A Plague Of Lighthouse Keepers (Medley) (2005 Digital Remaster) - Van Der Graaf Generator.mp3

[00:19.51]Still waiting for my saviour, storms tear me limb from limb;
[00:26.21]my fingers feel like seaweed, I'm so far out I'm too far in.
[00:38.99]I am a lonely man, my solitude is true,
[00:45.29]my eyes have borne stark witness
[00:48.58]and now my nights are numbered, too.
[00:57.74]I've seen the smiles on dead hands,
[01:03.74]the stars shine, but they're not for me.
[01:21.16]I prophesy disaster and then I count the cost...
[01:27.44]I shine but, shining, dying, I know that I am almost lost.
[01:39.54]On the table lies blank paper and my tower is built on stone;
[01:45.91]I only have blunt scissors, I only have the bluntest home.
[01:57.86]I've been the witnessand the seal of death
[02:03.71]lingers in the molten wax that is my head.
[02:15.21]When you see the skeletons
[02:17.13]of sailing-ship spars sinking low
[02:20.17]You'll begin to wonder if the points of all the ancients myths
[02:22.98]are solemnly directed straight at you...
[05:45.13]No time now for contrition, the time for that's long past,
[05:51.88]the walls are thin as tissue and if I talk I'll crack the glass.
[06:04.63]So I only think on how it might have been,
[06:11.14]locked in silent monologue, in silent scream.
[06:22.44]I am much too tired to speak
[06:23.73]and as the waves crash on the bleak
[06:26.75]stones of the towerI start to freak
[06:29.89]and find that I am overcome....
[07:00.77]"Unreal, unreal" ghost helmsmen scream and fall in through the sky,
[07:08.49]not breaking through my seagull shrieks -no breaks until I die.
[07:16.19]The spectres scratch on window-slits,
[07:19.58]the hollowed faces and mindless grins
[07:23.08]are only intent on destroying what they've lost.
[07:42.29]I crawl the wall till steepness ends in the vertical fall;
[07:49.80]my pail has sailed into the sea -no joking hopes at dawn.
[07:56.90]White bone shine in the iron-jaw mask,
[08:00.50]lost mastheads pierce the freezing dark
[08:03.74]and parallel my isolated tower...
[08:09.01]no paraffin for the flame,
[08:16.76]no harbour left to gain.
[09:02.55]'Alone, alone' the ghosts all call,
[09:09.19]pinpoint me in the light.
[09:16.08]The only life I feel at all
[09:22.16]is the presence of the night.
[10:39.48]Would you cry if I died?
[10:50.33]Would you catch the final words of mine?
[10:54.48]Would you catch my words?
[10:58.79]I know that there's no time,
[11:03.10]I know that there's no rhyme,
[11:05.48]false signs find me.
[11:06.72]I don't want to hate, I just want to grow;
[11:09.80]why can't I let me live and be free?
[11:12.35]...but I die very slowly alone.
[11:22.34]I know no more ways, I am so afraid,
[11:25.08]myself won't let me just be myself
[11:27.58]and so I am completely alone.
[13:23.67]The maelstrom of my memory
[13:27.53]is a vampire and it feeds on me;
[13:31.04]now, staggering madly, over the brink I fall.
[13:51.41]Lighthouses might house the key but can I reach the door?
[14:20.87]I want to walk on the sea so that I may better find a shore;
[14:40.46]but how can I ever keep my feet dry?
[14:48.22]I scan the horizon,
[14:52.00]I must keep my eyes on all parts of me.
[15:04.98]Looking back on the years it seems that I have lost my way:
[15:23.74]l Like a dog in the night I have run to a manger,
[15:28.65]now I am the stranger I stay in.
[15:36.22]Ah, well.
[15:43.31]All of the grief I have seen leaves me chasing solitary peace;
[16:02.96]But I hold experience in my head.
[16:09.81]I'm too close to the light,.
[16:13.80]I don't think I see right, for I blind me.
[16:41.34]Where is the God that guides my hand?
[16:43.24]How can the hands of others reach me?
[16:45.72]When will I find what I grope for?
[16:47.74]Who is going to teach me?
[16:50.16]I am me / me are we / we can't see
[16:51.69]any way out of here.
[16:53.25]Crashing sea, a trophied history:
[16:55.23]chance has lost my Guinevere...
[17:41.63]I don't want to be one wave in the water
[17:47.10]but sea will drag me deep:
[17:53.12]one more haggard drowned man.
[18:06.77]I can see the lemmings coming, but I know I'm just a man.
[18:12.43]Do I join or do I founder? Which can is the best I may?
[19:29.85]Oceans drifting sideways, I am pulled into the spell,
[19:39.17]I feel you around me, I know you well.
[19:48.19]Stars slice horizons where the lines stand much too stark;
[19:57.28]I feel I am drowning - hands stretch in the dark.
[20:24.46]Camps of panoply and majesty, what is Freedom of Choice?
[20:32.87]Where do I stand in the pageantry, whose is my voice?
[20:41.91]It doesn't feel so very bad now, I think the end is the start,
[20:50.13]begin to feel very glad now:
[20:54.19]All things are a part
[21:00.52]All things are apart
[21:06.86]All things are a part.