FISH:   Internal Exile

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