Lyrics

Rain on the glass of the Twenty Two,
Kat walks on like a match through blue,
Phone light flickers, a low-grade flare,
Half the Lace Market choking on her air.
Zero-hours week and a landlord’s knock,
Her tongue a snapped bottle striking rock,
Down by the tramlines, sparks in her speech,
A storm in a leather coat just out of reach

We stand there like sparks with nowhere to land,
While the tram lines hiss and the street spins us round

You don’t break, I don’t bend,
Round and round the city again,
Teeth out, heads high, back-to-back in the rain,
You don’t break, I don’t bend,
Same older fight with the same bitter blame,
We call it love, but it rains through the cracks again.

Pete rolls in from a graveyard shift,
Mud on the tyres and a petrol-station gift,
Laugh like shutters under boarded skies,
A cracked church bell, storm-grey in the eyes.
He finds her there by Old Market Square,
Both of them loading the cold in the air,
She says, “Go on then — what d’you want from me?”
He says, “Something honest, if you’ve got it to give.”

We stand there like sparks with nowhere to land,
While the tram lines hiss and the street spins us round

You don’t break, I don’t bend,
Round and round the city again,
Teeth out, heads high, back-to-back in the rain,
You don’t break, I don’t bend,
Same older fight with the same bitter blame,
We call it love, but it rains through the cracks again.

And the Trent runs black like a strip of old film,
Spooling out rows, all the fights, all the will,
The noise in the blood, all that rust in the chest,
Two locked weather fronts making a mess.
She says, “I won’t kneel for a warm place to sleep.”
He says, “Nor will I, but the wolves eat the weak.”
Then the whole wet city held its breath in the steam,
Like hope was a burglar working the edge of a dream.

You don’t break, I don’t bend,
Round and round the city again,
Teeth out, heads high, back-to-back in the rain,
You don’t break, I don’t bend,
Same older fight with the same bitter blame,
We call it love, but it rains through the cracks again.
You don’t break, I don’t bend,
You don’t lose and I won’t pretend,
We’re just two weather fronts with nowhere left to break.

So let the tram bells ring, let the neon hum,
Let the shutters come down when the last trains run,
No prince, no saint, no easy amen,
Just two blunt blades learning the weight of skin.
Rain on the rooftops, red on the street,
City of midnight, tramlines and teeth.