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01 Killer |
Guy
Evans: drums, tympani, percussion |
All Lyrics by Peter Hammill
(Hammill - Banton - Smith)
So you live in the bottom of the sea,
and you kill all that come near you ....
but you are very lonely, because all the other fish
fear you .....
And you crave companionship and someone to call your own;
because for the whole of your life you've been living alone.
On a black day in black month
at the black bottom of the sea,
Your mother gave birth to you and died
immediately ....
'Cos you can't have two killers living in the same pad
and when your mother knew that her time had come
she was really rather glad.
Death in the sea, death in the sea,
somebody please come and help me, come and help me
Fishes can't fly, fishes can't fly,
Fishes can't and neither can I, neither can I ....
Now I'm really rather like you,
for I've killed all the love I ever had
by not doing all I ought to and by leaving my mind coming
bad.
And I too am a killer, for emotion runs as deep as flesh
and I too am so lonely, and I wish that I could forget
We need love,
We need love,
We need love ..........
(Hammill - Jackson)
There's a house with no door and I'm living there
at nights it gets so cold and the days are hard to bear inside.
There's a house with no roof, so the rain creeps in,
falling through my head as I try to think out time.
I don't know you, you say you know me, that may be so,
there's so much that I am unsure of ...
You call my name, but it sounds unreal, I forget how I feel,
my body's rejecting the cure.
There's a house with no bell, but then nobody calls;
I sometimes find it hard to tell if any are alive at all outside.
There's a house with no sound; yes, it's quiet there ...
there's not much point in words if there's no-one to share in time.
I've learned my lines, I know them so well, I am ready to tell
whoever will finally come in
Of the line in my mind that's cold in the night, it doesn't seem right
when there's that little dark figure running ...
There's a house with no door and there's no living there:
one day it became a wall ... well I didn't really care at the time.
There's a house with no light, all the windows are sealed,
overtaxed and strained
NOW NOTHING IS REVEALED BUT TIME
I don't know you, you say you know me, that may be so,
there's so much that I am unsure of ...
You call my name, but it sounds unreal, I forget how I feel,
my body's rejecting the cure .....
Won't somebody help me ......?
The
Emperor In His War-Room
(Hammill)
Standing in the space that holds the silent lace of night
away from you
You think that you can hold the searing, molten gold between
your fingers ...
But it slips through, tearing tendons as it goes,
exposing the white of a knuckle ...
flesh-and-metal forming letters in the mould.
Cradling your gun, after choosing the ones you think should die -
Lying on the hill ... crawling over the windowsill into your
living-room
They stare out, glass-eyed aimless heads,
bodies torn by vultures ..
you are the man whose hands are rank with the smell of death.
Saviour of the Fallen, Protector of the Weak,
Friend of the Tall Ones, Keeper of the Peace ...
Ah, but it is the only way you know .....
Looking out to sea, a flattened plane of weeds which bear no living
You crush life in your fist as your heart is kissed by the lips of death
Ghosts betray you, ghosts betray you,
in the night they steal your eye
from its socket ...
and the ball hangs fallen on your cheek.
Complaining tongues are stilled; a thousand mouths are filled
with rusting metal.
Your face a shade of green; somehow you try to speak through all the garbage in your mouth
But it won't come out, and you cannot frame the words
as your stepson
throws your fame into the flames and you are burned.
Saviour of the Fallen, Protector of the Weak,
Friend of the Tall Ones, Keeper of the Peace.
Ah, but it is the only way you know ..........
(ii) The Room
Live by sword and you shall die so,
All your power shall come to nought,
every life you take is part of your own,
death, not power, is what you've bought.
Cringing in your room as the outriders of doom step
on your threshold;
Begging for your life as the impartial knife sinks in your
screaming flesh ...
without malice, merely taking murder's toll,
you must pay the price of hate, and that price is
your soul ....
Live in peace or die forever in your war-room.
(Hammill)
So here we are, or rather, here I am, quite alone,
I'm seeing things that were shared before, long ago ...
my memory stretches and I am dazed: you know I know
how good the time was and how I laughed ..
Times have changed, now you're far away, I can't complain:
I had all my chances but they slipped right through my hands-
like so much sand;
I know I'll never dance like I used to
I'll just wait till day breaks upon the land and the sea.
hoping that I can catch all of the memories,
then I must crawl off upon my way, all of me
listening hard for the final words.
But there are none; the sunrise calls, I've lingered on
too close for comfort and I don't know quite why
I feel like crying -
I know we'll never dance like we used to.
I look up, I'm almost blinded by the warmth of what's inside me
and the taste that's in my soul,
but I'm dead inside as I stand alone ....
(ii) Dance In Frost
I wore my moods like so many different sets of clothes
but the right one was never around;
and as you left I heard my body ring
and my mind began to howl
It was far to late to contemplate the meaning of it all:
You know that I need you, but somehow I don't think you see my love
at all
At some point I lost you, I don't know quite how it was;
The wonderland lay in a coat of white, chilling frost
I looked around and I found I was truly lost:
without your hand in mine I am dead .....
Reality is unreal and games I've tried just aren't the same:
without your smile there's nowhere to hide
and deep inside
I know I've never cried as I'm about to ...
If I could just frame the words that would make your fire burn
all this water now around me could be the love that
should surround me.
Looking out through the tears that bind me
my heart bleeds that you may find me .. or at least that I can
forget and be numb, but I can't stop, the words still come:
I LOVE YOU
(Hammill - Jackson - Band)
Left the earth in 1983, fingers groping for the galaxies,
reddened eyes stared up into the void, 1000 stars to be exploited
Somebody help me I'm falling, somebody help me, I'm falling down
Into sky, into earth, into sky, into earth .....
It is so dark around, no life, no hope, no sound
no chance of seeing home again ...
The universe is on fire, exploding without flame.
We are the lost ones; we are the pioneers; we are the lost ones
We are the ones they are going to build a statue for
ten centuries ago or were going to fifteen forward .....
One Last brief whisper in our loved ones' ears
to reassure them and to pierce the fear
standing at controls then still unknown we told the world we were
about to go
Somebody help me I'm missing, somebody help me I'm missing now
touch with my mind, I have no frame,
touch with my mind, I have no frame ...
Well now where is the time and who the hell am I,
here floating in an aimless way?
No-one knows where we are, they can't feel us precisely ..
There is no fear here.
How can such a thing exist in a place where living and knowing
and being have never been heard of?
Doomed to vanish in the flickering light,
disappearing to a darker night,
doomed to vanish in a living death, living anti-matter, anti-breath
Somebody help me I'm losing, somebody help me, I'm losing now
people around, there's no-one to touch,
no people around, no-one to touch.
I am now quite alone, part of a vacant time-zone,
here floating in the void,
only dimly aware of existence, a dimly existing awareness,
I am the lost one, I am the one you fear, I am the lost one,
I am the one who went up into space, or stayed where I was,
or didn't exist in the first place .....
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