발매하는 작품마다 그 성격을 달리하는 Van Der Graaf Generator의 수장 피터 해밀의 1986년 솔로작. 록-오페라의 성격이 짖은 [The Fall Of The House Of Usher], 실험적인 일렉트로닉 사운드를 선보였던 [Loops & Reels] 등의 작품과 직설적인 보컬과 기타 어레인지먼트적 성향이 깊은 앨범들이 좋은 본보기가 되고 있다. 본작은 오직 보컬과 키보드의 순수 어레인지먼트 만으로 제작된 작품으로 해밀의 보컬에 깊이 매료된 팬이라면 그 분위기를 감지할만한 'Other Old Cliches', 'Beside The One You Love' 같은 트랙들을 담고 있으며 예전의 작업물들처럼 상당히 부드러운 톤의 연주와 강렬한 메시지를 전달해 주는 보컬이 잘 어우러진 'Too Many Yesterday'는 본작의 필청 트랙이다. 하지만 차기 앨범 [In A Foreign Town]에서는 [And Close As This]와 그 궤도를 달리하는 사운드를 담고있다. - 전곡 리마스터 .... ....
So many years ago, I thought you were the one ? who knows when people change, surrender into strangeness, adrift upon their lives, encompassed by the past? Who knows which one becomes the last goodbye? Don't try to tell me nothing dies. Don't try to tell me nothing's changed, don't try to tell me nothing's new, too many of my yesterdays belong to you.
I shelved my broken heart, I put you from my mind, I got up from my knees, I picked up all my pieces, but seeing you again puts shakes into my soul. Just when I think I'm finally over you, don't come and show me that's not true.
Tell me about it, talk to me ? I hear it coming, I feel it coming, the way you want this thing to be. You're only trading on our memories don't go and say you still love me.
You're trading on my memories, you're trading in a rosy past; you know I'm lost on stormy seas... but I still stand before the mast, beneath the stars and under sail towards horizons out of true... Behind the dance of seven veils I still see you...
Tell me about it, have your way; I see it coming, I hear it coming, I know what you're about to say. You've had too many of my yesterdays, and I don't want to fall again.
Don't try to tell me nothing's changed, don't try to tell me nothing's new, too many of my yesterdays are lost in you.
Each moment is precious those that I spend with you are a prize ? I count myself lucky just being alive while you're in my eyes.
Seeing's believing and I believe in you I can't conceal it, just what I feel for you. Seeing's believing, I know that you'll see me through. I believe in you I have faith in you I put my faith in you.
Doubt casts its shadow on every perfect plan that is made but I'll be beside you through those dark days ? I'll be with you come what may.
Seeing's believing and I believe in you I can't conceal it, just what I feel for you. Seeing's believing, I know that you'll see me through. I believe in you I have faith in you I put my faith in you.
Don't let me down, now that I've fallen completely for you.
Memory extends its empire, holds the frame but blurs the line. Some other time invades the sense, a moment caught and lost, second sight.
Suddenly I feel you near me, worlds away and close as this. One stolen kiss upon my lips and the moment slips away in mid-flight.
So many years ago, and now it's hard to recall just what you meant to me. Still I wait, I'm patient, for the memory comes to me eventually. Here you are, and though you may soon be gone somehow the song still burns as bright. I felt it happen here tonight ? here, in the empire of delight.
Dream and ghost the world around me, you seem as real as ever you were... but in a blur your breath on my cheek has gone and the evening come into night.
So many years ago, and now it's hard to recall quite what you meant to me. Still I wait, impatient, though the memory comes to me eventually. Here I am, forever caught up in this mystery and then, that moment when the fire ignites ? I felt it happen here tonight, here, in the empire of delight.
You lay your plans, I take them as they come, I understand: we dance to different drums. It's not in any schoolbook, you're here to teach a lesson to us all... we play by different rule-books. What you say, what you do, they're such different things, which is true? Now the telephone rings, Mephistopheles calling... Forty pieces for each lie you've told I hope your linings as they all unfold are silver.
Once we were friends in our idealist days, still, let's pretend, it's funny in a way that now our friendship's token you like to say I owe you everything ? some debts remain unspoken. Double talk, double standards, you speak with two tongues, truth's abandoned, all life has become one-way traffic to lucre. You take your meetings on the cloth of gold, just down the river from the lives you've sold for silver.
The silver crossed your palm, oh, can you see the future? I hope you'll know when you sold your soul. Argente, argent.
All the things you've done will carry their own taint and a day will come when you chorus the complaint that your friends don't do you fairly; the back you turned, the shoulders that you shrugged now fit the blame quite squarely. What you want, what you need, your emotional greed all-consuming but no hearts will bleed and the coffers are empty. Yes, in the end you'd give it all away, but on the sockets of your eyes they lay the silver.
You're helpless, entranced by the magical touch of her skin against yours, adrift ? what else is there but this? It feels so sweet to fall asleep beside the one you love.
Remember this fireside, this quiet room, embers now flickering their last, like ghosts and still she holds you close. Who else could know such afterglow beside the one you love?
Someday the memory will come again as vivid as sensation now and then there'll be no "why?" or "when?". Who else could do these things to you beside the one you love?
It feels so sweet to fall asleep beside the one you love.
Behind the smile of confidence somewhere you'll find the wanted man blank-faced and wary of conversation with himself. Around the ring of confidence they're dancing to a different tune; the others seem so confident, why don't you take a leaf from the storm we're passing through? In confidence we sail across the seven seas to hide behind the veil ? in confidence the key! "I'm in good form, I'm feeling fine," responsibly how well you do ? there's nothing I can say about the usual cocktail of public faith and private taboo. In confidence the trick is there for all to see ? In confidence the key!
Oh, don't anyone let the cat out of the bag, don't anyone admit to human frailty. Someone let the cat out of the bag. Confidentially we learn we're not alone, in lack of confidence we're not alone, in lack of confidence we're not alone.
Behind the smile of confidence somewhere you'll find the mortal man waving his arms in some urgent secret semaphore... So I'll face the world with confidence, I'll toughen up my point of view, what better way to live a life, what other way can there be of seeing this thing through? In confidence the trick, in confidence the game, the thing that makes us tick ? in confidence the flame!
Inside the ring of confidence somewhere you'll find a stone-age man lost in the forest with darkness falling, striking his flint to hold back the roaring, the alien, the world.
Sleep now: another day in your young lives is done, go to sleep now. Tomorrow brave new worlds will surely come, and trouble deep; you're such a wonder, such a mystery to me.
Somewhere your future friends are lying as you are and your lovers right now are only crying babes in arms oh, the world turns under our feet, our lives are passing by in our sleep.
So soon you'll be gone to that wide world ? the tunes of adulthood calling little girls.
Remember, whatever else in life you find to doubt, do remember, although you hear him mostly in a shout, your father loves you as though he never knew the meaning of the words until just now.
So soon you'll be gone to that wide world. One tune of childhood I sing my little girls...
Sleep now, one day I'll tell you how my life has been. Oh, so strange to think your eyes will fall on things that mine have never seen, these eyes that gently flicker in some lost childhood dream.
Sleep now, safe and warm in the haven of your bed, go to sleep now... Although you won't remember what I've said, your father loves you as though he never knew the meaning of the words until just now, as though he never knew the meaning of the words until just now.