instant karma: completely gone fishing

liner notes: IRL

"This one is the result of a few nights worth of sex channel surfing on the net. It contains a number of original quotes sampled from real-audio streams. Sorry ladies, if I didn't ask. If we ever meet, you can have some of mine."

My hard-disc crashed when you said, 'Come, it's alright'. A virus got me that night, and I'm still down. You just laughed, and all in code on a phone line. What do you really look like? Describe yourself and don't lie ... I tell you what gets me high, you tell me what gets you high, you tell me now. Get me high. And I just though, don't you think this is special? The way our electrons mingle somewhere in this noise. And don't buy the rumour that there's supposed to be no-one, you're not just a sub-routine program, you are alive as I am. I tell you what gets me high ...

--Martin

liner notes: freaks

'Philosophy statement. Ever seen the 1932 movie 'Freaks'? If not, you missed out. Real life dwarves, pinheads, limbless torsoes and siamsese twins go silver screen, and scared the shit out of everybody, so that their movie was banned before being released. Poor freaks, so much for their Hollywood career.'

I'm a dead end, I am. I must have taken a wrong turn, but I'm not on my own you're with me, hey, let's go and burn. All my motors are running, hot against the wall. I'm sick and happy, I'm still thriving, I feel ten feet tall. I'm a freak among freaks, so are you, mutilated beauty, lively freak among freaks, we're all free. Let's go out and have some fun, spoil their party tonight. I see naked fingers pointing, ow, put them in a fright. We're much more alike than you's really like, we're bent, they're straight, so you really hate the way they grow around us (they don't own it all), the way they sleep around us, crowd around us, all around us. Who'd rather see me silent, a freak without a grin, but what's a grin without a freak, tell me my perfect twin. I'm a freak ...

--Martin

liner notes: birthday suite

"The single of the album with a great, unusual animated video. A favourite for many, it's about an old man in a pensioners home, communicating with the bugs in his room. Slow forest, by the way, is the nice Thai word for cemetery. The highlight of the song , the elevating finale with Tom and Ollie on their best Pavarotti, was inexplicably culled for the radio single."

I'm not growing anymore, I decompose, I break my leg my shoulder, I lose my ears, I lose my nose, oops there it goes ... And she doesn't know that I'm not quite alone, I got friends on the ceiling, got neighbours in my bed, they're keeping me the company I never have, they're everywhere, and she won't care, that I see semaphores, they see moths, I receive morsecode, they see fireflies. They all tell me it's a slow forest, all the bugs and worms and maggots and butterflies, they're all friends of mine. I'm a giant, a whole world of their own. I'm all hills and valleys and forests and roads, they party on my pelvis and hide in my toes, and when the lights go down, they make music for me ... listen.

--Martin

liner notes: give me a deal

'Ego trip, part one. Many people who heard this classic IK rocker thought it was all about getting signed. It's not. At the time, I had lost my girlfriend, had huge financial problems ( OK, still have ...) and was running out of people I could shovel my problems on (Let's hear a big `Ah' for Gordon ...). Blamed it all on the music, I did. So, lets `give me a deal' and get this thing over with. Oh, the company exec loved it, `must have felt like a big wet sloppy one on the bum. But then again, it worked, right ?'

You've been pushing around my friends for much to long. You've been playing around with me and jerked me off. I'm twisted, I'm screwed, your sewer is my head. Maybe just a bond to much you broke. Suck, suck again. Give me a deal and be quiet. Give me a deal, I'm getting tired.

--Gordon