Disc 1 | ||||||
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1. |
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I felt a shiver in the heathaze And the waiting time is over Strange tongues on the airwaves As the voices call from distant lands I saw which was the winning side But still I joined the other And I'm in love with every strange unfolding day As the storm begins to break cover So let the whirlwind blow - through the ice, the melting snows - across the freezing skies and the tiny lights below And so we shutter up the doorways As the ripples move towards us For a moment stop breathing She wakes and stirs beneath our feet The Order try to stand their ground While every battlefront is shifting They still believe that they can hold the reins But then they've got no sense of history So let the whirlwind blow - through the ice, the melting snows - across the freezing skies and the tiny lights below - the waters seething, bubbling out of control - come on take my hand and we'll dive A television blares in an empty room The poisoned waters glisten Goliath staggers round in a punchdrunk daze Doesn't understand what hit him I saw which was the winning side But still I joined the other And I'm in love with every strange unfolding day As the storm begins to break cover Let the whirlwind blow - through the ice, the melting snows - across the freezing skies and the tiny lights below - the waters seething - we watch the oceans rise and the governments start to fall - across the freezing skies until the lights go out below |
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2. |
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Our history speaks in thunder
From a thousand village halls In blood and sweat and sacrifice In honouring every call So the forces gathered against the thorn A- piercing in their side The brave new world is beckoning So the olden world must die In the offices of the city At all the tables of oak and power The snares are laid and baited For the approaching of the hour A hundred justifications And the presses are ready to roll The gateways to the nation They are firmly under control Ch: On on on, cried the leaders at the back We went galloping down the blackened hills And into the gaping trap The bridges are burnt behind us And there's waiting guns ahead Into the valley of death Rode the brave hundreds Well we called for some assistance From the friends that we had known But this is the 1980s And we were on our own We never felt like heroes Or martyrs to a cause Just battleweary soldiers In a bloody civil war Ch The massacre now is over And the order new enshrined While a quarter of the nation Are abandoned far behind Their leaders offer the cliché words So righteous in defeat But noone needs morality When there isn't enough to eat The unity bond is broken And the loyalty songs are fake I'll screw my only brother For even a glimpse at a piece of the cake We only cry in private here Behind the shuttered glass When we think of the charge of this brigade The severing of the past Ch |
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3. |
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Well you walk the thinnest of the ice So easy to hurt We drove through the dark in the pouring rain And barely said a word So dress your wounds as best you can And close your tired eyes Try to climb away from here Towards the empty skies And I'll meet you there High above it all In the kiss of air, the lover's breath Visions rise from each little death As Moses stands and turns his gaze Away from the feuding tribes Walks towards the mountains And through the rocks he climbs God he orders Moses Bring the people to my will 'Leave me be' cries Moses Keeps on walking up the hill And I'll meet you there High above it all In the kiss of air, the lover's breath Visions rise from each little death And should the Devil come And should he say - 'All of this will I give to you, if you Just bow down and worship me' I'm on my knees . . "The white twisted clouds and the endless shades of blue in the ocean make the hum of the spacecraft systems, the radio chatter, even your own breathing disappear. There is no cold or wind or smell to tell you that you are connected to Earth. You have an almost dispassionate platform - remote, Olympian and yet so moving that you can hardly believe how emotionally attached you are to those rough patterns shifting steadily below" (quotation from Thomas Stafford, astronaut) |
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4. |
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The rains move in eastwards In waves of succession Drawing lines of grey across the sky With history just as close As a hand on the shoulder In hunger and impatience we cry The battle against corruption Rages in each corner There must be something better, something pure And the call it is answered From the caves to the cities Come the dealers of Salvation on Earth We've seen the restless children At the head of the columns Come to purify the future with the arrogance of youth Nothing is as cruel as the Righteousness of innocents With automatic weapons and a gospel of the truth Ch: Revolution for ever Succession of the seasons Within the blood of Nature All raised to rot and die This purity is a lie Now immaculate conception in sterilised laboratories How this vanity goes on Or in the message of the preacher With his morals and obsessions The wars that we wage upon ourselves Purity is a virtue, purity is an angel Purity is for madmen to make fools of us all So forgive yourself my friend All this will soon be over What happened here tonight is nothing at all Ch I will always see Brendan At that broken down piano His fingers thick and red shaking on the keys Battered by the years Of alcohol and working Still playing with the faith that never leaves So sit us down, buy us a drink Tell us a good story Sing us a song we know to be true I don't give a damn That I never will be worthy Fear is the only enemy that I still know |
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5. |
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Well we know what makes the flowers grow But we don't know why And we all have the knowledge of DNA But we still die We perch so thin and fragile here Upon the land And the earth that moves beneath us We don't understand So we rush towards the judgment day When She reclaims A toast to the Luddite martyrs then Who died in vain Down at the lab they're working still Finishing off How do we tell the people in the white coats Enough is enough is enough is enough? Ch: Hey, hey I listen to you pray As if some help will come Hey, hey She will dance on our graves When we are dead and gone When we are dead and gone You and I we made no suicide pact We didn't want to die But we watch the wall, little darling While the chemical trucks go by This desperate initiation now Of innocence Those last few days at Jonestown Ain't got nothing on this Ch Now beneath the fitted carpets Beyond the padded cells Within these crimes of passion The naked truth She dwells And this fury's just a part And this thunder's just a part Desire is just a part The cracking ice, the splitting rock Ch Hey, hey to the suicide day The blind man blunders on Hey, hey She will dance on our graves When we are dead and gone As children learn about the world We built that wall of sand Along the beach we laboured hard With our brave hands We worked until the sun went down Beneath the waves And the tide came rolling splashing in Washed the wall away How do we tell the people in the white coats Enough is enough? |
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6. |
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We follow the taillights out of the city Moving in a river of red As the colours fade away from the dusky sunset We roll for the darkness ahead Ch: We are old, we are young We are in this together Vagabonds and children Prisoners forever With pulses a-raging And eyes full of wonder Kicking out behind us again Nighttime City Beat the radio is calling The lost and lonely in vain Out here we are running for the wide open spaces The roadsmell after the rain Ch And watching as a boy alone at the keyside The ships loading cargo in the night Their names all calling to faraway places The years go past, the miles go by And still this childhood romance will not die |
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7. |
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Get up early every morning Just to put your make up on The wardrobe's full of useless clothes Your winter coats are gone The jackal pack is feeding The motorway sweeps down The council tries to bribe the rich Just to stay in town Ch: Get me out Get me out of this place Get me out of this trap Get me out of my brain Ysidro down to Melbourne The pressure starts to build The bullets fly at random When you least expect they will Everybody feels guilty So anyone can pay I'm just surprised it doesn't happen every bloody day Ch So here come the nineties The temperature is rising I cannot seem to loose the stains When I wash my hands One world is rising, One world is dying And one has got it's precious head Buried in the sand Ch |
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8. |
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9. |
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This is our town, this is Friday night Dressed in our rags and our rage and our best Piercing eyes looking for something Anything, anyone . . . Stare across the floor as they begin to dance Missing all the rhythms and the chosen right steps And we laugh and we drink in our corner again We're better than them . . . Divided we were born, divided we live Divided we fall, divided we die Still we tell ourselves over and over again We're better than them . . . Ch: With our hunger and our hatred We all walk this town With our fear and our weakness Just holding on With our doubt and our emptiness And this cold, cold frown We've got to be so important We'll put the whole damn world down And we build the walls that we can hide behind And our finest weapon is our poisoned pride Here in this town where the jealousies burn We're watching you . . . And truth is only what we need it to be To bring us survival through each and every day When nowhere is safe and nowhere is home Just be cool . . . And what was she wearing and what did he say Who goes with who and what did they do? We tell ourselves over and over again We're better than them . . . |
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10. |
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We scream, you run Fall out - fall out You scream and we're gone Fall out - falling out There must have been times in the smoke and the beat on the dancefloor When all of the doors, they were opening for you There must have been times when you thought you were kings of the whole world With the chemicals eating away at your reason But now you're shut down, closed in We build our own little jails I've had to watch this thing so many times Another little death of innocence Ch: Now we scream None of us saw the clever image you hold of yourselves The things that you thought were so cool were just a joke to everyone else Didn't they tell you when you pulled a stupid expression That when the wind changed you'd be stuck with it forever And now you're shut down, closed in With all the money you owe I've had to watch this thing so many times Another little death of innocence Ch |
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11. |
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Under darkening thundering towering skies We live through these painful days Walking like strangers in streets of damnation Under the enemy's gaze Well we all create monsters Come back for their masters The prices the Devil reclaims It's funny I never thought I'd be the one who would change Now above and beyond the roofs of our city The sunset spreads silent and gold And we passing the time not thinking about you Lost in our own little world Well the other night we put the radio on When we ran out of things we could say But it always play lovesongs When you're far away Forget all the lies, forget all the trouble Forget all the things that I've done And please believe like I still believe The best is yet to come The truth is yet to come So damn all the world And damn their demands And all the things that they say Cos they always play lovesongs When you're far away |
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12. |
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One swallow never made a spring You can buy a crown - it doesn't make you king Beware the trinkets that we bring When the visionary dreams set hard and grey As flesh made into stone You tore the statues to the ground Crying let our people go And now they're gone, all is gone But these changing winds can turn cold and hostile The freedom passion and the two faced call They dance together upon the wall With nothing left to break the fall Now twenty-five miles north in the great dark woods The college buildings stand And the ghosts of hope walk silent halls At the death of the promised land All is gone, all is gone But these changing winds can turn cold and hostile One swallow never made a spring . . . And in the shadows of the crowded square A thousand paper deals go down And hungry sharks from everywhere Smell the blood and head for town Innocence starts to peel away How money changes everything The past it eats the future up And this blind desire eats everything Now the rats they leave one stricken ship For another sailing past Your world was going nowhere slow While ours goes nowhere fast And now it's gone, all is gone But these changing winds can blow cold and hostile |
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13. |
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Rolling up tab ends that the baby's collected Waiting for the number that clicks on the wall It's open season on the weak and the feeble Their meagre ambitions their impotent fury There's bullet proof glass in case there is trouble No doors in the building between this side and that side I've tried to wrestle some unbalanced nightmare Tell myself over that I don't really live here But the boys run away leaving blood on the pavement And a little crowd gathered to watch you pick yourself up Joining the queue at the video library To watch ninety five minutes of simulated torture The conference hall rings to the standing ovation The people in blue ties rise from the podium Crazy with power, blinded by vision The mass-chosen leaders for a brutalized nation |
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14. |
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Turn left at the lights about 50 yards down There's a pub in the corner and I'll meet you inside At quarter to eight and we'll go into town And find out what everybody's been saying About us Smalltown walls have eyes and ears Stories fly thick and fast round here Truth and lies are all the same Whatever you do don't rock the boat You've got to play the game, play the game Ch: Is it a crime to want something else Is it a crime to believe in something different Is it a crime to want to make things happen To spit in the faces of the cynical fools The incrowd know that the shell is thin They all protect the cage they're in Get drunk and stoned and wrecked again No tears of rage, no cries of pain Nothing ventured, nothing gained In smalltown England The world outside the pint in hand Is all so hard to understand And if visions of the world come clear They're not allowed to interfere Ch The smell of hot food from the takeaway curry Diesel fumes from a passing lorry Waiting in the queue in the pouring rain For the chip shop up on Bowling Land Well last week we all got really smashed We couldn't stand up, it was a real laugh And this week's going to be just the same And the next and the next, again and again They say you've got to have fun while you're young 'Cos they can't believe there's anything else except this |
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15. |
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The time I think most clearly The time I drift away Is on the busride that meanders Up these valleys of green and grey I get to think about what might have been And what may yet come true And I get to pass a rainy mile Thinking of you And all the while, all the while I still hear that call To the land of gold and poison That beckons to us all Nothing changes here very much I guess you'd say it never will The pubs are all full on Friday nights And things get started still We spent hours last week with Billy boy Bleeding, yeah queueing in casualty Staring at those posters we used to laugh at Never never land, palm trees by the sea Well there was no need for those guys To hurt him so bad When all they had to do Was knock him down But noone asks to many questions like that Since you left this town Ch: And tomorrow brings another train Another young brave steals away But you're the one I remember From these valleys of green and the grey You used to talk about winners and losers All the time - as if that was all there was As if we were not of the same blood family As if we live by different laws Do you owe so much less to these rain swept hills Than you owe to your good self Is it true that the world has always got to be something that always seems to happen - somewhere else For God's sake don't you realise That I still hear that call Do you think you're so brave Just to go running To that which beckons to us all Ch No, not for one second Did you look behind you As you were walking away Never once did you wish any of us well Those who had chosen to stay And if that's what it takes to make it In the place that you live today Then I guess you'll never read these letters that I send From the valleys of the green and the grey |
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16. |
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The roll of distant thunder breaks
The afternoon of silence wakes They hurry through from Petergate As if they know this dance In fury blind I drive at night Across the moors, the open roads Beneath the freezing starry skies Racing in some trance These cities are illusions of Some triumph over Nature? laws We?e seen the iron carcass rust And buildings topple into dust And as the waters rise it seems We cling to all the rootless things The Christian lies, technology While spirits scream and sing ... Oh God I love the world Well I never said I was a clever man But I know enough to understand That the endless leaps and forward plans Will someday have to cease You blind yourselves with comfort lies Like lightning never strikes you twice And we laugh at your amazed surprise As the Ark begins to sink This temple that is built so well To seperate us from ourselves Is a power grown beyond control A will without a face And watching from outside I wish That I could wash my hands of this But we are locked together here This bittersweet embrace ... Oh God I love the world And if one day the final fire Explodes across the whitened sky I know you?e said you? rather die And make it overfast With courage from your bravest friends Waiting outside for the end With no bitterness but an innocence That I can? seem to grasp I know somehow I will survive This fury just to stay alive So drunk with sickness weak with pain I can walk the hills one last time Scarred and smiling, dying slow I?l scream to no one left at all I told you so I told you so I told you so ... Oh God I love the world |