Released July 1997

Tracks:

01. Losing my Hair
2. Tomorrow’s Gone (5.36)
3. Petrol Cigarette(2.34)
4. When Everyone Speaks English, The World Will Explode (6.02)
5. Homesick Satellites (2.33)
6. TV (3.07)
7. The Unemployable Rub Oil on Her Coffin (2.20)
8. Grandma Begs To Be 18 Again (2.33)
9. It’s Alright Dad, Isn’t It (2.35)
10.Lead Cloud (2.33)
11.Cheap Astronaut (5.14)
12.Metal Waterpistol (3.04)

Total Playing Length: 41.54 min.

Catalogue number:

UK CD: BABY BIRD CD5

These songs were written in chosen isolation.
If someone else had been in the room,
the freedom to experiment would never have been there.
This is the fifth in the series of baby bird recordings

Trivia:

• The Fifth release in the Baby Bird recordings series
• It was originally a limited edition release, but is now available as part of the 2002 CD box set The Original Lo-Fi.
• The release was held up because of the sudden succes of Ypou’re Gorgeous.
• Until The Black Album came out in 2002, this was the only solo album to be released after Ugly Beautiful.
• Often refered to as a kind of ‘best of the rest’.
• The piano part from The Unemployable Rub Oil on Her Coffin found on Dying Happy was reused on the track 102 year old Jack… found on Plastic Tablets 2002.
• In 2000 Stephen told that Dying Happy was his favourite Baby Bird album (along with Bugged)
• “Dying Happy contains very personal, very delicate washes of sound and piano chords picking out vague melodies. Halfway between songs and instrumentals, some of the tracks on Dying Happy just don’t work at all, but some of them are riveting” Sunday Times
• “At times, you’ll find beauty here – there are some intimate, bizarrely melodic interludes [...] but in the main there’s only genuine disappointment: muffled afterthoughts and amateurish detours. This is a collection of moods, not songs, and fittingly for an album about death, the atmosphere throughout is bleak [...]. As such, the myth about Steven Jones must finally be dismantled. His is a triumph of quantity over quality, ugliness over beauty and noise over melody. Bid him farewell. Another seven years in isolation beckon”. NME
• The emphasis instead is on late night, deep blue moods, with roots in everything from Massive Attack to electronic Krautrock. Allmusic

FOUR BOYS WALK INTO A PLAYGROUND LIKE SOME FILM THEY’VE SEEN. THEY HAVE CIGARETTES AND SMART CARDS IN STOLEN WALLETS. THE GIRLS ON THE SEESAW ARE SCOTTISH, IRISH OR CZECHOSLOVAKIAN: YOU CAN’T TELL THEY’RE SO FAR AWAY.

OLDER BOY, WHO GOT NOTHING FOR CHRISTMAS, GO TO THE FAR CORNER NEAR THE ROAD, WITH LIGHTER FUEL IN METAL WATERPISTOLS, THEY POOL THEIR MARLBOROS AND BALANCE THEM UPEND ON THE RAILINGS. THEY SHOOT OFF THE ONES THE WIND HASN’T BLOWN OFF. WITH EMPTY GUNS THEY PICK UP THE CIGARETTES AND PLAY PETROL CIGARETTE ROULETTE. THEY PUT THEM BETWEEN THEIR LIPS AND LIGHT THEM WITH BLINDFOLDS AND GLOVES ON.

FRIDAY FIVE THIRTY. IT’S A GOOD DAY FOR ENGLAND. IT’S SUMMER AND THE SKY IS FLAT LIKE COWDUNG. THE FOUR YOUNGER BOYS WORK IN THE GLUE FACTORY. CLAMPING THE SOFT METAL AND CRIMPING IT OVER. THE YOUNGER BOYS WANT TO BE OLDER. THE OLDER BOYS WANT TO BE WITH THE GIRLS. AND THE GIRLS ARE HAPPY WHERE THEY ARE.

THE YOUNGER BOYS APPLIED TO BE ASTRONAUTS FIVE YEARS AGO. THEY FOUND THE ADVERT IN THE FINANCIAL TIMES LYING ON A TRAMP. THEY LEFT A FORWARDING ADDRESS: ‘BROWN’S PLAYGROUND’, AND STILL HADN’T HEARD A THING. THEY SIT ON CONCRETE BENCH BACKS ON THE EDSGE OF DOG SHIT RECTANCLE, WHERE POSTS USED TO BE. JOHN HANDS OUT PLASTIC BAGS. THEY FLICK A COIN FOR WHO’LL BE ARMSTRONG, JACK GETS FIVE HEADS IN A ROW, AND GETS THE SEE-THRU’ FREEZERBAG. THE OTHERS GET RED DIXONS, A GREEN SAFEWAY AND A PASTELSTRIPE NO-BRAND CARRIER. THEY PULL THEM OVER THEIR HEADS AND TUCK THE HANDLES INTO THEIR HOODS, JACK GETS UP, HIS BREATH ALL OVER THE INSIDE. HIS FACE HAS GONE DOUBLE AND HE CAN’T HEAR THE GIRLS AT ALL NOW. HE WALKS OFF, DOUBLE MOON SPEED, LIKE A BAD GULFER LOOKING FOR A BALL IN A TREE. THE OTHER BOYS FALL FLATOUT ON THEIR BACKS. THEIR MOTHERS ARE WAITING WITH SUPPERS BURNT, BUT THE BOYS ARE ON THE MOON WITH NO WAY BACK

DYING HAPPY

Lyrics

All words here were originally transcriped by Mark B. for his Hate Songs website.

Losing My Hair

Why, Fly, Try

I wanna fly when I’m dead
make my body far away from my head
And bounce over to you
and kiss you on your cheek
before my lips, before my lips, before my lips become to weak.

Why, Why, Why ?
Then will you still love me, if I lose all my hair?
Why? Why? Why?
Why must everyone eventually die?
Why? Why?
Twenty-Five people standing over my grave
Dry your eyes, it cuts like blades

Tomorrow’s gone

“- Sure, I admit we’re living in a wonderful age
- Monsieur, the age thanks you.
- But it does have its disadvantages, you know,
- Oh yeah?
- well, I mean to say radium and radio and things like that, there all invented now! Nothing much we can do about it.
Oh we hear a lot about individual initiatives but what chance do we have who are just starting out, what is there left to invent?”
Have me, hold me, love me, scold me, take me, break me, wake me, make me, burn me, grow old, ####
whole wide world, much more than you ever deserved

“- Oh we hear a lot about individual initiatives but what chance do we have who are just starting out, what is there left to invent?
- My poor benighted friend
- “And it seems to me there was once another Alexander who wept because there were no more worlds to conquer. And that’s been the cry of youth ever since. But the true student of science accepts every new discovery as an unfinished rainbow, glorious as they are, each new problem solved brings on new problems and every new problem is an opportunity”

“It’s a lovely day tomorrow,
Tomorrow is a lovely day”

Have me, hold me, love me, scold me, take me, break me, wake me, make me, burn me, grow old, ####
whole wide world, much more than you ever deserved

“It’s a lovely day tomorrow,
Tomorrow is a lovely day”

“- Sure, I admit we’re living in a wonderful age
- Monsieur, the age thanks you.
- But it does have its disadvantages, you know.
- Yes?
- Well, I mean to say radium and radio and things like that there all invented now! Nothing much we can do about it. Oh we hear a lot about individual initiatives but what chance do we have who are just starting out, what is there left to invent?
- My poor benighted friend”

Petrol Cigarette

Instrumental

When Everyone Speaks English, The World Will Explode

Instrumental

Homesick Satallites

Satallites are falling in love for the first time.
Satallites are falling in love for the first time.
This time.
Satallites are falling in love for the first time.
Satallites are falling in love for the first time.

Satallites are falling in love for the first time.
Satallites are falling in love for the first time.
Satallites are falling in love for the first time.
Satallites are falling in love.
Satallites are falling in love.

Satallites are falling in love for the first time.
Satallites are falling in love for the first time.
Satallites are falling in love for the first time.
Satallites are falling in love for the first time.

Satallites are falling in love for the first time.
Satallites are falling in love.
Satallites are falling in love for the first time.
Satallites are falling in love.

Satallites are falling in love for the first time.
Satallites are falling in love.

TV

Here we go, going by,
here we are, ’til we die.
Watch the window, watch the window, watch the window, watch the window.
I’ve tried and I’ve tried,
but there’s nothing inside.
Nothing passing, #### molesting.
Watch the window, watch the window, watch the window, watch the window.

Here inside, feel so warm,
Somewhere safe in the storm ####
Watch the window, watch the window, watch the window.

Watch the window, as the bats swarm
Watch the window, ’til you’re reborn
Watch the window.

Nothing inside, You’re all there there is
So watch teh window,
I’ve tried and I’ve tried but there’s nothing outside,
nothing passing, or everlasting
Watch the window.

The Unemployable Rub Oil on her Coffin

instrumental

Grandma Begs to be 18 Again

instrumental

It’s Alright Dad, isn’t it

Something in the street’s buzzing,
No-one knows it’s on, (its song?)
It never comes and never goes
Like ####
But it’s alright Dad, isn’t it?
But it’s alright Dad, isn’t it?
Yeah, son, it is.
Yeah, son, it is.

Alka-Selzer clouds the skies
oh the small of the world (?)
Like one huge neon sign
Lit up like a fake pearl

But it’s alright Dad, isn’t it?
But it’s alright Dad, isn’t it?
Yeah, son, it is.
Yeah, son, it is.
Trust me. Trust me, I’m your daddy.

Lead Cloud

She flies high, higher than the sky,
She knows why no-one else can fly
If I try to wave the girl goodbye
She flies, she flies, she flies away.
Mmmmmmoohhhh.
She flies high, higher than the sky,
She knows why no-one else can fly
If I try to wave the girl goodbye
She flies, she flies, she flies away.
Mmmmmmoohhhh.

Cheap Astronaut

instrumental

Metal Waterpistol

instrumental