Zero She Flies
My Enemies Have Sweet Voices
I was in a bar called Paradise
When the fiddler from the band
Asked me "Why do you stand there crying?"
I answered him: "Musician, this may come as a surprise
I was trying to split the difference
And it split before my eyes
And my enemies have sweet voices
Their tones are soft and kind
When I hear my heart rejoices
I do not seem to mind"
I was playing Brag in Bedlam
And the doctor would not deal
Asking me: "Why do you kneel down there bleeding?"
I answered him "Physician,
I think you would have cried
I was falling back on failure
The failure stepped aside
And my enemies have sweet voices
Their tones are soft and kind
When I hear my heart rejoices
I do not seem to mind"
I was blind side to the gutter
And Merlin happened by
Asking me "why do you lie down there bleeding?"
I answered him "Magician, as a matter of a fact
I was jumping to conclusions
And one of them jumped back
And my enemies have sweet voices
Their tones are soft and kind
When I hear my heart rejoices
I do not seem to mind"
A Small Fruit Song
"Oh I wanted you to come
Close to me and kiss me to the core
Then you might know me like no other orange
Has ever done before"
Gethsemane Again
In Gloucester Cathedral, on Saturday night
I came to your flower show, blown like a kite
And I stood by the tombstones, and gazed at the lights
On the altar
And the horse-faced old ladies and tweedy-toned men
Of county society they came and they went
With pamphlets and leaflets of Christian events
For the fall
But ain't it all just like Jesus
Crying in the rain?
Ain't it all just Gethsemane again?
Oh the half-a-crown programmes on sale at the door
Were clutched in the teeth of the rich and the poor
As they swayed in an undertone conscience-free
Forward together
And the outstretching hands of the swains of the Lord
Sold the communing commuters the word
With LPs of Mary and photos of God
In the hall
But ain't it all just like Jesus
Crying in the rain?
Ain't it all just Gethsemane again?
Oh the flowers hushed the air as the columns advanced
To the clinking of coins in a ritual dance
On flagstones that ached for a chance of a chance
Of escaping
And the mystical statues looked down so depressed
At the endless possessors becoming possessed
And the costumed confessors who never confessed
To the wall
But ain't it all just like Jesus
Crying in the rain?
Ain't it all just Gethsemane again?
Oh I saw a blue hair-rinse, I saw a black tooth
I saw a false face in a telephone booth
And the stark white-faced roses that screamed out the truth
Of their dying
And a walrus's dreams and a carpenter's love
Absorbed like a hand in a great rubber glove
And flown like a flag over battlefields
Factories and all
Ain't it all just like Jesus
Crying in the rain?
Ain't it all just Gethsemane again?
Oh I dodged the collection box choirboy and out
To the streets where the wind shook my hair with a shout
And the dusty-faced daisies were blowing about
So freely
And Christ in the ruins was wandering again
As he walked with the beggars and talked to the lame
And danced with the children and sailors who came
At his call
But ain't it all just like Jesus
Crying in the rain?
Ain't it all just Gethsemane again?
Ain't it all just like Jesus
Crying in the rain?
Ain't it all just Nazareth again?
Burblin
INSTRUMENTAL
Electric Los Angeles Sunset
Shots split the night, a bullet lodged in his brain
He must have died instantly, he felt no pain
A crowd quickly gathered to the feast of the gun
Waiting for the ambulance and cops to come
Hm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm
Sirens wail in the concrete
Hm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm
Electric Los Angeles sunset, the sunset, the sunset, oh-o-oh
Headlight lit the faces by the tabernacle door
Gazing at the bloodstains on the damp sidewalk
As the crowd turned to go, a man was heard to say
"He must have had it comin' to him anyway"
Hm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm
Blood wagon rolls through the dragnet
Hm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm
Electric Los Angeles sunset, the sunset, the sunset, oh-o-oh
Cadillacs roll through the smoggy perfume
The buildings are choking on oxygen fumes
Evangelists praying in rented rooms, in the afternoon
Which way do the signposts read
African eyes in the sunrise
The gates of the city are rusted over and mouldering
The violence of the evening decays into the night
While shadows press like moths against the neon light
Movie queues diffuse into the Cinerama haze
While libertines read pornozines in street cafes
Hm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm
The madman swings in the pulpit
Hm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm
Electric Los Angeles sunset, the sunset, the sunset, oh-o-oh
Manuscript
Prince Louis Battenberg is burning the Admiralty lights down low
Silently sifting through papers sealed with a crown
Admiral Lord Fisher is writing to Churchill, calling for more Dreadnoughts
The houses in Hackney are all falling down
And my grandmother sits on the beach in the days before the war
Young girl writing her diary, while time seems to pause
Watching the waves as they come one by one to die on the shore
Kissing the feet of England
Oh the lights of Saint Petersburg come on as usual
Although the air seems charged with a strangeness of late, yet there's nothing to touch
And the Tsar in his great Winter Palace has called for the foreign news
An archduke was shot down in Bosnia, but nothing much
And my grandmother sits before the mirror in the days before the war
Smiling a secret smile as she goes to the door
And the young man rides off in his carriage, homeward once more
And the sun sets gently on England
Ah the day we decided to drive down to Worthing, it rained and rained
Giving us only a minute to stand by the sea
And crunching my way through the shingles, it seemed there was nothing changed
Though the jetty was maybe more scarred that I'd known it to be
And Mandi and I stood and stared at the overcast sky
Where ten years ago we had stood, my Grandfather and I
And the waves still rushed in as they had the year that he died
And it seemed that my lifetime was shrunken and lost in the tide
As it rose and fell on the side of England
Prince Louis Battenberg is burning the Admiralty lights
Black Hill
Hey, won't you come look at the sunrise
Peeping up into the blue skies
Washing away the morning chill
That hangs like a cloak over Black Hill
Anna
Sits down alone
The echo of his foot on the stair
Turning to stone
No, he didn't take very much
Just your flesh from the bone
It's gonna be hard for a while
Trying to get by
On your own
Room Of Roots
INSTRUMENTAL
Zero She Flies
She's a mollusk,
a seamstress,
a princess,
a priestess,
a negress,
she knows her position
She's a swallow,
a willow,
a cello,
a pillow,
a bow
and also a physician
She takes your eyes
and mends your head
She draws the wine
and breaks the bread
She has no lies to tell you
and no truths to sell you
She's a girl,
she's almost a woman
And Zero she flies as the morning sighs
Spreads her wings like a seagull
From the mountain he watches her,
biding his time
But his eyes are the eyes of an eagle
He's a hawthorn,
a raven,
a scarecrow,
a haven
for moon-blessed thought and opinion
He will laugh like the fountains,
the bones of the mountains
lie deep in his forest religion
You will call his name when evening falls
And the ground sets hard and the night wind calls
You will feed him and heed him,
at times you will need him
Say you were almost his woman
And Zero she flies as the morning sighs
Spreads her wings like a seagull
From the mountain he watches her,
biding his time
But his eyes are the eyes of an eagle
In the shuddering mad red blood-let sunset
a tired man is leaving his cover
And the soft eyes of Zero
are cut by the sounds
of the vanishing feet of her lover
And the door slams shut
and the air grows tight
And her throat is gripped
by the hands of night
And all that is left
is the clock on the shelf
As it ticks one day into another
And Zero she sighs as the morning dies
With the broken wings of a seagull
From the mountain he watches her, sensing his time
But his eyes are the eyes of an eagle
At the pall of the day the man of the mountain
is nearing the end of his travel
And the fence is down
on the westland bounds
and a footfall pounds in the gravel
Comes a knock three times
and the air grows still
As he steps inside from the sudden chill
And the moment is caught in the net of the night
For the coming of dawn to unravel
And Zero she flies as the morning sighs
Spreads her wings like a seagull
From the mountain he's coming,
judging his time
And his eyes are the eyes of an eagle
Oh Zero she flies as the morning dies
Spreads her wings like a seagull
From her window he watches her,
a man in his time
But his eyes are the eyes of an eagle