Real To Reel

(derek disck/steve rothery/ pete trewavas/ micheal pointer/mark kelly/diz minnett/brian jellyman)

Armalite, street lights, nightsights
Searching the roofs for a sniper, a viper, a fighter
Death in the shadows he'll maim you, he'll wound you, he'll kill you
For a long forgotten cause
On not so foreign shores
Boys baptised in war
Boys baptised in war

Morphine, chill scream, bad dream
Serving as numbers on dogtags, flakrags, sandbags
Your girl has married your best friend, loves end, poison pen
Your flesh will always creep, tossing turning sleep
The wounds that burn so deep, burn so deep

Your mother sits on the edge of the world when the cameras start to roll
Panoramic viewpoint resurrect the killing fold
Your father drains another beer, he's one of the few that cares
Crawling behind a saracen's hull from the safety of his living room chair
Forgotten sons
Forgotten sons
Forgotten sons

And so as i patrol in the valley of the shadow of the tricolour i must fear evil
For i am but mortal and mortals can only die
Asking questions, pleading answers from the nameless faceless watchers
That parade the carpeted corridors of whitehall
Who orders desecration, mutilation, verbal masturbation in the guarded bureaucratic wombs
Minister, minister care for your children
Order them not into damnation
To eliminate those who would trespass against you
For whose is the kingdom, the power, the glory for ever and ever
Amen
Amen
Amen
Amen
Amen
Amen
Amen

"halt who goes there!" - " death!!"
"approach ... friend"
You're just another coffin on its way down the emerald aisle
When your children's stony glances mourn
Your death in a terrorist's smile
The bomber's arm placing fiery gifts on the supermarket shelves
Alley sings with shrapnel detonate a temporary hell
Forgotten sons
Forgotten sons

From the dolequeue to the regiment a profession in a flash
But remember monday signings when from door to door you dash
On the news a nation mourns you unknown soldier count the cost
For a second you'll be famous but labelled posthumous

Ring-a-ring-o-roses, they all fall down
Ring-a-ring-o-roses, they all fall down
Ring-a-ring-o-roses
Ring-a-ring-o-roses
Ring-a-ring-o-roses, they all fall down

Forgotten son
Forgotten son
Forgotten son
They're still forgotten, they're still still forgotten
Peace on earth and mercy mild, mother brown has lost her child
Just another forgotten son

(fish / marillion)

When footlights dim in reverence to prescient passion
Forwarned my audience leaves the stage, floating ahead
Perfumed shift within the stammering silence, the face
That launched a thousand frames betrayed by a porcelain tear, a stained career, career

You played this scene before, you played this scene before
I the mote in your eye, eye, eye, eye
I the mote in your eye
A misplaced reaction, reaction

The darkroom unleashes imagination in pornographic images
In which you will always be the star, always be the star
Untouchable, unapproachable, constant in the darkness, in the darkness, in the darkness
Nursing an erection, a misplaced reaction, with no flower to place before this gravestone
And the walls become enticingly newspaper thin
But that would be developing the negative view
And you have to be exposed in voyeuristic colour
The public act, let you model your shame on the mannequin catwalk, catwalk
Let the cats walk, and the cat walks

I've played this scene before
I've played this scene before
I the mote in your eye, eye, eye, eye
I the mote in your eye
A misplaced reaction, satisfaction

A irritating speck of dust that came from absolutely nowhere

You can't brush me under the carpet, you can't hide me under the stairs
The custodian of your private fears, your leading actor of yesteryear
Who as you crawled out of the alleys of obscurity
Sentenced to rejection in the morass of anonymity
You who i directed with lovers will
You who i let hypnotise the lens
You who i let bathe in the spotlights glare
You who wiped me from your memory like a greasepaint mask
Just like a greasepaint mask

But now i'm the snake in the grass, the ghost of filmreels past
I'm the producer of your nightmare and the performance has just begun
It's just begun, it's just begun

Your perimeter of courtiers jerk like celluloid puppets
As you stutter paralysed with rabbits eyes, searing the shadows
Flooding the wings, to pluck elusive salvation from the understudy's lips
Retrieve the soliloque, maintain the obituary
My cue line in the last act and you wait in silent solitude
Waiting for the prompt, waiting for the prompt

You've played this scene before

(derek dick, steve rothery, mark kelly, pete trewavas, ian mosley, brian jelliman, diz minnitt)

Garden party held today
Invites call the debs to play
Social climbers polish ladders
Wayward sons again have fathers
"hello, dad!", "hello, dad!"

Edgy eggs and queuing cumbers
Rudely wakened from their slumbers
Time has come again for slaughter
On the lawns by still "cam" waters
It's a slaughter, it's a slaughter

Champagne corks are firing at the sun again
Swooping swallows chased by violins again
Straafed by strauss they sulk in crumbling eaves again
Oh god not again!

Aperitifs consumed en masse display
Their owners on the grass
Couples loiter in the cloisters
Social leeches quoting chaucer
Doctor's son a parson's daughter
Where why not and should they oughta

Please don't lie upon the grass
Unless accompanied by a fellow
May i be so bold as to perhaps suggest othello
Punting on the cam is jolly fun they say
Beagling on the downs, oh please do come they say
Rugger is the tops, a game for men they say
They say, good god they say

I'm punting
I'm beagling
I'm wining
Reclining
I'm rucking
I'm fucking
So welcome
It's a party

Angie chalks another blue
Mother smiles she did it too
Chitters chat and gossips lash
Posers pose, pressmen flash, flash
Smiles polluted with false charm
Locking on to royal arms
Society columns now ensured
Returns to mingle with the crowds
Oh what a crowd

Oh, punting on the cam
Oh please do come they say
Beagling on the downs
Oh please so come they say
Garden party held today they say
Oh please do come
Oh please do come, they say

(derek dick, mark kelly, steve rothery, peter trewavas, ian mosley)

On the rebound, fumbling all the lines
The light at the end of the bottle - alcoholicalphabet
Through the looking glass
The proof in my own reflection
Five senses down and reeling on the cinderella search

On the rebound, fumbling all the lines
Decay on the vertical hold with a horizontal aim
Conversation needs translation
Three dimensions down dissolving on the cinderella search
Cinderella search

On the rebound, fumbling all the lines
Dreaming bartenders, bourbon and saxophone
Out of luck, out of charm, out the game of rejections in a cigarette city
Only courting the homing of direction on the cinderella search
Cinderella search

But the samaritan of the heartbroken, heartbroken
Swam through the nicotine seize, and we exchanged the kiss of life
Resurrection in a trance, the model, the grail, in a marquee of promises i touched the dream
I hold the dream, i have the dream
To end the cinderella search
Cinderella search, oh no more, no more!

Exposing bedside manners on a work extension
Awaiting development with paranoid polaroid eyes
Polaroid eyes

The footman memorised the number
But the prince still holds both the slippers
And would you leave a palace for a bedsit
And canterbury tales
Canterbury tales?

Maybe it was infatuation or the thrill of the chase
Maybe you were always beyond my reach and my heart was playing safe
But was that love in your eye i saw or the reflection of mine?
I'll never really know for sure, you never really gave me time
Give me time, won't you give me that time!

Welcome back to the circus
Welcome back to the circus
Welcome back to the circus

I always use the cue sheets but never the nets
Always the cue sheets but never the nets
Never the nets, never the nets, nevertheless, nevertheless, nevertheless, nevertheless, nevertheless

Welcome back to the circus!