Shadowplay
Hunched foetal in the corner of my soul
My fingernails are
bleeding
From climbing up the wall.
This time you really hurt me right down to
the core
And I'm desperately trying to find a reason
To forgive you for it
all
(chorus)
I saw your life as a shadowplay
In a trance I was held by the
shadowplay
In the spell of the shadowplay
From Celtic illumination
I see
the Celtic illumination
The Celtic
I never realised just how far we'd
gone
I turned around and all that I saw was distance
Through an anger that
burned everytime
That someone mentioned your name.
I should have noticed,
should have read the signs
We could have talked it out if there was a
problem
It wasn't obvious then
But then it isn't really obvious now
(chorus)
I could have changed I could have settled
down
I could have been whatever you wanted me to be
If you gave me the
chance
But it seems that it's too late for that now.
I thought I knew you
thought we had it made
I'd thought it out, thought I had the answers
After all
is said and done
The only thing I really know is your name.
I sit and wait
for the shadowplay
Let me in into the world of the shadowplay
I'll follow you
to the shadowplay
Through Celtic illumination
Give me the Celtic
illumination
Illumination.
If I'd only had the patience, if I'd only had the
time
If I'd only known the moment when you'd chosen to decide
If I'd only
ever listened, if you'd only ever asked
If I'd known it was important, if I'd known
it wouldn't last
Run to the magic of, the magic of the shadowplay
Run to
the magic of, the magic of the shadowplay
Run to the magic of, the magic of the
shadowplay
Run to the magic of, the magic of the shadowplay
Maybe if
I'd noticed, maybe if I'd tried
Maybe if I'd worked at it, it never would have
died
Maybe I was selfish, maybe I was blind
Maybe I was in the wrong and
you were in the right
Run to the magic of, the magic of the
shadowplay
Run to the magic of, the magic of the shadowplay
Run to the
magic of, the magic of the shadowplay
Run to the magic of, the magic of the
shadowplay
Could I have been a better man, was I really all to
blame?
Was it me that was the problem, was it me that dealt the pain?
Did
you never mean to hurt me, did you only try to show
That you really, truly loved
me, that together we're alone?
Run to the magic of, the magic of the
shadowplay
Run to the magic of, the magic of the shadowplay
Run to the
magic of, the magic of the shadowplay
Run to the magic of, the magic of the
shadowplay
I see my life as a shadowplay
All around is the magic of
shadowplay
In the world of the shadowplay is where I belong
Where all that I
feared is how it is and will be
All that was hidden
Now you will see
All I
could dream
You'll find now is real
All I could touch
Now you can
feel
And the light that I follow
Is where the madness will
end
Illumination, illumination
Shine on, shine on, shine
on.
Credo
I watch the TV everynight,
I stay awake by
satellite,
I hope and pray the nightmares,
Stay away today.
An oily
shroud on a coral reef,
A black cloud's hanging over me.
When I hit on the
remote,
The programmes stay the same.
Credo, credo, credo,
credo.
An assegai slick with sweat and blood,
A shotgun barks at a rabid
dog,
A shallow grave hugs a highway,
Beneath a bleaching
sun.
(chorus)
Credo, credo, credo, credo,
It don't mean nothin', it don't mean
nothin',
It don't mean nothin', it don't mean nothin' to me.
When cancer
sucks a young girl's breast.
When a company chains a young man's soul.
When
the coal dust stole,
My grandad's breath away.
(chorus)
A tattered tramp tacks a windy wynd,
To
close a crowded circle round a brazier's light,
A man becomes a mountain in the
falling snow.
A mother screams and a baby cries.
The memory gone before the
blood has dried.
A needle pricks the conscience,
To help it fade
away.
(chorus)
The more you
scream, the less you hear,
Or that's how it used to be.
But I just can't tell the
difference
Anymore these days.
The open lips of an alter boy,
A planet
spins in a silent void.
The options are ever fewer
On the ground these
days.
(chorus)
Just Good
Friends
There's something I want to ask you
Before it's too late,
It's
been on my mind since the first time we met.
It scares me now more, now there's
more at stake,
It seems we're so close yet so far away.
Could you turn me
down gently would I
Be out of order,
If I declared my true feelings or do
I
Act out the part,
Of the father confessor of the shoulder to cry on.
We're
always so close yet so far away.
(chorus)
What would you do if I got down
On my knees to you,
Would you hold it against me,
Would you stand in
line?
What would you do if I
Opened my heart to you,
Would I be
another who's wasting his time,
Darling are we just good friends?
Do I
really need to ask you
I'm sure that you know by now,
Do we just play a game
where we try to pretend,
That all that's between us is all that's between us.
And
all we can rely on is just being good friends.
(chorus)
So are we left to chance meetings,
Is that all we can depend on?
Resigned to raise glasses in anonymous cafés,
Reciting our failures as if we needed
Proof or regret,
Over what might have
And what should have been.
Favourite Stranger
Some times I feel I lost
something
In gaining everything,
But I can't put my finger on what it
was,
It's just one of those nagging feelings,
Like sitting with your back to an
open door
Waiting on a favourite stranger.
I find it hard to talk about, it's
not easy
As you might expect,
Just sitting here waiting, trying to
accept
That there's something missing,
That there's something not quite
there
And that's why you're sitting there,
Listening to me as I try to explain
that.
(chorus)
You're my favourite stranger
But don't read between the lines,
I could
say that I love you at this moment
In passing time,
But I could honestly tell
you
I don't know why I'm here,
Sharing all my problems with you
When
you've already got your own share,
From favourite strangers.
Maybe it's
just I need an audience to
Pretend it's all an act,
But all I gain is your
confidence
And a number in a filofax
On the terms that it's a first
name
That'll run one day in spilt champagne
And I'll recollect and just
accept
That you were one of my favourite strangers.
(chorus)
Sometimes I know I lost
everything
In gaining something,
But I can't put my finger on what it
was.
It's just one of those nagging feelings
like sitting with your back to an
open door,
Expecting favourite strangers
Lucky
He met the
world as a Dalkeith boy,
Raised from a shaft at Monktonhall
In a well oiled
cage,
That locked away his dreams.
An '85 veteran face from the gallery,
A
ghost from the civil war in the family,
He stood his ground on the picket
line.
'Til all that he was left with,
Were his father's cough
And his mother's
eyes.
That would hold a tear
For the very first time,
When the government
took his job away.
Now fist in hand he'll stand in line.
Declare his name
and mark his time.
To some the only proof that they're alive.
He could
have been you.
He could have been me.
He could have been anybody
But
he was born lucky.
He made his first down payment,
On a sharp Italian
suit.
He sewed razor blades into the lapels,
See him sweating on the dance
floor.
Coal dust oozing out of every pore.
A hard man with a hard life,
And
that's a story that he'll tell you,
Down at Easter Road till his throat is raw.
On a
Saturday, he knows the score,
Till the whistle blows and,
The colours with
their tempers fade away.
(chorus)
On the
helipads at Aberdeen,
Bound for platforms drilling oil rich seas,
Where the
trawlers are getting fewer
Every year.
By the furnaces at Ravenscraig,
By the
padlocks holding John Brown's gates,
In the desert, in the fields of South
Armagh,
Where the poppies grow,
Behind the Hampden roar,
Behind the
drums in Genoa.
On the deck that rides a South Atlantic swell,
Born to fight
out of the tightest corner.
You can bet on him with the odds against
you,
They'll not put him down
No matter how they try.
Dear Friend
Dear friend, it's been a long, long while.
I've been meaning to write you,
But it was never my style.
But what is these days now I'm a family man.
Do you blow sincere kisses, to mistresses
Secrets in afternoons?
Do you wear your disguises, feign the
surprises,
At the questions she asks when she dares to accuse?
Does your past
lie under a dustsheet,
In the corner of a musty garage?
That's where I keep
mine, now I'm a family man.
Are your horses still running when
The
bookies shop close?
Is the band still together, did you ever
Get on the
road?
We chased the same women, we drank
The same beer.
We came as
a pair when we ran around here.
How are you these days, now you're a family
man?
Buy a drink for the boy in my place
At the end of the bar.
Give
my regards to Nina, slam a tequila,
I'll write you at Christmas or I'll send you a
card,
And if you pass by you're welcome to drop in,
And see me 'cos it's
unlikely
I'll be round your way, 'cos I'm happy to be,
Where I am, living life as
a family man.
Do you still have your leathers,
Or did you give them
away?
Do you still dream of Joni and sidewalk cafes?
Is your Norton still
running, is the old man
Still alive?
Do you still get to Dalkeith, is your rent
Still as
high?
But I suppose you've a mortgage,
now you're a family man.
Dear
friend, it's been a long, long while.
I've been meaning to write you,
But it was
never my style.
But what is these days, now I'm a family
man.
Tongues
If you really knew how I felt,
You wouldn't
need to be here asking
Those questions,
Those irritating questions, moving in
metaphors,
Speaking in tongues.
Your gunboat diplomacy,
You
accuse me of heresy, of being irreverent,
My opinions irrelevant, when I smile at
your similes.
When you're speaking in tongues.
As we move to a
stalemate,
You say a contract's a contract
& this is unnegotiable,
I
question your morality, you question my reality,
You're speaking in
tongues
(chorus)
We are speaking in tongues,
We are speaking in tongues,
Am
I deaf because I cannot comprehend?
We're speaking in tongues,
We're
speaking in tongues,
We're speaking in tongues,
Though I try I just cannot
understand.
Your entrenched opinions,
On the border of
arrogance,
Dug in against the compromise.
A position indefensible, your
actions illogical.
You're speaking in tongues.
You swear
contradictions
Your tedious monologues, wielding authority,
Demanding
subservience, demanding
I make your sense.
Demanding speaking in
tongues.
(Dedicated to Rupert Perry, MD, EMI UK)
Internal Exile
I saw a blue umbrella in Princes
Street Gardens,
Heading out west for the Lothian Road
An Evening News
stuffed deep in his pocket,
Wrapped up in his problems, to keep away the
cold.
Grierson's spirit haunts the dockyards,
Where the only men working are
on
Documentary crews,
Shooting film as the lines get longer,
As the
seams run out, as the oil runs dry.
(chorus)
Hey there laddie, Internal Exile!
When
will you realise we've got to let go?
Hey there lassie, Internal Exile!
When
will you realise we've got to let go?
Starlings wheeling round Georgian spires,
And the fires of Grangemouth burn the skies.
A lion sleeps in a
tenement close,
In a country that's tired and deaf to his roar.
(chorus)
They
bury a wasteland deep in the wilderness,
Poison the soil and reap the
harvest,
Of blind indifference, greed and apathy,
Sowed way back in our
history.
The fish are few the harbours empty,
The keels now rot on our
oil slicked shores.
The sheep are gone, the farms deserted.
We're out of sight
and we're out of mind.
(chorus)
Like our fathers before us,
We've eyes for
America.
Dream of a new life on foreign shores.
But wherever we go, we'll
always know,
That the land we stand on, is never our own.
(chorus)
Something In The Air
Call out the
instigators because there's something in the air,
We got to get together sooner or
later because the revolution's here,
And you know it's right and you know that it's
right.
We have got to get it together.
We have got to get it together
now.
We're together now.
Knock up the streets and houses because there's
something
in the air,
We got to get together sooner or later 'cos the
revolution's
here,
And you know it's right and you know that it's right.
We have got to get it
together.
We have got to get it together now.
Hand out the arms and
ammo,
We're gonna blast our way through here.
We've got to get together
sooner or later becaue the revolution's here.
And you know it's right and you know
that it's right.
We have got to get it together.
We have got to get it together
now.
We have got to get it together now.
Now, we're together now, the
revolution's here,
It's here, the revolution's here now.
BONUS TRACKS:
Poet’s Moon
You sit there biding your time, out of your
head and into your mind
Penning thoughts that are dreams in action
A glass
raised to an absent muse a boy stands in his father's shoes
And a drunk man
smiles at a thistle under a Poet's moon
Under a Poet's moon there's a life sign
burning
A Poet's moon like a vision shining and
The lovers lie in the long
grass, stolen flowers make their bed
Under a Poet's moon there are dreams in
action, prayers met
And questions answered as the world birls in the
darkness
I'm still staring at the skies under a Poet's moon
A night black
as hoodie's eye, the sparks fly from a tinker's fire
As the stories burn among us
under a Poet's moon
A seed falls onto stony ground without a hope and without a
sound
From the weeds will grow the flowers under a Poet's moon
Under
a Poet's moon, there's a salmon settling
In a guddler's hand that is patient
waiting
With a lover's touch, a charmed life
His fingers play the
reeds
Under a Poet's moon there's a whistle blowing out in no-man's
land
Where a flare is falling in a deadly night
The dreamers stand like
flowers in a storm
You sit there biding your time out of your head and into
your mind
Penning thoughts that are dreams in action
A cross made in a
polling booth, another flies in a field
Of blue and a drunk man smiles
At a
thistle under a Poet's moon
Under a Poet's moon there are angels crying,
dead men born
And devils laughing and the dance goes on regardless
till
You're carried from the floor
Under a Poet's moon there are dreams in
action
Prayers met and questions answered as the world birls in the
darkness
I'm still staring at the skies, under a Poet's
moon
Carnival Man
It's a quarter past midnight and she ain't no Cinderella
But she's
swallowed all your best lines
And she's staying in the hotel
And you've got
her number from the bar tab
That she's running,
The circus comes to
town.
Temptation Oh such a temptation,
Temptation Oh such a
temptation.
The cage door is open and your living on the high
wire
Clowning in the spotlight
You've got no one to bring you down
The
cab's impatient, this ladies waiting
The ringmaster calls you
down
Temptation Oh such a temptation
Temptation Oh such a
temptation,
The carnival man.
So glad to know you, the carnival
man
You're shaking hands with the carnival man
So pleased to meet you, the
carnival man
Call me Mr. Temptation.
Like a bullet in a chamber that
you're thinking is empty
You press it to your temple with a finger on the
trigger
An act of bravado, an act of defiance
It's all eyes upon you
now.
Temptation Oh such a temptation
Temptation Oh such a
temptation
The carnival man.
So glad to know you, the carnival
man
You're shaking hands with the carnival man
So pleased to meet you, the
carnival man
Call me Mr. Temptation.
Is there anything you
want?
Anything you desire?
Just tell me anything you need.
They call me
Mr Temptation.
You're the life and the soul of every party
Now you're
walking wounded, just another casualty
You've got my sympathy, you've got my
calling card
This call's collect, I'm the carnival man, Mr
Temptation,
Carnival man.
This is the day that the circus leaves
town.
Goodbye carnival man,
This is the day that the circus leaves
town.
Goodbye,
This is the day that the circus leaves town.
All titles © Fishy Music Ltd./ Hit & Run (Publishing) Ltd. except
'Something in the Air': © Fabulous Music Ltd.
+ 4/02/01 xbt