Van Der Graaf Generator

The captain's in a coma, the lieutenant's on a drunk;
the owner's in his cabin with his special friend, the monk;
the midget's on the bridge, dispensing platitudes and junk -
those wild and special places,
those strange and dangerous places,
those sad, sweet faces,
it's a Ship of Fools.
The nurse in black seamed stockings, she's already on patrol
for fake fur starlets panicked by the watering-hole;
everybody's waiting for the drama to unfold
in those cold and treasured places,
those old and degenerate places;
those posed, posed, empty faces
it's a Ship of Fools.

Run, rabbit, run, you're the only one that can do it;
turn, baby, turn, there's a ring of fire
and you've got to go through it.
Fun, baby, fun, when the sands have run to the limit
turn, baby, turn, there's a ring of fire and you're in it.

Looking for logic and adventure
down the dark end of the street,
open city, open season, open lips that gleam so sweet
offer kisses like piranhas
to the soft flesh of your feet,
and any man's poison is every man's meat
in those mad and special places,
those sad and desperate places,
those sad, sweet soul embraces,
it's a Ship of Fools
Those strange and special places
those wild and dangerous places,
those dead, dead, dead faces...
It's a Ship of Fools; no rules.

What have we become?
What have we chosen to be?
Now all history is reduced to the syllables
or our name -
nothing can ever be the same:
now the Immortals are here.
At the time it seemed a reasonable course
to harness all the force
of life without the threat of death, but
soon we found that boredom and inertia
are not negative, but all the law we know,
and dead are will and words like survival
Arrival at immunity from all age, all fear
and all end...
why do I pretend?
Our essence is distilled
and all familiar taste is now drained
and though purity is maintained
it leaves us sterile, living through the
millions of years,
a laugh as close as any tear;
living, if you claim that all
that entails is breathing, eating,
defacating, screwing, drinking, spewing,
sleeping, sinking ever down and down
and ultimately passing away time which
no longer has any meaning.

Take away the threat of death and all
you're left with is a round
if make-believe.
Marshall every sullen breath and though
you're ultimately bored by endless ectasy
it's still the ring by which you hope to be
engaged
to marry the girl who will give you
forever - it's crazy and plainly
that simply is not enough.

What is this dulles and bluntest of pains,
such that my eyes never close without
feeling it there?
What abject despair demands an end to
all things of infinity?
If we have gained, how do we now meet
the cost?
What have we bargained, and what have
we lost?
What have we relinquished, never
knowing it was thee?

What thoughts now of holding fast the
line, defying death and time?
Everything we had is gone,
everything we laboured for and favoured
more that earthly things reveals
the hollow ring of false hope and
false deliverance.

But now the nuptial bed is made, the
dowry has been paid:
the toothless, haggard features of eternity
now welcome me between the sheets
to couple with her withered body -
my wife.
Hers forever,
hers forever,
hers forever,
in still life

Pretty keen - yes, my hobby keeps me busy
and if I talk to myself, what's the crime?
In the darkroom I am a dealer in space and time....
When all memory is mellowed,
when the photograph is yellowed,
still it never lies.

There you are, your eyes laced with secret pleasure,
saying that you're on the way to change,
devouring in inordinate measure
every diversion that's arranged.
For every appetite, a cruel attraction,
but there's a panic in your actions...
oh, I never saw you look so strange.

Fixing memory chemically,
holding time on the stop-clock,
hanging back from that last frame
just in case it didn't show you
in the way I used to know you...
I thought you'd always stay the same.
(But you won't.)

Oh, the red light, the silver, the black and the bromide;
the silence, the waiting for overview....
The past seems under-exposed, low tide,
but still the images ghost through.
And you're there in the bath,
which is all this has led to,
and I can't say your path
is a right one to choose....

But then I only have a negative of you.

If I'm the mirror and you're the image
then what's the secret between the two,
these 'me's and 'you's, how many can there be?
Oh, I don't mind all that around the place,
as long as you keep it
well away from me.

I've begun to regret that we ever met
between the dimensions.
It gets such a strain to pretend that the change
is anything but cheap...
with your infant pique and your angst pretensions
sometimes you act like a creep.

And now I'm standing in the corner,
looking at the room and the furniture
in cheap imitation of alienation and grief.
And now we're going to the kitchen,
fix ourselves a drink and a cigarette,
getting no closer to being the joker or thief.

Still, I reflect, this nervous wreck
who stands before me can see as well,
can surely tell that he's not yet free;
he can turn aside, but can no more ignore me
than know which one of us is he,
than tell what we are going to be,
than know which one of is me.

And now we're going to the kitchen,
fix ourselves a drink and a cigarette,
getting no closer to being the joker or thief.

These mirror images,
these mirror images
won't stay, go away, are no help.

In these mirror images of myself
there are no secrets.

fingers groping for the galaxies,
reddened eyes stared up into the void,
1000 stars to be exploited
Somebody help me I'm falling, somebody help me, I'm falling down
Into sky, into earth, into sky, into earth .....
It is so dark around, no life, no hope, no sound
no chance of seeing home again ...
The universe is on fire, exploding without flame.
We are the lost ones; we are the pioneers;
we are the lost ones
We are the ones they are going to build a statue for
ten centuries ago or were going to fifteen forward ...

One Last brief whisper in our loved ones' ears
to reassure them and to pierce the fear
standing at controls then still unknown
we told the world we were about to go
Somebody help me I'm missing, somebody help me
I'm missing now
touch with my mind, I have no frame,
touch with my mind, I have no frame ...
Well now where is the time and who the hell am I,
here floating in an aimless way?
No-one knows where we are, they can't feel us precisely ..

There is no fear here.
How can such a thing exist in a place where
living and knowing
and being have never been heard of?

Doomed to vanish in the flickering light,
disappearing to a darker night,
doomed to vanish in a living death, living anti-matter, anti-breath
Somebody help me I'm losing, somebody help me, I'm losing now
people around, there's no-one to touch,
no people around, no-one to touch.
I am now quite alone, part of a vacant time-zone,
here floating in the void,
only dimly aware of existence, a dimly existing awareness,
I am the lost one, I am the one you fear,
I am the lost one,
I am the one who went up into space, or stayed where I was,

He's a blind man, crouching by the pavement,
only seeing with his third eye,
and clutching at the astral shadow
of every passer-by.

He's a wise man, trumping all the answers;
she's a wild girl, trying to keep his feet on the floor
in whispered physical litanies:

Day dawns dark, it now numbers infinity.
Life crawls from the past, watching in wonder
I trace its patterns in me.
Tomorrow's tomorrow is birth again.
Boats burn the bridge in the fens;
the time of the past returns to my life
and uses it.

Don't blame me for the letters
that may form in the sand;
don't look in my eyes, you may see all the numbers
that stretch in my sky and colour my hand.
Don't say that I'm wrong in imagining
that the voice of my life cannot sing.
Fate enters and talks in old words:
They amuse it.

The hands shine darkly and white:
only in dark they appear.
Bless the baby born today,
flying in pitch, flying on fear.

They shine in my eyes and touch my face
where I have seen them placed before;
don't blame me, please, for the fate that falls:
I did not choose it.
I did not, no no, I did not
I truly did not choose it.

North was somewhere years ago and cold:
Ice locked the people's hearts and made them old.
South was birth to pleasant lands, but dry
I walked the waters' depths and played my mind.
East was dawn, coming alive in the golden sun
the winds came, gently, several heads became one
in the summertime, though august people sneered
we were at peace, and we cheered.

We walked alone, sometimes hand in hand,
between the thin lines marking sea and sand;
smiling very peacefully,
we began to notice that we could be free,
and we moved together to the West.

West is where all days will someday end;
where the colours turn from grey to gold,
and you can be with the friends.
And light flakes the golden clouds above all
West is Mike and Susie,
West is where I love.

There we shall spend our final days of our lives
tell the same old stories
yeah well, at least we tried.
Into the West, smiles on our faces, we'll go;
oh, yes, and our apologies to those
who'll never really know the way.

We're refugees, walking away from the life
that we've known and loved;
nothing to do or say, nowhere to stay
now we are alone.
We're refugees, carrying all we own
in brown bags, tied up with string;
nothing to think, it doesn't mean a thing,
but we'll be happy on our own.
West is Mike and Susie
West is where I love,
West is refugees' home.

So you live in the bottom of the sea,
and you kill all that come near you ....
but you are very lonely,
because all the other fish
fear you .....
And you crave companionship
and someone to call your own;
because for the whole of your life
you've been living alone.

On a black day in black month
at the black bottom of the sea,
Your mother gave birth to you and died
immediately ....
'Cos you can't have two killers
living in the same pad
and when your mother knew
that her time had come
she was really rather glad.

Death in the sea, death in the sea,
somebody please come and help me,
come and help me
Fishes can't fly,
fishes can't fly,
Fishes can't and neither can I,
neither can I ....

Now I'm really rather like you,
for I've killed all the love I ever had
by not doing all I ought to
and by leaving my mind coming
bad.
And I too am a killer,
for emotion runs as deep as flesh
and I too am so lonely,
and I wish that I could forget
We need love,
We need love,
We need love ..........

The killer lives inside me: yes,
I can feel him move.
Sometimes he's lightly sleeping
in the quiet of his room
but then his eyes
will rise and stare through mine;
he'll speak my words and slice my mind inside...
Yes the killer lives.

The angels live inside me
I can feel them smile.
Their presence strokes
and soothes the tempest in my mind;
And their love
can heal the wounds that I have wrought,
They watch me as I go to fall - well,
I know I shall be caught
While the angels live.

How can I be free?
How can I get help?
Am I really me?
Am I someone else?

But stalking in my cloisters
hang the acolytes of gloom
and Death's Head throws his cloak
into the corner of my room
and I am doomed
But laughing in my courtyard
play the pranksters of my youth
and solemn, waiting old man
in the gables of the roof -
he tells me truth...

I, too, live inside me
and very often don't know who I am
I know I'm not a hero well,
I hope that I'm not damned.
I'm just a man
and killers, angels, all are these
Dictators, saviours,
refugees in war and peace
as long as man lives...

I'm just a man
and killers, angels, all are these:
Dictators,
Saviours,
Refugees.

Citadel rever berates to a thousand voices,
now dumb;
What have we become?
What have we chosen to be?
Now all history is reduced to the syllables
or our name -
nothing can ever be the same:
now the Immortals are here.
At the time it seemed a reasonable course
to harness all the force
of life without the threat of death, but
soon we found that boredom and inertia
are not negative, but all the law we know,
and dead are will and words like survival
Arrival at immunity from all age, all fear
and all end...
why do I pretend?
Our essence is distilled
and all familiar taste is now drained
and though purity is maintained
it leaves us sterile, living through the
millions of years,
a laugh as close as any tear;
living, if you claim that all
that entails is breathing, eating,
defacating, screwing, drinking, spewing,
sleeping, sinking ever down and down
and ultimately passing away time which
no longer has any meaning.

Take away the threat of death and all
you're left with is a round
if make-believe.
Marshall every sullen breath and though
you're ultimately bored by endless ectasy
it's still the ring by which you hope to be
engaged
to marry the girl who will give you
forever - it's crazy and plainly
that simply is not enough.

What is this dulles and bluntest of pains,
such that my eyes never close without
feeling it there?
What abject despair demands an end to
all things of infinity?
If we have gained, how do we now meet
the cost?
What have we bargained, and what have
we lost?
What have we relinquished, never
knowing it was thee?

What thoughts now of holding fast the
line, defying death and time?
Everything we had is gone,
everything we laboured for and favoured
more that earthly things reveals
the hollow ring of false hope and
false deliverance.

But now the nuptial bed is made, the
dowry has been paid:
the toothless, haggard features of eternity
now welcome me between the sheets
to couple with her withered body -
my wife.
Hers forever,
hers forever,
hers forever,
in still life

Slow motion in the quiet of your room:
so potent is the smell of her perfume
that you think she's eternal
that you think she's everything
-but no-one knows what she is....
Repentance for all you should have said-
her entrance seems to raise you from the dead
and you think she's really with you
and you think she'll always stay.
always ready to forgive you,
always ready to grant you her mercy
-but in her own way.
When she comes she'll be a stranger;
struck dumb you'll try to protest
as the drum beats out the danger,
too late-you should have noticed
that the lady with her skin so white
like something out of Blake or Burne-Jones
always blocked out the light
and shadowed all you owned.

Still you think she's forever,
yesterday and tomorrow
-but no-one knows where she is.
Still you swear that you can win her
and your prayer is that she'll want you;
aware, once a saint, now you're a sinner
and your sins are going to haunt you
when the lady with her skin so white
like something out of Edgar Allen Poe
holds your hand so tight
and you hope that she'll never let go.

Easy targets, easy cross-words, easy life:
these key margins leave you balanced on the knife,
bleeding darkly. In the end it all comes down
to sleazy bargains.
That hidden key-you tried so hard to find it:
all you can concieve is the effort to be worthy.
Even now you need to be reminded
that La Belle Dame is without mercy.
The lady with her skin so white
-you never did quite catch her name-
now she holds you in the night
and she'll never let go again
she'll never let go again

I remember what it felt like at
seventeen:
I was a cat, a snake, a lizard, a mouse.
Still got an interest in the limousine
and a spouse and a brat,
country house, London flat.

I'm gonna head for the island when
the summer's out,
I'm gonna do all the stuff that I can,
drink like a fish in a waterspout -
I'm a fan of the flow
it began long ago
I'm a man who should know
it doesn't stop.

There's so much to remember,
so much to forget:
we're all in the possession of the
future tense, but don't know it yet.
The flesh comes through the spirit,
the spirit through the flesh...
we look the Sphinx in the face
for answers and of course we're
really not impressed.
We're caught between age and beauty,
experience and youth
so we feel the need acutely
for any kind of Truth.

Oh but we get copped some days,
caught between options we've failed
to play, such wasted chance.
So I join the wastrel's dance:
it has slow as well as fast movement
and any change must be an
improvement on simply fossilising,
standing still.

I got a steady vocation for
the Quiet Zone,
I just can't wait for the song to be sung,
I'm still possessed by the promise
of the Pleasure Dome

You're so young,
so oldd,
such a drag
to be told.

You're so here, so gone,
so near, so wrong,
so queer, so strong


Such a drag to be told....