Flowers
A man takes a maiden to be his bride,
She wore cherry lip balm, he couldn't stop kissing her.
He loved her very much, but how could he be sure she was untouched.
The father of the bride went to the city governors,
He took them many tokens to prove to them her cleanliness,
But even he had to confess there were dark unspoken half-truths in her past.
And if the maiden is not a virgin,
then they will stone her,
until she dies.
And if she's laid with forty sailors,
Then they will lash her,
Forty thousand times.
He took her to the flowers beyond the city gates,
He wished he was the first one but he knew he was too late.
So he took her with a rage that Lucifer himself could never match.
Her red blood it fell upon the yellow daffodils,
And when at last he finished, she kept so very, very still.
In fact she kept far too still, in fact she didn't move at all.
(She's floating up to god, and god has open arms)
A Hymn for the Coffee
Bless the coffee that passes between her lips,
‘cause the caffeine gives the woman a nervous twitch.
When she crossed those big white thighs, what I saw could hardly have been intended.
And her skirted suit it implies to me,
She should not chastise so callously,
As the woman who shared my bed and wiped my brow for the past three years.
And my true love don't drink her coffee like her,
Don't wear lipstick like her,
My true love, she is cursed.
And my true love don't swing her hips like her,
Not got those sassy curls,
My true love, she is cursed.
Hope the morning coffee does the trick,
Hope it clears my mind makes the day more worth it,
Cause the devil in me and the deep blue sea are entwined as on since that girl winked at me.
More Christian girls
Now I believe the angels taunt my laughs and bless my sighs,
Oh god is my crutch and my need is such I want to smell all the sheets where she lies,
Her sermon is a burden and I cower and crave all the love she gives to others in spades,
She is wisdom, she is light, she is all that's in between.
Christian girls should be kept pristine and totally devoid of pain, she won't here my refrain.
Gloria's freckles just titter and tease and they're no bloody use to me.
Scribble to a note that is tacked to my door is a list of all the traits in men I abhor like looking at the hemlines of the young pretty ladies when they should be looking at their lips,
And no matter how hard I pray my bed still stays empty,
No matter how hard I pray my soul remains untouched.
It's a shame that she feels this way, I want to kiss all her fingers today.
Broodmare
Those prying eyes are vultures eyes, your face I should be hiding.
At last I am confiding in you.
Your deeds are full of worthiness but end in abstract emptiness you're going to die a witch's death it's true.
And if one of us should chance to die, the other only has to mourn,
Grief could be the one true feeling death it seems the only answer.
Disappointed tired sweetheart you won't be the one to depart,
killing you's the only thing to do.
Jesus knows that I'll be saved, I want the water in which you bathed,
The love I felt is just no there, I confess I used you as a Broodmare.
Every one hates newly weds and everybody goes to bed with someone no less pretty then themselves,
burying the venom in a casket six feet under when you wake up from your slumber watch your back.
you could cut the air with a knife in here or cut your throat from ear to ear,
For the glory of our new born child please don't weep and please don't cry,
There's still a trace of lust for you but I no longer trust in you,
I'll miss you when your buried in that box.
Won't let anybody burn my wicker girl
Girl from the coast
Could I fall deep in love with the girl from the coast,
She looks so neat, she looks so smart dressed in her dead grandmothers clothes.
In her hand she holds the knife that cuts the bread that I will eat,
I'll see she prays, I'll see she sleeps and I will see she cleans her teeth.
I'm wasting her time with fickle heart and fickle mind,
I think it's high time we started wearing clothes that suit our age.
Chocolate is the gift she delivers in a box,
That she grips far too tightly so knuckles all turn white.
But her mind is alert she can see that I'm aware that my eyes no longer care whether we're bruising hips tonight.
(and if we both stopped smoking cigarettes we had have cash for the drugs we haven't taken yet,
If we got drunk maybe we'd forget that our nights have been filled with bad sex.)
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Other Information
 This EP makes an excellent account of what the band sounded like at the time. When this came out we had already recorded our first album; 'Breaking God's Heart'. and Flowers and More Christian Girls were songs left over from those sessions. The other three songs are home recordings.
'Flowers' takes its lyrics from the bible. This was probably written around the time of I Stole a Bride etc. when I was using a lot of religious imagery in the songs. I cringe at a lot of that stuff now. This recording is notable in that it was the first and last time we ever got John to sing on a record.
'More Christian Girls' is the same song as 'Christian Girls' with different lyrics, for an explanation of what is going on here see the story on 'Christian Girls'. The  organ was played by Stuart Murdoch from Belle and Sebastian, we didn't really know him then, and we don't really know him now. We played a few shows with them in France and we've maybe bumped into him a few times since. I think at the time it was early enough in his career to be flattered to do something like this. I remember him being quite picky though, he spent longer on this organ part then we did on anything on the album.
Hymn for the Coffee was the first of the series of Hymn songs to be released, though not the first to be written, that was '..postal service'. 'Girl from the Coast' is one of my favourites from the home recordings. Its just live with a few mics. My friend Scott from Canada sings and plays some guitar on it. There were some other friends of the band in the room and I remember the room being full of smoke.
Broodmare was in a way inspired by Charles and Diana, or at least it was in conjunction with them that I first heard the word. It was supposed to form a trio of horse songs with '...stud farm' but the third one never got written. This was recorded by Suzzanne from Johns band, 'Rhatigan' and that's her playing drums not Antony.
Photos; passport photos of Darren, early gig at the Hope and Anchor (unknown, maybe Suzzanne Harding), Darren and Scott Acomba who sings and plays guitar on Girl from the Coast, hear doing his only live rendition of it with us. (unknown maybe Suzzane Harding), the black and white shots are of an early rehearsal in the loft at 10 Station Road.(? maybe Jen Denitto).
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