Albums - Scan Happen (It's About Time) MKCD007 2006
 click here [100.7mb zip] to download the whole album in high quality 192Kbps MP3, complete with printable inlay in pdf format; or click on a song title to read lyrics for individual songs, & play them in lower quality 96Kbps MP3, which will open in a new window/tab.
In some ways Scan Happen was the ultimate realisation of Mirrorkill as it was before we went acoustic. Having figured out how to record & produce the music for myself on The 19 Sounds, I was able to concentrate fully on making a more accessible album.
It still took three years though.
Conceptually it's far more together than The 19 Sounds. Scattered through the songs on the usual Mirrorkill subjects (which is to say, anything other than love, relationships & how great it is being in a band, which subjects seem to make up approximately 95 percent of all songs which have ever been recorded) are a set of instrumental variations entitled "Resonances", spreading out from the central mast of "Resonator". Overall, as the album's subtitle makes clear, this is a meditation upon time, & how the way we see time affects how we see life & the world. Magic mushrooms were still a big part of the writing of this album, but I'd started to find that in addition to psychedelic flashbacks for a few days after taking them, I would also get these same "flashbacks" for a few days before taking them - whether I was planning to take them or not...
The labyrinth is a central motif - & yes, a labyrinth & a maze really are different things. The bridge mantra of this song is an haiku.
This album also features one of the first of my own songs with which I'm genuinely uncomfortable - namely Mingin' Bling. I was writing it at around the same time as "chavs" were beginning to become a media phenomenon, & felt somewhat justified; but I wrote it because I was getting pissed off with being hassled by kids just for having long hair. After a while, the aforementioned media phenomenon began to take on a more disturbing hue, with some quarters calling (with varying degrees of seriousness) for mass sterilisation for this "underclass", & listening to my own song, I started to feel that it sounded like a middle class git panicking about working class oiks, which had never been the intention. But, much as I was tempted just to drop the song, enough people had heard & been amused by it that they started requesting it at gigs, so in it stayed.
I'll never forget the embarrassment the first time I played it to an audience that included a lad in a tracksuit with a baseball cap.
On a brighter note, the album also contains perhaps my favourite of my own songs, Silicon Gypsy. Written after a trippy wander around London; a riff constructed from the notes of the Gypsy musical scale; & a first line referring to the Romany anthem Gelem, Gelem; it reflects my increasing suspicion that, all my whinging aside, everything is as it should be with the world, a theme I've since revisited in The Final Curtain on (Batteries Not Invented).
(instrumental)
02 zen & the art of psycho motel's main tenants [4:01 2.8MB MP3]
attention! to all day-trippers in these catacombs of hell
you wouldn't last five minutes without us to guide you, well
you tell us we're freaks & failures, tell us that we're insane
but you're hungry for inspiration so here we go again
bastards! you're all fad suckers in this world that you create
faced with the slightest madness your urge is to medicate
when capitalism crumbles what will be your defence,
but zen & the art of psycho motel's main tenants?
so it seems that one man's sexy is another's apoplexy
moral mass of fire & fury, self-appointed judge & jury
people so obsessed with flesh are more uptight than all the rest
a country cracks & fails the test & all it takes is just one breast
the source of life is too obscene as if it's somewhere no one's been
but underneath this thin veneer, we are always naked here
girls are raised to show their skin but hate the bodies that they're in
never see it as a plus if they're clinically voluptuous
boys work out until it hurts then go to work in ties & shirts
travel round in cars & planes & never get to feel the rain
I come from a loving home, I still feel awkward on these bones
but underneath this thin veneer, we are always naked here
buy yourself the latest gear try in vain to clothe your fear
but underneath this thin veneer, we are always naked here
we are always naked
underneath the fags & beer, we are always naked
underneath the make up smear, we are always naked
underneath this thin veneer, we are always naked here
o ye of little taste! with caps pulled down to hide your faces
made redundant by your hoodies, hands down kecks to squeeze your goodies
alone you're background like a mural, but oh so tough when you are plural
nasty cars with modded bodies bring to mind mad max meets noddy
your gold chains prove that you aren't gay, & clothes for sports you never play
it's not alright, it's not okay
keep your mingin' bling away
& ladies - don't get off scott free - what's with the argos jewellery?
the towelling tracksuits have to stop
(do you really think she's still, she's still Jenny from the block?)
the brightest colours of the spectrum, thong hitched up to meet your rectum
when did builder's bum get chic? like all the rest you're so unique
the standard sunbed orange hue with melanoma peeking through
so obsessed with shiny things, just children crowned & conquering
infect our culture like a growth, yeah, eamonn, frankie, fuck you both
ever more ridiculous, consumption grows conspicuous
hype eat up hope as we swing from their rope
expectations are raised to be dashed on the slippery
slope of emotion, so sick of devotion
kill all ambition with magical potions
hype eat up hope now we've finished the dope
& all that we're left with are shapes in the smoke
& a rumbling hunger we can't ever fill
so much for the dreams that the dealers are shilling
hype eat up hope as the lovers elope
to a life of such drudgery they'll never cope
they listen to love songs of passion & kisses
a view of the world that continually misses
I fear I cannot follow
how you swallow what you swallow
hype eat up hope now we've swallowed the soap
& we're queasy & quaking & theirs for the taking
society's circle of ignorant bliss
I can't quite believe that it's coming to this
hype eat up hope, well the charts are a joke
they're just modelling music that someone else wrote
devoid of all feeling, an absence of meaning
decaying the brain cells that ought to be healing
yeah hype eat up hope, if you don't get the joke
well I'd love to explain but I haven't the scope
your accountancy, nobody likes what you've done
with your head up your arse there's no room for the sun
(instrumental)
your empire rots around your ears, as you line your nest with souvenirs
focus on myopic fears but the aftermath's going to last for years
itch to scratch & cash to burn, all the pleas for peace you spurn
you've past the point of no return, you'll never learn, you'll never learn
handouts for the sovereign state like you could care about their fate
but it's far too fucking little, man, & far too fucking late
all the while our future lies convulsing on the table
& the experts don't seem able to control what's going on
for the safety of the nation, they'll consider amputation
of the rights & reputations of the ones who think they're wrong
marching millions you ignored, but no one showed a proud accord
so you found a war that never ends, with which you can enich your friends
clamping down on human rights, darkness comes, you kill the lights
you're the ones we ought to fight, you're full of shite, you're full of shite
playground loyalties so puerile aren't beneath your dignity
there will be a reckoning largely 'cos you think there won't be
all the while our future lies convulsing on the table
& the experts don't seem able to control what's going on
but I'm fucked & I'm unshaven & I find my heart is craven
will the mass imagination just convulse & carry on?
every day I go to work, I know full well it's all a sham
but somehow knowing doesn't help, still fellating for the man
keeping up this masquerade while all my world is broke & busted
drag my arse through broken glass to try & pass as well adjusted
time may well be money, but neither one is real
& I can't just spend a lifetime trying to fight the way I feel
wonder if I ever will be free, achieve escape velocity?
now the images move faster & my thoughts are just a hum
my past is all inertia that I'm trying to overcome
all this flesh & bone & muscle, all the things I know are mine
& the everlasting game of snakes & ladders in my spine
it's time that we unravel what's been pulled over our eyes
we're only fighting shadows of our own selves in disguise
imagine all that I could be - if I should reach escape velocity
trying to remember as we build our hell on earth
that each birth is a trauma & every trauma is a birth
so drop everything & come with me, towards escape velocity
I feel you pulsing deep within
this is where we've always been
floating in this endless sea
anticipating memories
& now our deepest muscles flex
it's more like travelling than sex
to meet the goddess in your soul
as black as marble, white as coal
the real world is such a bore
I just can't feel it any more
we leave our bodies, brains unfurled
around the day in 80 worlds
through a magnesium desert blows a metal wind
& it carries all the cries of the disposessed & sinned against
tramping to the beat of a broken machine
through the silicon dust of the information dream
nothing changes & nothing grows
& the skeleton of progress sniffs an artificial rose
the rich are clothed in guilt while the poor are being skinned
nothing more to do now but listen to the wind
(instrumental)
I saw you through my mother's hair in the night-filled nursery
I turned my head to see you clear but you passed away from me
the animal man with eyes that swam, you looked at me
I see you walking in the heathaze
always ahead of me
you visited my dreams & told me things that were to come
you whispered tales of endless waves that never see the sun
you told me of the miles of dust & everything I am
I looked for you in shadows, in the corridors of power
I listened for your breathing & I waited for your hour
all the time remembering the night I walked with you
I've waited all these nightmare days but I know the time will come
when all that's good & foul lies bare & blackened by the sun
& you & I will crawl outside & I'll see your face again
it's no use complaining to eros or cupid
selection will favour the fertile & stupid
they've sold us on sex as the ultimate crutch
& that's why we're all fucking so fucking much
a new pair of eyes now is raised to the sun
statistical nightmare that we have become
resources that dwindle with every new birth
the meek can inherit what's left of the earth
'cos cancer is capitalism made flesh
you will succumb just like all of the rest
so bow down & worship this priapic figure
the economy's strong & it's just getting bigger
there's poor to exploit & there's money to make
but no one says no to a slice of this cake
the greed we disown the ambitions we hide
but everyone here is along for the ride
I hope that the world has a sick sense of humour
'cos eternal expansion's the way of the tumour
drawn into this conflict by the means of our propulsion
now our bodies are connected in this communal convulsion
blood mixed with adrenalin, the deadliest emulsion
you'll have to keep a lid on all your feelings of revulsion
so
watch another top 100 filled with warm nostalgic tingles
all my heroes have come back to me as advertising jingles
all repackaged & remixed, all the merchandising plastered
they won't stop until all history has been digitally remastered
barely comprehending all the money that we're spending
liberty is sick & mired, there'll be no turning of the tyred
though you're going round the bend
beware the messages you send
'cos all that matters in the end is that you fear, desire & spend
remember all you're really for is wasting much & wanting more
as if I could convince you when I can't convince myself
it's so hard to kick our habits when they're hurting someone else
& we've gone too far inside ourselves now to ride this coming storm
we've left the world behind us, & we think that that's the norm
in the service of our greed, nature's there to fill our need
though she's straining on the collar, sing hosanna to the dollar
I hate this fractured carousel with all my poisoned heart
I want to change the world, but I don't know where to start
though every step is agony, I cannot choose my path
for the future is relentless & it's always last to laugh
the universe is
in your head, which is within
the universe
Mind is caught up in the mesh
Into this labyrinth of flesh
Never knowing why it's there
Options narrow to despair
Theseus without his string
Another sacrificial king
Upside down & overboard
Running from the mighty roar
my questions bring no answers, my answers bring no cheer
my ambitions are frustrated, there goes another year
& this life seems so uncertain so permanence can wait
but now the temporary's stretching into something that I hate
(instrumental)
I dream of a day when Travis aren't such suckers
when they sing "rain on me, would you, motherfucker?"
a day when girlpower's more than playing up to men
with cartoon lust, short skirts flashing us your tits again
I dream of Thelma & Louise
realising they've cured nothing only strengthened the disease &
I dream of a day when we're finally free
of the soulless hacks, besuited twats trying to write our destinies
I dream of seeing the episode of "Friends"
the one where they meet an ugly person & have to make amends
& then the real world comes crashing in
& they're finally face to face with what self-indulgent twats they've been
& then the episode of "Ally MacBeal"
where her colleagues get concerned & watch her try to eat a meal
"now come on boys, we gave her anorexia
is there really any way that we could make her any sexier?"
don't let the bastards write your script
I don't believe your reason's slipped
you're not a hero or a crook
let's do nothing by the book
I dream of a day no one cares who's screwing who
& there's finally some reality on the six o'clock news
I hope I live to see a mass illumination
where every work of art contains its own self-refutation
they make it seem so complex being adults in these times
we arrest our own ascent & never even try to climb
our culture is so petrified our stars are super-dense
conspiring in an insult to the mass intelligence
so you're picking through the rubble of the western dream
desperately hoping all is not as it seems
when you find a small reminder of a route you could have taken
leave it to the fates to argue if you were mistaken
armageddon is a symbol & what it represents
is our own inherent terror of the ever-present tense
we're stuck here in this luxury suspended animation
peopling the future with the worst of our imaginations
que sera fuckin' sera whether you will or no I tell ya
don't be quite so quick to judge your species as a failure
next conclusion that you jump to just might be your own
but the road that lies before us all is as yet unknown
what if this pollution we create around the world
is to push our evolution as our dna unfurls?
I'm just saying, don't expect you've got the only bigger picture
reality will always find a way to contradict ya
all up & down this silent land the scream is just suppressed
a tension in the sinews of the poor & disposessed
of the sick of being lied to, of the won't get fooled again
of the couldn't give a fuck, mate - all the apathetic men
we all know we're being shafted & we're sick of being sore
& we hate the way we're used & then we're made to beg for more, but
miracles can happen here
we represent their deepest fear
that miracles can happen here
so there's warmth & reassurance that the experts all are right
& you really must belive them, if you want to sleep at night
& we may not know the answer, but we know the question's there
& it drives us to distraction & it drives us to despair
if you were trying to write a book then we would be the page
'cos life is all a concert & we're just trying to get backstage
I wandered, I wandered the streets of the city
a silicon gypsy through people so pretty
narcissus was echoed on walls & on hoardings
the gravy train's here & it's currently boarding
feeling the sun on the back of my head
from a sky that remained the dull colour of lead
with the heady aroma of burned hydrocarbons
the sights & the smells of our chemical garden
but I talked with the tower & the rain & the pavement
they tell me illusion's our only enslavement
& all land is holy & everything's blessed
humanity's only fulfilling its destiny
so I sing of the old gods, forgotten & lost
the god of the harvest, the corn & the frost
& I sing of the new gods, unknown & fantastic
mother of junkyards & father of plastic
well I've seen to the heart of this cold, silent land
seen too many things I just can't understand
so I live in the midst of the fruits of my labour
the edge of the world, the abyss is my neighour
(instrumental)
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