Van Der Graaf Generator - Pawn Hearts (1971)

Still waiting for my saviour
Storms tear me limb from limb
My fingers feel like seaweed
I'm so far out, I'm too far in

I am a lonely man, my solitude is true
My eyes have borne stark witness
And now my knights are numbered too

I've seen the smiles on dead hands...
The stars shine, but they're not for me.

I prophesy disaster and then I count the cost
I shine but, shining, dying
I know that I am almost lost

On the table lies blank paper

My tower is built on stone
I only have blunt scissors

I only have the bluntest home

I've been the witness, and the seal of death
Lingers in the molten wax that is my head

When you see the skeletons of sailing-ship spars sinking low
You'll begin to wonder if the points of all the ancient myths
are solemnly directed straight at you...

No time now for contrition:
The time for that's long past
The walls are thin as tissue
And if I talk I'll crack

the glass.

So I only think on how it might have been,
locked in silent monologue, in silent scream

Anyway, I'm much too tired to speak
And, as the waves crash on the bleak
Stones of the tower, I start to freak
And find that I am overcome

'Unreal, unreal!' ghost helmsmen scream
And fall in through the sky
Not breaking through my seagull shrieks
No breaks until I die

The spectres scratch on window slits
Hollowed faces and mindless grins
Only intent on destroying what they've lost

I claw the wall till steepness ends in the vertical fall
My pail has sailed into the sea

No joking hopes at dawn
White bone shine in the iron-jaw mask
Lost mastheads pierce the freezing dark
And parallel my isolated tower
No paraffin for the flame
No harbour left to gain

'Alone, alone', the ghosts all call
Pinpoint me in the light
The only life I feel at all
Is the presence of the night

Would you cry if I died?
Would you cry if I died?

Would you catch the final words of mine?
Would you catch my words?

I know that there's no time
I know that there's no rhyme
False signs find me
I don't want to hate
I just want to grow
Why can't I let me live and be free?

But I die very slowly alone

I know no more ways
I am so afraid
Myself won't let me

Just be myself and so I am completely alone

The maelstrom of my memory
Is a vampire and it feeds on me
Now, staggering madly, over the brink I fall

Lighthouses might house the key
But can I reach the door?

I want to walk on the sea
So that I may better find a shore
But how can I ever keep my feet dry?
I scan the horizon
I must keep my eyes on all parts of me

Looking back on the years
it seems that I have lost my way:
Like a dog in the night, I have run to a manger
Now I am the stranger I stay in.

All of the grief I have seen
Leaves me chasing solitary peace
But I hold experience in my head
I'm too close to the light
I don't think I see right

For I blind me

Where is the God that guides my hand?

How can the hands of others reach me?
When will I find what I grope for?
Who is going to teach me?
I am me, me are we, we can't see
Any way out of here.
Crashing sea, atrophied history
Chance has lost my Guinevere

I don't want to be one wave in the water
But sea will drag me deep
One more haggard drowned man

I can see the lemmings coming, but I know I'm just a man
Do I join or do I founder? Which can is the best I may?

Oceans drifting sideways

I am pulled into the spell
I feel you around me

I know you well
Stars slice horizons

Where the lines stand much too stark
I feel I am drowning

Hands stretch in the dark

Camps of panoply and majesty

What is Freedom of Choice?
Where do I stand in the pageantry?

Whose is my voice?
It doesn't feel so very bad now

I think the end is the start
Begin to feel very glad now
All things are a part
All things are apart
All things are a part

I stood alone upon the highest cliff-top
Looked down, around, and all that I could see
Were those that I would dearly love to share with
Crashing on quite blindly to the sea

I tried to ask what game this was
But knew I would not play it
The voice, as one, as no-one, came to me

We have looked upon the heroes
And they are found wanting
We have looked hard across the land
But we can see no dawn
We have now dared to sear the sky
But we are still bleeding
We are drawing near to the cliffs
Now we can hear the call

The clouds are piled in mountain-shapes
There is no escape except to go forward
Don't ask us for an answer now
It's far too late to bow to that convention

What course is there left but to die?

We have looked upon the high kings
Found them less than mortals
Their names are dust before the just
March of our young, new law
Minds stumbling strong, we hurtle on
Into the dark portal
No-one can halt our final vault
Into the unknown maw

And as the elders beat their brows
They know that it's really far too late now
To stop us
For if the sky is seeded death
What is the point in catching breath?
Expel it

What cause is there left but to die?
In searching of something we're not quite sure of?

What cause is there left but to die?
What cause is there left but to die?
What cause is there left but to die?
I really don't know why

I know our ends may be soon
But why do you make them sooner?
Time may finally prove
Only the living move her and
No life lies in the quicksand

Yes, I know it's
Out of control, out of control
Greasy machinery slides on the rails
Young minds and bodies on steel spokes impaled

Cogs tearing bones, cogs tearing bones
Iron-throated monsters are forcing the screams
Mind and machinery box-press our dreams

But there still is time

Cowards are they who run today
The fight is beginning
No war with knives, fight with our lives
Lemmings can teach nothing
Death offers no hope, we must grope
For the unknown answer
Unite our blood, abate the flood
Avert the disaster

There's other ways than screaming in the mob
That makes us merely cogs of hatred
Look to the why and where we are
Look to yourselves and the stars and in the end

What choice is there left but to live?
In the hope of saving
Our children's children's little ones?

What choice is there left but to live?
What choice is there left but to live?
What choice is there left but to live?
To save the little ones?

What choice is there left but to try?
What choice is there left but to try?
What choice is there left but to try?
Try

The killer lives inside me: yes, I can feel him move
Sometimes he's lightly sleeping
In the quiet of his room
But then his eyes will rise and stare through mine;
He'll speak my words and slice my mind inside
Yes the killer lives
Angels live inside me: I can feel them smile...
Their presence strokes
And soothes the tempest in my mind
And their love can heal the wounds
That I have wrought
They watch me as I go to fall -

well, I know I shall be caught
While the angels live

How can I be free?
How can I get help?
Am I really me?
Am I someone else?

But stalking in my cloisters hang the acolytes
Of gloom
And Death's Head throws his cloak into
The corner of my room
And I am doomed...
But laughing in my courtyard play the pranksters
Of my youth
And solemn, waiting Old Man
In the gables of the roof:
He tells me truth...

And I too, live inside me and very often
Don't know who I am
I know I'm not a hero, but
I hope that I'm not damned:
I'm just a man, and killers, angels
All are me:
Dictators, saviours, refugees in war and peace
As long as Man lives...

I'm just a man, and killers, angels
All are me:
Dictators, saviours, refugees...