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Recklesses

by Tommy Mackay

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1.
I used to be unwreckable My knowledge was impeccable My thesis on ‘Ulysses’ was profound But now it’s all flown out the portholes in my brain I'm half insane I'm more 50 Cent now than Ezra Pound chorus I used to know James Joyce by heart And quote everything under the sun Now I struggle to remember stately, plump Buck Mulligan I was literary critical, My poets metaphysical I used to know my Mozart from my Brahms But now I read The Metro And the bloody internet goes on and on I'm slower than Edinburgh trams chorus Who remembers Stephen Dedalus I'm trying my best Sandycove Martello tower The ritual of breakfast Buck slags off Stephen's dead mother Stephen calls him the usurper Oh, it's all coming back now Including English student Haines Buck calls him a panther The brawn and the brains And the milkmaid And the tussle for the key and Buck asks for a loan They all walk to the shore but Stephen isn't coming home
2.
History is a nightmare From which I am trying to awake God is a shout in the street And Jesus birthday cake Teaching victories Of Pyrrhus of Epirus Cyril Sargent stay behind For arithmetic exercises Your ugly face is a challenge Your mother's love could not have been easy I'm off to see the headmaster Garrett Deasy Garrett Deasy Garrett Deasy He loves the sound of his own voice It makes me queasy He laughs at his own views Ireland never persecuted the jews Because they never let them in
3.
Proteus 03:01
Stephen finds his way to Sandymount Strand (Philosophically poetical) He's too damn anxious, so he lies down (Philosophically poetical) P.R.O.T.E.U.S Proteus Tears tears tears If you like stream of conciousness, stick around (Philosophically poetical) Where the stream of dog piss and nose picking become profound (Philosophically poetical) My anxiety levels and inner devils Are twisting my propriety I'm jumpy and nervous like a cat in a circus weary of society
4.
The inner organs of beasts and fowls In Leopold Bloom's kitchen Relish yer breakfast then move your bowels Leopold Bloom's kitchen Talk to the cat, then the butcher's, call in For a pork kidney Mail for Molly, including Boylan Leopold Bloom's kitchen Molly in bed being well fed From Leopold Bloom's kitchen Thinking bout ads and frying bread In Leopold Bloom's kitchen What is home without Plumtree's Potted Meat? In Leopold Bloom's kitchen Incomplete, incomplete In Leopold Bloom's kitchen There's a letter from Milly Photography in Mullingar She's doing well, he feels ill, He's thinking of Molly's manager Reading Titbits, oh boy Matcham’s Masterstroke, by Phil Beaufoy In the outhouse In the doghouse The only game is cat and mouse In Leopold Bloom's kitchen
5.
Look out ladies Look out pets Here's a man Who's gonna get the Blues When you go away He's on fire Cause he's in love With a girl who's not the girl she was When he went out with her He's chatting in the post office Trying to be debonair Beware of Henry Flower Cos I'm sure he's gonna get you Yeah! He will try to say goodbye Ogling a woman in stockings Just across the street But a tram gets in the way So he moves on into an alley Tearing Martha's envelope Then he wanders into church Musing on theology Beware of Henry Flower Cos I'm sure he's gonna get you Yeah! I.N.R.I., I.H.S. Iron nails ran in, I have sinned or I have suffered Chemists next, where he buys A bar of lemon soap and then He meets Bantam Lyons Who's sure he's been given a tip For a horse called Throwaway Beware of Henry Flower Cos I'm sure he's gonna get you Yeah!
6.
7.
I've seen the poison letters of the unionist hacks About the yellow peril and the reds and the blacks And the SNP and its treacherous acts Empire two point zero pap I've seen the whole defence of Brexit mess But I've never seen an advert in the Daily Reckless I've seen satire sites taking the piss Undermined by the advertisers' kiss It's been the ruin of many good pages I've seen many die in recent ages They've tried to give me grief and stress But you'll never see an advert in the Daily Reckless Meanwhile at the Freeman's Journal Bloom attempts to place an ad Stephen Dedalus appears With Deasy's letter on foot and mouth disease Kiss my Royal Irish arse You'll never see an advert in the Daily Reckless So many papers fawning and twee At the feet of smirking celebrity Where JK Rowling meets Piers Morgan Again and again and again and again I've seen millionaires saying know your place But I've never seen an advert in the Daily Reckless
8.
Let's Eat 02:54
Bloom is hungry and he meets An old flame walking down the streets He hears news of Mina Purefoy's labour He enters the Burton Hotel Men scoff like beasts, pure hell He's looking for something to savour Let’s eat Let’s eat Let’s eat Into Davy Byrne's and find a seat Time for gorgonzola cheese On a sandwich if you please And a glass of burgundy to wash it down with Think of Molly - when we wed She will still be in her bed Eating, brushing crumbs off, like a goddess Let’s eat Let’s eat Let’s eat It's me. And me now. On my own two feet I wonder if those greek statues Have arses like us mortals do I'll pop along to the National Museum It won't take long, I won't be toiling Oh no, there goes Blazes Boylan I'll dash into the gallery, rather than see him
9.
Shall I compare Shakespeare to Ann Summers, dear? Hamlet, adultery, but less desperate: Rough hands do shake the Jack Rabbits of May, Ann Summers' lease hath all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And oft' is the gold batteries dimm'd; And every hair from hair sometime declines, By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd: But thy eternal Summer shall not fade Nor lose vibration of that pair thou owest; Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade, When in eternal sighs to time thou growest: A brief encounter in the National Library, Bloom and Stephen cross paths unknowingly.
10.
Isn't communism brilliant? Equality and all that shit If I wasn't such a fascist I would be right intae it Cognitive Dissonance Cognitive Dissonance Cognitive Dissonance Cognitive Dissonance I can hold several opinions In my head at once - it's mad Happiness just makes me angry Being good just makes me sad Sanitise me, tranquilise me Fill me full of happy pills I'll stick to my own devices You stick to your principles I just want all things to be I want everything I get I don't want all things to be I don't want anything yet The Catholic education system Has driven Stephen's wits astray Contemplation versus action Lord Lieutenant cavalcade
11.
12.
The Citizen 03:53
I am known as the citizen An unnamed denizen of Dublin I hold court and hold sway In the pub known as Barney Kiernan's Some say I'm Michael Cusack Founder member of the G.A.A. That stands for Gaelic Athletic Association And I'll charm everyone in the pub And when I'm done I won't know who was won Anymore I will use legal jargon And passages from the Bible I have cut out the body Of many an old neighborhood I don't need to remind you That I have a bottomless store Where I keep all mythology Donated to me by the gods But it's all that I have And it's very very sad But you have to believe to be had They say I'm a fierce Fenian And anti-semite to boot Bloom can stuff his opinion That our saviour was a Jew Never anger a cyclops I don't care who you choose as your king Watch your head, here's a rock In the form of an old biscuit tin So farewell, that's me done I cracked a mirror Stared out the sun And for the record I can't lie I have won
13.
Sandymount Strand watching you Nausicaa And Cissy and Edy too Obviously Uh huh Legs and underwear exposed Making me Come as the fireworks explode Oh Gerty Uh huh Thrills and spills equals Gerty MacDowell Syndrome Uh huh Sandymount Strand watching you Nausicaa And Cissy and Edy too Obviously Uh huh Legs and underwear exposed Making me Come as the fireworks explode Oh Gerty Uh huh Lame excuse, letters loose Irritable Vowel Syndrome oh Uh huh A.E I owe you Gerty MacDowell F-f-f-f-f fetch me A t-t-t-t towel
14.
Oh what a place to meet them all In a maternity hospital Drunken medical students Splaying their intelligence Stephen, Bloom, Buck Mulligan And the oxen of the sun Bloom, the only father there Remembers the death of his heir He hears that Milly and Bannon Might just be an item Oh what a disgraceful scrum Are the oxen of the sun On and on go the oxen In Latin and Anglo-Saxon Malory, Defoe and Sterne Dickens, Carlyle and Bunyan Abortion and contraception Gist for the oxen of the sun Till at last Mina Purefoy Gives birth to a baby boy And so the gang head out in Dub lin ...continued the next pub Oh what a disgraceful scrum Are the oxen of the sun
15.
Red lights, onto Bella Cohen's Swinging from the chandeliers Na na na na na Zoe Higgins, Florry Talbot And Kitty Ricketts are here Sexual fetishes, Fantasies and transgressions Putting Bloom in the dock Mrs Yelverton Barry, And Mrs Bellingham Oh, the crystal chandeliers light up the paintings on the walls We're all hallucinating - they've got us by the balls But will the rowdy crowd that had us laughing loud End in tears, swaying from the chandeliers? I never did fit in too well with the folks you knew And it's plain to see that the likes of me, don't fit with you So you traded me for the gaiety of well to do And I see dead people in the chandeliers Oh, the crystal chandeliers light up the paintings on the walls We're all hallucinating - they've got us by the balls But will the rowdy crowd that had us laughing loud End in tears, swaying from the chandeliers? instrumental break I see Stephen is overpaying for services received From the chosen girl of the social world, if stories be believed So I will do what I have to and I will safekeep The rest of Stephen's money in case he falls asleep Oh, the crystal chandeliers light up the paintings on the walls We're all hallucinating - they've got us by the balls But will the rowdy crowd that had us laughing loud End in tears, swaying from the chandeliers? It will end in tears, smashing the chandeliers
16.
When he gets to the shelter Bloom will sit Stephen on his behind And try his best to resettle his mind They get to the shelter and try to be friends Do you, don't you know who we are yet? I'm coming down fast, you're on another planet Oh what shall we do with this drunken sailor? What shall we do with this drunken sailor? What shall we do with this drunken sailor? W.B. Murphy Cabman's shelter, cabman's shelter Gimme shelter, Gimme shelter Helter skelter Cabman's shelter, early in the morning Do you, don't you want to hang round here? I'm coming down fast and getting the fear Oh what shall we do with this drunken sailor? What shall we do with this drunken sailor? What shall we do with this drunken sailor? W.B. Murphy Cabman's shelter, cabman's shelter Gimme shelter, Gimme shelter Helter skelter Cabman's shelter, early in the morning
17.
Recapitulate 01:50
18.
Yes O Yes 03:31

about

A musical interpretation of Ulysses by James Joyce with each section represented by original music by Tommy Mackay (except where noted) and reworked cover versions incorporating clips from the BBC radio series from 2012. For plot summary see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_(novel)#Plot_summary

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released September 3, 2019

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Tommy Mackay Edinburgh, UK

Scottish comedy performer and editor of The Daily Reckless - the paper that sings the news.

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