KING CRIMSON:   Beat

Neal And Jack And Me

I'm wheels, I am moving wheels
I am a 1952 studebaker coupe
I'm wheels, I am moving wheels moving wheels
I am a 1952 starlite coupe...
En route ..... les Souterrains
Des visions du Cody ... Sartori à Paris...
Strange spaghetti in this solemn city...
There's a postcard we're all seen before...
Past wild-haired teens in dark clothing
With hands-full of autographed napkins we
eat apples in vans with sandwiches ... rush
Into the lobby life of hurry up and wait
Hurry up and wait for all the odd-shaped keys
Which lead to new soap and envelopes...
Hotel room homesickness on a fresh blue bed
And the longest-ever phone call home ..... no
Sleep no sleep no sleep no sleep and no mad
Video machine to eat time ... a city scene
I can't explain, the Seine alone at 4 a.m.
The Seine alone at 4 a.m. .... Neal and Jack and me
Absent lovers, absent lovers...

Heartbeat

I need to feel your heartbeat heartbeat
so close, feels like mine
all mine
I need to feel your heartbeat heartbeat
so close it feels like mine
all mine...
I remember the feeling
my hands in your hair
hands in your hair
I remember the feeling
of the rhythm we made
I need to land sometime
right next to you
feel your heartbeat heartbeat
right next to me.....

Sartori In Tangier (instrumental)

Waiting Man

I come back ... come back
you see my return
my returning face is smiling
smile of a waiting man...
I be home soon soon soon
soon cry on your shoulder
your shoulder against my burning tears
tears of a waiting man...
one two three four one two three...
I wait every moment
I wait, wait for my chance
I wait for my friend to say
hello, you waiting man
feel no fret feel no fret feel no fret
you can wait and feel no fret
and so I wait so I wait so I wait so I wait
I return face is smiling
be home soon cry on your shoulder
tears of a waiting man
every moment wait for my chance
my friend say hello feel no fret
you can wait and I wait and I wait
and home I am...

Neurotica

Good morning, it's 3 a.m. in this great roaring
city full of garbage eaters ravaging parking
spots beneath my plaza window I see cheetah in their
tight skins and tired heels all-night hippo in
the diner crossing the street swarthy heards of young
impala flambastic gibbon even a struggling monza
and over there that brilliant head ornament on that
Japanese macaque but look closely at the hammerhead hand
in hand with the mandrill, it's a sight you're
unlikely to see anywhere else on the planet...

the stench and noise, yes, yes, the howlers'
resonating repertoire is not too bad when mixed with
the more musical twern of the tropical warbler but the
impatient taxi blare the squaking elderly ibis and
the glass-eye snapper hawking papers I can certainly
live without also be cautious of the poisonous
boomslang laughter social droppings of the fruit bat
and purple queen fish and who's that babbler conversing
with a magazine stand? evidently he's getting a good
reply...

arrive in neurotica
through neon heat disease
I swear at the swarming herds
I sweat the foul terrain
I rove the moving scenery
I have no fin
no wing no stringer
no claw no camouflage
I have no more to say...

Say...isn't that an elephant fish on the corner over
there look at that bush baby mud puppy noolbenger
rhinoderma marmoset spring peeper shingleback skink
siren skate starling sun-gazer spoonbill and suckers,
they seem to be everywhere, well it's a live revue
random animal parts now playing nightly right here in
neurotica...
so long...

Two Hands

Oh they're touching
They're touching each other
They're feeling
They push and move
And love each other, love each other
They fit together like two hands...

I am a face
In the painting on the wall
I pose and shudder
And watch from the foot of the bed
Sometimes I think I can
Feel everything...

The wind is blowing
My hair in their direction
The wind is bending my hair
There are no windows in the painting
No open windows, no open windows, no...

The Howler

Here is the angel of the world's desire
Placed on trial
To hide in shrouded alley sihouettes
With cigarette coiled
To strike at passing voices
Dark and suspect
Here is the howling ire

Here is the sacred face of rendezvous
In subway sour
Whose grand delusions prey like intellect
In lunatic minds
Intent and focused on
The long thin matches
To light the howling fire...

No, no, not me,
Burn, I don't wanna burn.....

Requiem

All words by Adrian Belew except 'Two Hands' by Margaret Belew
All titles © 1982 E.G. Music Publishers Inc. (BMI)

+ 27/06/02