I'm imagining rippling fingers on keys
Miming it wild on a cold stone table
Picturing and wishing for home and jiggling my knees
Send an urgent cable

Dickhead's done a runner and he's wondering
If anyone cares
Is the landing light on
Back to the pebbles that mum's eggs hatched in
Give me her perfume
Give me her prayers and advice

Hands up if you've never seen the sea
I'm from a land with an island status
Makes us think that everyone hates us
Maybe darling they do
But they haven't met you
They only know the villains at the tiller
And they gambled the farm on a headline

Jesus, getting harder to see what they're doing 'til it's done
And they're never gonna make an arrest on Fleet Street

Yes and I'm given to believing in love
I've written the word in my blood
And I perch on a shelf of the K2
Made of the believers that
Love, opens the fist just enough for a hand
To slip into the hand
To slip into the hand

I've been asleep in the woods with a mother to be
Planning on a static caravan in the Andes
Making a break with the steel magpie on the rise
Defeat in our time or do we
Meet on the street again due to the few?
Batter it out and refresh vendetta
Better surely to pause
Consider the path
It's full of blood, snot and teeth and the glory of no one

Hands up if you've never seen the sea
We're from a place with an island status
Queuing round the corner for a pencil and paper
Again
Come the virus of virii
God send us to a digital end
With following strangers and swiping at friends
I'll send you a postcard
See you in Hull
In a sweater made of Atacama llama wool

Yes and I'm given to believing in love
I've written the word in my blood
And I perch on a shelf of the K2
Made of the believers that
Love, opens the fist just enough for a hand
To slip into the hand
To slip into the hand

Yes and I'm given to believing in love
I've written the word in my blood
I've seen it make a heaven of
Backstreet, bedsit and bomb site living room
Love, opens the fist just enough for a hand
To slip into the hand
To slip into the hand


Lyrics submitted by niteflite01, edited by KTDublin

K2 Lyrics as written by Craig Lee Potter Guy Edward John Garvey

Lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc.

Lyrics powered by LyricFind

K2 song meanings
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  • +2
    General Comment

    This whole song, as with many songs on the albums, is about Brexit and the horrible and uncertain way 2016 changed for so many. K2 is a reference to the 48% of people who voted to remain in the EU, being the only slightly second highest mountain.

    The 'hand' refrain in the chorus is about challenging the hatred and vitriol that engulfed the Leave campaign, and the horrible events (racial attacks, especially) that occurred in the aftermath of this vote. Guy, who is 'given to believing in love,' (note the near-reluctance, the tension in that line), is finding his natural empathy and understanding has almost deserted him, and is desperately seeking a way to bridge the divide between his own, perhaps more liberal, beliefs with those of the 52% he wholeheartedly disagrees with. It's an almost biblical challenge, but one that his humanity is striving to overcome.

    And the 'In a sweater made of Atacama llama wool' is such perfect poetry. Larkin-esque and utterly brilliant.

    I could write more. These are wonderful words.

    Viking_DownSouthon April 11, 2017   Link

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