Bubble Muzzle - Kate Tempest

Here’s a poem

It goes like this

You’re off to work again

You need to make a wage

Although you kind of feel like it’s a waste of days

Measuring the hours of your life and the paper made

And now your pleasure is devoured, right?

It’s getting tedious to take the pace

I mean you’re sick of staying late

And rising early with a day to face

You know, punching them numbers in that database

And pretending that you care about the day-to-day

Of these office politics

Man they’re enough to make your faith decay

And so this morning you were staring in the mirror with your razor blade

And you noticed with a shiver that your face was grey

Because you realised

You’re actually, genuinely pissed off

Every single time your train’s delayed

And you got this weird feeling

Like you’re beginning to fade away

But it’s cool though

Because you’ve got this girlfriend that you’ve been seeing for a while now

And you love her but you don’t really feel the same when she smiles now

I mean you only ever make love with the lights out

She don’t really seem as on it as she used to

But it’s fine, right?

It’s fine

Because now’s the time for settling down

The time for making do

So you go home

You turn your brain off

And you rent a film off pay-per-view

Sometimes you wonder what your younger self would make of you

You’re happy, in a way

You’re really happy, right?

Like any of your mates from school

And it’s true the cooler ones all fucked off and got them arts jobs

In Shoreditch

And now you meet 'em in the bar as you watch 'em carry on like heart-throbs

And it always ends up messy no matter how chilled out it starts off

All of a sudden you’ve gone and got yourself involved in a danceoff

You’re like, «mate this is great, I mean I am rushing my arse off»

Stood there feeling like you’re on some sort of ride you can’t stop

Next thing you’re in the chippy rowing with some prick who’s got a fast gob

Just another night to wake up from and laugh off

And so life goes on the bubble

It’s tunnel vision all week, right?

And our weekends, well they’re for seeing double

So how we ever going to see that we’re in trouble?

We’re like a dog wagging its tail expecting a treat

Cause it’s learned how to put on its own filthy, stinking muzzle

And so life goes on in the bubble

It’s tunnel vision all week

And our weekends, well they’re for seeing double

So how we ever going to see that we’re in trouble?

We’re like a dog baring its teeth, protecting its own muzzle

Meanwhile, you’re walking through the city with your shoulders squared

You’re like «man, I’m from the End, you lot don’t know the load I bear»

You’re looking at the people that you pass with a ferocious glare

These suits and ties going on like they don’t know you’re there

You’re sick of feeling insignificant

Your ambition’s as brilliant as anybody else’s

But your temperament is militant

Cause every other day brings the death of an innocent

This inner city living is seeing more wakes than Finnegan

And all around you is suspicion, power games and fast living

Everybody’s trying to get paid

You can’t even rave without someone getting stabbed over something

It’s a crying shame

Because you’re like, «Fuck the higher plane, I want a fast car and a diamond

chain»

It feels like everybody’s out here trying to find their fame

They want their names to ring out like the alarms before the sirens came

They wanna leave the people shaking like a lion’s mane

Cause they’ve been denied for so long

They’re so sure they have a prize to claim

So tell me, is it time for grief

Or is it time for blame

I’ll stand right here and tell you lot it’s time for neither, mate

It’s a time for change

Cause where I’m from young boys are given sentences before they’ve even learned

to sign their name

And all you’re trying to do is find your way through the lies and pain

Although that said

You have got you heart set on some new kicks

You want them fresh black Nikes with the blue stitch, right?

So you been putting in the hours

Moved a few bits

You’re like «what's the point in aiming any higher?

It seems useless»

And so it’s small victories and our city’s full of rubbish

Where our children are either overfed or undernourished

Where our talent is suffocated before it can be encouraged

And our true selves are completely ignored

So tell me

What’s the point in hoping for more

When there are soldiers at war

And they are dying without knowing what for

And all you want to do is think nothing, sit and smoke up a drawer

Mate, we’re going nowhere

Like a boat on the shore oblivious to the whole ocean

We’re a token of a broken, divorced generation whose folks don’t know the

rapport

Don’t get me wrong

Just like everybody else here I have my rent to pay

All I’m trying to say is it feels to me like we’re so caught up in the everyday

We’ve given all our strength away

So

Life goes on in the bubble

It’s tunnel vision all week

And our weekends, back off, Tempest, cause they’re for seeing double, right?

Well how we ever going to see that we’re in trouble?

We’re like a dog wagging its tail running off to fetch its own muzzle

And so life goes on in the bubble

It’s tunnel vision all week

And all weekends, well they’re for seeing double

So how we ever going to see that we’re in trouble?

Unless we look each other in the eye and say,

«Do you know what?

There’s a lot more to my life than the every day struggle.»