sally Timms as herself, John Rice - fiddle)

Skull Orchard is:
Alan Doughey: bass and vocals
Marc Durante: guitars
Steve Goulding: drums