EVIDENTLY GOLDFISH

Check the honesty of what's on offer,
true detective or a fake fakir?
All the evidence is circumstantial -
    as mud the evidence is clear.
Paranormal the investigation -
where do things go when they disappear?
All the evidence has been trumped up...
    as mud the evidence is clear,
    I think we're into something here,
    I think we're into something...
    I don't know but
    maybe we're all goldfish
        in the mental sphere.

Evidently goldfish
    never questioning enviroment
Self-evidently goldfish
    we swim in circular experience;

Church of logical deliberation,
school of accidental wheels in gear....
Surface knowledge is a serious matter,
a little consciousness is dangerous, dear;
    all the evidence must be summed up -
    as mud the evidence is clear,
    I think we're into something,
    I don't know but maybe
    we're all goldfish in the mental sphere.

Evidently goldfish
    never question their enviroment;
Self-evidently goldfish
    we swim in circular experience;
Evidently goldfish
    round and round and round and round
        within our conciousness
        in the mental sphere.

As mud the evident is clear.

NOT THE MAN

There are so many questions,
there are so many doubts -
this is auto-suggestion
    your spirit is giving out.
If I offered my reasons
would you give me a break?
Now it's all open season,
    no sense of quit and take.

You see I'm not the man I was....

But of I'm not the man
that you took me to be
do I fade from your dreams,
disappear from your memory?
Look at me:
if I'm not the man I was
    then who was he?

There can be no returning
to the scene of the crime...
For perfection you're yearning:
some romance, some foreign chime!
Is the memory explicit
under strict rule of thumb?
It was always implicit,
    this character I've become.

But if I'm not the man
that you took me to be
do I fade from your dreams,
disappear from your memory?
I remember it well,
I can guess what went wrong...
you believe all these words
in the popular songs...
but if I'm not the man
that you took me to be,
did I walk in your dreams?
I've no idea who that person could be.

Look at me:
if I'm not the man I was
    then who is he?

NO MOON IN THE WATER

So
if it's just so then
where is it now when
I find the moment
uncertain?

Broken water pail -
no moon in the water,
try to hold it now.

So
I want to hold on
reflections all gone,
no ego - so.

Broken water pail -
no moon in the water,
try to hold it now,
broken water pail,
hold me in the moment,
no more ego now.

I would
drink the drags of daylight,
break the bread of consciousness
and dream:
dream day for night,
nightfall around us,
waking, dreaming,
awake to the dream.

Broken water pail -
no moon in the water,
try to hold it now,
hold me in the moment,
no more ego now,
no moon in the water,
no more ego now.

OUT OYSTER

This one's authentic,
son of a gun,
a soundtrack from China
in the universal tongue....

The world is our oyster
to plunder at will
though the palats is jaded
by all but the thrill
of fish out of water,
life in the raw...
Without understanding
of what life's worth fighting for.

Out of universal language
some stuff never translates -
the reports come in clusters
but for words it's too late...
Six o'clock entertainment,
tears of anguish and rage...
in the zoos of the media
the spirit of moment is caged.

There's only one language
the whole world comprehends,
there's only one message
as the darkness descends...
do you still have a question
or do you retract?
There's a whole world of difference
between the observer and the act.

They're playing world music
in Tiananmen Square.
They're playing world music
in Tiananmen Square.
The whistle of bullets in the air.

SOMETHING ABOUT YSABEL'S DANCE

In the new hotel on Fiesta Night
the staff are bored;
Donna Ysabel dances, zombie-like,
the guests applaud....
The colour is local,
the tourists are tanned
the natives are restless
    and everything's second hand.

Places disappear, but the names endure
as alibis;
memory's hazy here, no one's really sure
of how time flies....
Well drunk the bass player
cries into his beer - 
are Yzabel's mother
    or Yzabel dancing here?

After hours all the couriers are in the bar
round the corner
with the drivers in a game of cards...
In bursts Ysabel, her hair let loose,
her limbs set free;
on the tabletops she's dancing to a memory -
conversations stops and every eye 
is turned to see...
    something about Ysabel's dance.

It's a shrinking world, it's a fun-packed cruise,
a museum trip:
skirt the native girl, check the rabid dog,
rejoin the ship.
There's no Charlie Mingus,
his Tijnena's gone...
This smile for the camera
    is all just a tourist con.

But after hours all the couriers and drivers know
of a cantina where there's every chance
that she might show, and maybe Ysabel
will dance the dance for real again,
her mother's footsteps, vice and virtue,
lust and love and pain.
There's something here
the anthropologists dare not explain,
    something about Ysabel's dance.

GREEN FINGERS

He'll be young forever if he keeps this up...
So the bedroom playboy's never going to grow up.
    The heart is a secret garden
    to which there are no short cuts.

Only green young fingers make the garden bloom;
for the serious young man now is always too soon -
    The heart is a secret garden,
    the head is a darkened room.

Close your eyes...
how does it feel to be in love?
   ...Much too difficult, you shove
    green fingers into gloves.

Get those fingers dirty - now you're getting warm;
blood those hands with passion,
turn your face to the storm.
    The heart is a bed of roses,
    The heart is a bed of thorns.

Bleed, green finger, bleed.

Some future memory stirs...
someone's always getting burned
if intensity holds true.
If it's real to be in love
how does it feel to be in love?
   ...Green fingers stripped of gloves.

ON THE SURFACE

On the surface
phosphones gleaming;
deep down
we carry on dreaming.

On the surface
compass and charts checked;
deep down the current run
    in a shining vortex,
    in a swirling vortex.

On the surface
oil troubled water
sails set the seas on fire
to the farthest quarter....
Are we dreaming?
Dream deep of childhood,
dream deep of future days -
    it'll all come good,
        deep dreaming.

    It'll all come good,
        deep dreaming.
    It'll all come good,
    it'll all rise to the surface,
        deep dreaming.

A WAY OUT

Out of joint, out of true, out of love,
out of the blue, out of order, out of orbit,
out of control,
out of touch, out of line, out of sync
and out of time, out of gas, out of tread,
out of road.

Out of date, out of stock, out of use -
out, out dammed spot!
You want out, you want out of it for good.
Out of the running, out of the game,
out on your feet, clear out of range,
out of context, out of contact,
out of the woods.

Out, out, looking for a way out,
no straws are left to cling to;
out, out, going for the fade-out...
      but what do you fade into?

Out on the town, out for laughs,
out of service, out to grass,
out of mourning, our of purdah,
out of bail,
out of kilter, out grace,
out to get out of this place,
out of this world, out and out
beyond the plae.

Right out of character, out of sympathy,
so far out upon a limb
      you're out of your tree....

Out of breath, out of tune, out of your head
and out of view, down and out,
out for the count, or is it just for revenge?
Out of sight, out of mind, leave it out,
leave it behind out of reach
of all family, all friends

Out, out, going for the bale-out,
no parachute above you.
Out, out, you'll not feel the fall-out
   ...I wish I'd said "I love you".

(Enigma 7 73540-2  1990)


Evidently Goldfish    #
Not the Man
No Moon in the Water    +
Our Oyster    #
Something About Ysabel's Dance    *
Green Fingers    +
On the Surface    #
A Way Out     

Produced by PETER HAMMILL except "Ysabel" by PH/DAVID LORD
Engineered by PH/DAVID LORD

Recorded at SOFA SOUND/TERRA INCOGNITA
Mixed at CRESCENT STUDIOS/TERRA INCOGNITA   Jan - Aug 1989

All songs by PETER HAMMILL
Published by STATIC MUSIC LTD.

All instruments and voices by PH
except:
Guitars #  - FURY
Saxophones +  - DAVID JACKSON
Basses + - NIC POTTER
Violin *  - STUART GORDON