| Disc 1 / Side A | ||||||
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| 1. |
| 5:56 | 
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I can well recall the first time I ever put to sea,
It was on the old "Calcutta" in eighteen fifty-three. I was just a lad of fourteen years, a midshipman to be To make my way in sailing ships of the Royal Navy. By the time that I was twenty-one I'd sailed the world around, Weathered storms in the China seas with the hatches battened down, And made my way by starlight off the coast of Newfoundland And dined on beer and herrings while the waves blew all around. I live in retirement now and through my window comes the sound Of seagulls and sets my mind remembering. The evening stars like memories sail far beyond the distant trees Way out across the open seas I hear them sing. Oh, the wooden ships they turned to iron and the iron ships to steel And shed their sails like autumn leaves with the turning of the wheel And I was given Captain's rank, and soon took under me the proudest ship that ever sailed for Queen and country. Ah, the old queen she passed away with the newborn century And I received my calling up to the admiralty. The sands ran through the hourglass each day more rapidly As we watched the growing of the fleets of High Germany. So at last the Great War blazed I waited with the passing days a call to arms that never came, writing letters. "I may be old now in your eyes, but all my years have made me wise, You don't see where the danger lies, oh call me back, call me back..." But the war, it ran its course they could find no use for me And I live in the country now, grandchildren on my knee And sometimes think in all this world the saddest thing to be Old admirals who feel the wind and never put to sea. Now just like you, I've sailed my dreams like ships across the sea And some of them they've come on rocks and some faced mutiny And when they're sunken one by one I'll join that company - Old admirals who feel the wind, and never put to sea. |
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| 2. |
| 2:40 |
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I'm leaving my home in Europe behind
Heading out for a new state of mind New York town is calling to me Dollar an hour from the company Warren Gameliel Harding Alone in the White House, watching the sun Come up on the morning of 1921 I just want someone to talk to To talk to To talk to I've got no shoes upon my feet I've been all day with nothing to eat It sure gets hard down here in the street But I know where I'm going to be Warren Gameliel Harding Playing cards in a smoke-filled room Winning and losing, filling the time I just want someone to talk to To talk to To talk to Don't go down to the docks tonight The cops are nosing around for the site We moved the booze just before daylight They won't find it now, it'll be alright Warren Gameliel Harding In Alaska running out of days Leaving the ladies, God moves in strange ways I just want someone to talk to To talk to To talk to Don't leave me here on such a lonely day... Don't leave me here on such a lonely day... |
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| 3. |
| 3:55 | 
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| 4. |
| 4:46 |
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The morning is humming, it's a quarter past nine
I should be working down in the vines But I'm lying here with a good friend of mine Watching the sun in her hair I pick the grapes from the hills to the sea The fields of France are a home to me Ah, but today lying here is a good place to be I can't go anywhere But as we slip in and out of embrace Like some old and familiar place Reflecting all of my dreams in her face like before On the last day of June 1934 Just out of Cambridge in a narrow country lane A bottle-green Bentley in the driving rain Slips and skids round a corner, then pulls straight again Heads up the drive to the door The lights of the party shine over the fields Where lovers and dancers watch catherine wheels And argue realities digging their heels In a world that's finished with war And a lost wind of summer blows into the streets Past the tramps in the alleyways, the rich in silk sheets And Europe lies sleeping, you feel her heartbeats through the floor On the last day of June 19... On the night that Ernst Roehm died voices rang out In the rolling Bavarian hills And swept through the cities and danced in the gutters Grown strong like the joining of wills Oh echoed away like a roar in the distance In moonlight carved out of steel Singing "All the lonely, so long and so long You don't know how I long, how I long You can't hold me, I'm strong now I'm strong Stronger than your law" I sit here now by the banks of the Rhine Dipping my feet in the cold stream of time And I know I'm a dreamer, I know I'm out of line With the people I see everywhere The couples pass by me, they're looking so good Their arms round each other, they head for the woods They don't care who Ernst Roehm was, no reason they should Just a shadow that hangs in the air But I thought I saw him cross over the hill With a whole ghostly army of men at his heel And struck in the moment it seemed to be real like before On the last day of June 1934 |
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| 5. |
| 4:18 |
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I was a post-war baby in a small Scots town
I was three years old when we moved down south Hard times written in my mother's looks With her widow's pension and her ration books Aneurin Bevan took the miners' cause The the House of Commons in his coal dust voice We were locked up safe and warm from the snow With "Life with the Lyons" on the radio And Churchill said to Louis Mountbatten "I just can't stand to see you today How could you have gone and given India away?" Mountbatten just frowned, said "What can I say? Some of these things slip through your hands And there's no good talking or making plans" But Churchill he just flapped his wings Said "I don't really care to discuss these things, but Oh, every time I look at you I feel so low I don't know what to do Well every day just seems to bring bad news Leaves me here with the Post World War Two Blues" 1959 was a very strange time A bad year for Labour and a good year for wine Uncle Ike was our American pal And nobody talked about the Suez Canal I can still remember the last time I cried The day that Buddy Holly died I never met him, so it may seem strange Don't some people just affect you that way And all in all it was good The even seemed to be in an optimistic mood While TW3 sat and laughed at it all Till some began to see the cracks in the walls And one day Macmillan was coming downstairs A voice in the dark caught him unawares It was Christine Keeler blowing him a kiss He said "I never believed it could happen like this But oh, every time I look at you I feel so low I don't know what to do Well every day just seems to bring bad news Leaves me here with the post World War Two Blues" I came up to London when I was nineteen With a corduroy jacket and a head full of dreams In coffee bars I spent my nights Reading Allen Ginsberg, talking civil rights The day Robert Kennedy got shot down The world was wearing a deeper frown And though I knew that we'd lost a friend I always believed we would win in the end 'Cause music was the scenery Jimi Hendrix played loud and free Sergeant Pepper was real to me Songs and poems were all you needed Which way did the sixties go? Now Ramona's in Desolation Row And where I'm going I hardly know It surely wasn't like this before but Oh, every time I look around I feel so low my head seems underground Well every day just seems to bring bad news Leaves me here with the Post World War Two Blues Oh, every time I look at you I feel so low I don't know what to do Well every day just seems to bring bad news Leaves me here with the post World War Two Blues |
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| Disc 1 / Side B | ||||||
| 1. |
| 8:01 |
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They crossed over the border the hour before dawn
moving in lines through the day Most of our planes were destroyed on the ground where they lay Waiting for orders we held in the wood Word from the front never came By evening the sound of the gunfire was miles away I softly move through the shadows, slip away through the trees Crossing their lines in the mist in the fields on our hands and our knees And all that i ever Was able to see The fire in the air, glowing red Silhouetting the smoke on the breeze All summer they drove us back through the Ukraine Smolensk and Viasma soon fell By Autumn we stood with our backs to the town of Orel Closer and closer to Moscow they come Riding the wind like a bell General Guderian stands at the crest of the hill Winter brought with the rains, oceans of mud filled the roads Gluing the tracks of their tanks to the ground, while the skies filled with snow And all that I ever Was able to see The fire in the air, glowing red Silhouetting the snow on the breeze (Ah, Ah , Ah) x4 (Ah, Ah, Ah) - all thru bridge In the footsteps of Napoleon, the shadow figures stagger through the winter Falling back before the gates of Moscow, standing in the wings like an avenger And far away behind their lines, the partisans are stirring in the forest Coming unexpectedly upon their outpost, growing like a promise You'll never know, you'll never know, which way to turn, which way to look you'll never see us As we steal into the blackness of the night you'll never know, you'll never hear us And evening sings in a voice of amber, the dawn is surely coming The morning road leads to Stalingrad, and the sky is softly humming Two broken tigers on fire in the night Flicker their souls to the wind We wait in the lines for the final approach to begin It's been almost four years that I've carried a gun At home, it will alomst be spring The flames of the tiger are lighting the road to Berlin I quickly move through the ruins that bow to the ground The old men and children they send out to face us, they can't slow us down And all that I ever Was able to see The eyes of the city are opening Now it's the end of a dream (Ah. Ah, Ah) x4 (Ah, Ah, Ah) thru this section I'm coming home, I'm coming home , now you can taste it in the wind the war is over And I listen to the clicking of the train wheels as we roll across the border And now they ask about the time that i was caught behind their time and taken prisoner They only held me for a day, a lucky break i say They turn and listen closer I'll never know, I'll never know, why I was taken from the line with all the others to board a special train and journey deep into the heart of holy Russia And it's cold and damp in the transit camp and the air is still and sullen and the pale sun of Octobe whispers the snow will soon be coming And I wonder when, I'll be home again and the morning answers never And the evening sighs and the steely, Russian skies go on, forever... |
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| 2. |
| 3:23 |
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Cut glass porcupine sailing on the Serpentine
Fingers on the skyline pulling down the black blinds Terminal eyes at the edge of the night Rivulet of dark wine moving in a straight line Sumdging out the stop signs, running down the life lines Terminal eyes at the edge of the night Shadows on the ceiling, coffee cup congealing Tarot cards revealing, a solitary feeling Terminal eyes, but I think it's alright Silver studded jet plane screaming through the migraine Cutting through the cellophane, wrappers of your tired brain Terminal eyes - put out the light Terminal eyes Only the lonely Arabian skies Terminal eyes Calling you home from your restless disguise Hands of the windmill moving to a standstill Rain on the windowsill, ashes on the phone bill Terminal eyes at the edge of the night Rain drop fire flies sparkle on the shop blinds Echoes of the summertime flicker in the street-signs Terminal eyes at the edge of the night Shadows on the ceiling, coffee cup congealing Eyes that look unseeing, hands that look unfeeling Terminal eyes, I think it's alright Silver-studded sea plane breaking through the migraine Cutting through the cellophane, enveloping your tired brain Terminal eyes, put out the light Terminal eyes Only the lonely Arabian skies Terminal eyes Calling you home from your restless disguise Terminal eyes Only the lonely Arabian skies Terminal eyes Calling you home from your restless disguise |
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| 3. |
| 9:43 |
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In the east the wind is blowing the boats across the sea
And their sails will fill the morning and their cries ring out to me Oh, Oh Oh, the more it changes, the more it stays the same And the hand just re-arranges the players in the game Oh, I had a dream, it seemed I stood alone And the veil of all the years Goes sinking from my eyes like a stone A king shall fall and put to death by the English parliament shall be Fire and plague to London come in the year of six and twenties three An emperor of France shall rise who will be born near Italy His rule shall cost his empire dear, Napoloron his name shall be From Castile does Franco come and the Government driven out shall be An English king seeks divorce, and from his throne cast down is he One named Hister shall become a captain of Greater Germany No law does this man observe and bloody his rise and fall shall be Man, man, your time is sand, your ways are leaves upon the sea I am the eyes of Nostradamus, all your ways are known to me Man, man, your time is sand, your ways are leaves upon the sea I am the eyes of Nostradamus, all your ways are known to me In the new lands of America three brothers now shall come to power Two alone are born to rule but all must die before their hour Two great men yet brothers not make the north united stand Its power be seen to grow, and fear possess the eastern lands Three leagues from the gates of Rome a Pope named Pol is doomed to die A great wall that divides a city at this time is cast aside These are the signs I bring to you to show you when the time is nigh Man, man, your time is sand, your ways are leaves upon the sea I am the eyes of Nostradamus, all your ways are known to me |
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