Kate Tempest - 13 Commandments lyrics

1. Listen to those
Who you respect and appreciate
Know your own heart never deviate
Whether raps or books just listen
To the words
And figure out the wisdom
Hidden into every verse

2. Understand skunk is a powerful herb
That taunts and temps and warps your sense
And tortures strength until it's like
'ah are these
My thoughts or do they belong to my spliff'

Too much weed turns your dreams into myths

3. True love asks nothing of either person
It just exists timelessly between them
A satisfied soul, body, whole of your mind
It don't control or confine
It don't cripple or crush


It just ripples and rushes it shivers
It gushes
It ain't bitter and it doesn't hold grudges
It colours your cheeks and it fills you with blushes

And you will know it when you feel it

4. Love that ain't true
Love that's forced
Will run you down before it's run it's course
It eats up time and ability
Inspires resentment
Encourages panic and pain and
Not contentment
And lusts really only seeks to satisfy itself
But that true stuff it satisfies both
That's why
Whenever you're close I know that I'm
Safe but still I hold my own weight
Cause love means each control
Their own fate

5. Learn
Always learn
Till your time is through, always
Every single day, comprehend something new
It's up to you to achieve everything you want to
I know my stuff but I'll
Never tell myself I've learned enough

6. In every single person
I believe there exists a possible perfection
But to understand this we have to be
Engaged with our inner selves

And brave and well behaved and on a
Mission to escape from this maze

7. Words spoken without
Consideration or truth
Are words spoken in darkness
And they are spoken to doom the speaker
To gloom and if you're not truthful with yourself
Your lies will consume you
Till' you can't separate the lies from the real

You can't discern how you feel
Man it's difficult to move without truth to propel you
And if nobody can trust you
Then nobody can help you

8. Extent deepest love for those that care for you
And never
Ever disrespect someone who's there for you
True friends are those with your interests at heart

And whose interests they are
Yours whether you
Are close or apart a true friendship will endure

Will remain
Friends, are willing to dismiss you
Until you've learned from your pain

9. Take care of yourself and your brain
Stay clear of what fucks you up
And refrain from temptation
And don't fall into darkness when
You've lost your contemplation
And don't let yourself accelerate
Your mental deprivation

Ah they say that good intentions pave
The pathway to hell

I say what points to evil leads to evil
And evil will ransack the bones
If you were born to do good and live well

If you have sworn to do good and live well
Only time will tell

10. Measure prosperity not by
Financial success or by any other vanity
Not by power
Your power or the power of your family
Not by politics sex or barbarity
Measure your prosperity
By your proximity to true love
True friends
By your ability to live in personal
And collective truth
If you join up all these points
You can connect my truth

11. Simply inappropriately put point eleven is this
Study hard and always be on your guard
Cause when you seem to be in charge
Of your shit you will get hated

Jealous ones will try and take
Away what you've reated

Study hard and do the same
Stay committed, be prolific
Cut down on the drinking so
Your thinking is specific

I keep my head in my books
Because I believe that books
Will enhance the mind
Fuck that
Just look up at the stars
The way they dance in the sky

12. The greatest rewards
Are those that you can't see
Touch smell or taste, you might say
The greatest reward is the feeling
That grows inside you
When you act in the right way

13. Telling yourself
You don't know what the truth is
Is PLAIN FUCKING COWARDICE
In the heart of your heart
In the depth of your solitude
You know that you need to fight hard
Until you have devoured this

The truth it lays way in there
Cold right now in your guts
It waits for you to gather up
The courage enough
To just confront your mistakes

We live to reciprocate
Strength is a commodity
It is a common place
Don't need the consent
Of another to be strong
Only to be weak
You know how weakness seeks
Approval in company

Strangers in front of me
Flashy sharp eyes cut hungrily
(not you
Different strangers)
See we want to aim to eradicate
All strains of weakness from our hearts
And from our minds

If we could ever complete this
Then we could live in truth and in love
And then our minds can prevail
And then on the skies we could sail