Chris Maitland [Drum]

A body is washed up on a Norfolk beach
He was a friend that I could not reach
He thought I was cold but I understand
But for the grace of god goes another man

And I may just waste away from doing nothing
But I'm a martyr to even less

A choirboy is buried on the moors
Where we used to go dreaming when we were bored
So some kids are best left to fend for themselves
And others were born to stack shelves

And I may just waste away from doing nothing
But I'm a martyr to even less

I remember piano lessons
The hours in freezing rooms
Cruel ears and tiny hands
Destroying timeless tunes

She said there's too much out there
Too much already said
You'd better give up hoping
You're better off in bed

You don't need much to speak of
No class, no wit, no soul
Forget you own agenda
Get ready to be sold

I feel now like Christine Keeler
Sleepwaking in the rain
I didn't mean to lose direction
I didn't want that kind of fame

(Take your hands off my land)

Credit me with some intelligence
(if not just credit me)
I come in value packs of ten
(in five varieties)

And even though I got it all now
My only stupid dream
I see you and me together
And how it should have been

I remember piano lessons
Now everything seems clear
You waiting under streetlights
For dreams to disappear

You keep me waiting
You keep me alone in a room full of friends
You keep me hating
You keep me listening to the Bends

No amount of pointless days
Can make this go away

You have me on my knees
You have me listless and deranged
You have me in your pocket
You have me distant and estranged

No narcotics in my brain
Can make this go away

I'm sorry that, I'm sorry that I'm not like you
I worry that I don't act the way you'd like me to

You find me wanting
You find me bloodless but inspired
You find me out
You find me hallucinating fire

No narcotics in my brain
Can make this go away

Have we ever been here before?
Running headlong at the floor
Leave me dreaming on a railway track
Wrap me up and send me back

I need you more than you can know
And if I hurt myself it's just for show
I found a better way to curb the pain
You put a trigger here inside my brain

Mother I need her
I'm falling apart
Mother I need her
And it's only the start

I may be nothing now but I will rise
I'll have more followers than jesus christ

Through all the smashing and crashing cars
I love the ground you walk with all my heart

A light snow is falling on London
All sign of the living has gone
The train pulls into the stations
And no-one gets off and no-one gets on

Don't hate me
I'm not special like you
I'm tired and I'm so alone
Don't fight me
I know you'll never care
Can I call you on the telephone, now and then?

One light burns in a window
It guides all the shadows below
Inside the ghost of a parting
And no-one is left, just the cigarette smoke

How many children did I bring into this world?
How many did I lose in the shopping arcade?

This is no rehearsal - play it back
and throw things at the screen
This is no rehearsal - somebody
interpret this for me

And still I remember how I dressed him this morning
And then he was gone - stolen, my only one

I am - in my pram
Look you - I'm so new I am - sleeping there
Underneath the stairs

If you - wanted to
You'd find - inside my mind
Things so surreal
My lips are sealed

In the rain in cellphane
Pale dogs and demigods
They won't bring me down
The clocks go round, they never stop

I've been - in limousines
I've nseen - inside your dreams
It's raining there
Try not to stare

Ghosts in the park
Appear just after dark
Killers, children ...
But no-one has a harp
They look like tourists
It makes me want to laugh

Under floorboards
It's hard to fly a kite
Underwater
My cigarette won't light
Standing in the shade
I'm getting frostbite

Strange as I seem
I'm getting stranger by the minute
Look in my dreams
They're getting stranger by the minute

When I'm drowning
You drag me up to you
Rings in the water
My only residue
But you're just fiction
And I'm a twisted boy

Stranded here on planet earth
It's not much but it could be worse
Everything's free here, there's no crowds

Winter lasted five long years
No sun will come again I fear
Chemical harvest was sown

And I will wait for you
Until the sky is blue
And I will wait for you
What else can I do?

A spaceship from another star
They ask me where all the people are
What can I tell them?

I tell them I'm the only one
There was a war but I must have won
Please take me with you.

This song leaks out onto the pavement
It could be a joke, it could be a statement
The more that I fake it and pretend I don't care
The more you can read in to what isn't there

Maybe it's time to stop swimming
Maybe it's time to find out where I'm at
What I should do and where I should be
But no-one will give me a map

I'll leave now this can't continue
But I forget which door I came through
And I know what the lift can be painfully slow
So I'm happy to leave by the window

The quickest album we ever made (in 3 months flat and within only a few months of the release of the previous one) and we all feel our best work to date. Although superficially it seems to be a continuation of "Stupid Dream" it is a much more intense work - possibly less immediate, but ultimately more rewarding. Lyrically I arrived at a point where I was no longer interested in writing about abstract concepts like war, religion, space...etc... These are very personal and emotionally raw songs. It took me a long time to have the confidence and experience to be able to write them and some of them are dripping with negative emotions (Hatesong and Feel So Low particularly). Feel So Low pleased me a lot as I resisted the temptation to refine the original stream of consciousness words and left the nerve ends dangling.

Musically we wanted to bring back some of the experimental aspects that had been to some degree lost on "Stupid Dream". Richard and I worked on creating some unique keyboard sounds for the album - e.g. the "fairground" on "How is Your Life Today ?" and the "insects" at the end of "Russia On Ice". There was also an influence from industrial and metal music coming through (we'd all been listening to Nine Inch Nails "The Fragile") - for example part of the beauty of the guitar solo on Where We Would Be (my favourite solo of mine to date) comes from the fact that it was played relatively straight but then fed through so many distortion and lo-fi processes that it began to fizz and disintegrate. The riffing guitars on Russia On Ice are pure metal and one of the solos of Hatesong I call my "Korn solo" on account of the fact that the bottom strings on the guitar are tuned down so low that the notes can be bent several tones.

On the other hand there is a whole set of songs where the pastoral sound of long-gone English summers exerts it's influence on me (not for the first time). In a song like "Winding Shot" there are shades of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and Nick Drake, although the end result is hopefully pure Porcupine Tree. This effect is accentuated by the fact that many of the instruments and vocals on the album are much more up front and given less of a sheen than on "Stupid Dream" (where the "stadium" production is I think the weakest aspect). Organic is the word I like to use.

As we had on "Stupid Dream" we expanded our musical colours to include things like banjo, hammered dulcimer, the string arrangements of Dave Gregory and several African and Morrocan instruments that Colin brought back from his travels.

To date it's the only album we've made that I still rated highly by the time we'd finished it - even the B-sides and leftovers seemed too good not to be on an album, but we were determined to keep the album below the one hour mark. The only point of contention was the inclusion of the song "The Rest Will Flow". Some of the band didn't really want it on the record, but it sounded so much like possible single that it seemed perverse not to include it.

Favourite tracks - "How is Your Life Today ?", "Last Chance to Evacuate Planet Earth..." and "Feel So Low" (plus most of the others to be honest).

Steven Wilson


Although it appears to be a continuation of sorts from "Stupid Dream" there are quite obvious differences as well. Certainly on the production side there is a more intense and upfront sound apparent. Also parts of the arrangements are stripped down to the bare essentials. Steven's lyrics became more personal and less ambiguous and so the arrangements by definition became more stripped down and more direct. Much of my keyboard experimenting took place on tracks like "Russia On Ice", "Last Chance to Evacuate Planet Earth...", "Feel so Low" and "4 Chords That Made a Million"", while other tracks didn't seem to need a great deal of keyboards. I'm not one for playing all over a track if I can't see a genuine need for it.

For me this album has an honesty and emotion that places it above all the other Porcupine Tree albums, although I would also say that not every track is as strong as some individual tracks on past albums. My favourites are "Russia On Ice" and "Feel So Low".

Richard Barbieri

The letters pile up in the hallway
Junk mail and bills from the catalogues
And the neighbours have guessed
'Cos I've cancelled the milk
And they don't hear your voice
Through the walls anymore

How is your life today?
How is your life today?

I was kissed on the cheek by a cold mouth
While the taxi was waiting like a getaway car
Each second seems like a lifetime
And the cat it's been staring at me all this time

La la la la la la, la la la la la la...

How is your life today?
How is your life today?

Six of one a half a dozen
Black guitars and plastic blues
Hide behind a wall of nothing
Nothing said and nothing new

4 Chords that made a million

You belong there on the cover
You are the emperor in new clothes
A man who thinks he owns the future
Will sell your vacuum with his prose

4 Chords that made a million

And then a moron with a cheque book
Will take you out to lunch who knows ?
He will tell you you're a saviour
And then he'll drop you like a stone

4 Chords that made a million

And I have tried and I have died
Trying to get through
But in the end I can't defend you.

4 Chords that made a million

You move in waves
You never retrace
Your newest craze
Straight out of the Face by the bed unread

I'm left behind
Like all the others
Some fall for you
It doesn't make much difference if they do

She changes every time you look
By summer it was all gone - now she's moved on
She called you every other day
So savour it it's all gone - now she's moved on

So for a while
Everything seemed new
Did we connect ?
Or was it all just biding time for you ?

If you fall asleep with me
You can dream and drowse
The miuntes turn to hours

We could climb a tree or two
And watch the sun go down
Upon our sleepy town

After all the time I spent with you
Summer went away
And we just weren't the same

It's just you and me alone
Not grown ups but not kids
You kissed me on the lips

[instrumental]

I was pretending to be floating strong
But I was sinking
In to still water

Eyes closed
All of the rest will flow

Then out of darkness I found I could still feel
Something good
Out of the woods

Eyes closed
All of the rest will flow

One simple thing that I never could see
But now I know
All of the rest will flow

Stay with me my angel I found you
Now I don't feel low
All of the rest will flow

Eyes closed
All of the rest will flow

This is a hate song just meant for you
I thought that I'd write it down while I still could
I hope when you hear this you'll want to sue

Oh it's a lonely life in my empty bed
And it's a quiet life that leaks from my head
These are the last rites
The line is dead

Yes, I'm hearing voices too
And I'm more cut up than you

Tied - tied to a time
When we knew that the sun would shine
And you were all smiles
And we could just talk for a while...

Of where we would be when the future comes
And how you would paint while I wrote my songs

If I could find you
And tell you about my life
Or maybe just write
And remind you of when we would dream...

Of where we would be when the future comes
And how you would paint while I wrote my songs

Strange how you never become
The person you see when you're young

You think I deserve this
You said I was stupid
All my thoughts are like coal
But Russia on ice is burning a hole

Can't stop myself drinking
Can't stop being me
If I call will you come and will you save me ?

I see the whole thing come down
I blow it to the ground
Well what the hell did you say ?
You said you hate me this way
It's just a matter of time

A drop in the ocean
A significant motion
Nothing melts in this cold
But Russia on ice is burning a hole

So see how long I can last
You can pretend that I don't exist for you
And I can laugh about it now
But I hated every minute
I was waiting for your email
And each day that you forgot to call
Just made me feel so low
So low

Christmas 1998
I tried to call
I just couldn't wait
And your message was out of date
So I left my voice on your machine
But you did not respond
OK OK OK you've won
You make me feel so low
So low

A mother sings a lullaby to a child
Sometime in the future the boy goes wild
And all his nerves are feeling some kind of energy
A walk in the woods and I will try
Something under the trees that made you cry
It's so erotic when your make-up runs

I got wiring loose inside my head
I got books that I never ever read
I got secrets in my garden shed
I got a scar where all my urges bled
I got people underneath my bed
I got a place where all my dreams are dead
Swim with me into your blackest eyes

A few minutes with me inside my van
Should be so beautiful if we can
I'm feeling something taking over me

Train set and match spied under the blind
Shiny and contoured the railway winds
And I've heard the sound from my cousin's bed
The hiss of the train at the railway head

Always the summers are slipping away

A 60 ton angel falls to the earth
A pile of old metal a radiant blur
Scars in the country the summer and her

Always the summers are slipping away
Find me a way for making it stay

When I hear the engine pass
I'm kissing you wide
The hissing subsides
I'm in luck

When the evening reaches here
You're tying me up
I'm dying of love
It's ok

Paralysed
Lips of ashes
Synchronised
Blue vein crashes

Touching you inside

Idolised
Black eyes fading
You and I
Connection failing

I drill down inside

Hear the sound of music
Drifting in the aisles
Elevator prozac
Stretching on for miles

The music of the future
Will not entertain
It's only meant to repress
And neutralise your brain

Soul gets squeezed out
Edges get blunt
Demographic
Gives what you want

Now the sound of music
Comes in silver pills
Engineered to suit you
Building cheaper thrills

The music of rebellion
Makes you wanna rage
But it's made by millionaires
Who are nearly twice your age

One of the wonders of the world is going down
It's going down I know
It's one of the blunders of the world that no-one cares
No-one cares enough

Open your eyes now
Hear me out before I lose my mind
I've been waiting for hours
Let the salt flow, feel my coil unwind

Give me a smile please
Count the calm and watch
my breathing slow
Winding me up tease
Get inside my head and make it show

Gravity eyelids come down

Touching your oil skin
Slipping hands down
past your waist to find
I've been waiting for hours
Let the salt flow, feel my coil unwind
Go to the edge swim
Brown the eyes that
sleep has rendered blind

1. Gravity eyelids come down
2. Come love so young with
your gold arms so I wake her
3. Here's a will that will glow in the dark -

I don't know whose side I'm on
I don't think that I belong 'round here
If I left the stage would that be wrong?

I tried to find myself a better way
I got religion but I went astray
They took my money and I lost my faith

Rain keeps crawling down the glass
The good times never seem to last
Close your eyes and let the thought pass

I tried the capsule and I tried the smoke
I tried to aid escape like normal folk
But I never seemed to get the joke

These are my old clothes
This is a new low
This is my blood flow
This is my headstone

I spend my days with all my friends
They're the ones on whom my life depends
I'm gonna miss them when the series ends

Rain keeps crawling down the glass
(Pull yourself together)
The good times never seem to last
(You know it's not so bad)
Close your eyes and let the thought pass
(Close your eyes and let it pass)

Black the sky, weapons fly
Lay them waste for your race

He captured and collected things
And he put them in a shed
He raised a proper family
So he could tie them to a bed

The creator had a mastertape
But he left it in a cab
I stared into the void tonight
The best dream I ever had

He worked himself into the ground
And drove a spike into his head
A voice said "Are you happy now ?
Your sordid home is running red"

Pills and chloroform
All the pages torn

I pull off the road
East of Baldock and Ashford
Feeling for my cell
In the light from the dashboard

Hissing from the road
The smell of rain in the air con
Maybe check the news
Or just put a tape on

Lighting up a smoke
I've got this feeling inside me
Don't feel too good

If I close my eyes
And fell asleep in this layby
Would it all subside
The fever pushing the day by

Motor window wind
I could do with some fresh air
Can't breathe too well

(She waits for me. Home waits for me.)

I guess I should go now
She's waiting to make up
To tell me she's sorry
And how much she missed me
I guess I'm just burnt out
I really should slow down
I'm perfectly fine but
I just need to lie down

We'll grow old together
We'll grow old together
We'll grow old together....

This is my home, this is my own, we don't like no strangers
Raise the kids good, beat the kids good and tie them up
Spread it wide, my wife, my life, push the camera deeper
I can use, I abuse, my muse, I made them all

This machine
Is there to please
Strip the soul
Fill the hole
A fire to feed
A belt to bleed
Strip the soul
Kill them all

They are not gone, they are not gone, they are only sleeping
In graves, in ways, in clay, underneath the floor
Building walls, overalls, getting bored, I got faulty wiring
Brick it up now, brick it up now, but keep the bones

(Do you want a western home in the rubble?)

I won't shiver in the cold
I won't let the shadows take their toll
I won't cover my head in the dark
And I won't forget you when we part

Collapse the Light Into Earth

I won't heal given time
I won't try to change your mind
I won't feel better in the cold light of day
But I wouldn't stop you if you wanted to stay

Collapse the Light Into Earth

A dislocated day
Peers in to the ether
Counts the stars inside the sky
And flies in to the never

Looped around my eyelids
A thousand shining flecks
Pale against the canvas
Which hangs around my neck

Dislocated day
I will find a way
To make you say
The name of your forgiver

Stood beside an inlet
A starfish leads a dance
It dreams it is a human
And falls into a trance

A hole inside my body
Is wired up to a charge
Chemical imbalance
Tells me who you are

Insects hide the silence
November brings deep rain
Between the flow to freezing
And yesterday's sustain

We invite you, wherever you are ? whether you are at home or whatever ? to kick your shoes off and put your feet up and lean back and get yourself a cup of coffee or something, and just relax and join us in enjoying some very quietened, romantic and relaxed music for a couple of hours.

Born...
Live...
Die...
Signify. (hangs up phone)

Instrumental

At the age of sixteen
I grew out of hope
I regarded the cosmos
Through a circle of rope
So I threw out my plans
Ran on to the wheel
And emptied my head
Of all childish ideals
The sleep of no feeling
The sleep of no being
The sleep of no dreaming
I married the first girl
Who wasn't a man
And smiled as the spiders
Ran all over my hands
Made a good living
By dying it's true
As the world in my TV
Leaked on to my shoes

Waiting... to be born again

Wanting... the saddest kind of pain
Waiting for the day when I will crawl away

Nothing is what I feel
Waiting... for the drugs to make it real
Waiting... for the day when I will crawl away

Waiting... to be disciplined
Aching... for your nails across my skin
Waiting... for the day when I will crawl away

Telepath Carbon trapped under stone
Brother mother pale body is thrown
Only way I know to have fun
Fill up my blood, my veins, my lungs

ESP city - rainy and blue
Burn down this town, I give it to you
Aero shallow, photograph blind
Stage fright, black light, coma divine

No sense of time
Sever tomorrow
Exitless mind - ESP Sever tomorrow

School out invective, losing my voice
Film shredding on in multiple choice
America calls, I must go
Oprah saviour, I feel that low

Modem load and failsafe
Electric teenage dust
Hit the solvent keypad
Start the neural rust

Power on the highway
Data in my head
Surfing on the network
Part of me is dead

Every Home is Wired

Swimming in the circuit
Somebody has expired
This world will be the future

Every home is wired

(Written by Wilson, Barbieri, Edwin and Maitland)

Instrumental

Hear the sound of music
Drifting in the aisles
Elevator prozac
Stretching on for miles

The music of the future
Will not entertain
It's only meant to repress
And neutralise your brain

Soul gets squeezed out
Edges get blunt
Demographic
Gives what you want

Now the sound of music
Comes in silver pills
Engineered to suit you
Building cheaper thrills

The music of rebellion
Makes you wanna rage
But it's made by millionaires
Who are nearly twice your age

One of the wonders of the world is going down
It's going down I know
It's one of the blunders of the world that no-one cares
No-one cares enough