Last Night [Requiem Ensanglanté Demo]
Last night was first a 15-minute wait in the pissing rain… For a 3-mile journey on a number 19 bus… To a party in a house nobody knew… And probably shouldn’t go to anyway…
…The bible in my pocket and a bottle in my hand… To say my piece and then go back to drinking… To do my duty to God… What have I done? What have I done, for him?
And then last night was spinning rooms and bending walls… And nausea as my stomach churns… I stagger through a door and drink some more…
…And then last night was love for free… And kisses like greetings to girls I never knew… And probably will never see again… What have I done? What have I done, for me?
O Lord convict me of my transgressions.
And the girl in the black dress takes my hand and leads me away to an unlit room, I never really knew her, but that night she was all mine, her love a gift to one like me she’s never known before, her kisses touch like honey on my lips, and the conviction of my wrongs is pushed so far away into the corners of my mind, my hind brain takes control: “Let he who has no sin cast the first stone…”
And then last night was over, cold and wet Good Friday morning… A hastened kiss goodbye, The bus driver stares…Across the suburbs now to home…
The kisses are all gone now, along with the love… Just lipstick marks remain… And now I cry… What have I done? What have I done, to you?
O Lord convict me of my transgressions.
Father forgive me for my sins.
1993
Moortown, Leeds
Sleeve Notes:
I wrote the lyrics to this about 30 years ago, after a party shortly after moving to Leeds. This is both a narrative account of the event, and metphorically deals heavily with the failing attempts to reconcile my waning Christian upbringing, the remaining moral-social faith and the hedonisitc freedom of late teen-age.
I fretted over the musical direction for many many years – it kind of started with some reference to NMA’s Here Comes The War in structure, but was put aside until I started playing about with the Butch Vig Kontakt insturment and my modular synth and this sort of sleazy, slightly Kraut-Rock idea.