The State We're In

From Sole to Rockall, North Utsire, Viking, Thames and Wight

We sense the warnings in our sleep and toss on waves of night

The lighthouse-keeper's heading home, he says his work is done

"I've tried my best to help you now I need my wife and son"

Morning comes to find us safe beneath the sheet

Slowly to our feet, day dawning

Night has slipped away and left a shattered dream

Glimpse behind the screen, fair warning!

We stumble through the working day, grasp at some relief

Scattered pieces from the dream creep at us like a thief

Jigsaw puzzle taking shape the heart begins to race

As one-by-one delusions fade we glimpse our own true face

Morning comes to find us safe beneath the sheet

Slowly to our feet, day dawning

Night has slipped away and left a shattered dream

Glimpse behind the screen, fair warning!

The news comes on the bank has failed. They're leaping from the roof

The ice-cap melts the polar bear's not looking for more proof

Small-time operator steps from the train, 

Car radio sings of Janice in pain

Do you like soul music?  Was her innocent start

As she wove her spell into his heart

Isis smiled and took my hand, floated gently ‘cross the sand

God only knows where she flew or what she knew

She was old beyond her years -- child in time transcending fear

Ghost made flesh a split in time, a sirens rhyme

Discharging debt ... Fiona forgets

Small Faces are playing, small hearts are on fire

It’s the summer of love and desire

Would he meet her at midnight? She spelled out her plot

She lived for the moment ... Fiona forgot

The fields are stubbled brown now, the sky an eiderdown

She slumbers in the warm soft earth uncrowned

The crowds have left, their ice-cream faces washed by gentle rain

The plough ensures no traces will remain

We always seem surprised now, though we've passed this way before

Recycled by the glass revolving door

The journey done, the bags unpacked, we wither in relief

As history hurries past us like a thief

In our train we rumble on -- the timeless unaware

The sad abandoned simply sit and stare

Through the sweet and bitter fruit

Our golden voices mute -- after the harvest

My head is stubbled-brown now, my face a puzzled frown

As Pablo paints the world turned upside-down

The talking shop is closing-down, there's nothing left to say

We meet in silence on this harvest day

In our train we rumble on -- the timeless unaware

The sad abandoned simply sit and stare

Through the sweet and bitter fruit

Our golden voices mute -- after the harvest

This almost feels like peace

the dogs have calmed down there's a sense of relief

This almost feels like now

the ghosts of the past have forgotten their row

Just a sip or two

the taste is so sweet and the sky so blue

Past is slipping away

now it seems like a bright new day

Stay, stay, stop rushing away

Memory swells like tide on shells to the shore of another lost day

There's a clock ahead

ticking its way to half-past dead

Now the plot is lost

a soul is sold whatever the cost

Stay, stay, stop rushing away

Memory swells like tide on shells to the shore of another lost day

This almost feels like peace

the dogs have calmed down there's a sense of relief

In the dawning light

lunacy fades like a ghost in the night

An ordinary day -- almost at the edge of England

Nothing to say -- it looks like rain again

Promises were made -- almost living in a letter

Were debts unpaid? Sealed with a lover's kiss

I could almost understand it, I could almost kiss the sky

I could almost net and land it -- if only I knew why ...

Beat the retreat it's half-past England

Tell the drummer that it's almost summer

An ordinary war -- almost meant the end of England

Play on the shore -- our past is buried there

I could almost understand it, I could almost kiss the sky

I could almost net and land it -- if only I knew why ...

Beat the retreat it's half-past England

Tell the drummer that it's almost summer

Echoes of the past -- gunshot to the future

Life changes so fast -- why waste it with regret?

I’m running backwards, stuck in slow-motion, trying to fix the past

I check my journal, my golden compass; it seems the die is cast

I tried to change, access the damage, where I was first I’d be last

Can the damage that we’ve done be reversed by this new phenomenon?

This golden compass can split the smallest part

As time flies back and forth the end becomes the start

When I get there, if I get there, I will change my lines

I’ll say the words that you longed to hear back when my poor heart declined

Can the damage that we’ve done be reversed by this new phenomenon?

This golden compass can split the smallest part

As time flies back and forth the end becomes the start

Sleep soundly now for in the morning there’s a choice to make

Consider wisely, don’t trust opinion, bind your heart to Heaven’s gate

Can the damage that we’ve done be reversed by this new phenomenon?

This golden compass can split the smallest part

As time flies back and forth the end becomes the start

This golden compass, this universal law may give us wings to fly through time 

Or disappear forever more ...

We watch and we wait in the star-spangled night

We collect and collate -- every flash, every sight

The dreams that we share, all the hope, all the fear

We contrast and compare through the dense atmosphere

Until time and space have passed over us

In walls of gold our tomb grows cold

We cannot kno -- nor such secrets discuss

Shape-shift paradigm -- we become the texture of time

Angels of providence on their eternal guard 

Forgive us our innocence, our craven reward

While his watch-friends seek out the last moment he missed

He destroys it with doubt, joy flies to be kissed

On and on -- see how we try, heart to heart -- hear how we sigh

One by one, we hear the call, gracefully we rise and we fall

Impatiently we seek the answer that will speak our name

Courageously we search this bruised and battered earth

To fine that special place -- gravity and grace

Ticking clock -- counts up the years, beating heart -- revealing the fears

Day by day, reaching so high, gravity -- we want to deny

Relentlessly we try to keep our fragile dream alive

So perfectly perceived but are we just deceived?

To finally embrace -- gravity and grace

Bells rang out our freedom chime, our goal beyond both space and time

We gathered close in silent prayer and counted breaths of potent air

We built this earthly paradise

But paid the ransom beyond price -- the sacrifice

The choir's slightly out-of-tune. The finger's now become the moon

Our proud conviction starts to shake, we sense the choice -- sleep or awake

We built this earthly paradise

But paid the ransom beyond price -- the sacrifice

To friends we've lost beyond the way who'd finally seen the light

That silver crack through which we see through views both wrong and right

We ask for their forgiveness though we can't see what we've done

The price is paid the bets are laid the sacrifice begun ...

Our heads are bent our hands are tied. Our words like pebbles on the tide

Our loving hearts now run with ice as we prepare the sacrifice

Is there anybody out there could put a name to this?

We've been going 'round in circles, what's your analysis? 

Is there an explaination, is there a clue

Is there someone who can tell us what to do

Is there a reason, is there a fix

that special something we can add to the mix?

Cause we're heading into winter, another three-day week

Bills have come, we've had our fun

the future's looking bleak

No angel at my table can wash away the sin -- the state we're in

We've been bitten by the black dog on the hand of trust

All promises protected, all pledges turned to dust

Is there a soft solution, who will concede?

Is there some retribution matching the greed?

The past repeats itself, that's no surprise

The innocent must suffer while the rest hypothesise

Cause we're heading into winter, another three-day week

Bills have come, we've had our fun

the future's looking bleak

No angel at my table can wash away the sin -- the state we're in