Travelogue by Matt McAteer [3:38m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

American wheels, an open road
Traversing the nation, from coast to coast
From Blackpool to Skegness

This is a travelogue
A cut-price odyssey
You can turn your face away
There’s nothing for you to see

Kerouac and the Beats
Never passed through these streets
Where a 2 litre bottle of piss
Flies from the back of the Transit
Just missing the windscreen
Cracked and flecked with bird shit
Pops are out, you take the van
That’s filled with mooning football fans

This is a travelogue
A cut-price odyssey
You can turn your face away
There’s nothing for you to see

Stop off in a small grey town
South of a small grey city
Like a clagnut dangling
From the arse end of the country
Where an ageing rocker views his reflection
Rockabilly quiff, frosty dog turd complexion
A face like a damaged St George’s Flag
Blood shot eyes sat on sagging bags
Crossed with a bulbous, comic-relief nose
Says, “When the whisky hits you, that’s the way it goes?
Still in thrall to his teenage thrill
Of rock ‘n’ roll and popping pills
And hearing for the 1st time ‘Be-Bop-A-Lula’
“Keep Elvis and Hendrix, Sweet Gene’s cooler?

This is a travelogue
A cut-price odyssey
You can turn your face away
There’s nothing for you to see

Reach your destination
Of seaside desolation
In the midst of a coastal winter
The winds and the words are bitter
It’s out of step with the Wii generation
Last in the queue for regeneration
Planners talk of a brave new Vegas
In God we trust, America can save us

This is a travelogue
A cut-price odyssey
You can turn your face away
There’s nothing for you to see

A karaoke
A Northern Elvis Presley
Watched over from a plate by the Queen
Hung over from the silver jubilee
As Suspicious Minds seamlessly segues
Into a broken, defeated My Way
There’s no-one listening to his croon
They’re watching the brawl in the Hawaiin room
Tears in his eyes, he falls to his knees
An impassioned cry, “Contain yourselves, gentlemen, please!?

This is a travelogue
A cut-price odyssey
You can turn your face away
There’s nothing for you to see

Leave this fractured memory
The details are hazy already
And try to walk in a straight line
Pick a fight with a road sign
No-one sees, everyone’s pissed
The lovers by the bridge, the graffiti artist
Who’s scrawling on a wall in the underpass
In thick black marker pen, “I hate our lass?

This is a travelogue
A cut-price odyssey
You can turn your face away
There’s nothing for you to see
A cut-price travel lodge
Is no place for American dreams
There’s no magic, no mystery
Everything’s just as it seems