Home

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.

Recorded on Apr 13 1977
Released on "The Peel Sessions" in 1995
BBC radio sessions 1974-1988

So here we are, alone -
our children have grown up and moved away.
living their own lives, they say...
it all seems very strange to me.

I don't understand their ways:
our children amaze me all the time
and I often wonder why they make me feel
so sad and suddenly old.

Now we're left with an empty home,
from our nest all the birds have flown for foreign skies.

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.

So here we are, alone -
our children have grown up and moved away.
living their own lives, they say...
it all seems very strange to me.

I don't understand their ways:
our children amaze me all the time
and I often wonder why they make me feel
so sad and suddenly old.

Now we're left with an empty home,
from our nest all the birds have flown for foreign skies.
We're discarded, of no further use,
though we gave our kids all our youth and all our lives -
we really tried.

Now there's only my wife and me;
we used to have a family - now that's gone

Sometimes it's very scary here, sometimes it's very sad,
sometimes I think I'll disappear; betimes I think I have.
There's a line snaking down my mirror,
splintered glass distorts my face
and though the light is strong and strange
it can't illuminate the musty corners of this place.
There is a lofty, lonely, Lohengrenic castle in the clouds;
I draw my murky meanings there
but seven years' dark luck is just around the corner
and in the shadows lurks the spectre of Despair.

A cracked mirror 'mid the drapes of the landing:
split image, labored understanding...

Willie, what can I say to you
to hold true in your changing life?
You've come into a cruel world;
little girls can lose their way in the growing night...
I hope you'll be alright.

Willie, try to stay a child sometime,
for as long as you feel you can learn.
Babies all turn to people
and people can really be strange;
they change and, changing, bring pain.

Try to treat your parents well because they care,
and what more can you do?
When you find your lovers, be good to them
as you hope they'll be to you -
be honest,
be true.

"I know you haven't got the thread of the story so far. Just throw your
luggage into the back of the car. We'll drive around until you think I've
gone too far but you can't go home, no, there's no way home. You haven't
lost the plot but there's detail you lack. This is a one-way trip and
there's no turning back. No protestation can divert us from the track
we're set upon. Soon it's done and dusted and we're gone. No-one ever
knows the road they're on."
I'm driven by my younger self into a corner. I remember dreaming the

Some call me SATAN others have me GOD
some name me NEMO...I am unborn.
Some speak of me in anagrams,
some grieve upon my wrath...
the ones who give me service
I grant my scorn.
My words are
'Too late', 'Never', 'Impossible', and 'Gone';
my home is in the sunset and the dawn.
My Name is locked in silence,
sometimes it's whispered out of spite.
All gates are locked,
all doors are barred and bolted,
there is no place for flight.
Will you not come to me
and love me for one more night?

Some see me shining, others have me dull;
gun-metal and cut diamond -I am ALL.

(Eyewitness)

Still waiting for my saviour, storms tear me limb from limb;
my fingers feel like seaweed...I'm so far out I'm too far in.
I am a lonely man, my solitude is true,
my eyes have borne stark witness
and now my nights are numbered, too.

I've seen the smiles on dead hands,
the stars shine, but they're not for me.

I prophesy disaster and then I count the cost...
I shine but, shining, dying, I know that I am almost lost.
On the table lies blank paper and my tower is built on stone;
I only have blunt scissors, I only have the bluntest home.

Sometimes you feel so far away,
distanced from all the action of the play,
unable to grasp significance,
marking the plot with diffident dismay,
stranded at center stage,
scrabbling through your diary for a lost page:
unsure of the dream.
Kicking a stone across the beach,
aching for love and comfort out of reach;
the way ahead seems to be so bleak,
there's no-one with any friendship left to speak
or show you any relation
between your present and future situations...
lost to the dream.

Away, away, away - look to the future day
for hope, some form of peace