LYRICS
STARRY SKIES
You were running from, not to
When you wrote all those billets doux
I don’t know but I can guess
How you might charm your way into that mess
And I can picture you
Just waving every notion through
Laying in ten years of clover:
Were you fairly sure your game was over then?
What left your eyes?
Was there no joy for you
In starry skies?
If not I guess you’d just as well be hanged
For a sheep as for a lamb;
There should be another word
For why you bore the cost you had incurred;
Sometimes reduced to kneeling,
Shoring up a massive ceiling;
How soon down the line, I wonder
Did you know you’d never get from under there?
What left your eyes?
Was there no joy for you
In starry skies?
And now I speculate without a clue
On what it felt like being you.
How far do our hearts compare?
However different, is it fair
To blame a boy
Because he sees the joy
In starry skies?
SABBATH CHILD
Sometimes your lungs will burn and ache;
It seems the Lord your soul must take.
Turned on your side, you quake and cough;
Another bout will surely carry you off.
Beside your bed I wait all night;
My head is bowed, my throat is tight.
Did I bequeath to you this bane?
Woe to the man who'd bring you life in vain.
For the child that is born on the Sabbath day
Is sick and slight and sad and grey.
I will not face the word ‘goodbye’
While keeping your covers warm and dry
And from my fearful heart is wrung
Prayer without words, and a hope that has no tongue
For the child that is born on the Sabbath day
Is sick and slight and sad and grey.
THE SCREW THAT HOLDS THE PLATE
Mine is the conscripted hand that tightens up the screw
That holds the plate that shields the bolts that keep the wheel true.
This undercarriage overhauled, the ‘plane can make its flight
And my conscripted hand ensures a city’s fed tonight.
Never well-regarded, just an errand-boy at school
Then I became the tea-boy for an office typing-pool
‘Til O.H.M.S. beckoned through the letter-box, and how:
How everyone at home would gape to see the tea-boy now,
‘Cause mine is the conscripted hand that tightens up the screw
That holds the plate that shields the bolts that keep the wheel true.
This undercarriage overhauled, the ‘plane can make its flight
And my conscripted hand ensures a city’s fed tonight.
I might live to ripe old age, I may achieve some fame
Or I may found a dynasty upon my blameless name;
I may perform some epic deeds for future troubadours
But I already play a role to make you question yours,
‘Cause mine is the conscripted hand that tightens up the screw
That holds the plate that shields the bolts that keep the wheel true.
This undercarriage overhauled, the ‘plane can make its flight
And my conscripted hand ensures a city’s fed tonight.
Yes, my conscripted hand ensures Berlin is fed tonight.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Melody :- traditional
Arrangement & lyrics:- Cromford
TEN WORDS
After the match, as the evening mist fell
You shared his sandwich on the walk back to town.
Both smiling, both having plenty to tell;
Two skinny children with ten words in common.
Who won the game if someone burst the ball then?
Who then? Who then?
Five years ago you’d have shot him on sight;
Next year he’ll leave you and be just as dead.
So watch the match, belt his greatcoat on tight;
You mark the touchline and he’s your defender.
Who won the game if someone burst the ball then?
Who then? Who then?
Ten words or less, to say he’d return;
Ten words or less, you’ll murmur forever.
SHE FADED
So her home town
And her kindred
And her motherland
All faded and faded
In a half-world
Full of half-lives
Though he clung to her
She faded and faded
Just died away season by season
Lost out to reason
And that grey road.
As the weeks dragged
And the months passed
And the years flew
She faded and faded
Just died away season by season
Lost out to reason
And that grey road.
Did he dare fight?
Did he question?
Did he wonder if
She waited and faded?
GLIDING THROUGH
See: there’s a big house in the gloaming
See how the vacant windows stare
Now wonder at the kind of people coming
To settle there.
See: there’s a cardboard suitcase open
See a cut-price suit hangs on the door
Now meet the owner of these things, who’s hoping
For so much more.
Come on come on, old man
And throw your shutters wide old man
And stoke those fires inside old man
And by your grace I’m gliding through.
See: there’s a big house in the gloaming
See how the upper windows glow
Now hear a fateful fearful storm-force warning
And feel it blow.
Come on come on, old man
And throw your shutters wide old man
And stoke those fires inside old man
And by your grace I’m gliding through.
Look out, look out old man
Be wary of your bride old man
It’s still not cut and dried, but man!
It will be when I’m gliding through.
PENCILS AT THE READY
The first is in PERFECTLY
The second in PLAIN
The third is in FATUOUS, never in SANE.
The fourth’s in MALEVOLENT
And not in BENIGN
The fifth is in SATURDAYS
One of them mine.
Figure out the characters herein intertwined;
O who am I, and what’s the number you will find?
The sixth is in NO-MAN’S LAND
That unpounded beat
The seventh’s in GUNNERY
Not in RETREAT.
The eighth is within ITSELF
The ninth in SINCERE
The same can be said of ten
Often this year.
Figure out the characters herein intertwined;
O who am I, and what’s the number you will find?
… what will you find?
… what will you find?
CRADLE ME
Give me softness, give me quiet, cradle me;
Tired of harshness, let me lie at your side.
When there’s a thunderstorm raging
And nothing’s assuaging the gales;
When all the fences are creaking
And mad with the shrieking of nails;
Then I’m needing you to
Give me softness, give me quiet, cradle me;
Tired of harshness, let me lie at your side.
We live bedevilled by ogres
Monsters and bogus delights;
We need to trust every sunset
Will see everyone set to rights;
So I’m needing you to
Give me softness, give me quiet, cradle me.
While there’s a DEW-line around us
And enemies hound us for sport;
While there’s a world in the balance
And peace-making talents are short;
Then I’m needing you to
Give me softness, give me quiet, cradle me.
Cradle me.
TRANSPORTED
Time for love to carry you off your feet
Time to taste the finest things to eat
Understanding one word in every ten
Ignorance has blissed you out once again
Wound up like a music box before you so much as step outside
Bells are ringing in the most unlikely of places as you ride
Towers dance around each other on a straight line outward and returning
Magic never seemed so rife nor you ever so discerning
Time for life to flash its teeth in a grin
Time to have your cake and cram it in
Walking up and down and a-waving your hands
Bliss has kissed your senses, rapture commands
Wound up like a music box before you so much as step outside
Bells are ringing in the most unlikely of places as you ride
Towers dance around each other on a straight line outward and returning
Magic never seemed so rife nor you ever so discerning
And yearning
To hail every morning
And with each new dawning
A hunger for learning
Wound up like a music box before you so much as step outside
Bells are ringing in the most unlikely of places as you ride
Towers dance around each other on a straight line outward and returning
Magic never seemed so rife nor you ever so discerning.
HOME AT NUMBER NINE
Hanging up the ‘phone
Turn away from the parade
Wandering back to our sweet home at number nine.
Then we fed the fire
With the sketches I had made
Keep me occupied re-drawing every line.
Home at number nine is the only game in town as far as I can see;
Everything is mine, from the disused rooms out to the barren apple-tree.
Pass the railway bridge
On an evening ‘bus from town
Kicking heels to reach our home at number nine.
Then the feathers flew
With another law laid down
Keep me occupied re-toeing every line.
Home at number nine is the only game in town as far as I can see;
Everything is mine, from the disused rooms out to the barren apple-tree.
Anything at all
Feeds my memory at play
For a dream of our sweet home at number nine.
Recollections slip
Nothing stays as it would lay
Keep me occupied re-thinking every line.
EARTH FALLS AWAY
Chains of aprons lead us gently down to sea
Every one a dance-floor
No matter what we dance for.
Hesitantly and with shyness we beseech
Can we feel lighter
On tip-toe, springing wider?
Earth falls away
In the broad day
All around us.
See the Earth falls away
In the broad day
All around us.
Escher-lating turns of stone for tumbling down
In a dream recurring
Forgetting we were soaring.
Shoes with ideas of their own bestride the ground
Seven leagues in each tread
For dreamers far from their bed.
Earth falls away
In the broad day
All around us.
See the Earth falls away
In the broad day
All around us.
DOWN YOUR WAY
Grainy in the half-light, there’s an outside after all
It’s that or stare another day at patterns on my wall
Just as safe to walk but I feel better if I crawl
Getting down your way.
Hot enough for summer, or my calendar is skewed
So my flank is basted and my silverside is stewed
Heaving on an empty stomach, gag on thoughts of food
Going down your way.
Too early for the ‘buses, not that they will run today
Dustmen haul the chimney-sweeps away
Coalmen line the pavements, very still, not much to say
This is down your way.
Down our way, we never thought those angel horns would cry
We’d clench our teeth and lie
Down your way.
There’s no-one cranking up the cars, there’s no-one stopping trains
Music on the wireless with ominous refrains
Menace moves the motor-scooters, peril points the ‘planes
Now we’re down your way.
I see my neighbour’s house wide open, china full of dirt
Bulldog on a hunger-fuelled alert
The woman cries and topples from her back-step, sits inert
Going down your way.
Down our way, we never thought those angel horns would cry
We’d clench our teeth and lie
Down your way.
Ants will take the orchard, floating fish will choke the roads
Thoroughfares be covered by a plague of frogs and toads
Sing Hey-Ho, that your silos and their nasty little loads
Brought us down your way.
Down our way, we never thought those angel horns would cry
We’d clench our teeth and lie
Down your way.