Marillion Lyrics
So here I am once more
in the playground of the broken hearts,
one more experience, one more entry in a diary, self penned
Yet another emotional suicide
overdosed on sentiment and pride
Too late to say I love you, Too late to restage the play
Abandoning the relics in my playground of yesterday
I'm losing on the swings, I'm losing on the roundabouts
Too much, Too soon, too far, to go,
too late to play, the game is over.
Yet another emotional suicide overdosed on sentiment and pride
I'm losing on the swings, I'm losing
on the roundabouts, the game is over
Too late to say I love you, Too late to restage the play
The game is over
I act the role in classic style of
a martyr carved with a twisted smile
To bleed the lyric for this song
to write the rites to right my wrongs
an epitaph to a broken dream to
exorcise this silent scream
A scream that's borne from sorrow
I never did write that love song
the words just never seemed to flow
No sad in reflection
Did I gaze through perfection
and examine the shadows on the other side of mourning
and examine the shadows on the other side of mourning
Promised wedding now a wake
The fool escaped from paradise will look over his shoulder and cry
Sit and chew on daffodils and struggle to answer why?
As you grow up and leave the playground where you kissed your prince
and found your frog, Remember the Jester that showed
you tears, the script for tears.
So I'll hold my peace forever when you wear your bridal gown
In the silence of my shame the mute that sang the siren's song
has gone solo in the game
I've gone solo in the game
But the game is over
Can you still say you love me
Can you still say you love me
Can you still say that you love me
Light switch, yellow fever, crawling up your bathroom wall
Singing psychedelic praises to the depths of the china bowl
You've got venom in your stomach, You've got poison in your head
You should have listen to the priest at the confession
when he offered you the sacred bread
He knows, you know, he knows, you know,
he knows, you know, but he's got problems.
Fast feed, crystal fever, swarming through a fractured mind
Chilling needles freeze emotion, the blind shall lead the blind
You've got venom in your stomach, You've got poison in your head
When your conscience whispered, the vein lines
stiffened, you were walking with the dead
He knows, you know, he knows, you know, he knows, you know
He's got experience, he's got experience, he knows you know
but he's got problems, problems, problems
He knows... Slash wrists, scarlet fever,
crawl under your bedroom door
Pumping arteries ooze their problems,
through the gap that the razor tore
You've got venom in your stomach,
You've got poison in your head
You should have listened to your analyst's
questions when you lay on his leather bed
He knows, you know, he knows, you know,
he knows, you know, but he's got problems
Blank eyes, purple fever streaming through the frosted panes.
You learned your lesson far too late from the links in a chemist chain.
You've got venom in your stomach, You've got poison in your head
You should have stayed at home and talked
with father listen to the lies he fed
He knows, you know, he knows, you know,
he knows, you know, but he's got problems.
He knows, you know, he knows, you know,
he knows, you know he's got experience,
he's got experience, he knows you know
he knows you know
The rain auditions at my window, it's symphony echoes in my womb
My gaze scans the walls of this apartment
to rectify the confines of my tomb
I'm the Cyclops in the tenement, I'm the soul without the cause
Crying midst my rubber plants, ignoring beckoning doors,
Clippings from ancient newspapers he scattered cross the floor
Stained by the wine from a shattered glass,
meaningless words, yellowed by time,
Faded photos exposing pain, celluloid leeches bleeding my mind
You've finished playing hangman, you've cast the fateful dice
Advise, advise, advise me, this shroud will not suffice
Attempting to discard these clinging memories,
I only serve to wallow in our past
I fabricate the weave with my excuses,
its strands I hope and pray shall last
Oh please do last
The flytrap needs the insect, ivy caresses the wall
Needles make love to the Junkies, sirens seduce with their call
Confidence has deserted me, with you it has forsaken me
Confused and rejected, despised and alone,
I kiss isolation on it's fevered brow
Security clutching me, obscurity threatening me
Your reasons were so obvious as my friends have qualified
I only laughed away your tears, but even jesters cry
I realize I hold the key to freedom,
I cannot let my life be ruled by threads
The time has come to make decisions,
the changes have to be made
I realize I hold the key to freedom,
I cannot let my life be ruled by threads
The time has come to make decisions,
the changes have to be made
Now I leave you, the past has had its say
You're all but forgotten a mote in my heart
Decisions have been made
Decisions have been made I've conquered my fears
the flaming shroud
Garden Party held today, invites call the debs to play,
social climbers polish ladders, wayward sons again have fathers,
edgy eggs and queing cumbers, rudely wakened from their slumber,
time has come again for slaughter on the lawns by still "Cam" waters
Champagne corks are firing at the sun again
Swooping swallows chased by violins again
Strafed by Strauss they sulk in crumbling eaves again
Aperitifs consumed en masse display their owners on the grass
Couples loiter in the cloisters, social leeches quoting Chaucer
Doctor's son a parson's daughter where why not and should they oughta
Please don't lie on the grass, unless accompanied by a fellow,
may I be so bold as to suggest Othello
Punting on the Cam is jolly fun they say
Beagling on the downs Oh please come they say
Rugger is the tops a game for men they say
I'm punting, I'm weening, I'm whining, Reclining
I'm rocking, I'm fucking, So welcome, I'ts a party!
Angie chalks another blue, mother smiles she did it too
Chitters chat and gossips lash, posers pose pressmen flash
Smiles polluted with false charm, locking onto Royal arms,
Society columns now ensured, return to mingle with the crowds
Oh what a crowd
Catalogue princess, apprentice seductress
living in her cellophane world in glitter town
Awaiting the prince in his white Capri
Dynamic young Tarzan courts the bedsit queen
She's playing the actress in this bedroom scene
She's learning her lines from glossy magazines
Stringing all her pearls from her childhood dreams
Auditioning for the leading role on the silver screen
Patience my tinsel angel, patience my perfumed child
One day they'll really love you, you'll charm them with that smile
But for now it`s just another Chelsea Monday
Drifting with her incense in the labyrinth of London,
Playing games with faces in the neon wonderland
Perform to scattered shadows on the shattered cobbled aisles
Would she dare recite soliloquies at the risk of stark applause
She'll pray for endless Sundays as she enters saffron sunsets,
Conjure phantom lovers from the tattered shreds of dawn,
Fulfilled and yet forgotten the St. Tropez mirage
Fragrance aphrodisiac, the withered tuberose
Patience my tinsel angel, patience my perfumed child
One day they'll really love you, you'll charm them with that smile
But for now it`s just another Chelsea Monday
Catalogue princess, apprentice seductress
buried in her cellophane world in glitter town
Armalite, street lights, nightsights
Searching the roofs for a sniper, viper fighter
Death in the shadows he'll maim you, wound you, kill you
for a long forgotten cause, on not so foreign shores,
boys baptized in wars
Morphine, chill stream, bad dream
Serving as numbers on dog tags, flakrags, sandbags
Your friend has married your best friend, loves end, poison pen
Your flesh will always creep, tossing turning sloop
The wounds that burn so deep
Your mother sits on the edge of the world
when the cameras start to roll
Panoramic viewpoints resurrect the killing fold
Your father drains another beer he's one of the few that cares
Crawling behind a saracen's hull
from the safety of his living room chair -
Forgotten Sons, Forgotten Sons, Forgotten Sons
And so I patrol the valley of the shadow of the Tricolor
I must fear evil for I am but mortal and mortals can only die
asking questions, pleading answers from the nameless
faceless watchers that stalk the carpeted corridors of Whitehall
Who order desecration, mutilation, verbal masturbation
in their guarded bureaucratic wombs
Minister, Minister care for your children, order them not
into damnation to eliminate those who would trespass
against you, for whose is the kingdom and the power and the
glory, forever and ever Amen
Halt who goes there!
Death
Approach
Friend
You're just another coffin on its way down the emerald aisle
Where the children's stoney glances mourn your death
in a terrorist's smile.
The bomber's arm places fiery gifts on the supermarket shelves,
Alleys sing with shrapnel dance in a temporary hell
Forgotten Sons
From the dolequeue to the regiment a profession in a flash,
but remember Monday's signings when from door to door you dash,
On the news a nation mourns your unknown soldier count the cost,
For a second you'll be famous but labeled posthumous
Forgotten Sons Forgotten Sons
Peace on earth and mercy mild, Mother Brown has lost her child
Just another Forgotten Son
I am the assassin, with tongue forged from eloquence.
I am the assassin, providing your nemesis.
On the sacrificial altar to success, my friend;
Unleash a stranger from a kiss, my friend;
No incantations of remorse, my friend;
Unsheathe the blade within the voice,
my friend, my friend, my friend, my friend
I am the assassin, (assassin, assassin)
Who decorates the scarf with the fugi knot,
Who camouflaged emotion in the thousand-yard stare,
Who gouged the notches in the family tree,
Who hypnotized the guilt in career rhythm trance
Assassin, assassin, assassin, assassin.
Listen to the blade(Assassin , my friend)
Listen as the syllables of slaughter cut with calm precision,
Patterned frosty phrases rape your ears and sew the ice incision.
Adjectives of annihilation bury the point beyond redemption,
Venomous verbs of ruthless candor plagiarize assassins' fervor
Apocalyptic alphabet casting spell, the creed of tempered diction,
my friend, your friend, the assassin
my friend, your friend, the assassin
A friend in need, is a friend that bleeds...
(my friend, your friend, the assassin)
A friend in need, is a friend that bleeds...
(my friend, your friend, the assassin)
Let bitter silence infect the wound,
Let bitter silence infect the wound,
I am the assassin, (your friend)
I am the assassin, (your friend)
I am the assassin, (your friend)
Assassin!
You were a sentimental mercenary in a free-fire zone,
Parading a Hollywood conscience;
You were a fashionable objector with a uniform fetish,
Pavlovian slaver at the cash till ring of success
A noncom observer, I assassin, the collector... defector
So you resigned yourself to failure, my friend,
And I emerged the chilling stranger, my friend,
To eradicate the problem, my friend,
Unsheathe the blade within the voice,
within the voice, within the voice,
within the voice!
And what do you call assassins who accuse assassins, anyway...
My friend?
Punch, Punch and Judy, Punch and Judy, Punch and Judy
Washing machine, pinstripe dream stripped the gloss from a beauty queen
Punch and Judy, Judy, Judy, Judy, Judy, Judy, Judy
Found our nest in the Daily Express, met the Vicar in a holy vest
Punch and Judy, Punch and Judy
Brought up the children, Church of E, now I vegetate with a color TV
Worst ever thing that happened to me, oh for D-I-V-O-R-C-E. Oh Judy!
Whatever happened to pillow fights?
Whatever happened to jeans so tight? Friday nights?
Whatever happened to Lover's lane?
Whatever happened to passion games? Sunday walks in the pouring rain?
Punch, Punch, Punch and Judy,
Punch, Punch, Punch and Judy,
Punch, Punch, Punch and Judy,
Punch, Punch, Punch
Curling tongs, mogadons,
I got a headache baby, don't take so long
Single beds, middle age dread, losing the war in the waistlands spread
Who left the cap off the toothpaste tube, who forgot to flush the loo?
Leave your sweaty socks outside the door,
don't walk across my polished floor, Oh Judy!
Whatever happened to morning smiles?
Whatever happened to wicked wiles? permissive styles?
Whatever happened to twinkling eyes?
Whatever happened to hard fast drives? compliments on unnatural size?
Punch, Punch, Punch and Judy,
Punch, Punch, Punch and Judy,
Punch, Punch, Punch and Judy,
Punch, Punch, Punch
Propping up a bar, family car, sweating out a mortgage as a balding clerk
Punch and Judy, Judy, Judy, Judy, Judy, Judy
World War Three, suburbanshee, just slip her these pills and I'll be free.
No more Judy, Judy, Judy no more
Goodbye Judy!
We are jigsaw pieces aligned on the perimeter edge,
Interlocked through a missing piece
We are Renaissance children becalmed beneath the bridge of sighs,
Forever throwing firebrands at the stonework
We are Siamese children related by the heart,
Bleeding from the surgery of initial confrontation,
Holding the word scalpels on trembling lips
Stand straight, look me in the eye and say goodbye, say goodbye.
Stand straight, we've drifted past the point of reasons why.
Yesterday starts tomorrow, tomorrow starts today,
The problems always seem to be, we're picking up the pieces on the ricochet.
This is the ricochet...
Drowning Tequila sunsets, stowaways on midnight ships,
Refugees of romance plead asylum from the real.
Scrambling distress signals on random frequencies,
Forever repatriated on guilt laden morning planes.
We are pilots of passion sweating the flight on course
To another summit conference, another breakfast time divorce,
Screaming out a cease fire, snowblind in an avalanche zone.
Stand straight, look me in the eye and say goodbye, say goodbye.
Stand straight, we've drifted past the point of reasons why.
Yesterday starts tomorrow, tomorrow starts today,
The problems always seem to be, we're picking up the pieces on the ricochet.
This is the ricochet...
Are we trigger happy, happy, happy?
Russian roulette in the waiting room,
Empty chambers embracing the end.
Puzzled visions haunt the ripples of a trevi moon,
Dream coins for the fountain or to cover your eyes.
We reached ignition point from the sparks of pleasantries,
We sensed the smoke advancing from horizons,
You must have known that I was planning, considering an escape.
Stand straight, look me in the eye and say goodbye, say goodbye.
Stand straight, we've drifted past the point of reasons why.
Yesterday starts tomorrow, tomorrow starts today,
And the problems always seem to be,
we're picking up the pieces on the ricochet.
This is the ricochet
I'll be seeing you again on the ricochet,
Will you show me the pieces next time on the ricochet, (ricochet)
I'll be seeing you again on the ricochet,
There's a problem, there's a ricochet, (ricochet)
To be the prince of possession, in the gallery of contempt.
Suffering your indiscrete discretions, and you ask me to relent.
As you accumulate flirtations, with the calculated calmness of the whore.
(Of the whore)
I am the harlequin, with diamonded costume dripping shades of green
I am the harlequin, sense strangers violate my sanctuary, prowl my dreams.
(My dreams)
And they're my dreams.
(They're my dreams!)
Plundering your diaries, I'll steal your thought's. (thoughts)
Ravaging your letters, unearth your plots. (plots)
Innocence, innocence, innocence, innocence, innocence, innocence.
To don the robes of Torquemada, to resurrect the Inquisition,
And in that tortured subtle manner inflict questions within questions, within questions.
Looking in shades of green through shades of blue;
I trust you trusting me to mistrust you.
Through the silk-cut haze to the smeared mascara,
A forty-watt sun on a courtroom drama.
And the coffee stains gather till the pale kimono,
Set the wedding rings dancing on the cold linoleum.
This is innocence.
And accusation's moths that circle around the light,
they char their wings in spiral senseless, suicidal flight.
You pack our world within a suitcase, hot tears melt this icy palace,
and dissolve a crystal swallowed by the night.
Looking in shades of green through shades of blue,
Looking in shades of green through shades of blue.
These shades of blue, of blue...
Sheltering her ego on the edge of the floodlight's arc,
She'll contemplate seduction, calculate the catch.
When she moved her presence speared me,
When she spoke her words ensnared me.
Watch the lizard, watch the lizard,
Watch the lizard with the crimson veil.
She crucified my heart in the depths of a satin grave,
As I lay in sweating monologue I sensed the lovelight fade.
Within the spiral of the cigarette,
You betrayed your bedside etiquette.
I saw the lizard, I saw the lizard,
I touched the lizard with the crimson veil.
I've seen a different doorway shut a million times before,
Smiling she-chameleons, smiling vinyl whores.
They know what they want, they sing your name and glide between the sheets
I never say no, in the chemical glow we'll let our bodies meet.
So was it just a fuck, was it just a fuck, just another fuck I said
Loving just for laughs, carnal autograph, lying on a lizard's bed.
So was it just a fuck, was it just a fuck, just another fuck I bled
Degraded and alone, raped and still forlorn, betrayed on a lizard's bed.
We chameleon, we chameleon, we (oui!)
When footlights dim in reverence to prescient passion,
forewarned my audience leaves the stage,
floating ahead perfumed shift, within the stammering silence.
The face that launched a thousand frames,
Betrayed by a porcelain tear, a stained career.
You've played this scene before, you've played this scene before.
I, the mote in your eye, I, I, I,
I, the mote in your eye, a misplaced reaction, reaction.
The darkroom unleashes imagination, in pornographic images
In which you will always be the star. (Be the star).
Untouchable, unapproachable.
Constant in the darkness, in the darkness.
Nursing an erection, a misplaced reaction,
With no flower to place before this gravestone.
And the walls become enticingly newspaper thin,
but that would only be developing the negative view.
And you have to be exposed in voyeuristic color, the public act.
Let you model your shame on the mannequin catwalk, catwalk,
Let the cats walk.
I've played, this scene before, I've played, this scene before.
I, the mote in your eye, I, I, I.
I, the mote in your eye, a misplaced reaction, satisfaction.
(A irritating speck of doubt that came from absolutely nowhere)
You can't brush me under the carpet, you can't hide me under the stairs.
The custodian of your private fears, your leading actor of yesteryear,
Who, as you crawled out of the alleys of obscurity,
Sentenced to rejection in the morass of anonymity
You, who I directed with a lover's will, you who I let hypnotize the lens,
You who I let bathe in the spotlight's glare,
You who wiped me from your memory like a greasepaint mask,
Just like a greasepaint mask.
A Mask...
But now I'm the snake in the grass.
The ghost of film reels past.
I'm the producer of your nightmare,
And the performance has just begun, has just begun
(It's just begun)
Your perimeter of courtiers jerk like celluloid puppets,
As you stutter, paralyzed, with rabbit's eyes.
Searing the shadows, flooding the wings
to pluck elusive salvation from the understudy's lips.
Retrieve the soliloquy, maintain the obituary.
My cue line in the last act, and you'll wait in silent solitude,
Waiting for the prompt, waiting for the prompt,
waiting for the prompt
Waiting for the prompt, waiting for the prompt,
waiting for the prompt.
You've played this scene before.
Vodka intimate, an affair with isolation in a blackheath cell,
Extinguishing the fires in a private hell,
Provoking the heartache to renew the license
Of a bleeding heart poet in a fragile capsule,
Propping up the crust of the glitter conscience.
Wrapped in the christening shard of a hangover,
baptized in tears from the real, tears from the real...
Drowning in the liquid seas on the Piccadilly line, rat-race
scuttling through the damp electric labyrinth.
(Caress Ophelia's hand with breaststroke ambition,
The albatross courtship maritime tradition.)
Sheathed with the walkman wear the halo of distortion,
aural contraceptive aborting pregnant conversation.
(But she turned the harpoon and it pierced my heart,
she hung herself around my neck.
From the Time-Life guardians in their conscience bubbles,
safe and dry in my sea of troubles.
Nine to Fives, with suitable ties,
While I'm cast adrift as their sideshow, (sideshow),
peepshow, (peepshow), stereo hero,
becalm, bestill, bewitch, drowning, drowning in the real..
The thief of Baghdad hides in Islington now,
praying deportation for his sacred cow.
A legacy of romance from a twilight world,
the dowry of a relative mystery girl
A Vietnamese flower, a dockland union,
a mistress of release from a magazine's thighs.
This Magdalene contracts more than favours,
the feeding hands of western promise hold her by the throat.
A son of the swastika of 45,' parading a peroxide standard.
Graffiti disciples conjure testaments of hatred
Aerosol wands whisper where the searchlights trim the barbed wire hedges.
This is Brixton chess.
A knight for embankments - folds his newspaper castle,
a creature of habit, begs the boatman's coin,
He'll fade with old soldiers - in the grease stained roll call,
linger with the heartburn of good Friday last supper.
Son watches father scan obituary columns,
in search of absent school friends.
While his generation digests high-fiber ignorance,
cowering behind curtains and the taped up, painted windows.
Decriminalized genocide, provided door to door Belsens.
Pandora's box of holocausts,
gracefully cruising satellite infested heavens,
Waiting, wait..waiting the season of the button,
the penultimate migration,
Radioactive perfumes for the fashionably,
for the terminally insane ... insane
Do do do do do do you realize,
Do do do do do do you realize,
Do do do do do do you realize,
This world is totally Fugazi!
Where are the prophets, where are the visionaries,
where are the poets, to breach the dawn of the sentimental mercenary.
Where are the prophets, where are the visionaries,
where are the poets, to breach the dawn of the sentimental mercenary.
Where are the prophets, where are the visionaries,
where are the poets, to breach the dawn of the sentimental mercenary.
Huddled in the safety of a pseudo silk kimono
wearing bracelets of smoke, naked of understanding.
Nicotine smears, long, long dried tears, invisible tears.
Safe in my own words, learning from my own words,
Cruel joke, cruel joke.
Huddled in the safety of a pseudo silk kimono
A morning mare rides, in the starless shutters of my eyes.
The spirit of a misplaced childhood is rising to speak his mind,
To this orphan of heartbreak, disillusioned and scorned,
A refugee, refugee.
Safe in the sanctuary, safe
Do you remember, chalk hearts melting on a playground wall?
Do you remember, dawn escaped from moonwashed college halls?
Do you remember, the cherry blossom in the market square
Do you remember, I thought it was confetti in our hair
By the way didn't I break your heart?
Please excuse me, I never meant to break your heart.
So sorry, I never meant to break your heart
But you broke mine.
Kayleigh is it too late to say I'm sorry.
Kayleigh could we get it together again.
I can't go on pretending that it came to a natural end
Kayleigh I never thought I'd miss you,
and Kayleigh I'd hoped that we'd always be friends.
We said our love would last forever,
so how did it come to this bitter end
Do you remember, barefoot on the lawn with shooting stars
Do you remember, loving on the floor in Belsize Park
Do you remember, dancing in stilettos in the sno
Do you remember, you never understood I had to go.
By the way, didn't I break your heart ?
Please excuse me I never meant to break your heart
So sorry, I never meant to break your heart,
But you broke mine.
Kayleigh, I just want to say I'm sorry,
but Kayleigh I'm too scared to pick up the phone.
To hear you've found another lover to patch up our broken home.
Kayleigh, I'm still trying to write that love song,
Kayleigh it's more important to me now you're gone.
Maybe it'll prove that we were right
Or it will prove that I was wrong.
I was walking in the park
Dreaming of a spark
When I heard the sprinklers whisper,
Shimmer in the haze of summer lawns.
Then I heard the children singing,
They were running through the rainbows.
They were singing a song for you.
Well it seemed to be a song for you,
the one I wanted to write for you, for you, you.
Lavenders blue, dilly dilly, lavenders green.
When I am King, dilly dilly, you will be Queen.
A penny for your thoughts my dear,
A penny for your thoughts my dear,
I.O.U. for your love, I.O.U. for your love.
Lavenders green, dilly dilly, lavenders blue.
When you love me, dilly dilly, I will love you.
A penny for your thoughts my dear,
A penny for your thoughts my dear,
I.O.U. for your love, I.O.U. for your love.
For your love, for your love, for your love.
* This part is on the single verison only
Lavender dreams dilly dilly lavenders true
When you miss me dilly dilly I do miss you
A penny for your thoughts my dear
A penny for your thoughts my dea
I.O.U for your love, I.O.U. for your love
For your love, for your love, for your love
Oh I gotta find my way back to you
Gotta find my way back to yo
For your love, for your love, for your love
I'm always walking in the park
Always dreaming of a spark
From you...
A spider wanders aimlessly within the warmth of a shadow,
Not the regal creature of border caves,
But the poor, misguided, directionless familiar
of some obscure Scottish poet.
The mist crawls from the canal
Like some primordial phantom of romance
To curl, under a cascade of neon pollen.
While I sit tied to the phone like an expectant father.
Your carnation will rot in a vase.
A train sleeps in a siding,
The driver guzzles another can of lager. (lager)
To wash away the memories of a Friday night down at the club.
She was a wallflower at sixteen,
she'll be a wallflower at thirty four.
Her mother called her beautiful.
Her daddy said: "A whore".
The sky was Bible black in Lyon,
when I met the Magdalene.
She was paralyzed in a streetlight.
She refused to give her name.
And a ring of violet bruises,
They were pinned upon her arm.
Two hundred francs for sanctuary and she led me by the hand,
to a room of dancing shadows where all the heartache disappears
And from glowing tongues of candles I heard her whisper in my ear.
'J'entend ton coeur',
'J'entend ton coeur',
I can hear your heart, I can hear your heart, I can hear your heart.
Hear your heart.
I can hear your heart.
It's getting late, for scribbling and scratching on the paper.
Something's gonna give under this pressure
and the cracks are already beginning to show,
It's too late.
The weekend career girl never boarded the plane
They said this could never happen again.
Oh, so wrong, so wrong.
This time it seems to be another misplaced rendezvous.
This time, it's looking like another misplaced rendezvous,
With you,
The parallel of you, you.
On the outskirts of nowhere
On the ringroad to somewhere,
On the verge of indecision,
I'll always take the roundabout way
Waiting on the rain.
For I was born with a habit, from a sign.
The habit of a windswept thumb.
And the sign of the rain,
(rain on me, rain)
Wide boys, wide boys, wide boys, born with hearts of Lothian.
Wide boys, wide boys, wide boys, born with hearts of Lothian.
Wide boys, wide boys, we were wide boys, born with hearts of Lothian
These hearts of Lothian.
It's six o'clock in the tower blocks,
The stalagmites of culture shock, (culture shock)
And the trippers of the light fantastic, bow down, howdown
Spray their pheromones on this perfume uniform.
And anarchy smiles in the Royal Mile.
And they're waiting on the Slyboys, flyboys, wideboys.
Rooting, tooting Cowboys, lucky little ladies at the watering holes.
They'll score the Friday night goals.
I was born, with a Heart of Lothian.
I was born, with a heart of Lothian.
I was born, with a heart of Lothian.
With a heart of Lothian.
And the man from the magazine,
wants another shot of you all curled up.
'Cos you look like an actor in a movie shot.
But you're feeling like a wino in a parking lot.
How did I get here anyway?
Do we really need a playback of the show?
'Cos the wideboys want to head for the watering holes,
watering holes, watering holes.
Let's go.
And the man in the mirror had sad eyes.
When the taxis gather in mock Solemnity.
Funeral hearses court the death in virginity,
Was it paradise lost or paradise found?
Did we gain respect or were we holding ground?
You had found true love, or so you believed
And the wideboys tattooed your hearts upon their sleeves.
So when you think it's time to go,
when you think it's time to go,
Don't be surprised, the heroes never show.
And the patter merchants selling false impressions,
Tipping eyes at the waitress with American expressions
Tie angels to the bar with sweet Martini's and their charms
They're lying on every word and every arm
They're turning down their noses to the best lines
And the cheap wines, and the wideboys,
They wear their lovebites for their crimes.
So when you think it's time to go,
when you think it's time to go,
Don't be surprised, the heroes never show.
A love song with no validity.
Pretend you never meant that much to me.
Numb, a Valium child, bored by meaningless collisions.
A lonely stretch of headlight, diamonds trapped in black ice.
A mirror cracked along the white lines.
I just wanted you to be the first one.
I just wanted you to be the first one.
Ashes are burning, burning.
Ashes are burning, burning.
A lifestyle with no simplicities.
But I'm not asking for your sympathies.
Talk, we never could talk, distanced by all that was between us.
A lord of the backstage, a creature of language,
I'm so far out and I'm too far in.
I just wanted you to be the first one.
I just wanted you to be the first one.
Bridges are burning, burning.
Bridges are burning, burning.
Now, now, now, now.
Last night you said I was cold, untouchable.
A lonely piece of action from another town.
I just want to be free, I'm happy to be lonely.
Can't you stay away?
Just leave me alone with my thoughts.
Just a runaway, just a runaway,
I'm saving myself.
Strung out under a necklace of carnival lights.
Cold moan, held on the crest of the night.
I'm too tired to fight.
So now we're passing strangers, at single tables.
Still trying to get over,
Still trying to write love songs for passing strangers.
All those passing strangers.
And the twinkling lies, all those twinkling lies,
Sparkle with the wet ink on the paper.
Oh I remember Toronto when Mylo went down,
And we sat and cried on the phone.
I never felt so alone,
He was the first of our own.
Some of us go down in a blaze of obscurity.
Some of us go down in a haze of publicity.
The price of infamy, the edge of insanity.
Another Holiday Inn, another temporary home,
and an interviewer threatened me with a microphone,
'Talk to me, tell me your stories.'
So I talked about conscience and I talked about pain,
and he looked out the window and it started to rain.
I thought maybe I've already gone crazy.
So I reached for a bottle and he reached for the door,
And I picked up the sleeping pills crushed in the floor.
Inviting me to casual obscenity.
It would be incredible
If we could retrace all the times that we lived here.
All the collisions.
Wasted, I've never been so wasted.
I've never been this far out before.
Perimeter walk.
There's a presence here.
I feel could have been ancient,
I could have been mystical.
There's a presence,
A childhood, my childhood,
My childhood, childhood, a misplaced childhood,
My childhood, childhood, a misplaced childhood,
Give it back to me, give it back to me.
A childhood, the childhood, the childhood,
the childhood, the childhood.
Oh please give it back to me.
I saw a war widow in a laundrette,
Washing the memories from her husband's clothes.
She had medals pinned to a threadbare greatcoat
A lump in her throat with cemetery eyes.
I see convoys curbcrawling West German Autobahns
Trying to pick up a war
They're going to even the score.
Oh... I can't take any more.
I see black flags on factories,
Soup ladies poised on the lips of the poor.
I see children with vacant stares,
destined for rape in the alleyways
Does anybody care, I can't take any more!
Should we say goodbye?
I see priests, politicians
The heroes in black plastic body-bags under nations' flags
I see children pleading with outstretched hands,
drenched in napalm, this is no Vietnam.
I can't take any more, should we say goodbye
How can you justify?
They call us civilized!.
And it was morning.
And I found myself mourning,
for a childhood that I thought had disappeared
I looked out the window,
And I saw a magpie in the rainbow,
The rain had gone, I'm not alone, I turned to the mirror,
I saw you,
The child
That once loved.
The child before they broke his heart,
Our heart,
the heart that I believed was lost.
Hey you, surprised? More than surprised,
to find the answers to the questions,
Were always in your own eyes.
Do you realize that you give it on back to her?
But that would only be retraced in all the problems that you ever knew,
So untrue.
For she's got to carry on with her life,
and you've got to carry on with yours.
So I see it's me, I can do anything
And still the child,
'Cos the only thing misplaced was direction
And I found direction
There is no Childhood's End.
There is no Childhood's End.
Cos' you are my childhood friend.
Cos' you are my childhood friend
Oh lead me on.
Hey you, you've survived.
Now you've arrived,
to be reborn in the shadow of the magpie.
Now you realize, that you've got to get out of here.
You've found the leading light of destiny
burning in the ashes of your memory.
You want to change the world.
You'd resigned yourself to die a broken rebel,
But that was looking backward
Now you've found the light.
You, the child that once loved,
The child before they broke his heart
The heart, the heart that I believed was lost
So it's me I see, I can do anything.
I'm still the child.
'Cos the only thing misplaced was direction
And I found direction.
There is no childhood's end.
There is no childhood's end.
There is no childhood's end
I am your childhood friend.
Oh.. lead me on.
When I hit the streets back in '81
With a heart and a gown and a poet's crown.
I felt barbed wire kisses and icicle tears,
Wearing at me for all these years.
I saw political intrigue, political lies.
Going to wipe those smiles of self-satisfaction from their eyes
I will wear your white feather,
I will wear your white flag,
I will swear I have no nation,
But I'm proud to own my heart.
I will wear your white feather,
I will wear your white flag,
I will swear I have no nation,
But I'm proud to own my heart.
My heart, My heart,
This is my heart.
We don't need your uniforms,
We have no disguise,
Divided we stand, together we rise.
All the children, all the children,
Tell your children...
We will carry your white feathers,
We will carry your white flags,
We will swear we have no nation,
But we're proud to own our hearts.
We will carry your white feathers,
We will carry your white flags,
We will swear we have no nation,
But we're proud to own our hearts
Our hearts,
These are our hearts
