Besieged in the battlements of Babylon, Still looking for the hat-peg to hang your head upon - Now you've found a place you think is Avalon: You can talk to anyone here. You can throw your arms around your nearest neighbour And the smiling ones'll tell you that you've saved her, That she's saved you... They offer the golden promises The instantly divine; You swallow the golden promises Hook, sinker and line. If you choose to throw your soul around the attitude Reasoning and independent thought go down the tube As you go slavening after every inane platitude - How weak you find yourself here. Do you really need to lose yourself completely? How come you seem to rate it all so cheaply? It's so weak-kneed To go for the golden promises, Mail-order Oly vows; You go for the golden promises - I think you really ought to know better by now. So I do my best and I do my nut, I try to explain all these angles But you turn away. Oh, now you're looking in the white of my eyes, And you know what I'm going to say: - Don't go for the golden promises, Don't go for the easy way... It's right here on the doorstep: Fool's gold - don't throw your life away.
I just can't see why you can't see what I mean, but I can't make things any plainer, the words get in the way - is that quite what I mean? If not now, then certainly sooner or later we've got a problem with communication - look, I scrabble with my hands I try to get some head-room from the elevation but you just don't understand Most of the things we say mean we most of the time treat our speech with derision, flap our hands in body-telegram - I know that gets through so much better than anything said with precision, We've got a problem with communication and it's getting quite absurd,,, Well, I think I'm going to flip out from the sheer frustration, yes, I'm losing faith in words, We've got a problem with communication, only getting through in anagrams - I try to get some linkage from articulation, I try to get some head-room from the elevation, I try to pull back something from my education,,, Yes, I try to, try to, try to but I just don't understand, I try, I just don't understand, I talk, you just don't understand, Sometimes I don't know why I bother, but I'm bothered,
Everything clumsy slow-motion, I look for the source. Buildings loom up like icebergs On collision course. I don't want to go in there, I just want to be alone, Unpick the stitches of time In London In the no-go zone. I've been kicking around like a dog, Lost myself in the blank mass of fog, It's some kind of service. All humanity's fall-out is there, Slumped in doorways And mouthing cold air - I have heard this. Fogwalking, fogwalking. Since the curfew The streets are half-dead, All the good folk asleep in their beds, It's so easy to go off the rails When the fog spores Are breeding inside by head. Fogwalking: there's a presence that I sense Fogwalking: the neck muscles tense Fogwalking: it's right here inside me, Try to find a defense - oh, no. Fogwalking through the wreckage, Fogwalking through the worm-eaten Night Apple, Fogwalking through what used to be Whitechapel.
Such distance to the tips of the fingers, The ganglion loom jerks inside; The body grows steadily stranger But the spirit won't be denied. That sharp halogen flash jars the eyeball, The limbs pump in overdrive; The body grows seemingly weaker But the s Pirit won't be denied. Yeah, the ash-mark stands out on the forehead As the vacuum sneaks up on the eyes; The body becomes a constant traitor But the spirit won't be denied. And they call that living a normal live, But normality's not standardized. Though the body gets ever more root-bound The spirit won't be denied Yes, the spirit survives.
I've been hanging around, waiting for my chance to tell you what I think about the music that's gone down to which you madly danced ? frankly, you know that it stinks. I'm gonna scream, gonna shout, gonna play my guitar until your body's rigid and you see stars.
Look at all the jerks in their tinsel glitter suits. pansying around; look at all the nerks in their leather platform boots, making with the heavy sound... I'm gonna stamp on the stardust and scream till I'm ill ? if the guitar don't get ya, the drums will.
Now's my big break ? let me up on the stage, I'll show you what it's all about; enough of the fake, bang your feet in a rage, tear down the walls and let us out! We're more than mere morons, perpetually conned, so come on everybody, smash the system with the song.
It was the first day of July; no wind breathed in the sky when a pin-striped suit saw that the Institute of Mental Health was burning.
He stood upon the corner where the sun was warmer... looking across the street, he moved the shackles on his feet as the Institute was burning.
Flames were roaring, singing like a thunderstorm; smoke was pouring straight up to the sky; windows smashing, Gothic doors and lintels fall; timbers crashing and we both know why.
Nobody else came by to stare; you see, they didn't really care. Can't call the fire brigade - none of them had been paid and so the Institute was burning.
Throughout the city, people say it isn't pretty, everyone agrees, and everyone feels glad; doctored brains celebrate and everyone waves their chains... It's a pity they're all mad.
The Institute of Mental Health spontaneously killed itself. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust: my chains began to rust as the Institute was burning, burning, burning.
I was sitting in the dance-hall, but my mind was far away so when the usherette walked over I didn't know quite what to say. I tried to look cool but I knew that I blew it somehow. Her fishnet tights took me quite by surprise... I had to open my eyes.
I told her I was dancing but she didn't seem to hear; she asked if I wanted to learn judo, then she threw me out on my ear before I'd even had time to take a bow. I landed on the street, all dishevelled my disguise but I really opened her eyes.
So if you're leaning over the balcony or hanging around the floor these are the last of the days of the Locarnos-- there really are no more. And the usherette smiles, but she's not telling all she knows.... But there's time in the end for us all to get wise if we only open our eyes.
Look out through your dark hair, tell me the colour of your eyes when they're cool; look out through the dark ages and tell me what's covert, transfixing you.
Oh, you're nobody's business, oh, you're nobody's business and the patterns of your life are suddenly twisted and torn and gone are all the clothes that you've worn. Just like yesterday's papers you're tired and forlorn and you're no-one.
Look back at the photos you've saved, dead mementoes of your modelling days; I look through all my cuttings of you, but they all seem so lost, so dead, out of phase.
Oh, you're nobody's business....
I think back to the girl that I knew - she doesn't seem so very much like you: she used to care about her smile and not her face... that's before it was her fortune and took over her soul's place.
Oh, you're nobody's business....
Papering yesterday's pages, tapering off in the storm, you're no-one.
Been alone so long that I've forgotten what it's like to feel somebody next to me and hear her breathing peacefully when I wake up at night.
Been alone so long that I've forgotten what to say - if I meet somebody who might easily resemble you I smile, but look away... I look away.
Been alone so long that I've forgotten what to do: how to make the whole thing right and how to help if she's uptight and when to run and when to fight... how to make her stay the night - that's if I ever knew.
Been alone so long that I've forgotten what it's like to feel somebody next to me and hear her breathing peacefully when I wake up at night, wake up at night
The golden dream, the seat of all decorum, a satellite to match the light of Rome; its silver children chatter in the Forum, the bath-house, and the brothels, and their homes about the latest fashions for their clothes. Across the Tyrrhenian Sea comes drifting a song that none of them have ever known.
The golden dream that holds back all the hours for the ladies in their Dionysian rites, blonde heads all garlanded with flowers, wine and love and laughter through the night in constant masque and pageant, constant flight. The ground below them whispers in a murmur of passion which is hotter yet than white.
The golden dream, the city of all cities, its towers piercing into azure sky, whose hand is dealt, regardless of all pity, condemned to martyrdom, but not to die. Two lovers look up from their hidden bower. The wine has stood too long and it turns sour.
I see the tall and bending of your streets but now they echo only leather tourist feet and waking, ashen, grey-blue blinding death your sudden winding-sheet.
You can see in the 1st light that's graced as dawn That there's nothing in my heart but pain As I stand, facing sea, knowing that you're gone All the elements rage to explain That I should really be on my way, But there is something Which ensures I must stay
Beneath the roar of the seething surf, Beneath the caterwaul of scattered call wind Thoughts and gestures unspoken, unheard And now the dance of rapture begins As the waves rush along across the beach Like you, like your love Forever out of reach
Look at the sky, but it's empty now; Look at the sea, it holds nothing but despair I raise my eyes, but my head stays bower... I look to my side, but you're not there And I can't get you out of my mind, No, no, no, no, I just can't get you from my mind
I stand on the tallest building and stare down at the grey runway and the tail-smoke of the Boeing jet that's taking you so far away.
Believe me, I don't want you to leave me; look in my eyes and you'll see them filled with pain. Imagine just how sad I'll be in some future day when I turn and no longer see your face. All I can now cry is goodbye, love, goodbye.
In a week, in a month, in a year, in a lifetime how I'll feel none can tell. All I know is now you're going there's really no-one here to help.
Believe me, I don't want you to leave me; look in my eyes and you'll see them filled with pain. Imagine just how sad I'll be in some future day when I turn and no longer see your face. All I can now cry is goodbye, love, goodbye.
Already it's too late, you're through the boarding-gate and walking on the tarmac. Already you are free, already you've left me and cannot bear to look back, can you?
A brief taxi on the runway, then up into the stilling night sky; and I'm standing on the observation tower, my eyes too dimmed by distance to cry.
Believe me, I don't want you to leave me; look in my eyes and you'll see them filled with pain. Imagine just how sad I'll be in some future day when I turn and no longer see your face. All I can now do is walk away alone, without you.
Your father has just left your mother, Gone off to live with his latest lover: She sits there, just staring. So you get back to your own flat Because the atmosphere in there Is so bad you can't bear it. And the people you were going to America with Just left on the dawn plane Without you, Without you. The people in the downstairs flat Are no longer there now because they left The gas tap on, they're all dead. So you've no-one left to talk to, You just lie there in melancholy, Half-naked on your unmade bed. And the people you were going to Africa with Just left on the Southern Star Without you, Without you. Yes, the haze that's been forming round your window-panes Is now protracted and poisoned And you cannot feel a portion of the world outside. Can you imagine the way you'd feel If all these things had happened to you And the doctor says you're dying? That is the way that I feel now On finding that your love belongs To someone else and not I. My chance of heaven has just blown away Upon a passing cloud and there is nothing that I can do Without you. The people you were going to Have left, gone far away And you're lonely.
I've got something to say, and it ain't the usual sort of sob-story that you hear every day. I've got something to ask, and I know that now's the time, now all the rooms of the party are dark. Proffer me the candy, yes, I understand is fine; blow another candle out and throw another line… Birthday girl, I've got something for you, there's ice in the cauldron, look out now; birthday girl, here comes a special like Hansel and Gretel never had.
There's parrots in the pantry and there's lizards in the loo; there's bloaters in the bathroom and this party is a zoo; I'm sitting in the kitchen trying hard to talk to you Birthday girl, I've got something for you, there's ice in the cauldron, look out now; birthday girl, here comes a special like Hansel and Gretel never had.
I just wanted to say that I'd like to make this the happiest of all your birthdays and if that means turning the key then I'll turn it with you and there'll be no doubt about the way I agree, Birthday girl, I've got something for you, there's ice in the cauldron, look out now; birthday girl, here comes a special like Hansel and Gretel never had.
spoken by Hugh Banton: "Oh, why didn't you say, more Stevie Wonder?"
"Sod the music," said the man in the suit, "I understand profit and without that, it's no use. Why don't you go away and write commercial songs; come back in three years, that shouldn't be too long…" He's a joker and an acrobat, a record exec. in a Mayfair flat with Altec speakers wall to wall, a Radford and a Revox and through it all he plays strictly nowhere Muzak.
"Hey, listen, baby, this band's got a lot of soul… if we can beat that out of them I see a disc of gold! Give them an image, maybe glitter, maybe sex, maybe outrage, maybe elegance ? how about as nervous wrecks?" Signs up the product at two percent, justified by vinyl shortage and the increased rent on the yacht he has to hire to make his pitch at Midem and all the press receptions for his business friends who spill their Taittinger upon the floor while the band sip English lager just outside the door.
Treble, alto, bass clefs on the page, crotchets, quavers, minims all the rage but you'll never find a pound note in the score ? it's there when it's strictly merchandise, through all the propagated lies about what the whole thing's for. He'll make you a star, he'll make you so famous that all you desire is to be left nameless, drained of all you felt you had to offer at the start. He knows what eats your heart. That's too bad.
Not without blame, either, are the gentlemen of the press: you can talk about the state of music, they will write about your dress. Play them the new album, they will say it's great (or not) ? when the articles come out, they're all about how many dogs you've got. God to keep the human interest high, and the hacks are only too willing to comply, pander to the ego, build up frail men as gods ? but somewhere in the process, the prime purpose is forgotten. Now I bet you thought that was a hard line to sing but I've done it anyway, it's my thing!
Groupies offer their bodies, the hangers-on their coke; it's all very jolly ? what a joke! Fellini creatures cluster round the dressing-room, the heavenly bodies all got to have their moons. In the cult of the superman the music plays a supporting role and far more important is the shape of his nose, the size of his codpiece and the cut of his clothes… soul and feeling always take second place to the bump and grind of a Fender bass. Frankly, most musicians bore me ? but not as much as those who chase the glory to bask in reflected light, making the man much more important than his arpeggios and mordants, when it's the other way that's right.
On the values by which this world makes its heroes then the best violinist ever was Nero, because he had the most Press and his fire gimmick was simply the best.
We got the live thing too, the Human Zoo: Ten thousand arms are raised, just like the Hitler Youth ? might think you were at Nuremberg, if it weren't for all the groovers. Ten thousand peace signs mark the entry of the sax. Ten thousand peace signs, but they're different from the back.
