Torsten The Beautiful Libertine
Statement Of Intent
I'm telling you all I've been six years clean
Used to be someone, doesn't mean that I'm a has been
So what, I'm middle aged, but I'm a 'gonna be'
I'm gonna do it all before I go to seed
Don't need no well-wishers praying insincerely for me
The cure for it all is being who you want to be
I've done the drugs, the bitchin' and the booze
And I'm an expert in all the ways that I've been used
Brusquely touched, rebuffed and so confused
So listen fuckers I've got nothing left to prove, have you?
Headlines scream that Hollywood's on heroin
It's that dysfunctional fame story again
Legions of liggers and leeches and fair-weather friends
From riches to rags is where that story ends
'Cos then no-one responds to the messages you send
For years, no-one responds to the messages you send
Well, I'm back in a guise altogether more heaven sent
And this is my statement of intent
And I don't care if this record don't sell
At least I've stood before you all and said, "go to hell!"
And I don't believe in fairy stories or in wishing wells
A star can fall and without any pride, I fell
But what the hell for your kiss and tell
And the shit you talk to help the tabloids sell
And all the geeks with their heroin chic
Blitz kid wannabes still looking for a scene
That's been and gone, gone, gone
You bathe in past tragedies
But I'm back with twisted majesty
I didn't learn to feel
Until the suicide ordeals
Through which I saw my time, my place
That I'm a specialty that no-one can replace
So remember the style, the name, the face
The past is the past, but the future's mine to make
'Cos I'm back in a guise altogether more heaven sent
And this is my statement of intent
And I don't care if this record don't sell
At least I've stood before you all and said "go to hell!"
Beautiful Libertine
Beautiful libertine
Runaway addict at fifteen
Living out Oscar Wildean dreams
Like a beautiful libertine
Nothing left now on the Left Bank
Just Absinthe souvenirs and café tourist traps
Nothing Bohemian around here today
You find a few scraps left in La Marais
Drugged-up, booze-fuelled sensualist
Shattered aesthetics, shuttered soul half-pissed
Like his imagined Sartre, Cocteau and Jean Genet
Any of whom wouldn't be seen dead in the Montparnasse of today
So the beautiful libertine
Euphoric in his exclusive circle of one
Finds the fun in the self destruction
Of one so terribly young
He doesn't have Paris, Soho or a prayer
His self-written manifesto rancour is everywhere
And so he takes his foppish, coiffured self
To a place that no one knows
Cooks up a spoon or two under the moon
The stars brimful of poetry and prose
Amidst the dance of a new life, almost missed
And all those early teen, "God why me's?"
A refuge in art then the escape route to proactively achieve
His hopes aligned to a future in an imagined Parisian art scene
Moved on, all gone, all gone, all gone
The beautiful libertine
Beautiful libertine
Suffused in a mania of dark-heart dreams
Imagining a hole in his head
From looting a little cash
What do all visions mean?
Intricate fantasies of payback
Revenge sought on enemies imagined
That he never really had
Content somehow to feel that he was born bad
Mad, bad and dangerous to know
Went back home in his English suburb
Everyone just left him all alone
Beautiful libertine
Runaway addict at fifteen
Living out Oscar Wildean dreams
Like a beautiful libertine
He find gold in the shit
Of a life amongst mice
In a squat bedsit of tawdry vice
Embraced his all new
Design for life
Rose-tainted specs through which he sees
Dealers, hookers, druggies, thieves
As fellow revolutionaries
A louche braggard's fist in another's face
Is just the lottery of life
Wrong time, wrong place
And then, as on some spontaneous whim
After several gins
A fudged fumble by the backyard bins
And he didn't have to think twice
He's halfway to a longed for freelove paradise
No sense of sin
No sense of sin
No sense of sin
You beautiful libertine
Runaway addict at fifteen
Living out all Oscar Wildean dreams
Like a beautiful libertine
Beautiful libertine
Beautiful
Loitering With Intent
I'm loitering with intent around this God forsaken place
Don't you dare come near or else I'll smash your fuckin' face
This is the primal scene of an alleged cry-wolf rape
But to this day my asshole tells me your prick made no mistake
Its intention to scythe through a carnal crop of foppish youths
Who you showered with poisoned platitudes Like 'pricktease' and 'born to be used'
I'm very nearly over it and will be once I'm done with you
This bitter little number in the multiples you screwed
Is psyched up, tooled up with the motive and intent to kill you
Loitering with intent
Loitering with intent
Your predatory actions
Vomiting now back at'cha
Such a tally of unpaid 'rent'
I'm no archangel of mercy
In fact I laugh
When the desperate finally repent
Soon you'll be six foot under
And I'll not wish you 'Rest In Peace'
For, to me, you're just a cauterised highly toxic disease
A charmless, blundering disgrace of a thief
Who stole self-respect from young men just like me
Loitering with intent
Loitering with intent
Loitering with intent
Loitering with intent
Loitering with intent
Loitering with intent
I'm loitering with intent around this God forsaken place
Don't your dare come near or else I'll smash your fuckin' face
I'm loitering with intent around this God forsaken place
Don't your dare come near or else I'll smash your fuckin' face
I'm loitering with intent around this God forsaken place
Don't your dare come near or else I'll smash your fuckin' face
I'm loitering for justice for the young men you debased
Whose friendship and faith in you was so tragically misplaced
This Town Needs Jesus
Did the factory girl
Tong a pretty kiss curl
In her pubic hair?
Or was her snatch shaved bare
So in the darkness of the daily dogging round
She could feel who's there?
Half-cut cockney sluts drag deep
On their fortified roll-ups
To get fucked by lads well pissed
Drugged up, dangerous, misogynist
Ever thought that a town needs Jesus?
To arbitrate the barbarity of human detritus
Ever thought that a town needs Jesus?
Or is he broken and bruised inside of all of us?
Ever thought that a town needs Jesus?
Does that shady bestenched shadow of a man
Really love his sedated toy boy?
Easy prey, easy lay, an everyday score
Submissive barebacker on tap behind locked doors
There's a pram stab story which we sadly read
And a pilfering vicar who's sexually too indiscreet
And those girls on Page 3 we can aspire to love
For as long as it takes to jack ourselves off
Ever thought that a town needs Jesus?
To arbitrate the barbarity of human detritus
Ever thought that a town needs Jesus?
Or is he broken and bruised inside of all of us?
Ever thought that a town needs Jesus?
Ever thought that a town needs Jesus?
A flash wideboy takes a junkie to his hotel bed
Fresh blood speckles the corpse of a gangster long thought dead
And rats make their home in the severed head
Of an abducted child last seen on a snuff homemovie set
Ever thought that a town needs Jesus?
To arbitrate the barbarity of all this detritus
Ever thought that a town needs Jesus?
Is he broken and bruised somewhere inside of all of us?
Ever thought that a town needs Jesus?
'Jesus' is daubed in shit on a public toilet wall
Above the peep-hole where the needle queens are kneeling
Next day, I see his crucifix of shit is peeling
Next day, I see his crucifix of shit ls peeling
As fast as addicts in this town are revealing
Their ungodly cargoes
Ever thought that a town needs Jesus?
Ever thought that a town needs Jesus?
Ever thought that a town needs Jesus?
Ever thought that a town needs Jesus?
The Slums We Loved
The slums we loved
The slums disowned
By all to whom they were not home
The streets we played
The streets we roamed
Chanced and romanced
On cobbled stones
Where we sipped our first tastes of life
Kissed our first loves a fond goodnight
Where we were born and fought and died
Learnt to look bullies in the eye
Where we faced off malicious gossips
Screamed at bar-room brawlers to stop it
Stepped over pissed-up tarts with hearts
Who looked divine but played the part
Filleting fivers out of pockets... you bitch!
While pimps pulled arms out of sockets
On the wasteland by the gasworks
Lust and testosterone drove berserk
The factory men now long, long out of work
Who insist their kids are 'seen and not heard'
So-called family men who every pay day
Ached for the sweet relief of getting laid
With the 'Dutch Courage' of a "mild and bitter top"
Crossed over the street from their second home, the pub
To stick the remnants of their burning ends straight up
A bottle blonde in the darkness
To whom, once they'd cum They'd say, "thanks luv"
Always "thanks luv... slag!'
And I'd fill my handbag with their cash
Paid for shagging what they thought my gash
To escape that town and now looking back
We were the sinking ship that gave succour to the rats
When the street-lamps flickered into life
Mod gangs compared the shine on their sharp flick-knifes
Scooters roared down to the coffee bar
At the end of the old High Street
Rival gangs would scope each other out
Waiting either to beat, pill-pop or retreat
And we, we two couldn't wait to leave
We were not part of any herd
We brilliant loners, we shameless flirts
Amidst the shits, we shining turds
To whom the words they chose to use
Were all shades of verbal abuse
And looking back we both think
"Fuck you!"
Only "fuck you!"
The slums we loved
The slums we loved
The slums disowned
The slums we loved
The slums we loved
The slums disowned
Lady Domina Bizarre
Lady Domina Bizarre
One time hooker in suburbs like Totteridge Park
Had clients for sidelines in whipping and spanking
A dominatrix rationing her fucks, her sucks and her wankings
Though a legendary good head giver
Out of her leathers, she’d rarely slither
Sometimes her punters would get very hard
Just by the suggestions implicit on her calling card
Venerated, crotchless, all boobs and basques
Her old sycophant trumps would always trot back
For a tot of her tried and tested techniques
For the champagne effect she induced from their pricks
Lady Domina Bizarre passed away
Last night in one last mad barbiturate haze
For too many years in boudoir mirrors she'd gaze
At the deep seated lines that took her living away
Lady Domina Bizarre
The legendary hooker of Totteridge Park
A social service, a hot-wired spark
Who gave such succour to such lonely hearts
For a string of moments gave light to their dark
A fantasy heroine, a willing tease
To all of the men to whom she gave hand relief
Lady Domina Bizarre
(Ooh Baby, You're So) Queercore!
Did you expect to find a 'Pistol in My Pocket' after all these intervening years?
And does the 'Comic Strip Presents' still pay your rent, for those few times that you did appear?
Oh baby you're so queercore, everything about you's decades late
From the laboured androgyny to fashion labels worn so out of date
Did you expect to find a 'Pistol In My Pocket' and when, on the first or last date?
You can't place me, perhaps you've no imagination, am | man or woman, gay or straight?
Oh baby, you're so queercore, you're out of time and out of place
I understand I'm still famous in your wonderland, my face all over the place
I can see the disquiet in your eyes
I break my resolve never to criticise
You're like a pulp romance I can read in the lines of dirt upon your face
Did you really think I'd open my legs?
Or play-act with you some kind of mad kiss-chase?
A tragic comedy in SMS
Those clichés you text don't woo they just distress
Now you're in my face smiling psychotically at me
And I'm really sure that I don't like what I see
Baby, you're so 'queercore' out of time, with what's that drink been laced?
With the elixir of youth which you'll need to stand my manic pace
My energy is my USP, you're too static babe, stuck in your time and place
Don't hang on me, unlike you I've changed, I liked you once, you were a passing phase
So take your place in the queue
There's someone else somewhere for you
Lose that star-shagging attitude
'Cos when we met, I was just passing through
There ain't nothing, nothing, nothing
You can say or do
You're just too queercore! You're just too queercore!
A walking heap of passé attitude
All that junk with which you are bejewelled
All those lines of coke you consume
The cloned machismo that you put us through
Your clashing eyeliner and lippy too
You're so queercore! You're too queercore!
Baby you're so queercore! Queercore!
You're so queercore! You're so queercore!
Need I say more? You're so queercore!
Blow Jobs For Cocaine
Does a stranger on the dance floor heed your unmet needs
Of a lust fulfilling escape route once your husband failed to please
Your justifying mantra moaned that your marriage you'd outgrown
When you're chasing the phantoms of ecstasies you never truly owned
And you tell me I'm the one who's got sex on the brain
But it's you who in the lamplight still gives blow jobs for cocaine
Brutally brief encounters all arduously denied
In hindsight, your whole whoring life you have idealised
Remembered now with unduly moist and avid eyes
Your recollections arguably inventive
Of chancer lovers passed off somehow as attentive
When in truth you didn't much care who it was you went with
You see I was there, let me explain
We were psychopathic addicts who gave blow jobs for cocaine
The rough and tumble, buff-butts and lip-glossed
Chautteured toffs give us short shrift once we'd tossed them off
Kerb-crawling doggers getting serviced in car lots
Furtive favours given, cash taken, then we'd piss off
To dealers with scars in dodgy dive bars
Fluff 'em in a mama to get them hard
Tell them well practised jokes to make 'em laugh
So they'd remember us, so that once again
We could, when skint, give blow jobs for cocaine
Give blow jobs for cocaine
Now you tell me I'm the one who's got sex on the brain
But it's you who in the lamplight still gives blow jobs for cocaine
Blow jobs for cocaine
I'm Your Lover
I'm scuffed up and scuzzed out
Through choice I'm 'nil by mouth'
And frustrated I shout
At some woman who says she loved me, well, in another life
Huh, that's as maybe but I don't grapple with the past
Or bother with love affairs, they never last
Come closer, come closer, they beckon and bray
In this coastal town, I'm the 'catch of the day'
Oh, I'm your lover
Oh, I'm your lover
In this permanent haze, I could promise I'll change
But the hatred inside of me cannot be estranged
By the bottle or pills, with or without my free will
Oh, I'm your lover
Oh, I'm your lover
The hallowed hollow temperance the preachers preach
That sacred ideal that psycho-sycophants teach
I like you 'cos you smile, you're a familiar face
We given up on the rest of the human race
Pass me a needle, cut me a line
Didn't we say dear, what's yours is mine?
So, run down the offy and stack up on booze
I'm a drunk little bitch
I gotta get some use out of you
Oh, I'm your lover
Oh, I'm your lover
Don't you know
I am your lover
Rupert Drinks Vodka
And it's often asked
Why Rupert drinks vodka
Alone outside the coffee bar
He really knows how to laugh
With imaginary friends
Every night between dusk and dark
And he’ll say, "since you ask
That its none of your business you nosey bastard"
For he’s ruptured within with the guilt of his sins
That have blown through his life like the chillest of winds
Since the summer of '69
A botched affair in a bedsit somewhere
Came to mean more as the years waltzed by
And all he sees in the maelstrom of a life
At the end of the time tunnel
in the tomb of memories
The eyes of the boy he let die
And the eves of the girls he made cry
We Were Singing Along To Liza
We were singing along to Liza
My mum burst in, I couldn't hide ya
That we were gay did not surprise her
Thirty years ago She said, "love is where it tails
God willing
The thrills of your lives are just beginning
I hope it will all be just as fulfilling
Thirty years from now."
Mum's gone and Liza's slowing
But I'm stood here steadfast knowing
The years between you came to be
My all and everything
And that all and everything
Is still you by my side
In all I think and dare to do
It's still you!
We were not beaten
We didn't cry
My focus from that day hence
Was on not living a lie
Could have been broken
Could have been ashamed
But her love on discovering us
Our lives from then on changed
That she was so enlightened
Stopped me from being frightened
Of all the feelings that I had
I couldn't change
And though she's long gone
My love for her remains
Of an understanding mother
Who said that nothing could surprise her
And that she'd really seen it all
When we were singing along to Liza
We were singing along to Liza
My mum burst in, I couldn't hide ya
That we were gay did not surprise her
Thirty years ago
She said. "Love is where it falls
God willing
The thrills of your lives, are just beginning
I hope it will be just as fulfilling
Thirty years from now."
That thirty years is now
That thirty years is now
Here I am! Here I am!
We were singing along to Liza
We were singing along to Liza
My mum burst in, I couldn't hide ya
That we were gay did not surprise her
Thirty years ago
She said. "Love is where it falls
God willing
The thrills of your lives, are just beginning
I hope it will be just as fulfilling
Thirty years from now."
Photos Of Daniel
You've a family now
All happy and grown
Smiling in unison
In every photo
A loving wife
And a very clean home
Every creature comfort
That's ever been known
And a son who's a DJ
The same age as when we played
In our fleeting but brilliant synth-pop band
We played once a week at the local bandstand
Surrounded by mates
On a couple of crates
They said we were gifted
Maybe the next Eurythmics
And everything I did was because I loved you
And the songs I sang then were in tribute to you
A mess of emotions my whole teen years through
Every yearning hidden in case I lost you
These pictures have awoken
Long lost feelings so broken
Can't get a grip, I can't handle
These photos of Daniel
These pictures have awoken
Long lost feelings so broken
I can't get a grip, I can't handle
These photos of Daniel
I Am The Boy Who Smiled At You
I am the boy who smiled at you all the time
I must confess you're more than often on my mind
I am the boy who whatever you do, I'm always on your side
And we are so in love, we never felt we had to try
But then I unpicked your tangle of little white lies
To find a messed up wife and kids with a some bit on the side
Stunned beyond tears, I cannot cry
You talked about our future like we were for life
Complications and frustrations
But a hesitation to leave you
And you for your part fearful of what
My absence would bequeath you
You’re staring into nothing
And it ain’t a sweet nothing
Like the words whispered in my ear
And your wife’s too, wow babe, so sincere!
lam the boy who found another man in time
I must confess that you're still often on my mind
I am the boy who wherever, whatever you do
Should always have been by your side
I so in love, though that love you so denied
From the day 1 unpicked your tangle of little white lies
And you stayed with your wife and kids, for I was your bit on the side
Thwarted beyond tears by your scribbled goodbye
You who talked about our future like we were for life
Complications and frustrations
But a hesitation to leave you
And you for your part fearful of what
My absence would bequeath you
Choices made are often hard
But I am not without a heart
Respectfully now ten years past
I ask, "What did life teach you?"
And if the love we had has been outgrown
Or if in quiet moments can still reach you
I am the boy
I'm still the boy
Bond Street Catalogues
A parasite on affection
A leech on love
You siphon off all his good intent
Into an offshore bank account
You feign the love game for short term gain
But then have to wank the poor sod off
Wearing your finest pink rubber washing up gloves
You thinking sex with him as something rancid
And for sure the thought of it, you really can't stand it
'Cos you married for money, not for love
As he dribbles his food, you're thumbing through
The Bond Street catalogues
A willing cipher to his cod philosophies
A nodding donkey in his company
You praise his repartee and wit
As long as you can make a bit
And pay for your next tuck and nip
Incontinence into his bag just drips
And it's the nurse wipes his ass clean of yesterday's shit
While you work out which of his antiques you can flog
To give you pocket-money
For the Bond Street catalogues
Did it dawn on you when you married him
That you may well have to carry him
Up the stairs to the marital bed
Where you made every excuse and left
He knew from your 'off-the-cutt' proposal
And subsequent hasty engagement
That you, my dear, were just after
Some sordid financial arrangement
And he played along and he feigned it
Because company when you're lonely's contagious
But he recalls how bitter and how stunned
You were to learn of his trust funds
The bulk of what you thought was his vast wealth
Was tied up beyond the reach of your good self
So you charmed out a stipend, a salary
Which you draw every month with unconcealed glee
And when he dies, and you just can't wait
You'll bag an out-house or two upon his large estate
But for now it's a slog, it's a full time job
Acting compassion for your budget
For the Bond Street catalogues
'Cos you married for money and not for love
As he dribbles his food
You're thumbing through
The Bond Street catalogues
The gloss of that mutually beneficial arrangement
'Til reality dawned to this bitter estrangement
For the age gap you claimed you could not see
Is a generation gap of enormity
What you calmly thought would be 'laissez-faire'
That you'd breeze through with ease is now full-time care
Blinded by treasures you assumed would be there
You're not savvy at all dear, too coldly cash-aware!
But still, in your dreams, you're busy marking off
What it is that you have and have not not
In the now ageing and dog-eared Bond Street catalogues
'Cos you married for money, not for love
As he dribbles his food
You're thumbing through
The Bond Street catalogues
He calls your name with a splutter and a cough
And a heartfelt 'sorry' that he's feeling so rough
You reassess your schemes
And look happy with your lot
And put back on the shelf again
And put back on the shelf again
The Bond Street catalogues
The Bond Street catalogues
My Precious One
If I lie awake
Wondering if it's true love or obsessive mistake
Feel like another under the
Being shown this place
Can you absolve my naivety?
You said the devil is near
You said the devil is me
Just don't take to heart
That I only break hearts
Don't hang on the words that I say
I'm in and out of my own tiny mind everyday
And if it's OK
I don't think that will ever change
So take heed and take heart
I wasn't born clever
I wasn't born smart
But I think of you
Night, dawn, day and dusk
And in my field of dreams
I see us
And if there are truths that haunt me
Discarded dreams of could've beens
Equating squalor to glamour
And reclusiveness to valour
Endless old friends ask me
What is the matter?
What is the matter?
So take heed and take heart
I wasn't born clever
I wasn't born smart
But I think of you
Night, dawn, day and dusk
And in my field of dreams
I see us
It's just the stuff of life that
I never, never, never quite got right
And at the dead-end of this 'so what' life
I realise that you were the love
The laughter and the light
And so your work is done
In the autumn of my life
You're still my precious one
You're still my precious one
You're still my precious one
To Have And Hold
And there was empathy
In your, "it cannot be"
When she asked. "please marry me"
On some kind of rebound
And you were so aware
Because you'd once been there
You never ever forgot
What it is to adore
To be told to "back off!"
So this time
To have and hold I'd rather not
So this time
To have and hold I'd rather not
To have and hold I'd rather not
Statement Of Intent (Reprise)
'Cos I'm back in a guise altogether more heaven sent
And this, this has been my statement of intent
And I don't care if this record does not sell
At least I've stood before you all still alive
To say to each and every single one of you
"Go to hell!"