To celebrate the 2007 UK tour with The Christians, we put together a 16-track compilation CD entitled ‘Black:CV’.
Sleeve notes
Born in 1962, when Elvis’s Good Luck Charm was Number One and playing on the radio, Colin Vearncombe, otherwise known as Black, is about ready to lose himself – again.
An artist’s life involves frequently losing oneself. For a singer-songwriter, it’s an important part of the process of creating something that no-one has heard before; a melody, a lyric, a performance. A unique combination of instances, filtered through a life.
We, as audience, find him here in a collection of recordings; fleeting moments captured in time. Hardly more than an outline sketch of a career which already spans over twenty five years but a sketch which at least indicates markers in a journey that in many ways has barely begun.
The journey for any real artist is never finished. The artist’s creative life, punctuated by ‘terrible highs and fabulous lows’ is a life of constant evolution and discovery. It has to be that way, otherwise art turns into craft and demands the constant repetition of a formula, which while potentially briefly satisfying an audience, can never fulfil the needs of the artist committed to their own journey.
Along the way, published work only marks out moments of stopping to say ‘this stage is interesting’. It neither encapsulates nor defines anything other than that stopping point and as with all journeys, every stopping point eventually becomes the next starting point.
It is for the listener to connect the dots that form along the way, to make conclusions and judgements about connections and influences because artists are rarely interested in their own past; they are too busy worrying about their future.
But is an artist’s journey any different from anyone else’s? Isn’t it simply that artists choose to let others experience their work – to lay bare a part of their lives and invite others to consider it? If any of us had the courage (or is it mania?) to document our journey in such a publicly naked fashion, would we not feel the same? How much would we, or could we, rely on the audience for validation?
This compilation, the first ever to be actually compiled by Colin, has been chosen from a catalogue of more than one hundred stopping points. It could have been completely different, but it would still have told the same story.
So when I have to go before St. Peter I’ll knock on his neon door and say “look at what came to be my journey”
You don’t believe me, I can tell it by your eyes There’s a kind of magic, to be had from your lies I used to say that today Is like tomorrow Don’t sell it short for truth
I should have known should have known should have known how I should have known I should have known by now
You don’t understand it, I can tell it by your smile There’s a kind of freedom, to be had from your lies I always said that today Is like tomorrow Don’t sell it short for truth
I should have known should have known should have known now I should have known I should have known by now
But everything’s coming up roses, coming up roses, coming up roses But now everything’s coming up roses, coming up roses
Here I go out to sea again The sunshine fills my hair And dreams hang in the air Gulls in the sky and in my blue eyes You know it feels unfair There’s magic everywhere Look at me standing Here on my own again Up straight in the sunshine
No need to run and hide It’s a wonderful, wonderful life No need to laugh or cry It’s a wonderful, wonderful life
The sun’s in your eyes The heat is n your hair They seem to hate you Because you’re there And I need a friend, oh I need a friend To make me happy Not stand there on my own Look at me standing here on my own again Up straight in the sunshine No need to run and hide It’s a wonderful, wonderful life No need to laugh or cry It’s a wonderful, wonderful life
I need a friend, oh I need a friend To make me happy, not so alone Look at me here, here on my own again Up straight in the sunshine
No need to run and hide It’s a wonderful, wonderful life No need to laugh or cry It’s a wonderful, wonderful life
I can’t find my way home It’s still a place I need to be Can someone show me any place, That could be home for me
Not back there in the North In the windswept bitter cold With the sidewalks growing grass Where we would only grow old
And all the mines are gone But no one knows or cares If a thing is not nailed down It was never there
I still remember how it seemed An old-world symphony of tears And now what I want’s always beyond my reach Where the river bends
Wasn’t down here in the south Always on nightshift or on call There’s no sunshine in the streets The buildings grew so tall And no-one sees your eyes But from a corner of their own And they only really feel it when the balance has all gone
They don’t care how And they don’t care why It’s enough to make a grown man cry, and I do. What’s it to you?
If I can’t find my way home And it’s still a place I need to be Seems what I want’s always beyond my reach And where the river bends
Singing songs down from the trees To race across the open fields Around the trucks like carrion for the fall And the fruit we tried to steal
I cannot find my way home, Empty places packed and gone As if what I want’s always beyond the point Of where the river bends
I think my heart must be made of clay Cause everyone said it would be broken some day And now I’ve come to that fateful day So I sit on the floor with my head in my hands And don’t tell me how to make it pay I write a new song every day I just wish I was made of wood I might not feel pain even if I should Even if I should
The sweetest smile that ever did Melt the pats in the butter dish And if you could have believed in me I swear to God I’d have made damn sure Our hearts were warm, and gald with wine I’d keep the doors locked all the time I just wish I was made of wood You might not seem glad, even if you should Even if you should, if you should
I think my heart must be made of clay Cause everyone said it would be broken some day Seems that I have come to that fateful day So I sit on the floor with my head in my hands With my head in my hands Even if I should, if I should
Yes I believe I’m not trouble sent to haunt you Tell you for truth or did no one ever warn you Til we stop these silly games I can’t believe what you say
I see your face across the miles and miles between us Do they separate, do they separate or join us Do they join us at the hips I need to kiss your sweet lips
There’ll be sparks in the rain Honey in your hair I’m wishing you were here with me (I’m wishing you were here)
Turn out the lights if it helps to re-assure you Call me a fool but you can’t only eat it twice So eat it slowly let the juice run out And believe what I say
Calling your name across the miles and miles between us I see your face and the laugh lines reading join us Join us right there at the hips And I can taste your sweet lips
There’ll be sparks in the rain Honey in your hair I’m wishing you were here with me (I’m wishing you were here)
I see your face across the miles and miles between us Do they separate, do they separate or join us Do they join us at the hips I need to kiss your sweet lips
There’ll be sparks in the rain Honey in your hair I’m wishing you were here with me (I’m wishing you were here)
I’d call it through, I’ve seen the signs Won’t waste my time any longer You made your choice so go let it loose Go play and lose with the rainbows Where I don’t know who I see when I look at you now
Did you lie down for him? Did you give yourself to him and Dip your stupid toes in stormy waters?
You look lonely and cold, a thousand years old And your eyes don’t show what you have but what you’ve sold I don’t need to know But I want to know Let it all come on, let the bad times roll I don’t know who I see when I look at you now
Did you lie down for him? Did you give yourself for him And dip your stupid toes in stormy waters? You crossed the bridge of sighs as he spattered your insides To sink up to your neck in Stormy waters
I can laugh about it now, but couldn’t then You made me ache, so I went for a run In the driving rain Through your neighbourhood streets And there you were, a silhouette in the wet night air Me in my pumps in the pouring rain A kind of despair upon finding you there Couldn’t whisper your name
Oh, I can laugh about it now by your side Oh, I can laugh about it now by your side Oh, sha la la la, we’re all in trouble Is there room in the sky for all of us angels here?
And the very next day, through the shrieks of the crowd Came your careless self, your oh-so-couldn’t careless self And you just pass me by, your friends catch my eyes “We know you love her, we saw you dancing with her shadow” And I couldn’t disagree, and for the life of me I could call out your name, and call out your name, And call out your name
Oh, I can laugh about it now by your side Oh, I can laugh about it now by your side Oh, sha la la la, we’re all in trouble Is there room in the sky for all of us angels here?
Sha la la la, oh, we’re all in trouble, Or is there room in the sky for all of us angels here?
I can laugh about it now I can laugh about it now by your side
Oh, sha la la la, we’re all in trouble Or is there room in the sky for all of us angels here?
Shirt’s all torn and I’m lame If I try to smile (it) hurts my face All I hear is complaint but who left this mess on my plate?
Oh I will fade away on…watch my hair turn grey on cold chicken skin and dog tail soup Tell me is that all I’m worth to you? Cold chicken skin and dog tail soup Is that all that I bring you?
Inside out from cocaine Got a bird on a rush in your brain Wild eyed singing your song Calling out my name like you’re pulling it along
Yo yo look on your face What you got in that bag, hair and nails? What’s that splashed on the walls? The top half of a dog And that’s all… !
Lately we’ve been acting like strangers We never show our feelings Or say the things we mean It’s hard to admit But maybe it’s time to quit pretending Cause we both know
It’s better letting go There’s no point hanging on To what used to be Why can’t we see It’s better letting go
It’s crazy to sit here in silence Counting off the seconds The beating of our hearts When there’s no more to give There’s no easy way to live together We both know
It’s better letting go It’s time to walk away And start again This makes no sense It’s better letting go
No matter how we fake it This love has faded The feeling has gone It’s time to move on It’s no good looking back It hurts but we both know it baby
It’s better letting go There’s no point hanging on To what used to be Why can’t we see It’s better letting go
It’s better letting go It’s time to walk away And start again This makes no sense It’s better letting go
Did I sleep? Do I dream of cold, silent water So deep and dark And the wires are singing our song? Our song
As we lay back and stared into cloudless skies And the stars up there The wires are singing our song The wires are singing our song
Your face, now so plain, once was so lovely A beautiful refrain, duet with stars But your smile now in disguise became a flat line And to never love again like you did before Was all
Why go on with it, why go on with it? Why, to let it flow, like water on snow?
I know what you want, what you are thinking To drift beyond the pain and out of reach To sit, be safe and warm inside your sorrow And listen to the slow, slow morse tapping of the rain But it says:
Why go on with it? Why go on with it? Why to let it flow like water on snow?
Look outside your window – the darkest sky you ever saw And here am I, and there you are, and that’s all
When you need someone, really need someone When you need someone The night has no pity
You dream of Waterloo As the lightning forks in two
I see your eyes and they’re still the same The body blows absorbed in arcs of bitter pain
Storm cloud Katharine Storm cloud Katharine
It’s all mapped out in relief like a skin of plaque on teeth And so tense in here you can taste it; a power vacuum of sex
If you need someone Not just anyone If you need someone – don’t search in the city
Written longhand shaped in braille You can smell it so you want it, your holy grail
And I see your eyes And they show no fear Though rocketman still loses through the never changing years
I see your eyes And they’re still the same The body blows absorbed in arcs of bitter pain
Storm cloud Katharine Storm cloud Katharine
She says I’d rather walk away from you than hurt you with a word Or a smile or a gesture that you may have misheard And took as meaning something other than what I could do What I don’t have if I don’t have you!
When you need someone don’t search in the city
You hauled the devils back down onto multitrack
And I see your eyes, they’re still the same The bodyblows absorbed in arcs of bitter pain Storm cloud Katharine Storm cloud Katharine I call her
It is true maybe You never ask for much But when your heart’s been broken into tiny little pieces Who will pick them up You know who’ll pick them up
That’s just like love To see you through
You live with the silence It wraps your every mood With tender velvet fingers And they cling just like the ivy on a sunny roof If that’s what it takes to prove That you live with your weakness You face it every day But when you play the let’s make lovers game Someone has to pay You know who’ll pay and pay and pay
If your face hurts Feel like a bruised dog on a dusty street But you’ve got lipstick on your feet Lose your sad and wizened stare Reach out and I’ll be there I will set your senses alight And blow them out one by one
That’s just like love To see you through That’s just like love To see you through
Blind barking Bobby he can rage The red mist come down and take centre stage And if he could see he’d knock you down And he may yet if you stick around
The sunlight only happens when he dreams The cold light of day is how it’s gonna stay Some thing’s only happen ’cause it rains It takes another kind for taking up the strain and Be Charlemagne
He’s looking out not looking in Don’t have to deal with where you’re looking One more human face to fill your mind And where the shadows fall… You dare not find
Fake diamond rings on every finger Purple shadows around my eyes I show Americans del norte The best of Paris’s underside
I worked the dirt in Oklahoma and ate my crow and humble pie Though I walk through the Latin quarter It’s still a dust bowl in my mind
You can’t make me go home When I don’t wanno go!
I’ve lived on peanuts for the season Bathtub martinis extra dry Down in the thirteenth arrondissement I waste my money on good times
You can’t make me go home Don’t make me go home, I don’t wanna go You can’t make me go home, la la la When I don’t wanna go
Fake diamond rings on every finger Purple shadows around my eyes Down in the thirteenth, the fourteenth, the fifteenth arrondissement I waste my money line by line
You can’t make me go home Don’t make me go home, I don’t wanna go You can’t make me go home When I don’t wanna go
You told a few lies and they came back on you So you told a hundred more until she came back to you But she only stayed a while Just long enough to say the kind of things left to be said In the cold light of day And she smelled of Xmas trees, coffee and vanilla Calcutta after snowfall, she’s no-one’s stand in mother But I drifted into her like I could run myself aground And keep her smiling at the sight of the blackness spilling out
And I don’t mind if you don’t care about it I’ll get by without her arms around me As long as I can sit on my own In her coat and no knickers
I believe it doesn’t matter So don’t look at me that way Like I should notice how you look at me that way That’s just the way you look when you look at me that way and I believe it doesn’t matter At least not much anyway
I never dreamed I could be lost in a place I know so well But I was running on the spot in the darkness ’til I fell And then pulling off my clothes I want to step out of my skin And paint a tattoo on my heart that shows an arrow Pointing in
Gonna fly up to the moon Raising all of my money Can’t make it too soon I am sick of it down here Gonna fly up to the moon
So this is how the world ends ‘not with a bang but with a Wimpy’ Don’t laugh too soon, I am sick of it down here Gonna fly up to the moon
Who needs all the troubles of today, what’s the difference anyway? I feel out of focus but what can I do there’s only you?
Gonna fly up to the moon Raising all of my money, can’t make it too soon I am sick of it down here Gonna fly up to the moon
When they open the borders where will you be? I’ll climb the highest tree to avoid the stampede And if I should fly there’s only you You There’s only you that would say Goodbye
