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"Pop​.​Thinking"

by The Wind-up Birds

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    Ok - after a bit of pressure from people we have shelled out for a CD version of the new EP.

    Nice cover. Got the lyrics on. Will prob throw in some personalised message for people who buy it.

    Ta

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    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of "Pop.Thinking", Bar Sadness (with added RacketBall), Summer Haunts, Desire Paths, The Right, Poor Music, The Gristle, Acting Thick for Money (volume 2), and 8 more. , and , .

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1.
It’s goddam gut-wrenching It’s heartbreaking And I’m parachuted in There’s all these sirens braying
Bullets spraying
When you give me all there sins You’ve got me thinking
“How did they get themselves into this and
How will they get themselves out of this?” Is this exhilarating?
Yeah but the next thing
It’s only ever seven seconds from my mind So don’t think me right unkind
But you’re gonna have to try and do loads better than this
Or else how do you think you’ll keep me trapped
Stuck in the middle of this? You’ll have to ramp up the thrills and the e-shaped stories Give me cyclone twists and the grimmest histories Give me shocks, a buzz, and trickster dances I have questions but there are no answers Tighten the grip of your e-shaped stories Promise to thrill me, grill me, never to bore me Give me flashbacks, strobe-light trances I have questions but there are no answers Glitchy news
Music gloss Slow down footage
Now rush
Jump narrative streams I’m finally thrilled
I think this means that I care I don’t care
Somethings glowing over there For one single hour you gave me a buzz
Is that enough? Ramp up the thrills and the e-shaped stories Give me cyclone twists and the grimmest histories Give me shocks, a buzz, trickster dances I have questions, there are no answers Tighten the grips of your e-shaped stories Promise to thrill me, kill me, never to bore me Give me flashbacks, strobe-light trances I have questions but there are no answers You fill us up
You fill us in But quick, let’s check out the beginning I want to know how this all got started If there’s a harsh back story it might feel cathartic You, you filled us up
You filled us in We looked where you pointed 
We felt these feelings
Is there one single action that I can take
When it’s a magic trick When it’s birthday cake? I hope by the end that you fill in all the blanks I’ll be so happy but I won’t say thanks
In the silence afterwards I will find more blanks I’ll be unhappy but I’ll just say thanks
Are the victims still the victims When we are thrilled and we are filled
And we are filled and we are thrilled? And we are… You fill us up and you fill us in You fill us up and you fill us in You fill us up and you fill us in You fill us up and you fill us in I am full, full, full but then the next one starts And here is the hook for our breaking hearts Which are breaking for the dead or for the talking heads Or are they breaking for ourselves? You’ll have to ramp up the thrills and the e-shaped stories Give me cyclone twists and the grimmest histories Give me shocks, a buzz, trickster dances I have questions but there are no answers Tighten the grip of your e-shaped stories Promise to thrill me, never to bore me Give me your flashbacks and strobe-light trances I have questions There are no answers
2.
Song Boxes 03:04
We got abandoned in this land with it’s haunting carols and 
All it’s henchman hanging around the bright red barrels There are rare days when we feel okay but You know they don’t last long Barely remembered loved ones Still trying to hold their hands Can you picture that message we tramped into the sand? These are the last few moments There’s a timer running down You know it won’t last long (Can you hear us coming out of your song boxes?
We’ll try to make it quick so it won’t be too obnoxious) We are wretched, dead all ready, this early in a song Can’t stop this overwhelming mood pulling us along I scrambled for the reeds as I rushed down the banks I pretty much gave in
I pretty much sank There was no redemption
Zero restoration A dead world Nothing will grow again I see no good and I could see no love These are the things that I’m so afraid of We keep scrubbing but it’s never enough This cloth just gets filthy and the dirt never comes off There are rare days when we don’t feel this grey Let’s pray it doesn’t last long PAUL, your eyes look tired, I would recommend bed If you’d ever check your inbox but my message is unread Yeah, it’s a rare day when I do my admin and 
I know it won’t last long We’re so far in this now but stop this is wrong Yeah, you can change your mind half way through a song One last chance Let’s turn this around In this tragic land make a positive sound Make redemption A little restoration This dead world might grow again and It’ll be about good It’ll be about love All the things we are so afraid of For God’s sake drag us out with you 
By the shoulders through the buffer zone We might be frozen and scared but Now at least we are not alone I’ve managed to find some bolt-cutters and 
I know you’ve got snippers for the wire We’ve got each other now For definite and We’ve got our fire So here is BEN on his bass with a smile on his face Cause of OLI’s supple drumming telling you to come in and Get warm by the fire with MAT’s sweet guitar This off-key singing let’s you know that you are winning Here is redemption and restoration A dead world but we are growing again and Here is good and here is love and We are not afraid anymore and We are not afraid anymore and We are not afraid anymore
3.
Margarine 02:39
Margarine Watch us
 As we synchronise our watches
 And watch our idiosyncrasies 
We idolise security
 More security We’ll secure ourselves the peerages
 Then peer down the cleavages
 As we cleave in two our promises
 What promises?
 It’s always prom night in our offices
 We are officially stiff-lipped
 As we worship some old dead men
 All those dead men
 They are creeping up behind you
 We’re creeping up beside you 
Peripheral 
 Watch out 
We’re creeping up behind you 
We’re creeping up beside you
 Peripheral
 Watch out 
We love to hate and break things 
We break into escape rooms
 Scapegoat the minorities
 Miners and their progenies
 Protect our generation
 We love rationing and ploughman’s 
Let’s plough the void inside us
 We only side with the victorious
 We are curious about nothing
 Think only of our taxes
 So tactless and vindictive 
Distinguished by our hatred
 We’re creeping up behind you
 We’re creeping up beside you
 Peripheral
 Watch out
 We’re creeping up behind you
 We’re creeping up beside you 
Peripheral
 Watch out
 And if we can make ourselves the victims
 We can victimise the margins 
And then margarine the ladders
 For the ones who come behind us
 And if we can make ourselves the victims
 We can victimise the margins
 And then margarine the ladders
 We only tolerate our own deviancy 
 And if we deviate from the truth sometimes
 These times cry out for safety 
So save this date in your diary
 And diarise the anniversary 
Of the death of every refugee
 We’ve refused entry and saved our public from
 And if our public schools and networks 
Net us the workers’ savings
 We are only here to save them
 From themselves
 They can’t be trusted 
Trust us 
This place is busted
 We’re creeping up behind you
 We’re creeping up beside you
 Peripheral
 Watch out
 We’re creeping up behind you
 We’re creeping up beside you
 Peripheral
 Watch out

4.
We, we know how to get ourselves low but We also know how to let ourselves go and We know enough to keep our backs away from the windows and Now our knees say ‘Hey!’ and our knees they give way
It’s okay, we can just play the cynic at the minor injuries clinic and If there’s a dust round our house or a crust round our mouths We’ll just say ‘Hold it, you may have oversold it’ This is the Brazilian Sgt Pepper and it always disappoints But we’ll probably sing these songs forever Sing them all together and we won’t harmonise ever Just sing the same songs forever Unbalanced dancing in the street Can still make a heart miss a beat Let’s sing these songs together Forever We said ‘Pour out some drinks, give us the strong ones’ Then you can really watch us cut a swathe 
With only our blue/grey resumes And see there, two petitions side-by-side One full of hate One full of lies We sign them both like it’s a joke and say ‘They probably cancelled each other out anyway’ So what if all us swans are tagged Still our nature fights back We are Gods We are slags and
Now the Brazilian Sgt Pepper
It starts to sound okay So we sing these songs forever Sing them all together and we can’t harmonise ever Just sing the same songs forever Unbalanced dancing in the street Can still make a heart miss a beat Let’s sing love songs together Forever Then finally I figured it out A way to be my own backing singer They locked the studio doors but it’s okay I found a way to sneak back in I thought that if I could hide myself away Back here in this last tune Then maybe somehow I could reach you I might be stuck here forever at this very last hurdle Where bands and their dreams come to curdle Man, why does everything just feel so final? We might have to put this out on Horlicks-coloured vinyl Or maybe I’m not like those other singers and This is supposed to slip right through my fingers The funeral song too sad to sing The hollowness that follows your glorious win The clever drone shot that keeps zooming out Filling the screen with only more doubt and Will the only pleasure left in this place Be the satisfying snap of my glasses case? And here amongst our narrow choices Always this joyless inner-voice says ‘I don’t know but maybe you ought to Keep your boat a bit nearer the water’ But then someone would probably just nick it Or a shore-bound drunk would find a way to be sick in it And in this self-sabotage song (our usual trope) I can’t decide if this a hymn of hope Or is it two people under pitch-black covers? Reaching for, but always missing each other I’ll try to sneak back out of this track the way that I came in Back through the bits about love and the bits about sin and 
Before the band or ROSS have even saw us I’ll just prise my way out through the gaps in the chorus and
I imagine on the track behind me flowers won’t grow but Part of my heart is telling me ‘No, there might be a whole wide world under see-through covers Reaching out and finally finding each other’

about

This is an EP we recorded ages since with Ross and mastered by Tom at Hohm Studios.

We are happy with it - so hope you like it too x

credits

released July 21, 2023

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The Wind-up Birds Leeds

New EP - "Pop. Thinking" is out now.


More gigs on the way as well.

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