Pictures Of A City
(Fripp, Lake, McDonald, Giles, Sinfield)
Concrete cold face cased in steel
Stark sharp glass-eyed crack and peel
Bright light scream beam brake and squeal
Red white green white neon wheel.
Dream flesh love chase perfumed skin
Greased hand teeth hide tinseled sin
Spice ice dance chance sickly grin
Pasteboard time slot sweat and spin.
Blind stick blind drunk cannot see
Mouth dry tongue tied cannot speak
Concrete dream flesh broken shell
Lost soul lost trace lost in hell.
Cirkus
(Fripp, Sinfield)
Night: her sable dome scattered with diamonds,
Fused my dust from a light year,
Squeezed me to her breast, sowed me with carbon,
Strung my warp across time
Gave me each a horse, sunrise and graveyard,
Told me only I was her;
Bid me face the east closed me in questions
Built the sky for my dawn...
Cleaned my feet of mud, followed the empty
Zebra ride to the Cirkus,
Past a painted cage, spoke to the paybox
Glove which wrote on my tongue-
Pushed me down a slide to the arena,
Megaphonium fanfare.
In his cloak of words strode the ringmaster
Bid me join the parade...
"Worship!" cried the clown, "I am a T.I.
Making bandsmen go clockwork,
See the slinky seal Cirkus policeman;
Bareback ladies have fish."
Strongmen by his feet, plate-spinning statesman,
Acrobatically juggling-
Bids his tamers go quiet the tumblers
Lest the mirror stop turning...
Elephants forgot, force-fed on stale chalk,
Ate the floors of their cages.
Strongmen lost their hair, paybox collapsed and
Lions sharpened their teeth.
Gloves raced round the ring, stallions stampeded
Pandemonium seesaw...
I ran for the door, ringmasters shouted,
"All the fun of the Cirkus!"
Ladies Of The Road
(Fripp, Sinfield)
A flower lady's daughter
As sweet as holy water
Said: "I'm the school reporter
Please teach me", well I taught her.
Two fingered levi'd sister
Said, "Peace", I stopped I kissed her.
Said, "I'm a male resister",
I smiled and just unzipped her.
High diving chinese trender
Black hair and black suspender
Said, "Please me no surrender
Just love to feel your Fender".
All of you know that the girls of the road
Are like apples you stole in your youth.
All of you know that the girls of the road
Been around but are versed in the truth.
Stone-headed Frisco spacer
Ate all the meat I gave her
Said would I like to taste hers
And even craved the flavour
"Like marron-glaced fish bones
Oh lady hit the road!"
All of you know that the girls of the road
Are like apples you stole in your youth.
All of you know that the girls of the road
Been around but are versed in the truth.
Formentera Lady
(Fripp, Sinfield)
Houses iced in whitewash guard a pale shore-line
Cornered by the cactus and the pine.
Here I wander where sweet sage and strange herbs grow
Down a sun-baked crumpled stony road.
Dusty wheels leaning rusting in the sun;
Snuff brown walls where Spanish lizards run.
Here I'm shadowed by a dragon fig tree's fan
Ringed by ants and musing over man.
I'll unwind my old strings while the sun shine down
Won't climb any high thing while the sun shine.
Formentera Lady sing your song for me
Formentera Lady sweet lover.
Lamplights glows on old guitars the travellers strum;
Insence children dance to an Indian drum.
Here Odysseus charmed for dark Circe fell,
Still her perfume lingers still her spell.
Time's grey hand won't catch me while the sun shine down
Untie and unlatch me while the stars shine.
Formentera Lady dance your dance for me
Formentera Lady dark lover.
The Sailor's Tale
(Fripp)
--- instrumental ---
21st Century Schizoid Man
(Fripp, Lake, McDonald, Giles, Sinfield)
Cat's foot iron claw
Neuro-surgeons scream for more
At paranoia's poison door.
Twenty first century schizoid man.
Blood rack barbed wire
Polititians' funeral pyre
Innocents raped with napalm fire
Twenty first century schizoid man.
Death seed blind man's greed
Poets' starving children bleed
Nothing he's got he really needs
Twenty first century schizoid man.