1. |
Rooms
03:18
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Though we weren’t built for these times
Might as well give it a try
Hot air pushes us left and right
There’s worth in waiting a while
The rooms where we belong
You can go do what you like
Do your best to keep out of line
Because you can doesn’t mean you should
Reactions thicker than blood
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2. |
Jamal Gerald
02:10
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I get these weird sensations in my mind,
that pirouette throughout my body, in time with my heartbeats.
I walk. Walking is my therapy. The wind is my counsellor.
I jump in and out, in and out, in and out.
Thinking about my past and future.
I’m never present. It’s an endless walk.
My anxiety gives me unwanted kisses.
My depression wants us to waltz in public.
I keep falling over. I can’t handle the intense
eye contact my depression is giving me.
It’s an endless walk with flashbacks.
My high school bullies appear in a black and white slide show.
Their voices animated when they shout homophobic slurs.
Some body parts sting, reminding me of when
I was beaten with a stick.
Laughter from fellow pupils echoing into this present day.
Laughed like they were watching a comedy special.
My fingers tingle. I’m trapped.
Questioning why I was never man enough.
Will I ever be man enough?
I take five deep breaths to calm myself down from overthinking.
My mental state levitates. I smile.
I’m now free to dance by myself.
Only for a bit, I treasure this short period.
My thoughts are in a coma; they’ll wake up soon.
And I’ll have to take care of them.
It’s an endless walk where I question my existence.
I question. I question. Am I still a man if I let these tears shed?
I let these tears shed.
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3. |
Rooms - Truant remix
04:04
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4. |
Slowly
02:33
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If I could pick the thoughts from my mind
Decipher true meaning cast troubles aside
I would be clearer on what’s wrong what’s right
Blurring the boundaries of yours and what’s mine and move
Slowly
Surely
Softly
Gently
Question the motives lean to the light
When all else fails the sun still feels right
Those that are closest can still feel so far
Feeding off instinct I taste the alarm and move
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5. |
Chris Thorpe
01:36
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This is for the ones who aren't really 'ill'
You know me, it's just me
Maybe I'm a bit sad sometimes
Yeah, I don't mind admitting I'm sad
That I carry something, but it's fine
I mean, maybe once, late night you saw my face
Caught in the pool of a street lamp
We walked under, stumbling home
And for a second it twisted up
Or maybe the mask just disappeared
And you saw the way my flesh really lies
Then it was gone as quick as it came
But I knew you'd seen it and we both
Pretended it wasn't there
But I'm not really ill
Not in a way worth talking about
Not when the world is so full of real problems
So day to day I walk like a man
Whatever a man's supposed to walk like
And I carry this thing like a backpack
I carry it everywhere
On the path by the canal
Where the water sometimes looks inviting
Or on the long Monday staircase to the office
Past the calling fourth floor windows
Or the railway bridge on the way home
Or in the bathroom where it bumps the shelves
And tempts the razors from their packets
And I've been trained to carry this
Right until the end
In silence and in steadfastness
By watching other men
So I'll carry this until I break
I'll swim until I drown, unless
I find a way of asking for
Some help to put it down
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6. |
Slowly - Ruiseart remix
05:24
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7. |
A Different Light
03:14
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In a different light the things that you are doing now
Won’t be cut and dry high tides they may just flood you out
When all is cast aside is this heart in the right place now?
Searching front and back what’s left will quietly drag you down
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8. |
Jackie Hagan
02:48
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This lad,
Fag in his hand,
Can in the other,
Blinged up lover,
Pissed up mother,
Tattoos, trainers, probably looted everything he owns
And you just know he’s got a big massive…telly,
A belly full of spam, jam, thank you Mam for giving me the taste of turkey Twizzlers.
Probably never even heard of Quinoa!
We call him Our Kid,
He’s taller than he looks, if he was born somewhere else he might have read books, felt quieter, as it is, well he never shuts up.
In private he’s one of them boys who grips the ends of his sleeves so his feelings don’t fall out.
He’s good at maths and he
cries at that advert with the bunny and the bear
Doesn’t know if he’s allowed to cry or not anymore
The what-the-fuck of being a man
Carry the heaviest, be nice to your nan
Problem solve, don’t lose your shit
And if you do
The only emotion you’re allowed is
punching walls
This little piggy built his bravado from straw and lies and wit and charm, he read books, and studied to get out of this place, he tried to escape he got it slammed in his face
(See that fella over there, in the pin striped suit, with the businessman briefcase, well if you work hard, if you risk your reputation and go to university, well you, you could be his cleaner).
This little piggy made his bravado from sticks and wood and empty threats, a macho walk, and debts the size of ego punctured -
This little piggy made his bravado from bricks, and fists.
Our Kid isn’t lazy
You can’t call him backward
Cos what he is, is knackered
From cold broken homes and a world that says you’re pointless, worthless
Says his sister should give birth less
Says we shouldn’t spend our precious cash on things that make it temporarily better
Make it easier to open letters from the dreaded DSS, the debtors and the doctors
Yeah we do risk our health, for that something that is almost nothing like bliss
But its easier to be flippant about your everything than it is to let yourself care
When your past your present and probably your future is genuinely unfair
In the Manchester lootings it was the mobile phone shops and the trainer shops that got looted,
Stuff that gives lads status when they’ve got none in a society that gives them no way to get any
The poshest shop, selfridges, that didn’t get looted
it got set on fire
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9. |
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10. |
Ignorance Is bliss
04:25
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I don’t sleep that much
It steals my shine gives me more time to
Overthink the things I’ve done
Though you don’t care for words they still spill from you like swords
Cutting through the groove you move to
I don’t care that much
The biggest lie that keeps me tied to
All the things I need to prove
A time to realign knowing well how to provide
I choose to care for the bones that move you
If knowledge is power
Ignorance is bliss
In the know not feeling strong
It’s the bliss I miss
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11. |
Ben Mellor
02:50
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This is for...
The man whose songs helped some decide to stay upon this earth,
A man adored by fans from east to west, from south to north
But whom no amount of love could help persuade him of his worth,
His illness dragged him down, they found him floating in the forth.
And the man who last month found his partner lifeless on the floor,
Now drinking every day to dull a grief he can’t express.
It won’t be long before he joins her on that distant shore
She was the only one who stopped him living to excess.
And the man who strives for too-high expectations of himself,
Compares each first attempt to his rival’s final draft
So self-inflicted misery deepens like that coastal shelf
And his fear of not being good enough stops him bettering his craft
And the boy who hides his hard-on in the showers after games
And dresses up desire as rough and tumble with his mates
And hates himself for joining in the cusses and the names
He fears they’d call him if they knew he’s only playing straight
And the man who lost his friend to cancer just the other week,
And now believes there’s something lethal growing inside him too
But doesn’t want to be a burden, so he doesn’t speak,
Just sits and ruminates on what it might lead him to do.
And the man who’s trying to write a poem on mental health
Who knows that sometimes art can soothe the pain that life inflicts
But whose inner critic keeps on castigating him by stealth
So he begins to emulate the moods his work depicts
And all the boys now growing up and trying to learn the script
Of masculinity but know it’s badly out of date
They’re trying to write a new one but don’t feel well-equipped
To chart a course through all the paths they’re asked to navigate
And all the men brought up by dads with iron-stiff upper lips
Who never learned to open up and talk of how they feel
Now raising sons with whom they have constrained relationships,
and still don’t know how to address the wounds they need to heal
All these boys and all these men are told to feel no shame
About their pain, their weaknesses, that they just need to speak
About what troubles them, it’s what the ad campaigns proclaim -
That if they simply ask then they will find the help they seek
And that’s all well and good but it can be hard to talk
When you can’t tell which is your voice and the ears keep getting cut
And the hashtags and celebrities, though well-meaning make you balk
At being told to open up when your local ward’s been shut.
So this is for the men and boys, the women and the girls
Who know that talking is a start but that you also have to act
Who know life’s gritty bits don’t always alchemise to pearls
But we may be another’s shell when we can see they’re being attacked.
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12. |
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WE ARE WILLOW Manchester, UK
Creative studio and multidisciplinary arts collective, collaborating on projects engaging in cultural, commercial and community interest on a national and international scale.
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