Today, on World Poetry Day, Kate Tempest has revealed details of her latest single, Ketamine For Breakfast. Kate Tempest’s new album, Let Them Eat Chaos will be out on 7th October through Fiction Records and is the follow-up to Mercury-nominated, Everybody Down. As a treat she has also revealed the song’s lyrics and you can read them below:
In the house opposite:
Black gate-post
with the concrete frog squatting on top of it.
Through the hallway,
ancient wallpaper,
nicotine gold.
Up the stairs, rickety,
loaded with history.
Here in the top flat – flowers on the windowsill,
little breeze
fluttering the petals
as they stare out at the city streets.
Jemma is awake.
What woke her?
Open eyes.
Streetlight’s float slowly through broken blinds.
She watches as the light plays across the tattered carpet,
And she holds herself tight in the rooms half darkness.
It’s cold.
She wedges her hands underneath her armpits,
It’s 4:18.
And Jemma’s thinking
Before I was an adult, I was a
little wreck,
peddling whatever I could get
my grubby mitts on.
Ketamine for breakfast,
Bad girls for drinking with.
I gave them puppy dog eyes
for the acid on their fingertips.
Heads in the bass bin.
Lips without faces,
getting feisty,
Half baked in the bakery
eating pastries.
Desperate for a body
who could save me.
But I never really wanted
what they gave me.
Always wanted something else.
Sweating in the dole queue.
Spitting like a villain in a pantomime,
old shoes,
bad teeth.
Drinking in the rain
with my ghosts,
Sitting in the back of the class,
comatose.
Villains on my back in the dark
hold me close,
But you never held.
I did some things I swore I’d never tell.
that night you tried to kill me,
run me down with your car in the snow.
I didn’t realise
how far you would go.
Every day I’ve lived
lives in the day
I wake up in.
My dreams are all screaming and fucked
but I’m fine now.
Something remains,
it’s still pulling me.
Yeah, my future is bright
but my past’s trying to ruin me.
Tried to change it
but I know,
If you’re good to me,
I will let you go.
Tried to fight it
but I’m sure
If you’re bad to me
I will like you more.
I saw some things
when I was young
That made me
who I would become
I feel them with me
every day
Coz if you try
and run away
They run beside you
pace for pace
Trip you up
and drag your face
Through the mud
of every wasted chance
and every
bitter taste.
My heart is sprayed up
with the names
Of all my friends
who lost their way
It doesn’t change,
it all remains,
It takes your strength
and gives you shame
All I want
is someone great,
To make me
everything I aint
But the only
ones for me
Are the ones
that shouldn’t be.
Even though
I’m doing good,
I’m working hard,
the work is strong
It might be fun,
just for a while,
To go back
where my hurt is from
And rinse myself
to emptiness
And push
my body close
To anybody
that can recognise
The presence
of my ghosts.
Tried to change it but I know
If you’re good to me I will let you go.
Tried to fight it but I’m sure
If you’re bad to me I will like you more.
