Al Stewart - Chronicles - The Best of Al Stewart [compilation] (1991) by Al Stewart (보컬) on maniadb.com

Year Of The Cat - Al Stewart

On a morning from a Bogart movie
In a country where they turn back time
You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre
Contemplating a crime
She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running
Like a watercolour in the rain
Don't bother asking for explanations
She'll just tell you that she came
In the year of the cat.

She doesn't give you time for questions
As she locks up your arm in hers
And you follow 'till your sense of which direction
Completely disappears
By the blue tiled walls near the market stalls
There's a hidden door she leads you to
These days, she says, I feel my life
Just like a river running through
The year of the cat

She looks at you so cooly
And her eyes shine like the moon in the sea
She comes in incense and patchouli
So you take her, to find what's waiting inside
The year of the cat.

Well morning comes and you're still with her
And the bus and the tourists are gone
And you've thrown away the choice and lost your ticket
So you have to stay on
But the drum-beat strains of the night remain
In the rhythm of the new-born day
You know sometime you're bound to leave her
BUt for now you're going to stay
In the year of the cat.

The fishing boats go out across the evening water
Smuggling guns and arms across the Spanish border
The wind whips up the waves so loud
The ghost moon sails among the clouds
Turns the rifles into silver on the border

On my wall the colours of the maps are running
From Africa the winds they talk of changes coming
The torches flare up in the night
The hand that sets the farms alight
Has spread the word to those who're waiting on the border

In the village where I grew up
Nothing seems the same
Still you never see the change from day to day
And no-one notices the customs slip away

Late last night the rain was knocking at my window
I moved across the darkened room and in the lampglow
I thought I saw down in the street
The spirit of the century
Telling us that we're all standing on the border

In the islands where I grew up
Nothing seems the same
It's just the patterns that remain
An empty shell
But there's a strangeness in the air you feel too well

The fishing boats go out across the evening water
Smuggling guns and arms across the Spanish border
The wind whips up the waves so loud
The ghost moon sails among the clouds
Turns the rifles into silver on the border

On the border
On the border
On the border

Nothing that's forced can ever be right
If it doesn't come naturally, leave it
That's what she said as she turned out the light
And we bent our backs as slaves of the night
She lowered her guard and showed me the scars
She got from trying to fight
Saying oh, you'd better believe it

Well I'm up to my neck in the crumbling wreckage
Of all that I wanted from life
When I looked for respect all I got was neglect
Though I swallowed the line as a sign of the times
But dealing a jack from the back of the pack
They said-You lose again
Oh, I said, who needs it?


Well don't get me wrong now I tried to get on
With the jokers that got in my way
And I put on a smile and I tried all the while to be straight
But they just wanted more all the time and I'm sure
That you know what I mean when I say
That I'm sick of the touch and there's only so much you can take.


Well nothing that's real is ever for free
And you just have to pay for it sometime
She said it before, she said it to me
I suppose she believed there was nothing to see
But the same old four imaginary walls
She built for living inside
I said oh, you just can't mean it


Well there was never a doubt that she had to get out
She was just looking around for a way
In the pit of the night there was nowhere to hide any more
She was out on a limb, she was reaching for things
That she wanted, but just couldn't say
And she had to be sure that she wouldn't get caught like before.


Well nothing that's forced can ever be right
If it doesn't come naturally, leave it
That's what she said as she turned out the light
And she may have been wrong, and she may have been right
But I woke with the frost, and noticed she'd lost
The veil that covered her eyes
I said oh, you can leave it

It was late in December, the sky turned to snow
All round the day was going down slow
Night like a river beginning to flow
I felt the beat of my mind go
Drifting into time passages
Years go falling in the fading light
Time passages
Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight
Well I'm not the kind to live in the past
The years run too short and the days too fast
The things you lean on are the things that don't last
Well it's just now and then my line gets cast into these
Time passages
There's something back here that you left behind
Oh time passages
Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight

Hear the echoes and feel yourself starting to turn
Don't know why you should feel
That there's something to learn
It's just a game that you play

Well the picture is changing
Now you're part of a crowd
They're laughing at something
And the music's loud
A girl comes towards you
You once used to know
You reach out your hand
But you're all alone, in these
Time passages
I know you're in there, you're just out of sight
Time passages
Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight

Lucy worked a different club every day,
And though she put her mind to it,
Her heart was never in it,
She stayed around just long enough to get paid,
She won't pass the time with you, she can't stay a minute,
And all these changing faces never bothered her at all,
They just existed like a back-drop or a pattern on the wall,
Lucy looks like someone who is waiting for a call,
She knows he'll come, but no-one else can hear at all,

Lucy finds the dressing room and the bar,
Hangs her clothes up, hopes tonight,
The contract won't be broken,
Well, they kick you round so much when you're not a star,
Make you play all night just for a pittance or a token,
But all these imperfections never bothered her at all,
She says it sharpens your perception when your back's against the wall,
There's something that enables her to rise above it all,
To shrug it off, just when it seems to go too far,

Hey, hey, hey, I think you almost, feel the pain comin' on inside,
Hey, hey, hey, I think you almost, feel it now and you don't know why,
You don't know why.

The last time that I saw her she had given up the chase,
Moved away to California, got a suntan on her face,
She said that life was just another time another space,
It's over now, she learned a lot, it's not a waste,

Hey, hey, hey, I think you almost, feel the pain comin' on inside
Hey, hey, hey, I think you almost, feel it now and you don't know why,

Hey, hey, hey, I think you almost, feel yourself reaching out inside,
Hey, hey, hey, I think you almost, feel it now and you don't know why.

I was making my way through the wasteland
The road into town passes through
I was changing the radio stations
With my mind on you
Oh your friends call you "Lily Paloma"
But that's not the way that you are
It's too much of a gentle misnomer
For a shooting star

But you and me baby
I saw you there
Straight away I knew
There's really no hiding
I'll tell you right now
What we're gonna do
We'll go collecting the days
Putting the moments away
You're on my mind like a
Song on the Radio

I remember the first time I saw you
Alone in the dark with a drink
With a candle flame burning before you
And your thoughts closed in
You were staring out into the distance
Not seeming to hear what I said
Why did you put up such resistance
Like all the lights are red

'Cause you and me baby
I saw you there


Straight away I knew
There's really no hiding
I'll tell you right now
What we're gonna do
We'll go collecting the days
Putting the moments away
You're on my mind like a
Song on the Radio

I don't know what it was that was painful
But sometimes it's there in your face
There are times when you just look disdainful
Of the human race
Ah, but then on the wings of emotion
We circle each other in flight
Till together we roll like the ocean
In its bed at night

'Cause you and me baby
I saw you there
Straight away I knew
There's really no hiding
I'll tell you right now
What we're gonna do
We'll go collecting the days
Putting the moments away
You're on my mind like a
Song on the Radio
You're on my mind like a
Song on the Radio

Before the phone hits the receiver
You're halfway to the door
The voice said 'get out while you can,
There's just ten minutes, nothing more'
Time only for the essentials
Better gather them and run
The false name inside the passport,
The gold bars and the gun
And once again they've come out of the past
And though your mind is cool your heart is beating fast
You've been through it all before
Each time you wish a little more that you could ask

What do you want from me?
What do you need from me?
There's no rest for the running man
Why can't you let him be?'

It's a long and twisting journey
From the sweeping northern plains
To the outcrops of the jungle
Bowed beneath the tropic rains
In the customs hall the officer
Takes you to one side
And his eyes reveal no feeling
As you hand over the bribe
And once again you've bought a little time
And once again you're fading out of sight
Still the fox is growing older
As he calls over his shoulder to the night:

What do you want from me?
What do you need from me?
There's no rest for the running man
Why can't you let him be?

Here, come over here
Beneath a sympathetic moon
We'll sit and talk over old times without a fear
Another beer, from the cafes of the night
The tumbling rhythms of guitars ring loud and clear

One by one they've nailed the others
But you always got away
What it is that keeps you just that step ahead
No one can say
In one last raid the agents
Of the dawn break down the door
Of a house where you were standing
Maybe just an hour before
And still the thread continues to unwind
You take the hidden roads that only you can find
And should they come upon your tracks
There's just a question hanging back you left behind

What do you want from me?
What do you need from me?
No rest for the running man
Why can't you let him be?

What do you want from me?
What do you need from me?

And I think of you now
As a dream that I had long ago
In a kingdom lost in time

In a forest of evening
The archer is bending a bow
And I see you bring him bread and wine

Down the legions of years
The invaders have taken this land
And bent you to their will

And the memories fade of the ancients
And all that they had
Though the magic lingers round you still

Oh, who would walk the stony roads
of Merlin's time?
And keep the watch along the borderline

And who would hear the legends passed
in song and rhyme?
Upon the shepherd pipes of Merlin's time

'Oh I come from Pittsburgh to study astrology,'
She said as she stood on my instep,
'I could show you New York with a walk between Fourth Street and Nine.'
Then out of her coat taking seven harmonicas
She sat down to play on a doorstep saying
'Come back to my place I will show you the stars and the signs'
So I followed her into the black lands
Where the window frames peel and flake
And the old Jewish face behind the lace
Even now trying to get to see what's cooking
Just John the Baptist in the park getting laid thinking there's no-one looking
And its eighty degrees and I'm down on my knees in Brooklyn

Her house was a dusty collection of rusty
Confusion with landings and tunnels
And leaning bookcases and spaces and faces and things
Where twenty-five Puerto Ricans, Manhattan Mohicans
And Jewish-Italian Pawnbrokers
Lead their theatrical lives in their rooms in the wings
While outside in the black lands
The violent day runs wild
And the black and white minstrels run through the crazy
Alleys while the cops go booking
And ruthless toothless agents sneak around and there's no-one looking
And it's eighty degrees and I'm down on my knees in Brooklyn

And oh, I'm back in the city again
You can tell by the smell of the hamburger stand in the rain
She spoke of astrology while muttering apologies
For coffee that tasted of hot dogs
I said 'That's OK, mine was cold anyway, and just grand'
Then she lay on the bed while the radio fed
Us with records and adverts for cat food
And I looked at her, holding my thoughts in the palm of my hand
And outside in the black lands
The evening came and went
And the bums in the street begging money for one last drink
Are hanging round the liquor stores trying to get a foot in
And the girl from Pittsburgh and I made love on a mattress with the new moon looking
And in the cool evening breeze I was down on my knees in Brooklyn

Prince Louis Battenberg is burning the Admiralty lights down low
Silently sifting through papers sealed with a crown
Admiral Lord Fisher is writing to Churchill, calling for more Dreadnoughts
The houses in Hackney are all falling down
And my grandmother sits on the beach in the days before the war
Young girl writing her diary, while time seems to pause
Watching the waves as they come one by one to die on the shore
Kissing the feet of England

Oh the lights of Saint Petersburg come on as usual
Although the air seems charged with a strangeness of late, yet there's nothing to touch
And the Tsar in his great Winter Palace has called for the foreign news
An archduke was shot down in Bosnia, but nothing much
And my grandmother sits before the mirror in the days before the war
Smiling a secret smile as she goes to the door
And the young man rides off in his carriage, homeward once more
And the sun sets gently on England

Ah the day we decided to drive down to Worthing, it rained and rained
Giving us only a minute to stand by the sea
And crunching my way through the shingles, it seemed there was nothing changed
Though the jetty was maybe more scarred that I'd known it to be
And Mandi and I stood and stared at the overcast sky
Where ten years ago we had stood, my Grandfather and I
And the waves still rushed in as they had the year that he died
And it seemed that my lifetime was shrunken and lost in the tide
As it rose and fell on the side of England

Prince Louis Battenberg is burning the Admiralty lights

They crossed over the border the hour before dawn
moving in lines through the day
Most of our planes were destroyed on the ground where they lay
Waiting for orders we held in the wood
Word from the front never came
By evening the sound of the gunfire was miles away

I softly move through the shadows, slip away through the trees
Crossing their lines in the mist in the fields on our hands and our knees

And all that i ever
Was able to see
The fire in the air, glowing red
Silhouetting the smoke on the breeze

All summer they drove us back through the Ukraine
Smolensk and Viasma soon fell
By Autumn we stood with our backs to the town of Orel
Closer and closer to Moscow they come
Riding the wind like a bell
General Guderian stands at the crest of the hill

Winter brought with the rains, oceans of mud filled the roads
Gluing the tracks of their tanks to the ground, while the skies filled with snow

And all that I ever
Was able to see
The fire in the air, glowing red
Silhouetting the snow on the breeze

(Ah, Ah , Ah) x4

(Ah, Ah, Ah) - all thru bridge
In the footsteps of Napoleon, the shadow figures stagger through the winter
Falling back before the gates of Moscow, standing in the wings like an avenger
And far away behind their lines, the partisans are stirring in the forest
Coming unexpectedly upon their outpost, growing like a promise
You'll never know, you'll never know, which way to turn, which way to look you'll never see us
As we steal into the blackness of the night you'll never know, you'll never hear us

And evening sings in a voice of amber, the dawn is surely coming
The morning road leads to Stalingrad, and the sky is softly humming

Two broken tigers on fire in the night
Flicker their souls to the wind
We wait in the lines for the final approach to begin
It's been almost four years that I've carried a gun
At home, it will alomst be spring
The flames of the tiger are lighting the road to Berlin

I quickly move through the ruins that bow to the ground
The old men and children they send out to face us, they can't slow us down

And all that I ever
Was able to see
The eyes of the city are opening
Now it's the end of a dream

(Ah. Ah, Ah) x4

(Ah, Ah, Ah) thru this section
I'm coming home, I'm coming home , now you can taste it in the wind the war is over
And I listen to the clicking of the train wheels as we roll across the border
And now they ask about the time that i was caught behind their time and taken prisoner
They only held me for a day, a lucky break i say
They turn and listen closer
I'll never know, I'll never know, why I was taken from the line with all the others
to board a special train and journey deep into the heart of holy Russia

And it's cold and damp in the transit camp and the air is still and sullen
and the pale sun of Octobe whispers the snow will soon be coming
And I wonder when, I'll be home again and the morning answers never
And the evening sighs and the steely, Russian skies go on,
forever...