Platinum

If I told the truth I'd like to live my life again
Walk around my youth in somebody else's skin
One life's not enough for all that we contain
Nothing's going to save us now

Let's go back in time and see what bridges we can burn
Kick over our tracks on the eternal return
Throw away the facts and figures - we never learn
Nothing's going to save us now

Take me to the place where my decisions are relived
Give me answers to the question
'What would have happened if...'
Beyond the third dimension, beyond the fourth and fifth
In a parallel universe

Hey DJ you've got it all wrong
No more golden greats, no more platinum songs
Put these frozen moments in the fridge where they belong
Nothing's going to save us now

I don't say that life's not sad and death is not the end
Looks like you got typecast by a double-crossing friend
Looks like we were here before and we'll be back again
In a parallel universe
No regrets at least not yet is all that we can say
Stand-ins for ourselves in life's identity parade
Gone the crimes that you committed, gone the things you made
To a parallel universe

Hey DJ you've got it all wrong
No more golden greats, no more platinum songs
Put these master tapes back in the safe where they belong
We've got to live the hallelujah now
So let's go

Walk the city streets with me and cross a thousand lives
Count the possibilities that shine in people's eyes
Ask how many dreams we kill to keep our dreams alive
We've got to live the hallelujah now
Thank you for the memory, the curse you laid on me
Like a shooting star I burst into obscurity
Live this second first because the rest is history
Nothing's going to save us now

Hey DJ you've got it all wrong
No more greatest hits, no more platinum songs
Put these little shits back in the ground where they belong
We've got to live the hallelujah now

If I told the truth I'd like to live my life again
Walk around my youth in somebody else's skin
One life's not enough for all that we contain
We've got to live the halellujah now
So let's go

Enlightenment

In the 1970s
When everyone could do just what they wanted to
Sex was like a handshake between friends
But now that life and death and destiny
Are in you when you're next to me
Tell me that you'll love me till the end

And tell me you'll be there
If I ever find
I've only got one kidney left
And tell me you'll be there
When I've only got one eye
And say that you'll be there to care for me
When a wheelchair is my chair
You'll be there upon the day I die

Enlightenment in the nowness of now
All we have is the nowness of now
Enlighten me to the nowness of now
All we have is the nowness of now

In the doctor's surgery I keep my fingers crossed
Because I know the cost
This test for positivity implies
Still I do this willingly
Because I want to know what I don't want to know
Unthinkable thoughts are thoughts we have to try

So tell me you'll be there
When my head's on backwards
And my skin is turning green
And tell me you'll be there
When my brain has turned to glue
And tell me you'll still be my baby
When my guts are on the floor
And when I'm paralytic will you still be true?

In the eighteenth century they said
'We'll shortly know all there is to know
All things will be clear to us one day'
Well I'm sick to death of optimism
Sick to death of the shit it drops us in
Will they find a cure for hope? No-one can say

But tell me you'll be there
When I'm knocked out flat
With a drip feed in my arm
And tell me you'll be there
When the swansong starts to fade
And when a life support machine
Supports me in a coma you'll be there
And when I'm just a cabbage
Save me from the spade

So tell me you'll be there
When my head's on backwards
And my skin is turning green
And tell me you'll be there
When my brain has gone to sand
And tell me you'll still be my baby
When my guts are on the floor
And when I'm catatonic
I'll still be your man

You've Changed

Me and her and the ghost of you
You and him and the ghost of me
Two plus one is three and two plus a ghost is three
I guess there must be six of us now

I remember you telling me
That even though you loved him like a brother
There's always be another hanging over you
The ghost of your ex-lover
There are six of us

The ghost no longer resembles me
Younger, more good-looking
Like my memories of you are
More permanent and truer
Than the girl I see before me
Are we real or are we spirits

You've changed but your face has stayed the same
In my memories of you I still feel a little pain
But I've changed too

Don't let's talk about faithfulness
Now that there are six of us
Don't get possessive, it's melodramatic
It's not love, it's mathematics
There are six of us now

You've changed
But your face has stayed the same
In my memories of you I still feel a little pain
But I've changed too

You've changed and I'm looking at your face
But the feelings that I feel are in another time and place

You've changed, you're more vulnerable now
But the arrogance you had was beautiful somehow

You've changed and your boyfriend hangs about
He wants to know if I'm the one he's heard so much about

You've changed and the passion fades away
And politeness takes its place
But I long to kiss your face

Landrover

Four in the morning on October the third
The year you disappeared
The ash on the road is still quite warm
Reading the map in the map light
And the engine is old
And the tyres are worn

Driving and searching through the long dry ocean
Weaving deep in a bed of abandoned desire
I'll be threading this wheel from hand to hand till you're found
Or the Landrover breaks down

(Tranquility Bay... saline levels normal... nocturnal visibility average to good)

Three in the morning on October the fourth
The year you disappeared
The canyons are watching me with your eyes
Craters like scars from a quarrel
And the petrol is low and my mouth is dry

(The arc of buggy tracks in moondust... Your face glowing in its frame in the dash... Alimentation and oxygen supplies critical... Life functions now endangered, unpredictable... Strange emotional pattern recorded at 300 and again towards dawn... foreboding... Log discontinued)

Driving and searching through the long dry ocean
Weaving deep in a bed of abandoned desire
I'll be threading this wheel from hand to hand till you're found
Or the Landrover hits

Sunday airports
The face of the waters
Service stations
Unrepeatable offers
Trial by jury
The god of the crossroads
Furnished quarters
Unfaithful lovers
Sunday airports
The face of the waters
Service stations
Unrepeatable offers
Trial by jury
The god of the crossroads
Furnished quarters
Unfaithful lovers

Rhetoric

I'll love you till they figure out the way that life began
I'll love you till the newspaper reports the fall of man
I'll love you till you turn into a person I don't know
I'll love you till the desert sands are buried under snow
I'll love you till the razorblades are held against my neck
I'll love you till the sea glows purple and the sky goes black
I'll love you till Mount Everest falls down into the sea
I'll love you till the tiny worms go burrowing in me
The lovely owl upon the bough is swooping down for me
The brambles tangle round and round far as the eye can see
I'll love you till the astronauts go walking on the sun
I'll love you till the reaper comes to wake me with his gun
I'll love you till the melting clocks have chimed a melting hour
Love you till the world has stopped and time has lost its power
I love you like the engine of a little blue machine
I love you like the bee that dies, dies astride a queen

Suicide Pact

We were lovers
We made a suicide pact
There was no place for us
In a world of brute fact

We were lovers
We never knew how to act
And above us
The aurora borealis
Bore witness to that

Where in the world is there space
For the beauty we shared?
Nowhere
At the bend in the river
Remember the herons and cranes
But as they have flown, so must we go

We were lovers
We made a suicide pact
We let sleep steal across us
In the snow where we sat
And above us
Came a meteor shower
We went down on our knees
Before a universal power

Where in the world is there time
For the love we have shared?
Nowhere
Deep in the forest
Remember the acorns and cones
Before they have grown we must be gone

We were lovers
We never knew how to act
The aurora borealis
Is our epitaph

Where in the world is there realm and dominion enough
For love?
From the 747
Remember the shapes of the clouds
But when we are gone they'll be our shrouds

Christmas on Earth

Well I know that on Earth it is Christmas now
And I hope there'll be days in the snow
When I return many light years on
Though my friends will have died long ago

And the rain makes a sound like the asteroids
There are worlds made of ice in the clouds
I'm receiving transmissions they broadcast long ago
They remind me of things I have seen
All the people and cities and crowds

Ring the bells, ring the bells, ring them
Ring the bells, ring the bells, I can still hear them
Here on the way to the stars

About now back on earth it is Christmas time
There'll be logs in the grate, they will burn
I'm alone tape recording memories
For it all will have changed when I return

And the rain is so strange in the Milky Whey
I see cloudscapes of purple and green
Candleabras are shooting off firework displays
And I'm writing the things I have seen
People shopping and sparks from a train

Well I know that on Earth it is Christmas now
But in space time goes by so slow
At the speed of light one single night
Is a year to the people back home

Breathless

Over the moon for now
Only because you're near
Though there are tears on the way
Over the moon for now

Soft is the flesh I cling to
Warm the caress of your mouth
Silk is my touch as I swing you
Over the moon for now

Your starring role is forever
If only you'll stay as you are
Breathless at the threshold of pleasure
Soon we must fall but it's okay so far

If there's a method in madness
If there's a heaven above
Feel my caress as it lingers
Over the moon for now

Though there are no happy endings
Though hope disappeared long ago
There are clouds at the end of the rainbows
Over the moon for now

This is my one consolation
To work for the sweat on your brow
It's the sweetest, most fleeting sensation
Over the moon for now

If there's a method in madness
If there's a heaven above
Feel my caress as it lingers
Over the moon for love

Your starring role is forever
If only you'll stay as you are
Breathless at the threshold of pleasure
Soon we must fall, but it's okay so far

Your starring role is forever
If only you'll stay as you are
Breathless at the threshold of pleasure
Over the moon for now


Index