Lord Peter in the City of Jackdaws

Lyric sheets for a lost concept album

for John Andersson

1. Lord Peter Quits the Band

His lordship’s riding the underground
With a golden baboon sitting on his knee
And while the baboon sits and looks around
His lordship’s combing its golden hair
And singing it lullabies shiny as beer
They’re a crime-busting duo
And they’re guarding the city
And they say click-clack, click-clack, click-clack

His lordship bailed on the honeymoon
And rode the tvärbanan to Alvik and back
And sat on the platform with open flies
And a grasshopper jumped from between his thighs
Which are harder than sugar
And whimper like meadows
When he says hush-hush, hush-hush, hush-hush

His lordship’s eyeliner’s started to run
As he watches Miss Vane climb the scaffold steps
Then he stalks through the grounds of the royal estate
In a harlequin costume and naked feet
He’s packing a pistol
With red bees for bullets
And Miss Vane’s lovely throat goes snick-snack, snick-snack




2. Lord Peter Has His Secrets

Somewhere beneath the inlet
Beneath the grey horizon
He scrabbles among the reed beds
Frantically looking for his grandmother’s musical box

Its revolving dark interior
Absorbs those black dimensions
When the boys catch fire under water
And grebes dive up to break the surface of the sun




3. Track three (lost title)

He tethers his steed
By the methadone clinic
And heads into Söder
To gamble for eyes

Starts in the wet bars
Around Medborgarplatsen
Cops a feel at the bar
As he orders his port

And cuts quite a dash
With his white-painted forehead
Playing nursery poker
And chancing his arms

The planes of his face
Start to glitter like harpies
The sway of his torso
Leaves marks on the stairs

As he laughs at the pearls
And police in his boudoir
And scatters glass shards
Through his own scalding hair

And dances in fountains
Does coke in the ladies
And ejaculates chaffinches
Over his hands

Then hotwires the sculpture
Of George and the Dragon
And impresses the ladies
With his knowledge of Greek

Spends the dog-end of night
In the bell-end of labour
Wakes up in the icehouse
With scars on his back




4. Tender Raven Lullabies

Hush little raven, don’t you squeak
Daddy keeps his black tongue inside his beak

And when that black beak breaks and falls
In the night that tongue will come after us all

And if it catches you on the stair
Then mummy will love you in the rocking chair

And if it catches you under the bed
The mummy will love you with a swollen head

But if it catches you on the wing
The Little Lord Raven will speak and sing

And if he flies as he sings so fine
He’s just gonna break this spine of mine




5. The International Language of Ice

Queen of scaly creatures
Her fist becomes a cloud
Sky glitters beneath her
As all the world goes west

Chorus:
He drinks it down, he wipes his chin
Oh Peter let the darkness in

Beast of other natures
Repetitive as coal
Burials and fractures
In complementary coils

Chorus:
He drinks it down, he wipes his chin
Oh Peter let the darkness in

Cuss-words in the pantry
Discharge of a vice
Sun cream on a latchkey
The earth swallows the sea

Chorus:
He drinks it down, he wipes his chin
Oh Peter let the darkness in
He drinks it down, he wipes his chin
Oh Peter let the darkness in




6. The Man in the Blue Mask

Here it comes like an eel again
Suckling livestock to drain the fen

There’s a man waiting
In a blue mask
With a scrumping-halter
In his golden hand
And he pays off the gardener
And he’s waiting for night
And he’s cranking the juicer
In the greenhouse

There’s a man standing
On the castle grounds
And he’s wearing skis
That are made of rifles
That shoot small bells
Right into the crowd

Here it comes like an eel again
Suckling livestock to drain the fen




7. Sunrise

Peter wants to go dill-fishing
Clod-clipping, skinny-dipping
Declare war on the shamans
And ride oily steeds
Through the forest of pigs

He checks out at sunrise
King of kings, lord of flies
With hieroglyphs behind his eyes

His chauffeur puts the car into drive
Nobody lives in the woods

Pdf version available to download here.