Lyrics

A man in a blue coat at the door at seven
holding out a screen and a plastic pen
He said just here, just the initials
he said everybody does, he said it's nothing

I have a very good memory
for the things I agreed to by accident

I never signed for it
I never signed for it
It came to the house with my name on the side
and I never signed for it

It sat in the hall for eleven days
I walked around it going in and out
My mother says just open it
my brother says you already have

I never signed for it
I never signed for it
It came to the house with my name on the side
and I never signed for it

The lie is not the box
the lie is that I asked

I never signed for it
I never signed for it

Platform two at seven twenty, same as every morning
and the voice says it's delayed and then it says it twice
There's a man who does the crossword up against the railing
and I have watched him fill it in for nine years now

The timetable is accurate
The tea is nearly hot
There is nothing to complain about
and that is what I've got

Halt and catch fire, halt and catch fire
There is no instruction for the middle
Halt and catch fire, halt and catch fire
Nothing here will ever stop a little

My father did this line for thirty-one years
He says that it went quickly and I think he means it
He kept a tin of coins for a machine that never worked
and when he stopped he didn't know what mornings were for

Halt and catch fire, halt and catch fire
There is no instruction for the middle
Halt and catch fire, halt and catch fire
Nothing here will ever stop a little

There is no gentle way to leave a thing you're good at.
You keep going, or you burn it down and start.
I have been choosing this platform every morning for nine years.

This morning I stood still and let the seven twenty go
and the man with the crossword didn't look up once
and the voice said it's delayed and then it said it twice
and I walked back down the steps and out the other side

Halt and catch fire, halt and catch fire
There is no instruction for the middle

* Dedicated to my parents.

There's a metal in my mouth from nineteen ninety-four
and it only speaks in winter and it only speaks in cold
And the dentist said you'll have this longer than the tooth
and he wrote it on a card and he was right

And she drinks the water standing with her hand against her jaw
and she says that it is nothing and she says it every year
And I have watched her do that since before I had my own
and now I do it with my back turned so she doesn't see

It doesn't hurt
it doesn't hurt
It only answers to the cold
It doesn't hurt
it doesn't hurt
It's been like that since I was told

And there's a way to hold a glass so that the cold stays on one side
and a way to say a winter so it sounds like it was fine
And the trick is not to stop it, the trick is not to flinch
and I have got so good at it that nobody asks

How long have we been drinking it like this
How long have we been drinking it like this

It doesn't hurt
it doesn't hurt
It only answers to the cold

Does it hurt you
does it hurt you
Does it only answer to the cold

The first month is like high gloss and the photographs are brilliant
Everything is possible and nothing's understood
She likes the man I do for guests, the charming and the neat —
the one who does the washing up and dances in the street

By week eleven she gets bored and by week twelve she's gone
and all that he is left with is the memory of the trial
They print the date you're best before, they never print the day
the thing inside the packaging begins to give away

It's a ninety-day trial
It's a ninety-day trial
Cancel any time before it ends
It's a ninety-day trial
It's a ninety-day trial
and it always ends before for me

There's a European standard for how long a kettle lasts,
a figure on the packaging, a test that someone passed —
and nobody has audited the thing I'm selling here:
no minimum, no warranty, no schedule and no year

That's not self-pity. That's a spec sheet.
I'm just reading out the numbers.

And here's the part I leave out of the version that I tell:
it isn't that I run out — it's that I run out of the spell
The man that she was promised was a full forever deal
but the one she really got was a trojan horse

It's a ninety-day trial
It's a ninety-day trial
Cancel any time before it ends
It's a ninety-day trial
It's a ninety-day trial
and it was never once extended in my life

* Dedicated to Ina, Wiebke, Britta, Ricarda und allen Kat(h)rins

Instrumental

They said there's nothing wrong with it, right there in the kitchen
They said it in the corridor, they said it on the stairs
There is a way to say a thing until it stops being a question
and they have said it long enough that I can say it too

And I would like it on the record
that I heard it every time

Nothing wrong with it
nothing wrong with it
say it forty times and it's true
Nothing wrong with it
nothing wrong with it
I have counted every one from you

My father took the same job in a different decade
He says the money was fine and the men were fine
He says you get used to it around the second winter
He says it like a warning and he means it like advice

Second winter. Second winter.
I am not going to get used to it.

Nothing wrong with it
nothing wrong with it
say it forty times and it's true

They came for the field behind the leisure centre
and measured it out with a wheel and a length of rope
The man from the council says it's only for a fortnight
The man from the council has said that one before

And the posters went up overnight
Somebody had to carry the ladder

The tent goes up
the tent goes up
It did not walk here on its own
The tent goes up
the tent goes up
Somebody drove it into town

My neighbour took a fortnight's work on the gates
He says it's only stamping hands and pointing
He says that you would take it if you had his winter
He says it like a job and he means it like a favour

The tent goes up
the tent goes up
It did not walk here on its own
The tent goes up
the tent goes up
Somebody drove it into town

Nobody raises a mast on their own
Nobody hangs a banner by themselves
Count the hands. Count the hands.

In April they'll take the whole thing down in a morning
and the grass will be back in about a year
Then somebody else will measure out the same field
with the same wheel and the same length of rope

The tent goes up
the tent goes up
It did not walk here on its own
The tent goes up
the tent goes up
Somebody drove it into town

* Dedicated to Antifa.

I have been thirty-one for about eleven years
I did the maths this morning and it doesn't come out clean
There's a version of the future where I simply carry on
and nobody in it ever has to be that old

And there's a version where it's Thursday and it's over before six
No note, no explanation, and the flat is very tidy
I have never made a plan. I have made a kind of picture.
There is a difference, and the difference is my life

Forever, or by Friday
Forever, or by Friday
I have wanted both of them this year
Forever, or by Friday
Forever, or by Friday
and neither one of them is Tuesday

And it's a door, and it's a dial, and it's a drawer I do not open,
and it's a debt, and it's a dare, and it's a draught under the door,
and the trick with all of them is that they're only ever nouns
until the day you let one be a verb

What is on Tuesday
What is on Tuesday
Nothing is on Tuesday
Something has to be on Tuesday

Nobody came and whispered and no light came through the wall
The kettle did its usual and the boiler made its noise
I would like to tell you something better but I've only got the one:
I got up, and it was Tuesday, and I did the things

Forever, or by Friday
Forever, or by Friday
I have wanted both of them this year
and I am putting in for Tuesday

Somebody put a poster in the hallway
It says be kind and it says we are a team
There's a bowl of little chocolates by the printer
and nobody remembers who they're from

And it's easier than it looks
once you have learned the words

Any vibe goes
any vibe goes
Say it with a smile and it goes down easy
Any vibe goes
any vibe goes
Nobody has to mean it, nobody's counting

My manager says we are all just having conversations
My father says you get a car at forty-five
The man in the blue coat says just here, just the initials
and everybody signs and nobody reads

Any vibe goes
any vibe goes
Say it with a smile and it goes down easy
Any vibe goes
any vibe goes
Nobody has to mean it, nobody's counting

Easy, easy, everything is easy
Nod along, nod along, nod along
Easy, easy, everything is easy
Nod along, nod along

Any vibe goes
any vibe goes
Say it with a smile and it goes down easy
Any vibe goes
any vibe goes
I don't have to mean it. I have stopped counting.

Instrumental

Nineteen seventy-something, a box that plugged into the aerial
and the colours came on plastic and you taped them to the screen
It made no sound at all. I made the sound myself.
I was not good at it. I have never once been good at it.

I know the episode number. I know the man who wrote it.
I know the year they build the ship and they have not built the ship.
Nobody was impressed. Nobody was ever meant to be.
There was no word for it yet, so I did it without the word.

Then they put it on the television and they gave it a laugh track
and everybody had one, and everybody had it easy
I am a nerd and I am proud of it,
which is a sentence you can only say once it costs you nothing

Infinite diversity, infinite combinations
and I have only ever wanted one
Infinite diversity, infinite combinations
and I got the one where the war comes first

They wrote the good part in for afterwards. You have to read the dates.
Six hundred million dead, and then a man in a missile silo,
and somebody comes down out of the sky and shakes his hand,
and from that Tuesday on there is no money and no hunger

There was a woman once who asked me what I do on Sundays
and I told her. I told her all of it. And that was that.
I have lost a job to a convention and a weekend to a boxset
and I have looked for the regret and I have not been able to find it

Infinite diversity, infinite combinations
and I have only ever wanted one
Infinite diversity, infinite combinations
and I got the one where the war comes first

I know it is a set.
I know the ship is eleven feet long and hanging in a museum.
I know which one of the two is going to happen,
and it is not the ship.
I put it on anyway. I put it on tonight.

Infinite diversity, infinite combinations
and I have only ever wanted one
Infinite diversity, infinite combinations
and I am keeping it. It cost me what it cost.

* Dedicated to all Trekkies and proud Nerds.

I have got very good at the evening
The plate, the tap, the light above the stairs
There is a version of me that is easy to live with
and I keep him for the people who don't stay

And you asked me what I wanted
and I said that I wanted nothing
and you wrote it down as kindness

I wanted less
I wanted less
I said it like a virtue
I wanted less
I wanted less
and you believed me

The car needs something doing and I know which part it is
I have known since the winter and I have not said
There is a kind of quiet that looks exactly like agreement
and I have lived inside it now for years

Denise
Standing
In the kitchen
With her coat on

Say the thing you came in to say
Say it while your coat is on
I will not make it easy
I will not make it hard

I have counted the things I did not take.
I have never once counted what that cost you.

I wanted less
I wanted less
less
less than you were offering
and you are still here
with your coat on

The box went out with the recycling in the end
The lift still works, they changed the carpet twice
The field behind the leisure centre is a car park
and the man from the council has retired

My neighbour says that he would do it all again
He says the money was fine and the winters were shorter
He says you have to live inside the years you're given
He says it like a man who has, and I have not

And I thanked myself
I thanked myself
For everything I didn't take
I thanked myself
I thanked myself
And nobody was there to hear it

And the ledger of the letters that I left there in the hall,
of the calls that I let fall, of the halls I didn't cross,
of the cost I called my courage when it might have just been caution,
and the caution kept me spotless and the caution kept me small

There was a sentence I would say to myself in the car.
More than merely mortal.
I said it for eleven years and never once out loud.

And I thanked myself
I thanked myself
For everything I didn't take
I thanked myself
I thanked myself
And the room was warm and the door was open

The carpet gets changed. The tent goes up.
The lift still works. The field gets measured.
And what was it I saved.

There was a thing in me that wanted, and I let it
I did not fight it. and also I did not ask.
I called it getting through the day,
which is the cheapest thing I have ever thought or said

I looked for an excuse for years. I looked in every drawer.
The dark years, and the wanting, and the age that I was then.
There isn't one. There is no excuse.
That was the best revelation anybody ever gave me

It was not a feeling
It was other people

Because a reason is a door with nothing on the other side
and no excuse means it was mine, and mine means I can carry it
I did the work. Nobody watched me do it.
There is no certificate. There is only the not-doing, every day.

It was not a feeling
It was other people
I have said that to myself every morning for years

I have not asked a single person for forgiveness
I am never going to, That is part of it as well.
I have served my sentence, more than once now
Behind my own bars, and the official ones

I am clean with myself
which is not the same as clean
and it is the single most honest thing I own

It was not a feeling
It was other people
and I am not the reason any more
Not once more. Not once.

Nobody is coming to take it off me. Good.
I would not know where to put my hands.
So I keep it, and I keep going,
and by now the two of them are the same motion.

* Dedicated to Wolfscat, Stefan, Thomas and Raphaela.

Platform two at seven twenty, same as every morning
and the voice says it's delayed and then it says it twice
There's a man who does the crossword up against the railing
and I have watched him fill it in for nine years now

The timetable is accurate
The tea is nearly hot
There is nothing to complain about
and that is what I've got

Halt and catch fire, halt and catch fire
There is no instruction for the middle
Halt and catch fire, halt and catch fire
Nothing here will ever stop a little

My father did this line for thirty-one years
He says that it went quickly and I think he means it
He kept a tin of coins for a machine that never worked
and when he stopped he didn't know what mornings were for

Halt and catch fire, halt and catch fire
There is no instruction for the middle
Halt and catch fire, halt and catch fire
Nothing here will ever stop a little

There is no gentle way to leave a thing you're good at.
You keep going, or you burn it down and start.
I have been choosing this platform every morning for nine years.

This morning I stood still and let the seven twenty go
and the man with the crossword didn't look up once
and the voice said it's delayed and then it said it twice
and I walked back down the steps and out the other side

Halt and catch fire, halt and catch fire
There is no instruction for the middle

* Dedicated to my parents.

There is a table in the rain outside the doors
and the same four names on every sheet
You drove past us on your way to somewhere warm
and you told yourself that we were sweet

You think that this is hobby work
You think we go home and lose the thread
We have been here through four of your promises
and we wrote down every word you said

You are counting on us getting tired
That is the whole of your plan

Count again
Count again
You counted us and you counted wrong
Count again

You call us a handful. You are right.
We are a handful, then a hundred, then a floor
A submit button army with the paperwork to prove it
and a copy of everything you swore

You built the forms to wear us down
so we made the forms the weapon
Every one of them read by somebody
Every one of them answered

You are counting on us getting tired
That is the whole of your plan

Count again
Count again
You counted us and you counted wrong
We are still here and we are not tired
Count again

You will not out-wait us
You will not out-bore us
You were never as many as you sounded
We were never as few as you hoped

We do not have to win this week
We only have to still be here
when you are not

Count again
Count again
You counted us and you counted wrong
We are still here and we are not tired
We were the number you left out
Count again
Count again

You counted us and you counted wrong
Count again