Pandemonia

 

Twenty-Two

You were 22

When I first saw you

With your painters smile

And your eyes of blue

Tell it like it is

Or something like it was

I swear I heard applause

When the tight-lipped boy

Eyed the starlit girl

And the starlit girl

Has brightened up his world

She was 22 only 22

From the twilit gardens

In the pouring rain

You took me to your house

You made me laugh again

Babe you’re 22

And you’ve got your life in

Front of you


Dreamless

Tonight I am in danger

Something on my mind

I lost you little stranger

I was always too unkind

And you might find

 

Love is always faded splendour

Love has lost us precious time

In love I was the young pretender

But indifference tonight

Couldn’t care less

You might find me dreamless

 

Lord we are in danger

If you give me a sign

That you can hear me tonight

That you could care less


Something Precious Has Been Destroyed (Sleeper Fragment 1)

Something precious has been destroyed

Just shattered

You attempt to make repairs

But the cracks are still visible

 

The original strength will never be restored

The original beauty appears

Only fleetingly on its surface

A painful reminder of that which once was

 

It was within your power

To nurture that precious thing

To protect it

Quite simply you treated it carelessly

And now it’s lost to you

And you find yourself lost without it

 

Quelque chose de précieux a été détruit

Simplement brisé

Tu essaies de recoller les morceaux

Mais les fissures sont toujours visibles

 

On ne pourra jamais retrouver la force initiale

La beauté d’origine apparaît

Parfois fugitivement

Sous le vernis

Un souvenir douloureux de ce qui a été

 

Il ne tenait qu’à toi

De nourrir cette chose précieuse

De la protéger

Mais tu l’as simplement négligée

Et maintenant

Tu te retrouves perdu

Sans elle


The Belle Sisters

Caught in a memory

Of a dream I once had

I cartwheel I’m tongue-tied

Washing with duck eggs

 

So here they come now

Caught in the night train

Mad with confusion

Ask if you reel in shame

 

Are you the little band?

Without the little band

There’s nothing left to believe in

And the thing is that

 

Sooner or later

We all run out of ways

To hurt the ones that we love

If I could just sit here

Learn how to laugh

Try hard to forget

With the Belle Sisters

 

I saw her this evening

Way up on Ashton Lane

I could tell she was leaving

She didn’t even call my name

She held out her hands

When she held out her hands

She was holding

An artificial halo

Hunger in a horse’s head

They rise up before me

Knowing good love

Can always go bad

 

What could I want

What could I need

If not the Belle Sisters

If not the Belles


Tequila Mockingbird

Goosesteps

Goosesteps down lonely streets

Where pandemonia

Rules everyone

In Bohemia

Lord if you’d just seen her

Then margarita changes everything

 

Tequila Mockingbird

Tequila Mockingbird

Darling you broke your word

What else could you do?

Tequila Mockingbird is a shocking bird

And tequila gives us wings to fly

We feel her and tonight we’ll dive

And life gets too crazy

When you least expect it to

 

And the label guys

Throw off their cheap disguise

Just two punch-drunk crazies

Off the Reeperbahn at sunrise

 

Tequila Mockingbird

Tequila Mockingbird Darling you broke your word

What else could you do?

Tequila Mockingbird

Is shocking but

Tequila gives us wings to fly

We feel her and tonight we’ll die

Life gets too crazy

When you least expect it to

And margarita changes everything


Sundown And Longing

I’ve never loved nobody

Like a love you babe

Your ever winning smile

And the paintings that you made

 

Sometimes I picture you

And the gardens over Kew

And it feels like summer again

Summer’s back

 

And when the longing comes

When the longing comes

I’ll await your sweet return

And when sundown comes

Will you make your sweet return?

Will you make it back?

 

Some nights I

Just pray for love

But it’s alright

It’s just sundown and longing


Trocadero Girls

Let’s all play baccarat in pearls

With the king of knaves or the jack from hell

Chase and purr with Venus in furs

As if in the morning you would be her

 

How soft she was how soft she was

I had nothing to lose except a lost cause

I keep moving on try to get some thrills

Try hanging out with the Trocadero girls

I’m going to hang with the Trocadero girls

 

“Boy you look strange” sang a femme fateale

For a moment or two I was under her spell

I took her home donned a white tutu

As if in the morning she could be you

 

How soft she was how soft she was

I had nothing to lose except a lost cause

I keep moving on try to get some thrills

Try hanging out with the Trocadero girls

I’m going to hang with the Trocadero girls


Huntly In Love

Those kisses we gave

High on Huntly

For a girl with lilies on her stairs

I swear are still hanging there

 

Remember you

Remember me

One fabulous evening

High above the trees

When the moon seems to shine for us

Seems to smile

Sinatra sings

Over Riddle strings

And quite in that instant

You said “follow me”

Babe you know I would

Until the end of time

 

You sigh

Free me to move aside

Riding up St Vincent in the sun

Finally knowing you were the one

For me and me for you

We kiss and sway

And skies are blue

Or when the night is young

And new love and only just begun

 

We’re high on Dumbarton rock

On a perfect afternoon

Or just a beautiful afternoon

You’re just perfection

The blue ardour of your eyes

Speaks to me

Of the sweetness of your soul

 

I wish love could always be this good

I wish I could wake every day this way

Always hold you in my arms

Or in bold arabesques sway

 

I was the man who loved to love

I was the guy who slipped off their gloves

But who could never see

What you just can’t miss


The Captives

I heard your voice cry, “it’s all in vain”

As we ran thru’ the downtown lanes

I said it’s too late babe we know we’re thru’

But there’s one last thing I can promises you

I will lift you up

 

In the sweetness of our deceit

We were the architects of our own defeat

It’s gone midnight and now we must part

But I’ll always carry you in my heart

 

One night when you think your world is ending

I will lift you up

 

I’m all her sleekness just like a dream

I’m sure love slipped away unseen

I stood in her slipstream but I didn’t see her go

I was captive on another shore

 

I heard my voice cry, “this is all insane”

Above the roar of a southbound train

Sometimes its cold here and nothing works

But I’ll always carry you in my heart

 

If I could take you where the crowd can’t reach us

I will meet your love

One night when you think your world is ending

I will wake you up

I will let you know just how sweet you are


Phantom Sonata (Sleeper Fragment 11)

“It’s the little phrase from the phantom sonata

But I mustn’t listen”

 

All the memories from when she was in love with me

Which until that moment I had succeeded

In keeping invisible in the depths of misery

Were deceived by this sudden reflection

Of a season of love whose sun I supposed

Had dawned again

Awakened from their slumber

Had taken wing

And risen to sing maddeningly in my ears

Without pity for my present desolation

The forgotten strains of happiness.


Yellow Crombie

Caught in a Crombie in a dead end street

I had it all I had the world at my feet

Lost myself in the fog of retreat

 

I hear the rainsound in the shallow bays

Hear the wind sing thru’ the yellow hay

Find my heartbreak at the break of day

I was breaking

 

As Madame Rochester swept out in flares

Greets a stranger at the foot of the stairs

A fallen angel for the devil may care

 

A makeshift lawyer and a racketeer

Raise writs and some hollow cheers

It’s way past midnight it will cost you my dear

 

Listen darling let’s make this summer long

Now the wind and the rain are long gone

You can kiss me on your old chaise longue

 

We’ll get the hood down and drive to the coast

Find it all when they said it was lost

Recover happiness at any cost

 

Caught in a Crombie on a dead end street

I had it all I had the world at my feet

Lost myself in the fog of retreat


Last night I loved you

Last night I loved you

When you opened your heart

And let yourself sing I said

So long so long

To the best thing in my life

 

I got no reason to deny

That I’m out of my mind

It’s way past my season

But that’s alright

It’s just a Saturday night

Another Saturday night

 

And I still love you with all my soul

As I walk in the freezing cold

I wish the healing had begun

 

I’m outside the station

Set to ride

No destination in mind

You can call it treason

That’s alright

Anything you like

 

Last night I loved you

When you opened your heart and let yourself sing

So long so long

To the best thing in my life


Supernatural (Sleeper Fragment 111)

That night seemed almost supernatural

To belong to a mysterious world

To which you may never return again

Once its doors are closed

 

And I could just distinguish

Standing motionless

Before that scene of remembered happiness

A wretched figure

Who filled me with such pity

Because at first I didn’t recognise him

That I had to lower my eyes

In case anyone should see that they were filled with tears

 

It was myself


Pandemonia

Friendship in love

Should be enough

When disillusion has caught you up

But it isn’t

When Pandemonia stakes her claim

 

Heartbreak

I know you’ve had your fill

But I can hear you laughing still

Yet I loved her

Pandemonia was her name

 

Furies in the mansions

Serpents in the wells

Every chance of happiness

Surely gone to hell

Though tonight we feel broken

Tomorrow we’ll grow stronger still

Pandemonia you fought in vain

 

Lost in the search

For the Holy Girl

You think you’ve found her

Your flags unfurl

But you didn’t

Pandemonia you loved in vain

 

If

I must be so despised

I’ll shrug it off

I’m not surprised

Yes I chose her

Pandemonia was her name

 

Furies in the mansions

Serpents in the wells

Every chance of happiness

Surely gone to hell

Though tonight we feel broken

Tomorrow we’ll grow stronger still

Pandemonia you fought in vain

 

If you fell in love with me

There’s nothing I couldn’t be

I would disown her

For Pandemonia I was insane

Yet love I know must surely die

But then again not between you and I

To endless summer!

To Pandemonia it’s all a game

 

 

C’est la petite phrase de la sonate du phantôme

“N’écoutons pas”

Tous ses souvenirs du temps où elle était éprise de lui

Et qui’il avait réussi jusqu’à ce jour à maintenir invisibles dans les profondeurs

De son être

Trompés par se brusque rayon du temps d’amour

Qu’ils crurent revenu, s’étaient réveillés et;

A tire-d’aile, étaient remontés lui chanter éperdument

Sans pitié pour son infortune présente

Les refrains oubliés du bonheur

 

Dans cette nuit qui lui avait semblé presque “supernaturelle”

Et qui en effet appartenait bien à un monde mystérieux

Ou on ne peut jamais revenir quand les portes s’en sont refermées

Et il aperçut, immobile en face de ce bonheur revécu

Un malheureux qui lui fit pitié: il dut baisser les yeux

Pour qu’on ne vît pas qu’ils étaient plein de larmes.

 

C’était lui-même

 

I thought of what might be in store for me:

To try to forget her seemed to me to be painful,

But sensible, and for the first time possible,

Even perhaps easy.