1982

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?

You know that she's got something she wants to give;
hard to tell if it's of spirit or the life she lives...
maybe somewhere between the two.
Oh, the waiting to see what it is!

The energy donor, looking over her shoulder,
she sees it all, she sees it slipping away.
There's a backbone shiver for the energy giver...
she wraps it up, and that's a final wrap for today.

Some things she'll soon learn to live without,
while others she's not secure enough to doubt.
It'll be hard to stay so close
when all that special emptiness floods out.

At the edge of the canyon,
looking down upon the haze...
which hides the future of this planet,
home, our earth through all the days
which have been and will come.
I hear the running feet of those yet to follow.

At the end of such life as I call my own
I glimpse that yet to come;
springing from me in the future
trees of family shall run.
I have carried the seed:
conceived from me, all people multiply forward.

When it's over they will dig me from the gorge
and proclaim that I am the first Man:
first soldier, first speaker, first tool-user,

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

Fight within a war within a song:
Roland dies, but memory lingers on....

Soldier, approaching the Gates of Spain,
treachery waits for you and the baggage train;
a rearguard stand, your final war, it's what you've been living for.

Soldier, as you sit astride Viellantif
Durendal abides inside your sheath; soon you shall grace the day.
Turpin and Oliver ride by your side,
bishop and king's pawn about to slide; do you feel fit to slay?

Carlon is riding far ahead
and cannot hear your voice if you call;
Ganelon, the traitor, in his tent

1. The Liquidator
2. Rift Valley (Hammil, Jackson, Evans)
3. Tarzan (Hammil, Jackson, Evans, Banton)
4. Coil Night
5. Time Vaults (miscellaneous)
6. Drift (Banton)
7. Roncevaux
8. It All Went Red
9. Faint and Forsaken
10. Black Room

A collection of unreleased recordings from the 1971-1975:
"Anti-compilation" - the 'lost' VdGG period between Pawn Hearts and Godbluff., according to http://www.vandergraafgenerator.co.uk

All lyrics by Peter Hammill
All songs written by Peter Hammill, except where indicated

Peter Hammill - vocals, guitars, keyboards
Guy Evans - drums

First published in Great Britain in 1982 by Sofa Sound

© Peter Hammill 1982

All lyrics printed by kind permission. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

'The Black Hole' first appeared, translated into Dutch, in Ohr magazine, December 1980.

Photograph Anton Corbijn

Typeset by Quadraset Ltd., Combe End, Radstock, Bath, Avon.

Printed by The Fairwood Press, Dilton Marsh, Westbury, Wiltshire.

Contents:

INTRODUCTION

LYRICS
'This Will Never Come Again'
La Rossa

Well, it must have been here somewhere,
that which the culture highly prized:
the list of ancient buildings,
the attitude of mind,
the wisdom of the prophets,
the catalogue of books....
You can't get off it,
you don't know where to look.
I know you don't know what to say
and it's strange now, see how
everything's changed,
including the Seven Wonders.
Nothing is permanent here.

New kick, new game, new theory,
the rest reduced to nought:
it only takes a moment,
one clear and lucid thought.
Once the process has been triggered
all previous process disappears....

Fuelled by alcohol,
shooting out words like a rocket,
like a prophet out of Babylon
method acting the absurd....
Shoot me those highballs
till I'm lit up like I'm plugged in a socket;
lock me eyeball to eyeball,
let's not bother with the words.
Oh, bring on the clowns, bring on the night,
pour me double vision in black and white.
I'm falling, falling - don't give me that look!
I'm falling, falling, it's the oldest trick in the book,
My chickadee, my passion flower,
show me the way to the Happy Hour.

I don't like to see that:

You know that she's got something she wants to give;
hard to tell if it's of spirit or the life she lives...
maybe somewhere between the two.
Oh, the waiting to see what it is!

The energy donor, looking over her shoulder,
she sees it all, she sees it slipping away.
There's a backbone shiver for the energy giver...
she wraps it up, and that's a final wrap for today.

Some things she'll soon learn to live without,
while others she's not secure enough to doubt.
It'll be hard to stay so close
when all that special emptiness floods out.