1.Orthenthian Street (Part I)
Van Der Graaf Generator
Aerosol Grey Machine
Orthenthian Street (Part I)
I feel a calling for the sea, I want to walk on the sand
dunes...
I hope you'll forgive me if I say I can't take you：
at some times I've got to get away,
if just to get a break from the play
that we're all involved in.
All the love I'm living now could have ended yesterday
if the snow had fallen too hard up there on the Motorway...
If it happens, don't feel sorry, I won't feel alone：
it's just another travelling zone
that you can't come on.
2.Orthenthian Street (Part Ii)
Van Der Graaf Generator
Aerosol Grey Machine
Orthenthian Street (Part Ii)
Can't stop for a second：
we might see how silly we all are.
Can't get out, even for a moment：
might be hit by a passing car.
Dreams shatter and fall into dust,
as long as we're travelling I suppose they must.
But, while we're on the road, our days'll be glowing;
and when we part, as you know we must,
we'll leave, just going
ever so slowly,
ever so slowly.
Motorway signs flash past like flies,
it's getting late and we're going home.
We all travel in parallel lines,
heading into the twilight zone.
All I really want now is you by my side;
yes, it's a sweet ride
while we're still together.
Yes, it's a sunny day, and we're off on our sea trip;
The water may be cold in the bay,
but we're safe on our sailing ship,
and, if ice forms, you can walk home to land
and still cling to my hand
if you still want to...
3.The Siren Song
from：
[email protected] (Rami Zakh)
SIREN SONG (Van Der Graaf Generator)
Letters in pencil
some of them as heavy as lead
as dated as carbon
as black as coal
but burning as red
Clues faintly stenciled
the message,though bleached,is on red
as secret as marble
as young
as old
as living
as dead
And always that laugh
that comes as though it's from pain,
though i'm lashed to the mast
still it hammers round my brain
laughter in the backbone,
laughter impossibly wise,that same
laughter that comes every time i flash on that look in your eyes
which whispers of a black zone
which'll mock all my credos as lies
where all logic is done
and time will smash every theory i devise
and the hour-glass is shattered
only by the magic of your touch
and where nothing really matters,
no,nothing matters very much.
So the siren song runs through the ages,
and it courses through my veins like champagne
and with all the sweet kisses of addiction
it's calling me to break my bones again
Future memory exploding like shrapnel,
some splinters escape on my tongue
some of them scar comprehension,
beneath the scab they burn -
but the wound becomes num...
And always the song draws me forward
rejoicing in the surge and the prayer
bored with all but the mad
the strange
the freak
the impossible dare
...Still your laugh chills my marrow 'till i embraceth on my
knees
oh,when the mast becomes a flagpole,what becomes of me...？
One can not fully grasp the work Peter Hammill has done
throughout
the years without having the possibility,apart from listening to
it,
to READ it -
this is a first compilation of PH lyrics in the archives,and i
hope that
everyone capable of broadening it will do so -
'What's the good of songs,anyway,they're just exercises in
solitude...'
Bye,Ram.
4.Mirror Images
Lyricist：Hammill Peter Joseph Andrew
If I'm the mirror and you're the image
Then what's the secret between the two？
These 'Me's and 'You's, how many can there be？
Oh, I don't mind all that around the place
As long as you keep it well away from me
I've begun to regret that we ever met between the dimensions
It gets such a strain to pretend that the change
Is anything but cheap with your infant pique
And your angst pretensions, sometimes you act like a creep
And now I'm standing in the corner, looking at the room and the
furniture
In cheap imitation of alienation and grief
And now we're going to the kitchen, fix ourselves a drink and a
cigarette
Getting no closer to being the joker or thief
Who's a joker who's the thief
Who's a joker who's the thief
Still, I reflect, this nervous wreck who stands before me
Can see as well, can surely tell that he's not yet free
He can turn aside but can no more ignore me
Than know which one of us is he
Than tell what we are going to be, than know which one of is me
Take the mirror away, take the mirror away
Take the mirror away
I know that it's gone but the real one will stay
5.Pioneers Over c.
Lyricist：Peter Joseph Hammill, David Jackson
We left the earth in 1983, fingers groping for the galaxies
Reddened eyes stared up into the void, 1000 stars to be
exploited
Somebody help me, I'm falling, somebody help me, I'm falling
down
Into sky, into Earth, into sky, into Earth
It is so dark around, no life, no hope, no sound
No chance of seeing home again
The universe is on fire, exploding without flame
We are the lost ones, we are the pioneers, we are the lost ones
We are the ones, they're going to build a statue for
Ten centuries ago or were going to fifteen forward
One last brief whisper in our loved ones' ears
To reassure them and to pierce the fear
Standing at controls then still unknown
We told the world we were about to go
Somebody help me, I'm missing, somebody help me, I'm missing now
Touch with my mind, I have no frame, touch with my mind, I have
no frame
Well, now where is the time and who the hell am I
Here floating in an aimless way？
No one knows where we are, they can't feel us precisely
There is no fear here, how could such a thing exist in this
place
Where living and knowing and being have never been heard of？
Have never been heard of？
Doomed to vanish in the flickering light, disappearing to a
darker night
Doomed to wander in a living death, living anti-matter,
anti-breath
Somebody help me, I'm losing, somebody help me, I'm losing now
People around, there's no one to touch, people around, no one to
touch
I am now, quite alone, part of a vacant time zone, floating in
the void
Only dimly aware of existence, a dimly, existing awareness
I am the lost one, I am the one you fear, I am the lost one
I am the one who pressed through space or stayed where I was
Or didn't exist in the first place
6.Door
Lyricist：Hammill Peter Joseph Andrew
He's a blind man, crouching by the pavement
He's only seeing with his third eye
And clutching at astral shadows of every passer-by
He's a wise man, trumping all the answers
She's a wild girl, trying to keep his feet on the floor
And whispered physical litanies, 'Stay away from the door'
'Oh but we're all in this together,' he says
'Three-legged race across the floor
If only you'd loosen the handkerchief then I'd forget about the
door'
'Ooh that feels so much better,' he says
'Now you forget everything that I've said before
And sit there all by yourself while I walk through the door'
There's a blind man, crouching by the pavement
Only seeing with his third eye
And clutching at the astral shadow of the door of a room called
'I'
7.Last Frame
Lyricist：Hammill Peter Joseph Andrew
Pretty keen, yes, my hobby keeps me busy
And if I talk to myself, that's not a crime
In the darkroom I am a dealer in space and time
When all memory has mellowed
When the photograph is yellowed, still it never lies
There you are, your lies laced with secret pleasure
Saying that you're on the way to change
Devouring in inordinate measure
Every diversion that's arranged
For every appetite, a cruel attraction
But there's a panic in your actions
Oh, I never saw you look so strange
Fixing memory chemically, holding time on the stop-clock
Hanging back from that last frame
Just in case it doesn't show you in the way I used to know you
Oh, I thought you'd always stay the same
Oh, the red light, the silver, the black and the bromide
Oh, the silence, the waiting for overview
The past seems under-exposed, low tide
Still the images ghost through
And you're there in the bath
Which is all this has led through
And I can't say your path is a right one to choose
But then I only have a negative of you
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