Star

Slowly, turn around and then you walk away
Just the same as you did yesterday
Just the same the day before
Oh, the words that came
Crashing down to rain on your parade
Spitting out like some machine-gun serenade
Not like the promise of before

Look for direction in the star
But you're not sure who you are
Feels like you're watching from afar

Trust in yourself
(you know if you don't then nobody will)
You can't pay the piper ‘til you get the bill
It pays to always know the score
Now the words have gone,
Scattered like so many autumn leaves
Leaving you as naked as the winter trees
Wonder what they've left in store?

Look for protection in the star
But you don't know who you are
It feels like they're laughing from afar

Into the darkness, you want to go deeper
You just need to trust in your guides
When you find them,
But how will you know who they are?

You know they know which way you'll go
For all you pull away
You know they know you can't let go
They won't have to ask you to stay
Out of the darkness, don't want to go deeper
Just want to get back to the light, the beginning
Back where you started it all

If you take a leap and it's into the unknown
The mouse and the cat and the fish and the fisherman
Hunter and hunted, caught out by the waste of it all

The dawn light's first golden fingers

Pulling at the curtains
Chasing out the shadows
The bright light of a new day
The sunlight melts the shroud around you
Lifts the sorrow from your eyes
Breaks the ties they used to bind you
Shatters all illusion's lies

So this is the escape plan, this is where we get away
(with just a little luck)
This is where we leave the circus
And the never-passion play
Where we leave the misfits, misinformed politicos
Voting for each other
And round and round it goes

With just a little glance exchanged
In the pale moon's light
The stars are all around us now
And I think, we going to be alright (tonight)

 

Artificial Light

We blur the edges between day and night
To make life easier to control
(I feel no pain; I feel no pain)
We are the gods of artificial light
This is the new electric soul
(I feel no pain; I feel no pain)

And there's no need to worry
We won't feel a thing
This is the art of delusion
Just accept everything
Can't be blamed when we don't know
The theory from the fact
This is the art of the salesman
Can't tell the product from the pack

We sugar coat to make things sweeter
To take the nasty taste away
(I feel no shame; I feel no shame)
We distract with pretty pictures
So we can look the other way
(I feel no shame; I feel no shame)

Wonder will we remember
The way it used to be
Before the surrender
To technology
Disproving natural science
Repealing nature's laws
There's no room here for conscience
Need no get-out clause
No get-out clause
No get-out clause

Against the turning of the years
Against the turning of the tides
Against the turning of the world
Against the passing time that flies

So what are we for?

Against the turning of the years
(turning years...)
Against the turning of the tides
(turning tides...)
Against the turning of the world
(turning world...)
Against the passing time that flies

 

Skimming Stones

She's on her own again
She goes down to the water
She's skimming stones
Against the waves
She's no sense of who she is
She's nobody's daughter
She redraws her past
With each memory she makes

She's nothing to do today
And there'll be nothing tomorrow
There's nothing to say
She's not already said

On her way home from work
She's fighting the traffic
Days blur into the next
Like the cars on the road
She takes out a meal for one
That she won't bother eating
Sits down at the table
Her eyes reading "overload"

There's no-one to see today
And there'll be no-one tomorrow
There's nothing to say
It's already been said

How can the sky be so blue
When she's feeling so grey?
How can the sun be so warm
She's so cold inside?

So the story goes
She loved and she loses
Gave so much away
There's nothing left
They say that old habits die hard
But the young and the lonely die easy
Now there's no-one to mourn
She left no-one bereft

She's nothing to do today
And there'll be nothing tomorrow
There's nothing to say
It's already been said

How can the sky be so blue
When she's feeling so grey?
And how can the sun be so warm
She's so cold inside?
How can the wind be so soft
Now she's turning to stone?
How can she stand in a crowd
And be so alone?

Over and over the story
She goes in her mind
Over and over the story
She goes

She carried the weight of the world on her shoulders
She carried the weight of the world and she knows
She carried the weight of the world on her shoulders
She carried the weight of the world and she knows

 

Outside In

Breathe deep and hold it in until it hurts
Just to know that I'm alive
Strongest feeling is the longing to give in
But the instinct says "survive"

Now they've torn the heart and soul from everything
Seems these dreams weren't meant to last
I don't really want your sympathy
But it's kind of you to ask

There are dark skies over paradise
There's a shadow on the sun
There's a question mark on every certainty
Now this ending has begun

And we can behave like children
Playing war in the park
How strange that in these enlightened days
We still feel lost in the dark

They're burning all the castles down
Looking forward to the past
And me? I suppose I'll soldier on
It's kind of you to ask

There's poison in the wishing well
There's a stealer of the light
Choking life from opportunity
And always out of sight

And we can wash cars on Sunday
Keep up that charade
'Til the acid that burns on tips of tongues
Burns through that facade

Come inside, I think it's time we talked
Hope that we've not come too far

Shut the world outside, let down your guard
Remember who we are

You've got an angel on a necklace
I've had the devil on my back
But I think the change is coming soon
We're coming home, come inside

Come inside
Inside

I didn't want to rule the world
Didn't want a revolution
Wanted change to make things work
And make a case for evolution

So shut the door behind
And step in, step in, step into the warmth inside
Step into the warmth inside
Step into the warmth inside

 

Together Alone

Shall we go out tonight?
We could go down town and visit places we used to go
Maybe we'll see old friends
Be good to see some of the faces that we used to know

But hey, I know you're tired tonight
And yes,
I know that the kids have school tomorrow
Maybe we should stay at home
Together alone

Hey, there's a movie on
You know the one, we saw the trailer on the TV
Be good to get away
And spend an hour or two, living in some film fantasy

But you know, I can't go out tonight
I'm just so tired and there's work tomorrow
Maybe we should stay at home
Together alone

Together alone, just you and me
Together alone, our own company

Together alone

Shall we go out tonight
Could go down town and visit places we used to go
Maybe we'll see old friends
Be good to see some of the faces that we used to know

But you know, I can't go out tonight
I'm so damn tired and there's work tomorrow
Maybe we should stay at home
Together alone

Together alone, just you and me
Together alone, our own company

Together alone

 

A Widow's Eyes

So very young, no more than boys, and they hear it all
In the cry of a cannon, in the shock of the shell
And which name for the god
Or the gods you are fighting for?
And are they fighting beside you?
Or do they have too much sense?
They wouldn't be seen dead here!

And the heroes, heroes they left behind
More than heroes in their widows' eyes
And the children, the children they left behind
Will they grow to believe
The same hero lies?

Left from right, right from wrong
Stranded and you're left somehow
Can you fight without reason?
Is there reason at all?

And which flag, oh which flag
Will they raise when they lay you down?
But a flag fades away
Like the fabric of man
(They shouldn't be seen dead here)

And the heroes
The heroes that came so far
Are they still in sight of their widows' eyes?
And the children, the children they left behind
Will they grow to fit the same hero disguise?

Beat the drum - and strike up the band
As we wave a generation to some foreign land
And we'll raise the flag and raise a glass for one and all
Singing songs of hope and glory, rule for evermore

But no-one's singing when they come marching home again
There's no-one there to sing those songs
We've forgotten yet again... yet again

See the faces on the paper,
of the Sunday magazines
Dulled eyes on glossy pages,
soon closed and so it seems
We're only paper chasing
after someone else's dreams
I don't know where we begin to break the chain

Political ambition or some religious zeal
These are abstract to the innocent,
but the loss is all too real
Time will lay the path for the marching feet again
I don't know where we begin to break the chain

Brought up to attention by the cheering in the bar
The miracle of satellite relays the latest score
With laser-sight precision, we'll take another hit
The toast is absent friends

And every son will grow to play
his absent father's part
And every mother's son is breaking
every mother's heart
Where's the line twixt duty and obedience and sin
There's really no dilemma
when the boots are coming in

And if you reach out, reach out
And you still can't touch the sky
Don't keep the dream alive
You can breathe it in

And if you look down, look down
And you're still on solid ground
Don't keep the dream alive
You can breathe it in

So very young, no more than boys, and they hear it all
In the cry of a cannon, in the shock of the shell
They shouldn't be seen dead here!

 

Photographs

Fond remembered summer days
Of fresh cut grass and cider haze
And dipping toes
Sometimes seems like yesterday
And other days a life away
And so it goes

That as we grow, glancing back we see
Childhood slipping through the back door
Of our memory

Flowing with the overflow
Pulled under by the undertow
Until you rise
Surface in some other place
Experience etched on your face
And still surprised

And as you try
Glancing back you'll see
Childhood creeping through the back door
Of who we used to be

Time dulls the memory, or so they say
The images we hold begin to fade away
If we could keep the dreams we have,
To watch while we're awake
I'd keep mine in a book, bound like the photographs
The photographs
Photographs we take

The face inside the silver frame upon the wall
It breaks my heart to think
My kids won't know the man at all
But then I close my eyes and you appear
(I close my eyes)

And as we grow, and as we grow we see
Childhood slipping through the back door
Of our memory

And as we grow, and as we grow
Children slipping through the back door and you know, you know

Time dulls the memory, and so they say
The images we hold begin to fade away
If we could keep the dreams we have,
Bound up inside a book
I'd keep mine on the mantelpiece
With the photographs
Those photographs
Those photographs we took