Van Der Graaf Generator - Still Life (1976)

Existence is a stage on which we pass
A sleepwalk trick for mind and heart;
It's hopeless, I know, but onward I must go
And try to make a start
At seeing something more
Than day to day survival, chased by final death
If I believed this the sum of the life to which we've come
I wouldn't waste my breath
Somehow, there must be more

There was a time when more was felt than known
But now, entrenched inside my sett
In light more mundane, thought rattles round my brain:
We live, we die...and yet?

In the beginning there was order and destiny
But now that path has reached the border
And on our knees is no way to face the future, whatever it be
Though the forces which hold us in place
Last through eons in unruffled grace
We, too, wear the face of creation

As anti-matter sucks and pulses periodically
The bud unfolds, the bloom is dead, all space is living history
It seems as though time must betray us yet we're alive
And though I see no God to save us, still we survive
Through the centuries of progress
Which don't get us very far
All illusion! All is bogus...
We don't yet know what we are

Laughing, hoping, praying, joking, Son of Man
With lowered eyes but lifting hearts, we're grains of sand
And though, in time, the sea may claim us for its own
We are the rocks which root the future - on us it grows!
We might not be there to share it
If eternity's a jest but I think that I can bear it
If the next life is the best

Even if there is a heaven when we die
Endless bliss would be as meaningless as the lie
That always comes as answer to the question
"Why do we see through the eyes of creation?"

Adrift without a course
It's very lonely here
Our only conjecture
What lies behind the dark
Still, I find I can cling to a lifeline
Think of a lifetime which means more than my own one
Dreams of a grander thing than we are
Time and Space hang heavy on my shoulders...
When all life is over who can say
No mutated force shall remain?

Though the towers of the city are denied to we men of clay
Still we know we shall scale the heights some day
Frightened in the silence, frightened, but thinking very hard
Let us make computations of the stars

Older, wiser, sadder, blinder, watch us run:
Faster, longer, harder, stronger, now it comes...
Colour blisters, image splinters gravitate
Towards the centre, in final splendour disintegrate
The universe now beckons
And Man, too, must take His place;
Just a few last fleeting seconds
To wander in the waste
And the children who were ourselves move on
Reincarnation stills its now perfected song
And at last we are free of the bonds of creation

All the jokers and gaolers, all the junkies and slavers too
All the throng who have danced a merry tune...
Human we can all be, but Humanity we must rise above
In the name of all faith and hope and love
There's a time for all pilgrims, and a time for the fakers too
There's a time when we all will stand alone and nude
Naked to the galaxies...naked, but clothed in the overview:
As we reach Childhood's End we must start anew

And though dark is the highway
And the peak's distance breaks my heart
For I never shall see it, still I play my part
Believing that what waits for us
Is the cosmos compared to the dust of the past

In the death of mere Humans Life shall start!

Lacking sleep and food and vision
Here I am again, encamped upon your floor
Craving sanctuary and nourishment
Encouragement and sanctity and more
The streets seemed very crowded, I put on my bravest guise -
I know you know that I am acting, I can see it in your eyes

In the harsh light of freedom I know that I cannot deny
That I have wasted time, have frittered it away in idle boasts
Of my freedom and fidelity when simpler words
Would have profited me most
It isn't enough in the end, when I'm looking for hope

Though the organ monkey screams
As the pipes begin to spit
Still he'll go through the dance routines
Just as long as he thinks they'll fit
Just as long as he knows that it's dance, smile...or quit

Like the monkey I dance to a strange tune
When all of these years I've longed to lie with you
But have bogged myself down in the web of talk
Quack philosophy and sophistry
At physicality I've always baulked
Like the man in the chair who believes it's beyond him to walk
I've been hiding behind words, fearing a deeper flame exists
Faintly aware of the passage of opportunities I have missed

But the nearness and the smell of you
La Rossa from head to toe....
I don't know what I'm telling you
But I think you ought to know:
Soon the dam wall will break, soon the water will flow
Though the organ-monkey groans
As the organ-grinder plays
He's hoping, at the most
For an end to his dancing days
Still he hops up and down on his perch
In the usual jerky way...
Though this might mean an end to all friendship
There's something I'm working up to say

Think of me what you will:
I know that you think you feel my pain--
No matter if that's just the surface
If we made love now would that change all that has gone before?
Of course it would, there's no way it could ever be the same...
One more line crossed, one more mystery explained

Now I need more than just words
Though the options are plain
That lead from all momentary action
If we make love now it will change all that is yet to be...
Never could we agree in the same way again
One more world lost, one more heaven gained

La Rossa, you kow me, you read me as though I am glass;
Though I know it there's no no way in which I can pass...
Though it means that you'll finish my story
At last I'd trade all the clever talk, the joking, the smoking
And the quips, all the midnight conversations, all the friendship
All the words and all the trips
For the warmth of your body
The more vivid touch of your lips

All bridges burning behind me
All safety beyond reach...
The monkey feels his chains out blindly
Only to find himself released

Take me, take me now and hold me
Deep inside your ocean body
Wash me as some flotsam to the shore
There leave me lying evermore!
Drown me, drown me now and hold me down
Before your naked hunger
Burn me at the altar of the night -
Give me life!

Searching for diamonds in the sulphur mine
Leaning on props that are rotten
Hoping for anything, looking for a sign
That I am not forgotten;
Lost in a labyrinth of future mystery
Tracing my steps, all mistaken
Trusting to everything, praying it can be
That I am not forsaken
I wait by the door
Wondering when you will come and keep me warm
I pray for the end of the night
Hoping the light will still the storm
Which presently entraps me:
Helpless sea-monster stranded on the shore
Marooned in an ecstasy of waiting
I yearn, although knowing that I shall dive no more
In the tide already racing

My lungs burst to cry:
"Finally how could you leave me here to die?"
I freeze in the chill of this place
With no friendly face to smile goodbye…
How could you let it happen?

How could you let it happen?
Dreams, hopes and promises, fragments out of time
All of these things have been spoken
Still you don't understand how it feels when I'm
Waiting for them to be broken

Sometimes you feel so far away
Distanced from all the action of the play
Unable to grasp significance
Marking the plot with diffident dismay
Stranded at centre stage
Scrabbling through your diary for a lost page:
Unsure of the dream
Kicking a stone across the beach
Aching for love and comfort out of reach;
The way ahead seems to be so bleak
There's no-one with any friendship left to speak
Or show you any relation
Between your present and future situations...
Lost to the dream

Away, away, away - look to the future day
For hope, some form of peace
Within the growing storm

I climb through the evening, alive and believing
In time we shall all know our goals and so, finally, home;
For now, all is secret - though how could I speak it
Allow me the dream in my eye!
I've been waiting for such a long time
Just to see it at last
All of the hands tightly clasped
All of us pilgrims

Walking in silence down the coast
Merely to journey - here hope is the most
Merely to know there is an end;
All of us - lovers, brothers, sisters, friends
Hand in hand...
Shining footprints on the wet sand
Lead to the dream

The time has come, the tide has almost run
And drained the deep:
I rise from lifelong sleep

It seems such a long time I've dreamed -
But now, awake, I can see
We are pilgrims and so must walk this road
Unknown in our purpose, alone, but not worthless
And home ever calling us on
We've been waiting here for so long
All of our hands joined in hope
Holding the weight on the rope -
All of us pilgrims

Citadel reverberates to a thousand voices, now dumb:
What have we become? What have we chosen to be?
Now, all history is reduced to the syllables of our name -
Nothing can ever be the same now the Immortals are here
At the time, it seemed a reasonable course
To harness all the force of life without the threat of death
But soon we found
That boredom and inertia are not negatives
But all the law we know
And dead are Will and words like survival

Arrival at immunity from all age, all fear and all end....
Why do I pretend? Our essence is distilled
And all familiar taste is now drained
And though purity is maintained it leaves us sterile
Living through the millions of years
A laugh as close as any tear....
Living, if you claim that all that entails is
Breathing, eating, defecating, screwing, drinking
Spewing, sleeping, sinking ever down and down
And ultimately passing away time
Which no longer has any meaning

Take away the threat of death
And all you're left with is a round of make-believe;
Marshal every sullen breath
And though you're ultimately bored by endless ecstasy
That's still the ring by which you hope to be engaged
To marry the girl who will give you forever -
That's crazy, and plainly
It simply is not enough

What is the dullest and bluntest of pains
Such that my eyes never close without feeling it there?
What abject despair demands an end to all things of infinity?
If we have gained, how do we now meet the cost?
What have we bargained, and what have we lost?
What have we relinquished, never even knowing it was there?

What chance now of holding fast the line
Defying death and time
When everything we had is gone?
Everything we laboured for and favoured more
Than earthly things reveals the hollow ring
Of false hope and of false deliverance

But now the nuptial bed is made
The dowry has been paid;
The toothless, haggard features of Eternity
Now welcome me between the sheets
To couple with her withered body - my wife

Hers forever
Hers forever
Hers forever
In still life