Klark Kent

Lyrics and liner notes to _Klerk Kant_ (also called Klark Kent). Stewart Copeland anonymous solo album.

Transcribed without permission by Ethan Evan Prater, who is not responsible for any errors. Contact me if you want to trade for a copy of the disc. I also know a dealer (with whom I have no personal or financial connection) who imports and sells this album, too. Slightly modified and HTMLized by Carlo Bolchini.

Album copyright 1980, A&M Records, Inc. ("Don't Care" copyright 1978)
Catalog number: PCCY-10276.
Taken from Japanese CD manufactured by Pony Canyon, Inc.

All songs written by Klerk Kant and published by Kinetic Collections (except "Don't Care" published by Island Music). All instruments by Klerk Kant. Produced and recorded by Klerk Kant and Nigel Gray at Surrey Sound Studios.

Track List:

  1. Don't Care
  2. Away From Home
  3. Rich in a Ditch
  4. Grandelinquent
  5. Guerilla
  6. Old School
  7. Excesses
  8. Kinetic Ritual
The following are liner notes printed on the reverse side of the lyrics insert. I have attempted to reproduce the piece exactly as it appears, with _underscored_ words indicating italics, all grammar as stated, mistakes in punctuation and uncorrected references to Klark Kent (the original name was changed because of trademark infringement):

Introductory notes by Sir Robinson Jeffries-Elder, Q.C., M.P., ex-diplomat, lecturer, bon vivant, and principal stockholder in the Klerk Kant Foundation, Limited.

"Klerk Kant", as appears to be his name, first came into my life as he was sitting next to me on the Concorde flight from Washington, D.C., to London. Speaking in what he claimed to be his native Sanskrit, he explained that he had been in Washington testifying before a congressional committee on church politics. His expertise in this subject had been been attained while studying in a Moslem seminary in India. He underlined his religiosity (he claimed to be a "Sufi", a kind of Islamic mystic that is rarely seen on the Indian sun-continent) by saying his noonday prayers in the aisle of the jet air-plane, jostling the stewardesses as they were trying to serve lunch, and annoying the passengers with his shouts of "_Which_ way is Mecca? Which _way_ is Mecca? Which way _is_ Mecca?" while shifting his body to accommodate to the turns in the direction of the aircraft.

Later, he confessed, in sub-standard broken English, that he was "a mere computer programmer", currently out of work but living on the sum of one million four hundred thousand dollars which he had won from I.B.M. in a successful suit against the company for stealing his "invention". He was most secretive about the invention ("Do you want me to sue _you_? he asked coyly when I questioned him about it), but he adumbrated the notion that it had to do with capturing radio signals from distat galaxies, systematizing them through computer analysis, and reducing them to simple melodies which he played on the various instruments on which he is proficient.

I saw a great deal of Kent over the following weeks, sometimes in his elegant suite at the Dorchester and sometimes at my more modest digs, a bed-sit on Grosvenor Square. Sometimes he was morose to the point hostility, barely replying to my concerned questions with monosyllabic grunts. At other times, he was almost euphoric, waxing eloquent on his wide ranging political philosophies. He would often descend to the vernacular, but his normal mode of speech was iambic pentameter in a-a-b-a rhyming pattern in which he produced perfectly worded, poetically beautiful expressions of deep moral intensity. ("I am a child ancient Syria / Suffering the pains of all this area" is an example.)

It is this peculiar combination of the profane and sacred which gives his music its unique appeal to young and old, simple and sophisticated, bovine and leontine, illiterate and intelligent, A/C, D/C, and A/C/D/C I, for one, like the underlying jazz sub-motif. My sons, being of primitive mold, see nothing in him but what they call "white collar punk". In any case, to one and all, Klerk Kant's music is the work of "true genius come home from a visit to the cosmos", as the New York Times critic says. The eight songs of the disc run the gamut of KK's extraordinary talents.

--Sir Robinson Jeffries-Elder, Q.C., M.P.


Lyrics (exactly as they appear):

Don't Care

I am the hottest thing you ever will see
You know I'm something it ain't easy to be
I am the neatest thing that ever hit town
There isn't anything the could bring me down
Don't care
If you really wanna hang around
Don't care
'cause I am the neatest thing in town
Don't care
If you really wanna stick around
I don't care
If you even wanna put me down
The girls are always trying to settle me down
They never guess I'm only fooling around
My only worry is my humility
It dampens all my heavy artillery

Repeat chorus

Don't care No-no
Don't care No-no
Don't care No-no
Don't care No-no

You know I'm fooling with my fake ID
So you don't need to check my history
You know I'm something it ain't easy to be
There isn't anyone who I'd rather be

Repeat chorus

Don't care No-no

'Cause I am the neatest thing in town
Don't care
if you really wanna stick around
I don't care
if you even wanna put me down
Away From Home
I finally got away from home
I got apartment of my own
Eccentric posing is allowed
And I can play the music loud
I'm gonna abuse my brand new pad
My lousy manners are O.K.
I finally got away from home
I got apartment of my own
I entertain my rancid date
And she can hang around till late
Oh boy!
Away from home
O-Oh
I got a place of my own
O-Oh
Away from home
O-Oh
I got a place of my own
O-Oh
And I don't have to hide the fumes
So I don't have to clean my room
And I don't have to hide my toys
Won't hide my dealings Oh Boy
I finally got away from home
I got apartment of my own
Not sure exactly 'bout the rent
My weekly pay won't even dent

Won't hide my dealings Oh boy  Oh Boy!
Rich in a Ditch
I have to fake it when I deal with the system
My bills are on time but my pay always late
I work for myself I won't work for no one else
If I worked in a ditch I'd be rich

I would not make it
If I couldn't fake it
It ain't no treason
Just to look for freedom

I want some money of my own
I gotta bring my work home
In a bus on the street
On the beat in the heat
I gotta fake with the law
I gotta look like a pawn
So I cook up a nook and look great
As a straight

I would not make it
If I couldn't fake it
It ain't no treason
Just to look for freedom

I wanna be rich
I don't wanna work in a ditch
I wanna be rich
I don't wanna work in a ditch
Grandelinquent
[does not appear -- instrumental]
Guerilla
I'm on the rrrrun
From the gun
Of a bum
Old School
When I was young I was a fool
I was somebody elses tool
I was at the mercy of my so-called friends
You never saw a joke like me
I was as dumb as I could be
If I could go back to my school
I'd show 'em how I broke the rules
I'd show 'em all my wordly cool
One day I fell out of the pack
I felt like Yasser Arafat
It was a close shave but I skipped that trap
And now I've done some growing up
I ain't the same old buttercup
If I could go back to my school
I'd show 'em all my worldly cool
I never dared to take a chance
I never asked a girl to dance
And all my dreams were out of reach
And when the girls came out to play
I never had a thing to say
And all my dreams were out of reach
I never thought to disobey
Not like I always do today

Repeat chorus
Excesses
I've cracked enough jokes
And I've smoked enough smokes
Now I'm feeling for the ropes
I hope no one took notes
My excesses are getting the better of me
I'm ready to go home
Repeat

I try not to notice that I've spilt my drink
As I slide towards the door
I start to think

My excesses are getting the better of me
I'm ready to go home

Repeat

I was lecturing the kitchen
'til the icebox got bored
And where's that girl gone
I was sure I'd scored

My excesses are getting the better of me
I'm ready to go home
My excesses are getting the better of me
I'm ready to go home

I was sure I'd scored

My excesses are getting the better of me
I'm ready to go home
My excesses are getting the better of me
I'm ready to go home
Kinetic Ritual
[does not appear -- instrumental]