Get all 46 Joe Solo releases available on Bandcamp and save 25%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Farewell Hatfield Main, Sledgehammer Songs, Twenty From Twenty, Answer Machine/See You When I Get There, These Are My People, Fight The Good Fight Club Revisited, Upstairs At Park Street, Collected, and 38 more.
1. |
No Matter How Old
03:00
|
|||
No matter how old you die, you always die young
So get out there and have some fun
See you're a long time dead regretting things never done
No matter how old you die, you always die young
I knew an old man, when I was a kid
And he'd go on and on about the things that he did
It was the biggest crock I'd ever heard
But the way he'd bang on made me hang on every word
He told me: "I know the secret, son
So listen up I'll tell it you now!"
No matter how old you die, you always die young
So get out there and have some fun
See you're a long time dead regretting things never done
No matter how old you die, you always die young
Get one thing clear before we start
Your body may be aching or be falling apart
But if your heart still beats, you'll hope and dream
Cos somewhere in your head you'll still be 17
He told me: "I know the secret, son
So listen up I'll tell it you now!"
No matter how old you die, you always die young
So get out there and have some fun
See you're a long time dead regretting things never done
No matter how old you die, you always die young
Now I've got old, my hair turned grey
I've kids who never listen to a word I say
But it's their world now, so that's all right
And I still kick it hard as anyone here tonight
You see cos I know the secret son
So listen good I'll tell it you now!
No matter how old you die, you always die young
So get out there and have some fun
See you're a long time dead regretting things never done
No matter how old you die, you always die young
|
||||
2. |
||||
They could lock up the back rooms
In all of the bars
Slash all the microphones
Smash the guitars
Then take an axe to that brand new PA
But the music will still
Will still find a way.
They could take down the lighting
Dismantle the stage
Burn all the songbooks there
Page by page
Then sweep up the ashes
And lock them away
But the music will still
Will still find a way.
They could take all the jukeboxes
Out of the pubs
Wreck all the DJ decks
Lock up the clubs
Drain all the colour from life
Cept the grey
But the music will still
Will still find a way.
So if people you trusted
Have all sold you out
If the only thing left
That you're certain of's doubt
When the whole world is telling you
You'll never win
Be like the music
And never give in.
|
||||
3. |
A Northern Soul
03:39
|
|||
I'm the double decks
I'm the vinyl case
I'm the diet pills
I'm the all night chase
Of the treble lost
Trying to find the bass
I'm a Northern Soul
I'm the 9 to 5
I'm the drive out west
I'm the Saturday night
Sunday best
As the week's wave breaks
I will ride the crest
I'm a Northern Soul
Chorus:
My heart is an all-nighter that'll never ever stop
Keep your beats per minute, Doc, I'm dancing til I drop
I just weren't made to play it safe
I'm a Northern Soul and I keep the faith
I'm the mirrorball lit
All-out war
I'm the talcum slip
On the polished floor
I'm the hinges kicked
Off the bolted door
I'm a Northern Soul
Chorus:
My heart is an all-nighter that'll never ever stop
Keep your beats per minute, Doc, I'm dancing til I drop
I just weren't made to play it safe
I'm a Northern Soul and I keep the faith
I'm the long lost song
I'm the killer track
From the dusty Detroit
Vinyl rack
That the crackling needle's
Bringing back
I'm a Northern Soul
I'm the broken heart
With the Soul Boy feel
That the Mecca
And Casino heal
I'm the Golden Torch
I'm the Twisted Wheel
I'm a Northern Soul
Chorus:
My heart is an all-nighter that'll never ever stop
Keep your beats per minute, Doc, I'm dancing til I drop
I just weren't made to play it safe
I'm a Northern Soul and I keep the faith
|
||||
4. |
||||
September the 10th 1933
That was the day
The British Union Of Fascists came
Across the river from Thornaby way
Jackboots on Victoria
Bound for our Market Square
Where huddled in alleyways
We were waiting, waiting right there
Chorus
Fists were flying
Voices crying
"You'll not bring our town to its knees!"
Devil save em
We sure gave em
A welcome to Stockton-on-Tees
Ran em back to the Riverside
Kicked em down Silver Street
One of them swung a chair leg there
And found my fist in his teeth
See that scar on my knuckle there?
A souvenir of that day
When they came they were marching, boy
When they left they were running away
Chorus
The war should have killed em off
But here they are on the news
Hating people they've never met
Without walking a mile in their shoes
This fight is your fight now
My life, well it's history
But if they march on your Market Square
You give em a kicking from me
Chorus
|
||||
5. |
Pick Up That Guitar
04:12
|
|||
They kicked you and they punched you
They laughed and called you names
You were way too weak to fight back
And that made you feel ashamed
The after-school club classes?
Well, you've seen the last of them
And you never want to see that
Bloody six-string thing again
But pick up that guitar
And write that bloody song
You haven't got the skills yet
So it will not be the one
But every word you write now
And every chord you play
Will take you in their arms, son
And save your life one day
So pick up that guitar
You never go back to those classes
But you find a place to start
There's a girl who'll sit and listen
And she'll someday break your heart
The pain will almost kill you
It'll take ten years to mend
But that six string in the corner
It'll always be your friend
So pick up that guitar
And write that bloody song
They'll say you'll never make it
But go out and prove em wrong
Every word you write now
And every chord you play
Will take you in its arms, son
And save your life one day
So pick up that guitar
Drag yourself up off that teenage bed, son
Wipe the blood from off that case
Don't hang your head like poor Tom Dooley
Force them blistered fingers in to place
That band you always dreamed of
Will come to nothing in the end
And once the cheering stops, son
You soon run out of friends
But through every broken dream now
And every tear I've cried
That six string in the corner
Has never left my side
So pick up that guitar
And write that bloody song
Let out all that anger
Then get up and carry on
Cos every word you write now
And every chord you play
Will take you in its arms, son
And save your life one day
So pick up that guitar
|
||||
6. |
||||
I had a dream
Something turned me round and took me
Through the graveyard of my years
Faces trapped in fading photographs
All the laughter and the tears
Just reminded me of stolen hours somewhere
Sat in all-night motorway cafes
Trying to stall the sleep I need until tomorrow
So that I can make it through today
29 more stolen summers have gone now
There's still a fight I fight alone
29 more stolen summers have gone now
That child inside of me's all grown
He's got kids now
Kids of his own
Money talks
I guess I never listened
I'd rather leave you with a song
Cos money's spent
It's spent and then forgotten
But you could sing me when I'm gone
29 more stolen summers have gone now
There's still a fight I fight alone
29 more stolen summers have gone now
That child inside of me's all grown
He's got kids now
Kids of his own
So light a candle to the past for me
And let it shine out in the dark
Let it flicker, let it falter, let it burn out yeah, but
Don't ever let it break your heart
29 more stolen summers have gone now
There's still a fight I fight alone
29 more stolen summers have gone now
That child inside of me's all grown
He's got kids now
Kids of his own
|
||||
7. |
It Isn't How You Fall
03:21
|
|||
I knew an old man who taught me how to fight
Lead with my left and hit em with my right
He said: "Your bark is better than your bite."
And I listened.
He said: "You'll never take em pound for pound
Do that and son you'll end up on the ground.
Keep out their reach until you've worn em down"
And I listened.
He told me: "Sometimes the winning isn't winning.
No, the winning is dealing with defeat."
He said: "You choose to be a loser,
And a loser is beaten when they're beat."
Chorus:
"It isn't how you fall it's how you land
And someday soon you're gonna understand
Until that day I'll show you all I can
But son, it isn't how you fall it's how you land."
I took the bell when I'd took the blows
They blacked my eyes and they broke my nose
I never had the rhythm in my toes
But I listened.
I shook his hand the day I walked away
He'd taught me all I'd need to make my way
And I'm singing him this song tonight to say
That I listened.
I weren't a fighter like the fighters
Who drew my blood and put me on the floor
I never made it in the ring but I could sing
And understood a metaphor
He said: "It isn't how you fall it's how you land
And someday soon you're gonna understand
Until that day I'll show you all I can
But son, it isn't how you fall it's how you land."
|
||||
8. |
||||
45 more men, women and children
Died fleeing a warzone last night
While some bloke who panic-bought 300 bog rolls says:
"They should have stayed there to fight."
And upstairs the son of his father spreads hatred
With tweets under some made-up name
Behold the foot soldiers of Old Empire Island
Who shoot before they've taken aim.
In the dinghy a desperate child clings to mother
Who cries at the first sight of land
While the cameramen shoot the reporters
Who use the word 'Migrants' as much as they can
While there on the shoreline the Union Jack junkies
All getting their fix from The Sun
A line of foot soldiers for Old Empire Island
Who march to the beat of its drum.
One more needless corpse in one more needless coffin
Is lowered down into the ground
While inside the leaders who cut and then cut
Tell us there's not enough to go round
As huddled in doorways the hungry and desperate
Can't get the words out for tears
All of them silenced by Old Empire Island
Drowned by the sound of the jeers
Somebody stands up to speak and he says:
"There's a reason that this is our lot!
And if you want to know why we're poor
Then don't look at the dinghy, look at the yacht!"
But inside the rich draw their plans for tomorrow
While the poor they still pass them the pen
And Old Empire island ships bombs to the warzone
And the whole thing starts over again.
|
||||
9. |
|
|||
One thing's for certain, I know
Everybody will remember
This year to forget.
And all those fallen friends
That in our hearts
We haven't said goodbye to yet
Don't get me wrong, man
I still love to see your faces
Smiling back at me from Zoom
But I can't wait to hear
Your raised up voices
Filling up this empty room
Chorus:
Give me hugs and give me handshakes
Give me something I can feel
Give me hugs and give me handshakes
Give me something real
I may be dreaming of the future
But that's a good good place to start
So give me hugs and give me handshakes
And give me big big hearts
This song is going out
To everybody out there
Thinking this will never end
This song is going out
To anybody out there
Who is mourning their best friend
There will come a time
When everything that happened here
Is a lesson taught in schools
And we can breathe the air
And dance and laugh and cheer and sing
And tear up all those rules
Give me hugs and give me handshakes
Give me something I can feel
Give me hugs and give me handshakes
Give me something real
I may be dreaming of the future
But that's a good good place to start
So give me hugs and give me handshakes
And give me big big hearts
|
||||
10. |
||||
The revolution will come
Just like it's always done
These empires will fall
In the same way that came to them all
One by one
They're here and they're gone
The revolution will come
Just like it's always done
And if your eyes won't allow
Your heart to believe that right now
They haven't won
The revolution will come
The revolution will come
Sure as the setting son
May not be in my time
But I'll pass it on to the next heart in line
When I'm done
And just let them run and run and run and run
The revolution will come
Just like it's always done
And if your eyes won't allow
Your heart to believe that right now
They haven't won
The revolution will come
|
||||
11. |
||||
As he lay there on that bed
I knew his final hour had come
He fought for every breath I knew
His days were almost done
He took my hand in his
And with the last kick of his game
He forced his final words out
His burning eyes aflame
Chorus;
"It's never over til it's over
Until the fat lady sings
Until you hear the final whistle
Who know what tomorrow brings?
And you may be on the ropes, son
But give it all you've got
It's never over til it's over
And even then it's not."
"I was raised in the Depression
The lucky one of ten
I fought to win our freedom
And son, I'd do it all again.
You see hope is like a candle
You need it most when times are dark
And if you can't be a fire
Then at least son be a spark."
Chorus
He squeezed my hand a little tighter
And said: "You never duck a fight
I've lived a life of struggle
And I've my final one tonight.
But the thing about this cancer
Is it dies when it kills you.
And it may have took me down, son
But I'm taking it down too."
|
||||
12. |
Joe Solo Scarborough, UK
Joe Solo is an award-winning musician, writer, poet, activist, broadcaster and washing machine engineer from
Scarborough.
Live he has an ever growing reputation as both a performer and raconteur, being thought-provoking, comical and punch-the-air political often in the same breath.
He is not an artist you forget in a hurry.
... more
Streaming and Download help
Joe Solo recommends:
If you like Joe Solo, you may also like:
Bandcamp Daily your guide to the world of Bandcamp