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The Flight Demonstrations

by Joshua Ward

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    Songs of longing, lockdown, booze and bugs - By request, more tracks added from the archives!
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1.
Boring Love 05:23
I sit on a boring train pouring out my boring brain. Valentine’s has been and gone. Nothing seemed to get me some Here, the shelf is boring-bare: barmy lasses, head elsewhere. Gorgeous pal all coupled up, I ask her if she’d set me up. Like a miser she rebuffs. Asks me why I’d settle up. I just want a boring love nothing more I’m thinking of. Don’t want someone mad as me. I’m not mad I’m just lonely. I don’t want a literary lust - Passions forged of tortured dust. Keep your prince and chiselled jaws, your Viennese cathedrals… I just want a morning breath, kinky but with morals left. I want magic in my hands. Romance up my daily dance. I just want a kind-biting, sweet-mannered, crime-fighting walking cane. I just want a hug-ploughing, kiss-sharing, view-wowing motorbike I just want a risk-taking, tea-brewing, piss-taking pint of ale. I just want a go-getting, soft-nagging, load-bearing sofa bed. I just want a hand-holding deep-thinking, hip-shooting piggy bank. I just want a boring love I just want a boring love. Someone to embrace the wild. Parties with her inner child. Sunrise in her lightning eyes… and blind and blind and blind when it matters. Markings on her gallowed chin. Wore a rope but wore it thin. Resurrected from her hurt. Tyson Fury in a skirt. I just want a long-thinking, heart-facing, song-drinking set of cards. I just want a wake-braving, knee-squeezing, beast-taming open door. I just want a wise-branded crop-sowing, sword-handed morning sun. I just want a flirt-mongering, high-fluting, dirt-loving path unrun. I just want a boring love. (x4)
2.
1,2,3... So now the days are getting dirty with early nights and all the rain... You hide your flirt up in your jersey. You wonder if you’ll flirt again... But as you gaze into the garden you catch a look at all the slugs... A thought it hits you of a sudden That you’re surrounded by the love, rummage in the mud, check on all the cuddles in the rubble 'cos The bugs are getting freaky in the shrubs. All in a slither are the wormies up for a snuggle and rub. A daddy-long-legs got up early to find himself a ladybug. Atop the tree there are the squirrels and squirreled up there is a snug. They get together for a wiggle and never fail to check the nuts. You can’t avoid the smut - there’s consummated marriages in cabbages. The bugs are getting freaky in the shrubs! The horny fishes of the ocean, a fox’s yowl is never done, the pigeon’s fluttering commotion, your cat is off to meet a Tom, a little Labrador is dreaming of getting out to sniff a bum, I heard that humans are misleading but speaking only there for some. Not all of are dumb. The Disneyland of marriage is a sabotage. We ought to just get freaky in the shrubs. There they sit on their bums all day: Tiktok-swiping their life away. Not one kiss on their lips as they wish where happiness is – I say who cares the weather or the day you just need another and your love (you should get freaky in the shrubs). So there’s a moral to the story that this old life is for the loved. I will not wait til you implore me, I’d rather push than be the shoved. And so if love is for the living I’ll live it every way I got. I know that nettles aren’t forgiving But nor is waiting for your lot. This one aint for the gods so disregard your morals in the puddles cos we ought to just get freaky in the shrubs.
3.
Grog 02:45
I stand on this clutch of twigs creaking at sea And I can’t see the stars for the dark. The sails' lips a flutter like muttering pals 'sleep a toe-to-toe tipsy with hearts off the ground but I tip on the deck at the ebb of my fate. Thought the dip of the wave’s not a bother with mates but there’s no brave sod whoever escaped the bewitching of blues through a brew; want a taste of your heart? Take a few. See the trick of your darlings all beamishly gay loose your grip on your hopes and then throw them away like you were. The drizzling dawn like a wet angry dog shivers soberly into y’ bones. And one lonely lantern is sputtered in fog as the sun makes an entrance - its colours agog at the wreckings that happen as soon as it dips. "May the day clear the night up and ever forgive". For there’s no brave sods wherever they lived ‘scaped the witching of blues through the gloom; want to picture your heart? Take a view. But ye hide before shambled-and-shamed by the day as the waking life laps ye and throws you away...
4.
Light's Song 03:40
Light's song. The birds, a throng of manic, panic up the dawn... "Take off your shoes inside" a hallway beckons and everything is fecund and the carpet's torn. I'd sworn we'd meet and say "it's so good to see you". Each worn out fate; the sense of time and place, was buried like a crime but still every winter we'll be on my mind. Time... Night's song. The birds, a bomb of claret, carry up the sky... "Take off your blues inside" a stairway beckons and everything... "and hey, what do you reckon, are they perfect thighs?" I tried and made mess that time left to deal with. That hopeful bed; the hope of us instead no braver than a breeze departed that winter blew us to our knees. Cry... Brave, brave! you pink and silly sausage coming out the sun... "Drop off your news inside" your friends will listen. The wine begins to glisten and there's food for five. You'll find your memories cannot lock the present. Move fast, move on, the past is just a song, the guilt is but a line you sing every winter, frozen to your mind. Sigh...
5.
Grown-up Now 02:54
Hey, how does it feel to be loved by an angel? Been a long long while. Is there pain? Do you break bread with the dead and ancients? Do they all say hi? Is your best better than mine? With your storybook of good and your Sunday time? Sometimes I plead to once again feel that I'm loved by an angel but I'm a grown-up now. Tell, how does it feel to still kneel for the blessing When they draw that cross Like a spell; The shiver of spirit, a limit caressing - Or has that too been lost? Is your death better than mine? With your show-and-tell of hell and that blood red wine Sometimes I dream That I'm still a teen and receiving the blessing but I'm a grown-up now. "Great. Great is the mystery of faith" - so they told me: God, that did sound good. Each mistake, Loosening lies that they looped round to hold me as then good lies could but then life opens your eyes: There's no Eden to believe in just a great divide. Sometimes I sigh and think of the beautiful lies that they told me But I'm a grownup now.
6.
Past the peeling piers of Bournemouth; past the edgy Boscombe scree; through the Southbourne bungalows where windows eye the aging sea; Past the crusted cake of Christchurch, Norman motts and clotted cream; Britain bids you welcome at the Nelson - Real Ales and Thai Cuisine. Spin through Lyndhurst’s leafy lanes and Burley’s wont for witchcraft kitch; the gorse and grassy brooks of Sway where horses pass the curtains’ twitch; and whilst, by Beaulieu’s bend to Bucklers, yachter’s yawn for G&T; Britain bids you welcome at the Nelson, - Real Ales and Thai Cuisine. Because we’re needed, because we’re breathing wipe the 2CB and Mandy from your nose. Put on all the clothes that get you ready for a day somewhat more steady than the midnight gripes from pick-up pipes let’s see how far the air can blow you. Go! Past the cans and prams of Springbourne; past the Winton white-boy fist. There’s miles on miles of country mile where toffs lived off their peasants’ grist. Let’s jump atop their pleasant wreckings. Pack a parka just for me, ‘cause Britain bids you welcome at the Nelson, -Real Ales and Thai Cuisine- Britain bids you welcome at the Nelson, -Real Ales and Thai Cuisine- Britain bids you welcome at the Nelson, -Real Ales and Thai Cuisine.
7.
8.
9.
All is quiet in the city of snowflakes Fakery covered by slumber As the Humber flows Rocking its bones Passing the homes of the chip-fed Landlord and Mistress alone. “Do you love me?” she strokes through the whiskers of her once-a-week mister and whispers his eyes are enraptured post-coitally captured arm on the arc of the bow of her back which had slinked like a cat and at long last relaxed in his arms at one with her charms and the danger of chance and the duskiest glance and the taste of her lips and the shift of the hips as she lovingly drips herself selfishly cradled like wealth as she sinks him contentedly down in the well of her care Never to share for the world isn’t fair and a vow is a lie when a life gives it time and mind to be why’s it a crime to be rescued like jewels from the sky? “Pour me a whisky”, he says to her briskly, her tights in a twist as she hoists them… The end of the night then? Did something afright him? Happy one moment then suddenly flickers of faraway fear in his eyes Eager to rise Shifting his mood from relaxed into rude and a hoarding of space and a crag-chisel face As he grumbles Apology mumbled He stands and he stumbles Tying the johnny like knotting a promise he’s nothing but eager to break. He leaves and she waits With the moon and the chill in the room. “Can’t you stand me?” She shouts to the landing, A plea for the key to a shred of the least understanding Twice in fortnight he’d left her forlorn like this; Where was the romance they’d shared but a moment ago? The man was a child. But it wasn’t enough that she’d let him inside for years he had lived in her mind. The decades of signs and the tokens of care That he’d left her the moment her man weren’t aware and the guilt in her heart and the warring with dreams of her publican prince laying down by a stream and the strongest of hands and the deepest of eyes and for one lonely winter, her deepest surprise as he caught her alone as she lit up a fag with her misapplied face and her faux-leather bag and he told her he cared and he said she should stay on the every odd Friday his wife was away. And the weight of her want and the terror to plunge And avoiding him constantly month-upon-month But then calling him suddenly, buoyed by the booze And the promise of loving a something to lose As she tied up her coat and her sexiest shoes “Why’re you mardy?” he said to her calmly. Him back in the room as he takes her like gold by the waist then he kisses her sweetly toffee-like bending her back on the sheets, she with brows of surprise presses nails to his nape as she asks “why you leave me then, shitting-fuck’s sake?” And he says “mind your language, I’m kissing that gob, I’d just shitting remembered I’d left on the hob”. All is quiet in the city of snowflakes Fakery covered by slumber As the Humber flows.

about

A first demo release. All lyrics, music, production and artwork is my own.

credits

released May 17, 2020

With huge thanks to Jasmin-and-Pearl Edwards, the Bournemouth gang and Kate Knox for their amazing kindness and support. Stef Mo and Tom Sastry as writing comrades, my family for being hard to please and my tutor group for pestering me for the next song. Village Circus, my summer family, I miss you. Special thanks to Margherita Phillips for her gorgeous singing on Light's Song. Margot St-Finch, a huge thank you for the art and the friendship.

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about

Joshua Ward London, UK

Voice of Bath. Hygiene of Bristol. Josh is the songwriter, actor, teacher and poet your parents will, at least initially, approve of.

"Middle class traitor".
"Cracked genius" "Thoughtful fool."

Channelling folk, a choirboy past and his unique lyricism, Josh has finally got off his prodigious backside to, at last, conquer the world.

Songs will be sung.
Hearts will be won.
Cities will fall.
... more

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