Blightly - Intellectual

Stroll through this race of rats in slow-mo, yo

Roll up an eighth perhaps it’s so cold, oh

On goes the baseball cap - it’s so low

But you can’t see the face - this man’s an old pro

Swore I’d never take you back…I won’t cope

How it ever came to that I don’t know

My Dad fought for you…went through the war it’s true

My Mum left from a Caribbean shore for who?

And they promised us gold-laced streets

Gangsters grinning through their gold-plate teeth

Milking this until they’re filthy rich

Brains, gut and heart - what you built me with

Boarding school daddy pays for the best of us

State school mini-wage for the rest of us

And you made it so the future’s more than scary

But it forced me from the norm to be a more extraordinary one

To sing, dance or act, despite having a thin chance of that

I’d do anything to stay out of the trap

It’s the power of the pound sterling

It hurts you won’t look at me now, now I’m not about earning

Still I think I love you, even though I don’t trust you

I know it sounds funny but I must do

Cos you stay in my veins

Like the Smith in my name

From the tiny little island that I came

Chorus

If you can take the time, time to understand me

Maybe we’d make it right and we’d be happy

If you could just be true I know I’d be there for you…for you

My heart could beat with yours create a harmony pure

Moving like seeds ashore…forever more

And you don’t believe in me still I feel so sure…so sure

Always…Always…Always

Green and pleasant when the sun’s out

I can see the centre of your soul from a window in your Mum’s house

But some doubt you’ve got anything good to give

Like Lot’s got a spot with a hood to live

And they never see your pretty side

What a pity I see it stay tricky all city-wide

But I guess it’s nothing new

On V day they promised homes for heroes and still it wasn’t true

That spelled a lack of shelter

10 years on and the Windrush helped ya

Hired hands earned nothing in return

And that hurt turned into something that kids learn

But we dealt with it quickly

Felt that we were strictly second class

Hell they rebelled in the Sixties

Remember when you burnt yourself in ‘81

Ash blew so high it made it hard to see the sun

But still a Baby boom followed

The promise of tomorrow

A third generation carried the same sorrow

Some of us learnt to channel it through our music

Maybe even use it as something therapeutic

And looking back every hit song had…

The whiff of a good relationship gone bad

But hey to quote a poet and a big one too

“The course of true love never did run smooth”

…It’s for you