vdgg

I read the news in a paper:
no flowers, please, donations to charity
like the N.S.P.C.V.d.G.G. -
yeh, send the money
to Guy and Hugh and David and me.

It's a joke,
there is no hope left,
oh, whoever might disagree.

Tell me juicy rumours,
dish me the dirt,
go on and rip the back right off my shirt.

Tell me how I hate Hugh Banton,
tell us that the bank account is zero
and that anyway there's non-one left to play to...
oh, well, there you go.

Are we ever going to get this act together on time?

In Guastalla the church bell rang in a silence just during Peter was singing (The Sleepwalkers) "If I only have time... but soon my time is ended"

In Trieste Hugh used the organ twice in the same way,the sound was like a bell. (Meurglys III)

From darkvinland

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 along, 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.

Citadel reverberates to a thousand voices, now dumb:
what have we become? What have we chosen to be?
Now, all history is reduced to the syllables of 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

It might come in a letter,
darkness falls in a telephone call;
I await the unexpected
with one ear to the party wall.
Is it the pricking of the conscience,
is it the itching of hair shirt,
is it the dictionary definition
of a precipice to skirt?
It's the nutter alert.

Though this face is familiar
something in it has bred contempt;
I never asked for your opinion
or your back-handed compliments.
Oh, but here comes that special nonsense
all the words out in a spurt,
the unhinging of the trolley
as the mouth begins to blurt...
it's the nutter alert

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.

Pawn Hearts original vinyl release in the U.S. and Canada contained a fourth track, squeezed between "Lemmings" and "Man-Erg", which was the band's arrangement of an old BBC Radio 1 closing theme. This instrumental, called "Theme One", was originally composed by none other than George Martin. In Europe, where Pawn Hearts only contained the three tracks, "Theme One" was released as a single in February 1972, with the song "W" as its b-side.
The 2005 reissue of Pawn Hearts includes "Theme One" (original mix) as Bonus Track.

At night, this mindless army, ranks unbroken by dissent,
is moved into action and their pace does not relent.
In step, with great precision, these dancers of the night
advance against the darkness - how implacable their might!
Eyes undulled by moon, their arms and legs akimbo,
they walk and live, hoping soon to surface from this limbo.
Their minds, anticipating the dawn of the day,
shall never know what's waiting mere insight away
- too far, too soon.

Senses dimmed in semi-sentience, only wheeling through this plane,

(released first on the B side of "Refugees" single)

Horus, the son of Isis, lay in the marshes of Buto,
poisoned by Set.
She called out to the High God Ra
to kill this evil, that her child may live yet.
Casting aside her present fears
she called out on the Boat of Millions of Years...
Ra came and saw
and stopped the sun until he had cured
the life of the innocent.

Horus the Good lived in the North,
in lands of fertility and beauty
but Set stayed in the hard desert,
to him belonged all drought and perversity.
While he sheds his tears

All that we see illusory
every assumption based on blind faith alone....
On with the motley, bring it home!

Everything's formed from particles,
all that you see is a construction of waves.
Hold onto both thoughts,
under general relativity
the cradle connected to the grave.

Luminous Aether dissipates,
Michelson-Morley with a point to disprove,
Millikan oil drops
and the cargo-cult science evaporates,
improbable physics on the move.

Nearer and nearer,
it's clear that in interference
what happens when matter shatters