Peter Hammill - Skin (2007) by Peter Hammill (보컬) on maniadb.com

There's a shiver down the spine of the body map...
how come everything gets so physical?
With your finger on the pulse
and your head in the clouds
everything's so tactile
in your private world,
in your little world.

Under the skin you search for paradise,
under the skin some kind of parasite remains concealed.
Under the skin a true identity, a memory
will soon be revealed, under the skin.

Hit that button, no time to lose ?
everything's so immediate.
You'd have it all right now
if you got to choose
in your private world,
such a tiny world.

Under the skin you search for paradise,
under the skin some kind of parasite remains concealed.
Under the skin a true identity, a memory
will soon be revealed, under the skin.

Is something out to get you under the skin?
Full of the promise of paradise?
Paradise now?

Everything gets so physical,
everything's so immediate
in your private world,
such a tiny world.

Under the skin you search for paradise,
under the skin some kind of parasite remains concealed.
Under the skin a true identity, a memory
will soon be revealed, under the skin.

Does something get to you
under the skin?

He made a bit of money,
that's something you might like to know...
He'll be drinking in the cafe on the corner
after the show.

He's been so many people,
he wore them all like poisoned vests,
still playing the soliloquy from Hamlet
close to his chest.

Where do the actors go after the show?
Where do the actors go?

He had his hour of glory,
that's something you should keep in mind...
When he's drinking in the cafe on the corner
there's no sense of time,
just waiting on for Godot,
convinced he's been here years before...
he's taken that philosophy in German
square on the jaw.

Where do the actors go after the show?
Where do the actors go?

He made a bit of money,
that's something you might like to know;
he'll be drinking in the cafe on the corner
after the show.

Where do the actors go after the show?
Where do the actors go?

It's not that complicated,
no more than a clench of fist ?
she want to paint her heart out,
she want to tell it as she sees it is.
Authority condemns her,
they say to paint's a waste without a base,
some bedrock of idea.

Painting by numbers doesn't add up,
Painting by numbers doesn't add up,
it's passionless bed-rest,
work-body that's headless,
a head that's without heart ?
painting by numbers doesn't add up to art.

Her constant vows mean nothing,
not content alone that sells ?
The Market Theory beckons,
no-one remembers what the story tells;
no-one remembers passion,
we just recite the line
that art is fine and fashion costly.

Painting by numbers doesn't add up;
safety in numbers, put your hands up
in mute surrender...
they'll break her or bend her
for the heart on her sleeve.
Painting by numbers all the modern world believes.

And the whole thing falls apart
when the movement's more important than the art;
when we're more concerned
with what's been thought than said
this is the moment when the culture's dead.

It's not that complicated,
it's simple as can be:
she want to paint her heart out,
they want a programme for the BBC
where academic critics can talk of art that's fine
like holy wine ? the Blessed Intellectuals!

Painting by numbers, safety in numbers...
The poets from Venus assume that they've seen us ?
they're quick to depart.
Painting by numbers doesn't add up to art.

Turn a card, turn a page,
the action sure to start,
second-stage reaction
to illogical thoughts on random lines ?
in a Borges dream we move toward
the writing of lives.

Leave it out, leave it in, no edits ?
with a shout, with a grin I said
it was a certainty that I'd arrive
in an Escher sketch
we walk around the drawing of lines.

The character uncertainty
as he contemplates his lot
and tries to move with urgency
though he's rooted to the spot.

On the brink, on the edge,
but lately what I think,
what I said escapes me
in a flash, a tiger burning bright ?
does the visionary trance obscure
the burgeoning night?

And she said "What are you doing?"
And he said "What do you think?"
Oh, no, what on earth are we doing?

The characters procrastinate
on the threshold of the door;
there's something here that fascinates,
though the meaning's still unsure
and the plot so thick.
Is it some kind of history?
Sketch the thumbnail to the quick.
Oh, even though it's full of contradiction,
though it's flawed in the design
this is no fiction,
it's a lifeline.

Here we are, there we went, full circle,
shooting stars, heaven-sent,
turned turtle on the beach
our shells are left behind
life a library, like a memory
of our ghost-written lives.

All the words in the world
wouldn't make you stay this evening;
though I scrabble around for any I can say,
so hard to take our leave,
so hard to stop believing.

I guess we know this silence well enough,
and you'll be going by and by;
I'm scared that anything I offer
might be taken for a lie.

All said and done,
and there's no way to make it any different.
I hold my tongue as you're walking away.
So goodbye comes ?
oh, I don't want to make it difficult
but nothing's easy when there's nothing left to say.

Now we only talk as though time were heavy weather
with a storm-cloud brewing on each hasty phrase...
all the words in the world wouldn't put us back together.

Maybe we had our opportunities...
most of those chances passed us by;
I'm scared that anything I offer
might be taken as a bribe.

All said and done,
and there's no way to make it any different.
I hold my tongue as you're walking away.
So goodbye comes ?
oh, I don't want to make it difficult
but nothing's easy when there's nothing left to say.

In the here and now...
Between sensation at the nerve-ends
and arrival of information at the cortex
time elapses.
So, you see, each time we touch
we did so in the past.

Now, lover,
slicing through time in a perfect curve,
due for a moment of energy;
somehow we'll get what we most deserve
in the here and now.

In the here and now,
although completely different people
in the moments before and after having sex,
we are time-locked.
Cracked, forgotten statues, we are strangled in the undergrowth,
lost in ancient magic, we are motion, we are wonderful flow.
We are time-locked,
unknowing of the code,
but addicted to the pulse.

Now, lover,
melt in the crucible, flesh and blood
bodies consumed by the catalyst.
Somehow we'll raise our sights from the mud,
we are always now,
we are Always Now!

If we were always here and now,
instead of slightly, now and then...
so immaterial, so lost, embracing all the grace
that comes before the fall.

If we were always here and now,
electric shiver in the spine,
how could we turn away, see life as grey and drab?
How come we don't see what we have?

If we were always here and now,
soul to soul and skin to skin...
Is it some kind of make-believe,
is it some kind of dream we're in,
with a mint copy of original sin?

In the here and now,
between sensation at the nerve-ends
and the arrival of information at the cortex
time elapses.

Cracked, forgotten statues, we are strangled in the undergrowth;
lying on the mattress of the magic and the wonderful,
nothing really matters as we're sucked in by the undertow...
We are Motion, we are Feeling, we are Now!

Although completely different people
in the moments before and after having sex
we are time-locked, we are time-locked...
Though we know each time we touch
we did so in the past.

Now come on, come on, lover,
slicing through time in a perfect curve,
due for a moment of energy...
somehow we'll get what we most deserve
in the here and now.
Melt in the crucible, flesh and blood
bodies consumed by the catalyst,
surrender to nothing, welcome the flood
of the here and now.
Slicing through time in a perfect curve,
due for a moment of energy,
somehow we'll get what we most deserve;
melt in the crucible, flesh and blood
bodies, consumed by the catalyst,
surrender to nothing,
nip the thought in the bud.
We are always now,
We are Always Now!

If we were always here and now...

There was something in the conversation,
ancient languages were breaking through;
I was falling for infatuation ?
how about you?

You say it's nothing special,
that's just the way it is...
you hit me where I live.

Though I drink the cup it leaves me thirsting ?
what on earth am I supposed to do?
When I try to speak I find my
bursting heart full of you.

You say it's only natural,
you say forget and forgive...
you hit me where I live.

I was once the man who felt no passion;
I was nothing till I fell for you.
You're a duelist in your own fashion,
eyes that run me through.

You say that it's a mixed blessing,
but I should take the gift you give...
you hit me where I live.