Alexander Carson
Alexander Carson is a non-binary singer-songwriter/composer based in Norwich Norfolk, United Kingdom, They spend the majority of their time bumbling around the house making obtuse sounds, comforted and accompanied by two ambivalent cats, one over-excited dog, and one long-suffering partner.
Carson first picked up the piano at age 4 (which is especially difficult considering the weight) and was classically trained, their music reflects this discipline and sounds like a cross between Chopin and Rufus Wainwright.
Carson is inspired by the mundanity of modernity and aims to articulate the absurdity of human existence in their music. This is all presented with a surrealist sense of humour to soften the often melancholic timbre of the music.
Essentially their music is trying to set one Oscar Wilde quote to music: "Life is much too important a thing ever to talk seriously about"
Listen to the Idiot HERE
"It rings very true to me...Very sad, and very beautiful." - Guy Garvey (Elbow) BBC6 Music
““Lovers” is a perfect blend of modern songwriting and classical musicianship.” - Line of Best Fit
“Sounding at times like an Irish prayer and others a bit Bowie-ish, but never dull or less challenging.” - Where the Music Meets
“The fragile vocals and piano playing are unmistakably Alexander – a distinctive timbre and delicate working of the keys that always reminds slightly of Anthony and the Johnsons” - Outline Magazine
“The antidote to toxic masculinity…” - Oberon White (The K Hole)
Alexander Carson is a Help Musicians supported artist
Live dates
Struggle
We've all gone a little Howard Hughes
Whittling away the years just watching the news
It's these kind of times
That I forget to be kind
To myself
To myself
I have nothing left to give
Yet they ask so much of me but
Even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day
And any two points form a straight line
Tell me tell me tell me how
You got that your lump in your throat
Or how you are falling apart
And how that gives me some hope
That in these kind of times
We all forget to be kind
To ourselves
To ourselves
An absence of being
The impermanence of this all
Like a leaf I search out the light
And I learn struggle is the meaning of life
Lovers
We lie in beds
Your exhale so soft
And we will divide under Harvest moons
Delicate plants on the ledges aloft
Under the bluest of skies will bloom
Exhausting our hearts to their last desire
We are two halves of a whole
Reflecting the two fold light of our fires
Across the twin mirrors of our two souls
And it is death that consoles you
And yet causes our lives to live
It’s the goal of this life and the hope of the sole ray
And gives us the strength to the end of the day.
And all through the tempest
The Frost and the snows
It’s the shimmering light on a black sky line it’s the crack in our hearts on heavens faultline.
It’s the fame of the gods
It’s the curse of the poor
And to the unknown heavens
It’s a wide open door
Forgotten
I Forgot more
Then I ever knew
Feet through the floor
Into a darkened room
Forgotten Light, Forever Now
Forgotten Light, Forever Now
I died before you got to see me
A particle of light so infinitely less worthy
So don’t look too close you’ll soon forget me
Don’t look too close you’ll soon forget me
Forgotten Light is Forever Now
Forgotten Light is Forever Now
Forgotten Light is Forever Now
Forgotten Light is Forever Now
COLOUR
Gaunt and Frail
Hands that haven’t grown
Are white knuckle on handle rail
You’re surrounded but alone
Taught and Told
Your slight unweighted frame
Nestled in hospitals alabaster silent wings
The softest melody oh the silence sings.
How’s the weather in here?
Does it rain in Ward B?
And the less said about the food the better
But at least you’re talking to me
So colour it in
Never talk it out
Write it down
Try to spit it out
You’re too young to understand it
Oh but yet you feel it anyway
You reach out
Feeling the space
You’re a phantom limb
A peculiar ache
I am a stranger
I wish you knew more
And you are flesh and blood
And I have never loved you more
Morphine
Embroid your pleasant designs upon me
Such banal canvas
Such pitiable destinies
These souls never bold enough
At least, not for me
And i’m dreaming of gallows and hookah smoke rings float
Oh you delicate monster, my likeness, my brother
This boredom
Is the worst
Of all miseries
Can I interest you in a little Morphine?
No, well, more for me now then
This takes some more from me
Now and then
You were more than half a friend
But less and less until the sweet end
And I would waste you on half-told jokes
And circumspect evidence against the contrary
You were always
My Jesus, Joseph and Mary
GHOSTS
One day I’ll grow old
And bigger than these bones
One day i’ll grow cold
And i’ll fill a sudden hole
For once what was lost
Will almost certainly be returned
But once this bodies lost
All my thoughts will be interned
Though I still think of you
Even though you don’t think of me
And I still drink to you
Cup runeth over these hollow bones
It’s like all my thoughts have calcified
Such contentious issues
You’re always so terribly terrified
It’s like my dreams are paper tissue
And I know
There’s no such thing as ghosts
But I would take an ethereal host
To talk to you
Once last time
And drink your wine
I Swam
I swam in the warm embrace of you
I poured my heart into each and every single pore of you
Oh what am I to do?
The subtlest embrace or a lifetime without you
And I Whispered on every eyelash I'm in love with you
I'm afraid of losing even an inch of you
Oh what am I to do
The subtlest embrace a lifetime without you
These Days
It is the weight on your chest
It's the pull of this thread
Living every day just to say at least I'm not dead
It's the perpetual nonsense
The unrequited dread
And I am too lost
And I am Jack's raging bile duct
And I am all out of random luck
And so
Sorry
For all
The worry i’ve caused
These days
These days
Are harder than they seem
Are harder than they...
I'll replay every mistake I've made at 5am listening to the pauses between my thoughts.
Leaving me with rot. So set these nightmares free.
And I am too lost
And I am Jack's raging bile duct
And I am all out of random luck
And so
Sorry
For all
The worry i’ve caused
These days
These days
Are harder than they seem
Are harder than they...
The Past is a Foreign Country
The crumbled palaces of my youth
Still stand tall, yet brick and mortar loose
We are all stuck mid page turn
One chapter ends and god I hope I’ve learned
So I scoured all the archives
I deciphered Rosetta Stone and I plagiarised
A more tortured soul than mine so I could feel my own
To realise, we all are born and die alone
But every time I looked in your eyes it was like a symphony
And I wondered if I stood here long enough I would be reclaimed by the sea
I was stuck in a symptomatic, self indulgence, some sweet reverie
But subtle as a warm winter's breath on my exposed neck
Oh please come back to me…
My Love
My Love
My Love
So at Last
All that is solid will melt into air
All that is holy will be profaned
So at last
I am compelled
To face my fellow man
So drown these heavenly ecstasies
In such chivalrous enthusiasm
Or such philistine sentimentalism
Has been plunged
Into icy waters
And so at last
I am compelled
To face my fellow man
And so at last
I am compelled
To face my fellow man
Asleep at the wheel
I saw two singing, shining, pearls
in mirrored glass Moonlight set on full beam
You cradled me in the sky and rocked me to sleep
Dead eyed like a flight attendant, bored enough to weep
It was sugar sweet, peanut butter stuck to roof of mouth kinda love
A pulmonary embolism feat of pain
When you ripped the bandage off my bleeding heart I felt sane
A subtle syncopated switch from the start, rinse lather repeat it’s all the same
Algorithm
I can’t dance
To the beat
Of your algorithm
Solitary
Pig sweet
You sweat meat
So tickle me pink
Sometimes I want to break
Something beautiful
Crush your perfect skin into mine
And wear you as a suit
And parade round the house
Till your prudish ideas come loose
At the seams
And so it seems
My own love songs
Have become
Too
Obscene
The Museum
Strychnine, dancing queen only 17
Strip me of every ambition I’ve ever had
I am dumb, useless, lifeless slump of chum
So feed me amphetamines, codeine and phone screens
If there is a light on
It’s been snuffed out
If there is a light on
It’s been snuffed out
I walked across the park just to know you’re not there
And counted the colours in a gasoline rainbow
It is all fallen leaves and amber break lights
Reflecting all the colours of the night
If there is a light on
It’s been snuffed out
If there is a light on
It’s been snuffed out
food For Thought
I've named all my gods so they can't control me anymore
I've met all my demons so they don't frighten me anymore
But I still you quiver under a cold sunlight - without your winter coat
You know my legs wobble you know and my bones are skin tight - it takes but a moment to snub out the light
Oh Forgive me
And give me
Food four fought
Set me free I don't wanna be taught
I am too old for this shit
Am I more than a one hit wunderkind
I put up a wall when I should tear it down
But all these feelings, that doesn't stop them hanging around
Am I less of a man if I learn something new
If I break this blood that separate me and you
Maybe another day will evaporate - Like nothing came before or after
Like an idiot sevant but not good at anything - If you have to make notes it generally speaking not worth remembering
How many Amazon delivery guys will derail my train of thought today
Oh Forgive me
And give me
Food four fought
Set me free I don't wanna be taught
I am too old for this shit
Am I more than a one hit wunderkind
Another cup of coffee and Another grey day
Two hidden cats under a mountain of duvet
When will domestic bliss Stop terrifying me this way
I should stop being so churlish and make some hay
But these caffeine sweat heart palpitations never seem to go away
Perhaps this is what they mean by the term "I'm okay"
“I'm okay"
Gloom
It's in the cracks the gloom gets in
In the quiet moments in the absence of light
Littered betwixt shopping list and financial breakdown.
Poetry pours out and gets set free.
The unclogged drain of domestic bliss
My Perforated soul I am heart sick
Just give me a break
Just give me a break
Just give me a break
Just give me a break
You see it's all of these arseholes who keep telling me how to feel and how-to be.
Pinkered puckered purple vein throbs
Loose limbed life limps on
I am
Weightless gormless without form
Endless brainless foam and hell hath no fury like
A stifled yawn
And the endless complications never once left my brain. Click scroll sob Every day the mother fucking same
Just give me a break
Just give me a break
Just give me a break
Just give me a break
