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Blue Remembered Hills

from Real Britannia by Ultrasound

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    ‘Into my heart an air that kills
    From yon far country blows:
    What are those blue remembered hills,
    What spires, what farms are those?
    That is the land of lost content,
    I see it shining plain,
    The happy highways where I went
    And cannot come again’. – A.E. Housman (A Shropshire Lad 1896)

    These words were quoted by Dennis Potter at the beginning of his play “Blue Remembered Hills” first aired on the BBC’s “Play For Today” in 1979. It deals with childhood and adolescence, a world of innocence and cruelty, adventure and tragedy, and it’s portrayal of those halcyon days through adult actors gives a greater insight into the politics and drama of the machinations of that nether world where emotions and fears are heightened and more intense and affecting than they are when we enter adulthood. This is something I was keen to explore in musical terms as, after all, music was an important part of my shaping as a child, and as an adult.

    This album concerns itself with themes of childhood, nostalgia, desire, secrets and sex, set in a Seventies environment of bubblegum and concrete and Top of the Pops, of cub scouts and power cuts, civil unrest and hazy summer lawns. This isn’t just a bunch of songs bunged on a disc. This is conceptual – an idea of an overall sound captured on tape. An idea that you put the needle on the record and go on a spiritual journey with us into light and dark dreams and wash up on the shores of life somehow changed, hopefully for the better. Music is important to us and to our fans. It is not just a chart obsessed “here today” type thing, but has a lasting permanence – a sense of eternity and something that should outlive us all. Music, like love, is forever.


    We are five people who become something greater than the sum of our parts when we write and play. Magic, channelling, healing, ascension, whatever you wish to call it. It is a calling, a necessity, something we merely act as conductors for, something powerful we must complete and send it out into the hearts on this earth. We would like you to join us on this journey so that together we can make a brighter future, a lasting impression, a permanent influence, and contribute human ascension.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Real Britannia via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.     ... more
    ships out within 3 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      £10 GBP or more 

     

  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    ‘Into my heart an air that kills
    From yon far country blows:
    What are those blue remembered hills,
    What spires, what farms are those?
    That is the land of lost content,
    I see it shining plain,
    The happy highways where I went
    And cannot come again’. – A.E. Housman (A Shropshire Lad 1896)

    These words were quoted by Dennis Potter at the beginning of his play “Blue Remembered Hills” first aired on the BBC’s “Play For Today” in 1979. It deals with childhood and adolescence, a world of innocence and cruelty, adventure and tragedy, and it’s portrayal of those halcyon days through adult actors gives a greater insight into the politics and drama of the machinations of that nether world where emotions and fears are heightened and more intense and affecting than they are when we enter adulthood. This is something I was keen to explore in musical terms as, after all, music was an important part of my shaping as a child, and as an adult.

    This album concerns itself with themes of childhood, nostalgia, desire, secrets and sex, set in a Seventies environment of bubblegum and concrete and Top of the Pops, of cub scouts and power cuts, civil unrest and hazy summer lawns. This isn’t just a bunch of songs bunged on a disc. This is conceptual – an idea of an overall sound captured on tape. An idea that you put the needle on the record and go on a spiritual journey with us into light and dark dreams and wash up on the shores of life somehow changed, hopefully for the better. Music is important to us and to our fans. It is not just a chart obsessed “here today” type thing, but has a lasting permanence – a sense of eternity and something that should outlive us all. Music, like love, is forever.


    We are five people who become something greater than the sum of our parts when we write and play. Magic, channelling, healing, ascension, whatever you wish to call it. It is a calling, a necessity, something we merely act as conductors for, something powerful we must complete and send it out into the hearts on this earth. We would like you to join us on this journey so that together we can make a brighter future, a lasting impression, a permanent influence, and contribute human ascension.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Real Britannia via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.     ... more
    ships out within 3 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      £15 GBP or more 

     

lyrics

Please won’t you bleed for me

Oh please
I feel like a boy band feels
Lame
As crippled as Mel C’s Tears
Chauffeur me
Cradle me
Mum and Dad
Save us from the secrets of love

Part 2: Home time

Home time
Shorts and scuffs and beans for tea
Welcome home you silly thing
I’ll put the kettle on
Down here
Nestled in the family tree
Waiting for the shifting sands
The land of make believe

Bells ring us out and back in again
Gently now in the night time
Wear your nice thick coat in the cold and rain
Wear you armour inside out (now)

Can’t wait
Hope this year it snows again
Christmas time is here at last
Give me presents now
Hells bells
Ring out for the jilted sons
Those abandoned by their dads
On this Christmas day

Part 3: Cuckoo

My Daddy had a nervous breakdown
Living down South in a boarded up bungalow
My Daddy went home and he never came back
To the family were the heart is meant to be
At sea
I guess he never liked me

I’m just a big fat cuckoo
Living up North in the never never never land
Snakes in the grass with a cap in my bloody right hand
For the family where the heart is meant to be
At sea
I guess they never liked me

I’m just a waste of space
Listen to the old psychological shakedown
Gone to a new home, gone and they’re never coming back
To the family where the heart is meant to be
Gone to sea
I guess they never liked me

Eyes that see stars
Say that’s too far
Broke backs breed scars
Scars leave their marks





Part 4: Mummy’s boy

Days of good intentions don’t last long
Days of separation make you stronger
Times like these I wished I was a girl
I’m lost in the queue
And you are too

The laughs behind the backs of fat boys hurt
But funny when you know they wear your skirts down
Oh the perverts cry to be their Mums
I’m lost in the swirl
Of my imaginary world
Sometimes here
Sometimes there
Sometimes flying in mid air
And it’s only naïve fun when the dress is covering your son
Like a Mummy’s boy

Part 5: Come Unto Me

I knew a girl she was as sweet as can be
But when she showed it to me
I didn’t know how to let go
She pulled my head down to her parting and said
I’ll teach you how to give head
I didn’t have a fucking clue though
She fished a spoon up from a hole in her tights
And offered me the first bite
And I said Oh no
She hunched her skirt down to her ankles and said
Well here be dragons my friend
So drink deep

Down into the dell
Where lonely children cry at night
Dampens down your dog days
Spinning songs to give you light
Here come the kings of the pubescent kids
They’re singing come come come unto me

My sister’s shoes smelt fusty and used
And then she got me confused
With all her distant pleasure
She lit a pipe and then she gave it to me
She says it comes in handy
In finding old mans treasure
Here comes your Uncle he’s a wheeze chested man
With eyes the colour of phlegm
And he says I love you love me
He goes down then he comes back again
You feel his breath on your skin
He’s breathing yes yes yes yes

Here come the stars and they know who you are
They sing of sex in their cars
And fucking with their guitars
And at the time you were naïve and blind
And they were so unrefined
That they would take what’s offered
And those who thought they were innocent times
Nostalgia made them go blind
For all those modern lovers
And now we view the world of top of the pops
As something falling like rocks
On Savile’s shit stained covers




Part 6: Real Britannia

So Britannia’s a lush
Drinking all of that stuff
Staring over the sea
Welcome sailors for tea

I don’t mind if you’re poor
Huddled masses for sure
Come one and come all
Come along to the ball

Take this middle class boy
Find me a new kind of joy

Don’t be angry with me
I’m a mirror you see
If I’m a turn on to you
Well I fancy me too

‘Cos despite all the harm
Hands have done to this charm
I don’t blame all the wrong
I’m alive and I’m strong

Scream sweet nothing’s to me
Scream like the wind to a tree

(ii): Past present

The endless sun
Cross country runs
The glam rock beat
The 3 day week
The waist high grass
The P.E. class
The Oxford bags
The woodbine fags

The past is a shining sea that’s drowning me
So I get my kicks from those who fall like me
Into the deep blue

The dentists drill
The panty thrill
The Cub Scout pledge
To do my best
The asphalt graze
Those lazy days
The pencil case
We’re lost in space

The past is an endless dream of troubled seas
So I, I’ve always been kind to those who dream like me
Nostalgia hooks us

Pilsbury dough boy
Plays with my toys
Action man
The kicked tin can
The tiny tears
Derailleur gears
The airfix plane
The Hornby train


The past is a part of me, informs these words
So come follow the paths you fear to tread
That leads to blue remembered hills

credits

from Real Britannia, released May 1, 2020
Green/Wood/Best

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Ultrasound London, UK

Ultrasound are an English indie rock band. With roots in the British underground psychedelic and experimental rock scenes of the 1980s and early 1990s, the band emerged in 1997 and soon gained attention for their "operatic prog-glam ambitions" and "violent reworking of the idiosyncratic compositions of Captain Beefheart and the staged ambisexual pop idioms of the likes of David Bowie ... more

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