Scritti Politti lyrics (and lyrical interpretations)

Cupid & Psyche '85 is one of the best records ever made. But yet you would have thought it would seem dated and outlive it's fashion. I listen to it now and wonder how it manages what it does. It's just magic.

I love "Confidence" and "Doubt Beat" as well. I think I'll put them on right now.

Songs to Remember is Lovers Discourse set to music right?

Yeah, I'd love to see lyrics for "Skank Bloc Bologna". I don't think Green will include them in the compilation.

Problem at hand at Scritlock's door, the issue on your airway,
Because out in the world the BT groups and the market forces play...
No wishing, no arty, no grab-it-and-run will rid us of this disease,
It lays down the law, the wills and the won'ts, and it fucks up liberty...
Oh, interest is kept and money is made by changing the scenery,
Oh, fashion is fab when the product is made of necessity...
The paper, the language, the idle reply weighs like the fattest ghosts,
The myth and the cackle, the door huts the rear of the groups you like the most..
And what will you do when the market shuts you up and takes your thought boards away?
The artists, the message, the all above words, and the dismal, heavy way...
Oh, faith comma hope comma charity, they must be harder than this, Because fashion is fab, the product is made of necessi--

And I also attempted to transcribe "Messthetics", hopefully I'm correct:

Messthetics, it's all that I know, oh, we know what we're doing...
But we know how it sounds, yes, we know how it sounds,
We know how it sounds...

Messthetics, all that we know, oh, we know what we're doing,
But we know how it sounds, yes, we know how it sounds,
We know how it s--

Messthetics, all that we... Oh, we know what we...
But, but...know how it sounds, yes, we know how it sounds,
Yes, we know how it sounds...

At your university, the pages let you down,
It helps you find your way around in any English town...
At your university, the pages are in French,
It helps you find your way around in any English town...

Messthetics, it's all that we know, oh, we know what we're doing,
But we know how it sounds, yes, we know how it sounds,
We know how it sounds...

some things have been lost in transcription i fear

"All the rotten smother"

is quite beautiful i think, but i always heard it as "rotten squalor" ie of being a spotty adolescent with purulent selfhating thoughts

"the BT groups"

is "the beaty groups" meaning rock bands -- Green liked to call pop and rock "beat music", cos it sounded more structuralist i spose

i'm not sure British Telecom even existed in 1979

"And what will you do when the market shuts you up and takes your thought boards away"

is absolutely beatiful -- "thought boards", what a fantastic hieroglyphic image -- but unless i'm mistaken though the word is "records" (really drawn out by green's singing) -- which fits the whole song being a paranoid panoroma about the music industry in bed with Babylon Inc. aka global capital

"and the dismal, heavy way..."

again, cute mishearing (could be talking about the New Wave of Heavy Metal), but it's "the dismal 'anyway'", at least as i hear it after 20 years of being a fan and close listener -- i think it's meant to evoke the clouded thoughts and inarticulacy of your average non-reflective rock group being interviewed in the rock press

but there's a thousand mysteries in those lyrics and a lot of them are purely deciphering them in the first place, so i could be wrong

Aaaaah yes, the summer of '82....

"The sweetest girl in all the world
His eyes are for you only
The sweetest girl in all the world
His eyes are for you only
The sweetest girl in all the world
His words have died before me
The sweetest girl in all the world
His words have died before me

When they walk in the park, I never can tell
When they walk in the dark, I never can tell
It's just loving - ooh loving

The sweetest boy in all the world
His life has got so lonely
The sweetest boy in all the world
His life has got so lonely
The sickest group in all the world
How could they do this to me
The sickest group in all the world
How could they do this to me

What I want I will take, what you think that you know
Oh such an awful mistake to never let go
It's just loving - ooh loving

The weakest link in every chain
I always want to find it
The strongest words in each belief
Find out what's behind it
Politics is pride too
Vagaries of science
She left because she understood
The value of defiance

When the government falls, I wish I could tell
When, oh when necessity calls, I never can tell
It's just loving - ooh loving

The sweetest girl in all the world
These words are for you only
The sweetest girl in all the world
These words have died before me

When they walk in the park, I never can tell
When they walk in the dark, you know that it never can be told"

None of the "Early" stuff though unfortunately.

IIRC (some of?) the lyrics of "Skank Bloc Bologna" and "Is And Ought The Western World" were written on the "sleeve" (scruffy bit of A4 the record came wrapped in) but were almost impossible to decipher because of poor print quality / colour separation.

Does any site have the early Peel sessions?