Same

I've watched lines and lines of railway lines
blurring as they shoot past train windows
I've sat stationary on the motorways of this world
staring at discarded shoes
I want to carry a card - just like a donor card that says:
In the event of an accident please take my shoes with me

I watch the traffic through yesterday's rain
I watch the neighbourhood through distorted panes
I look at CD artwork through scratchy grey plastic
and see pictures of dinners on tins
I've been up I've been down I've spent a fortune in pubs
and I've bitten my nails to the quick
and if I've ever seen such a thing as life in the raw
it was wearing a polyester suit

see I was brought up on bland I was schooled in mundane
we never had fancy when we could've had plain
I was brought up on hard-up schooled in forget it
we never knew different we only knew same same same

I gazed into a sink full of water the other night
when I was stoned at home all alone
it felt like I'd been there forever - stoned at home all alone

I've read reasons into sequences of things that went in threes
I've seen my future written in tea leaves and I believe in make believe
I read my stars and I swallow every word
and when they're not so good I twist them into something that's OK
I've spent half my life waiting for a bus that never came
I could've walked it by now but it's possibly too late
I've worked on being stupid I've cultivated mindlessness
I've given the wrong impression where appearances count
but I know exactly where I come from
though I lie about where I've been
it's not that it's not good enough - it's just that it's no fun

see I was brought up on bland I was schooled in mundane
we never had fancy when we could've had plain
I was brought up on hard-up schooled in forget it
we never knew different we only knew same same same
in the school of mundane we knew same

words and music Eric Goulden / Wreckless Eric (MCPS / Copyright Control)

I was thinking about the second Stiff Tour - the one where we had our own train.
I used to go to school by train - I hated it. I use to stare at the lines in dull fascination. Then I was thinking about being on the road generally and all the shoes I've seen lying around at the side of the road - I always think they belong to accident victims. How else would they have got there?

One night when I still lived in France I'd come back from a hard tour in Germany or somewhere and I had some very strong African grass. It crept up on me as I sat in the kitchen trying to read a book. I found myself upstairs staring at water swirling down the plug hole. I'd been there for hours. It was a really difficult trip that lasted until ten o'clock the next morning. I crawled down the stairs and opened the front door so that somebody would see that something was wrong. Then I climbed the stairs again (which took about an hour and a half or possibly three days and nights) and tried to write my last will and testament.

During the punk days I never wanted anyone to know that I grew up in Peacehaven, Sussex - I thought they'd think I was boring. It took me a long time to realise that the truth about who you are and where you come from is what makes you interesting and quite possibly unique. When I first left home I went to art college in Bristol Everybody else seemed to come from London. They said 'amaaazing' and 'reeeally nice', and every weekend they went home to their parents.

I did the vocal and acoustic guitar together. I was in a bit of a hurry because Graham had just come down from Hull to play the piano on it and he was hanging around waiting for me to get it done. He didn't have to wait long because this was the first take. I did another one but the first one was better. Graham put the piano on it and we ate a packet of biscuits. After he'd gone home I got to work with the oscillators and weird shit.