1979

Peter Hammill and Graham Smith
Excerpt from the live performance, which was shown in French TV music program "Chorus", broadcast 24.06.1979

From TheHammond1986 on YouTube

Peter Hammill sings on a couple of songs on Robert Fripp's Exposure

Hope by and by, hope by and by -
motes in the eye, portcullis is shut...
a skull isn't much
of a castle to live in
when the change is going to come,
the change has got to come.

Explosions in the brain attest to it.
evolution down the drain - let all the rest do it.

Oh yeah, the only result
is cumulative drek.
It won't be the drug,
it won't be the sex,
it's got to be the Faculty X

Looking for a method, I play a straight bat,
throw away the chances to slip.
Yeah, you talk about the average -
I don't care about that

Me holidays on the Southern Sands,
trying to get some fun by way of one night stands...
I clocked this girl, thought l'd give her the chat -
one of them Swedish blonde types
and l've always fancied that.
I showed her me Polaroid.

She said "I like it, will you
please take my picture?"
I say "Right then", thinking
this is gonna be me lucky day.
She whips off her bikini top
and I think "OK!"

I say "It only takes a minute
for this thing to develop."
She says "I'd better push off now
or me feller'll be jealous."
Just then I felt a hand on me collar,

Oh the bright young men in their tight-buttoned suits:
the light beams out from capped smiles to the shines
on their lick-spittle books.
Oh these sharp young sparks with their fresh rosettes -
yeh, the artful way that they promise the earth
to all suffragettes.
What they won't promise we don't know yet.
They say they're build - and shaping society
but we know they're just saving for their own
safe home in politics.
Anything goes: look at them run.

Come from every side, noses Pinocchio clean;
lock in synchromesh, oil the wheels and the gears
of the party machine

All men are born equal at the moment they arrive:
check the limbs and senses we require to survive.
But some come deaf and dumb and blinded,
some have damage to their brains;
parents constantly reminded that they'll never play
the normal children's games.
They may not be normal,
but they're people just the same.

If Christ had been born defective
to fulfil the Father's plan
would he be as easily accepted
as God made man
or does the human value alter
in the crippled human frame?
Though the tongue and fingers falter
must we shut them out and shut them up,

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 such a creep.

And now I'm standing in the corner,
looking at the room and the furniture
in cheap imitation of alienation and grief.

Won't hear a sound at Porton Down,
the clear liquids keep their silence,
buried underground at Porton Down
the fast form of the final violence.

Quite right to be worried about the proliferation
of nuclear bombs and power stations,
but there's a deterrent that's going to
unearth us yet...

Hurry on round about Porton Down,
a quick glimpse of the future warfare
hidden under ground at Porton Down;
far too frightening to utter what you saw there.

They got bacteria to drop us where we stand,
they got diseases still unknown to man,

I don't know, can't you see
I'm just passing through, fast as you -
don't ask me.

Careering out of control
disappearing down the black hole,
careering - the white man's soul
stands stark naked in the floodlight glare,
stands stark raving on the strap.
I've had the feeling that I've been there
but I can't quite believe it.

I don't know, can't you see
I'm just passing through, fast as you
so don't ask me.

Careering, simply day to day,
engineering everything I say,
careering for the work and the pay.
I'm just a passenger passing through,

Time for a change:
I felt bad, things looked strange.
Home, home on the range...
yes, it's time for a change.

"Well, young man, when you grow up
what do you want to be?"
"Please, sir, if that's alright
I'd really rather like to learn how to be me."

Switch on the light,
getting late, almost night.
A shilling puts you right,
you can switch off the night.

The world was looking stretched and tight,
it's an overblown balloon.
I've got the feeling something big
has got to happen soon.

Oh, time for a change,
out of reach, out of range.