1. A Crisis In Mid-Life

Feeling the sway of the bridge beneath me
I watch the windsock strain
Stepping with care as though there's nothing beneath me,
And I'm alone again

Taking the strain of the lateral movement
My escape is clear;
Follow the road to one of two directions
Can I control my fear?

And I can feel it pulling, the paranoia's rife!
There's nothing like a crisis in mid-life!

Feeling the weight of my divided passions
Coming and going like rain
Taking my chances in my predictable fashion
As all my plans go down the drain

And I can feel it pulling, the paranoia's rife!
Look in both directions, I'm balanced on the knife
There's nothing like a crisis in mid-life!

The burble of canned music finds its way into my heart
The soundtrack to the E.P.G., but I don't know where to start
And all the people and all the humour
And all the culture, all the music, all the things that we once knew
Are wrapped in packets, twelve by twelve, on the shelves

When we were young we had songs for our problems
We had the money to pay...
Kids like us to write anthems for our teen years
And blow our problems away

But now we're in the middle
Our heroes bought houseboats with their wives
There's no-one left to sing along with
As we make the crossing of our middle lives
There's nothing like a crisis in mid-life

2. Lost In London (25 Years Later)

For some strange reason we decided to talk about sex
It was a Wednesday at half past nine
The conversation just seemed to wander there,
Besides we'd done prog two million times
I met the teenage boy in you I never knew was there,
And caught a glimpse of festivals when you had longer hair

We're stranded outside a Soho jazz club now
Neither of us has a mobile phone
The guy we need see is just inside the door
But he might as well still be in Malmo
We talk about our kids a bit and wish that we were them
And hark back to our younger days again

Somewhere in this leering city there beats a heart (I'm told)
And Ian and I keep trying to find it on two very different roads
It seems that no-one even sees us, the kids just seem so cold
So please send your answers on a postcard...
Are me and Ian old?

Some sleazy guy just sidles up beside us and says:
"Hello lads, you looking for someone for a bit of a good time?"
He looks quite puzzled when I say "yeah... Krister Jonsson"
'Cos that's not what he had in mind
And I feel just like a fool as we head into the tube
But suddenly we're laughing all the way home

3. The Ethernet

As night comes to the city, she's working hard on her computer
She takes her work and bundles it up now, and then she shrugs her shoulders
Slowly plods her way downstairs, drops the key off, starts the motor,
Saves her life on tiny disks, they're not backed up, but she'll take that risk.

Give or take an hour or two, he'll be heading in the same direction
Swapping one desktop for another in the search for his reflection
Figures dance before their eyes, but keep the world outside at distance
Help to keep outside – the night.

Four floors up he knows she's gone, he felt the movement in the ether
With the city spread below, he calls to her across suburbia,
The city will not carry his voice tonight.

Back at home the keys still click to the rhythm of their isolation
The flicker on the VDU's got the same old shade of grey frustration
Both the desktops look the same in the quiet of their bedrooms
Help to keep outside – the night.

Four floors up he knows she's gone, he felt the movement in the ether
With the city spread below, he calls to her across suburbia,
Though the tiny icon lights up green in an empty room but goes unseen,
She can't hear his hi-fi – Joni singing:
"everything comes and goes,
Pleasure moves on too early, trouble leaves too slow" – not tonight

He never knows if he'll be found, running for the underground
But she looks for him in there
Scanners trace him through the park, a red dot moving through the dark
She waits for him in there,
All the anger, all the pain, surfaces inside again
All the passion, all the sex, all the heat of being...
Cyber – ex
Waiting on the Ethernet, but he's not connected yet.

4. Celebrity Purée

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5. Not As Good As The Book

Called into life comes a man knuckled down, broken in, but already working
Slightly bemused by the new world he finds himself in
Adapting his thoughts to environments strange and bizarre,
He never thought to encounter,
Running his fingers through things he once read of in books

And all of it seems so unclear
It's not the future he once held so dear
But there's always tomorrow, always today
There's always something in the way

He grew up with Eagle – computers that plotted his courses to far distant planets
But ended up in a grey office suite, with Excel
Now he finds routes to the goals of his peers
And the vast empty space of their pockets
Crossing the vacuum that lies between sci-fi and hell

And all of it just seems so drear
It's not the future we once held so dear
But there's always tomorrow, always today
(The future never looks
There's always something in the way
(Like It reads in the books)

And is this the dream I had as a child?
To see moons from whatever side...
Exploring space with flashing lights
To ride in the pod at Virgil's right
To boldly go where no man went before
To take chicks along just to settle the score
I smile and press the key
And see Uncle Microsoft smiling right back at me

If I could take on those adventures
Have I reached the point where I'd rather stay at home?
And is the comfort of the slippers worth trading
For an evening in the Federation Neutral Zone?

It's half past nine on Tuesday morning
And still nobody's landed yet on Mars
But if I get my quota finished there might be time
For a swift half in the bar

What happened to me?
Was it a turning that I took?
What happened to the future?
It's not as good as the book.

They went to space in an old tin of beans haphazardly strapped to a firework,
With less than a ZX81 to direct them back home...
We sit here with Gigs (abytes) and just twiddle our thumbs,
While personalising our desktops
Raising the firewalls and hoping the heatshields can hold

I watched Buzz Aldrin step out of the tin, to the Moon and start his adventure
That seems to end here with a nice coloured "skin" for my phone
I see those steps through a digital stream and a mass of hot burning plasma
Neatly wrapped up on a 50 inch screen in my home

And though the pictures aren't clear
There's so much more there than I'm wanting here
And there's always tomorrow, always today
(The future never looks
There's always something in the way.
(Like It reads in the books)

6. A Sale Of Two Souls

The sun is hanging low now and the nights are drawing in
Everywhere I go are signs of autumn – the air seems thin
A new ache in a muscle, a new crack in some bone
Another word that just enters the new language on its own... innit?

And I fail, every time I lose the trail, every time the paper-chase of this new race
Leads me into some darkened place, I flap my hands in effort to keep up

A new band on the TV, with, oh-so familiar sound!
That echoes things and sentiments I liked before, – first time around

And I fail, every time I touch the braille, every time I run my fingers 'cross the words
I cannot read, the dots are blurred, there's nothing you can write that I can feel

Age! – creeping on me like rampage, carving lines upon my face
The fast distorting youth, the sunken eyes, the broken tooth,
The shadows of reflections I once knew
Old? – Not quite yet there, but I'm told days get shorter as you
Mould them to your respective needs, shrinking as your life blood bleeds
Into someone else's system, or their veins.

HOLD ON!!! for a moment! – the sky's as blue as when I was young!
And I've as much right to play there as the young guys
Beneath a billion-year-old sun.
And I still have my fingers, and they still push the keys
'Cos everyone I know got older... at the same rate as me

There are only two of me
One's lost in 1973, with faded loons and pom-pom hat, an afghan, C.N.D. and all that
Peace and Love and Rock and Roll.

7. Bat Out Of Basildon

He's only as old as his helmet and no one can see his grey hair
Through the dark tinted perspex sun visor as he breathes in the open freeway air
There's a two hour queue out of Stansted and an age on the M25
A line of artics that stretches to Yorkshire but this guy's still glad to be alive
Half his world in his topcase the other half in his sack
As he overtakes the juggernauts of his past, this guy's never looking back
He lives his life on the white lines, he's the spirit of old "66"
Three hundred kilos of man and machine still getting their kicks

He's still dreaming of summers on the open road
The path that he's chosen is no more than he's owed
And his freedom comes in horsepower it seems
The apehanger bars seem to suit him so well
He's an Easy Rider, he's a Bat Out of Hell
He's the Leader of the Pack, he's an Angel in the Raw
But no-one writes those biker songs no more

Basildon glows on the distant horizon like he's coming down to L.A.
The rain's sheeting in from imagined mountains but while the traffic works he plays

He's only as old as his helmet and he only got it last week
And the exhaust sounds like a fucking rock band and the cops only see a silver streak
He's got Born to Be Wild on the Walkman and the Devil tattoo doesn't show
But the guy from the chip shop down your street is a Heavy Metal God of the Road

And the sun has just set behind the Rockies tonight
On the roads by the Med the water shines bright
There's chrome by the roadhouses and dark-eyed chicks at the bar
There's camp fires burning and there's bands on the stage
And something good's smokin'
But he's never been his age
And the world is his oyster like it never was before
But no-one writes those biker songs no more

8. Four Egos, One War

Ours

After our wars we feel a moment's inspiration as we rebuild our cities
With visions anew and the architects and artists sound our glory
In a monument to freedom.
Scraping the sky with steel and stone and a deep pride in our new-built homes
People are the focus once again, in the wide, wide streets of a town for today's men

And after a time we become immune to all the images
That war brings to our front rooms, so far away
Decisions to be made do not seem relevant to anything that's happening now
But six feet under lies the charred earth, the buried memories of the last time
It's there in the eyes of the survivors, and our peace walks
On an all too finite line

Theirs

The world is awash with dictators and moguls, between them we don't stand a chance
Caught between egos and cold economics we all know the steps to the dance
We can watch it all on TV while we're sitting eating tea,
We can watch the bombs start falling to "set the people free"
And it's raining down on me, through the atmosphere, from the satellites
The battlefields the way the media sees them

The press always get there in time for the flag-burns in every demonstration report
The bombs always go off in the centre of the picture in an area the size of New York
And we don't see this as funny just give awards to the TV crews,
'Cos it's them fighting the wars, not the armies, for the Generals of the news
And it's raining down on me, through the atmosphere, from the satellites
The battlefields the way the media sees them

Ours Reprise

After our wars we switch off, tune in, drop out and evaluate our reasons
But when battle calls, we're there, like moths approaching their destruction
In fast oncoming headlights.
Like rivers need the rain, the hate runs through our veins
Bursting the banks with death and pain and on my TV set tonight, it's pissing down again

His

Give me a moment to assess the facts, I'll make my decision on how we act
If anyone can help me just let me know, I'm writing the script for a prime-time show
If my friends say it's OK I can attack, support from my own is all I lack
I only need approval for what I do, from the ones who beg my approval too

Running round in circles from the cradle to the grave
Searching for security or anything that we can save

Back in the real world where sky meets land, the missles succeed in the task at hand
We don't see amputations on the screen, just enjoy the bangs, ignore the screams

Running round in circles from the cradle to the grave
Searching for security or anything that we can save
Throwing metal at the sky, seeing where it lands and try
To convince the ones who put us here, that this is what we planned for all the time

Mine

With all the weapons of the modern world around me all I'm left with is my guitar
It's not as if a generation's gonna sit down and listen, it's been tried before and only got so far.
But it feels all right, and I won't hurt anyone tonight
Just want to put things in perspective yeah, take a chance and learn another point of view
Learn to make myself selective yeah, with the truth, 'cos nothing else will do

With all the armies of the modern world on my side, fighting for "my right to speak"
It seems the ammunition's falling in the wrong place, 'cos no-one's ever listened to me
But it feels all right, and there's every chance that I'll survive the night
They like to sit back and ignore me yeah, like a billion other different points of view
They sent a weapon to destroy me yeah, and its next target looks an awful lot like you

Running round in circles from the cradle to the grave
Searching for security or anything that we can save
It takes four egos to start one war, throw in some weapons, devise a cause
The media reports it, the politicians lead, I write songs about it, so all of us can feed
Throwing metal at the sky, seeing where it lands and try
To convince the ones who put us here, that this is what we planned for all the time

9. The Full Gamut

The D599 – Dusk

Lying on our backs,
On the cooling tarmac of a country road, we watched the stars,
We watched them fall.

And you made 36, I got as far as 49, before we laughed aloud
Raced back to the house again,
With no idea at all...
... of our own position in infinity

Beware of the promises of songs
When you know the road ahead can be so long,
As we watched the stars that night
We had no more idea of our plight,
Than an earthworm beneath the tripod
Of the surveyor's theodolite

Gothenburg

I'm standing on a stage in Sweden in the rain
But only see the sunlight from your face
It illuminates the faces that smile back from the crowd
We create the time, but you create the place
And the curtains are closing on this act of the play
Tomorrow it seems will be a different kind of day

Stay with me a while! – let me live this moment once or twice
Freeze Frame! – Magnify! – Do I see trouble in your eyes?
Have I just borne witness to the scars that you bear,
From my own pursuit of dreams that perhaps we don't share?

"Talk to me a while", I'd plead, knowing all was said and done,
And that words alone can't change things, Not when the fighting's already begun,
We had a Utopian postcode and a Nirvanan phone,
But no-one was calling and we were left alone

Lying on our backs,
On the cooling tarmac of a country road, we watched the stars,
We watched them fall.
Lying to ourselves
In the quiet slumber of a foreign town
We let it slide
With no idea at all....
.... of our own position in infinity

Oh beware of the promises of songs
When the road ahead can be so long
For constructed poetic verse,
No matter how well-rehearsed
Can't fill in all the cavities
In the mouth that formed the curse

Last Tango
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Studio Tan

There's a kind of comfort in the whirring of a fan,
The dimmed studio lights and turning counters.
The soundproofing a barrier to the hostile world outside,
It can carry on without us

But out there it's changing by the instant
And I'm in here on my own.

I kid myself that you are in here with me,
And you're speaking through me now,
That everything I do in here's for "US" not just for me
But I never could quite explain how

The room is empty,, or, the room is full
Inspiration comes and goes.... but
In the end we became each others tea-break
Togetherness was just supposed.

And inside I just never could see that
But out here it just seems so clear.

Not A Drill – A Storm In The Mountains Of Cantal

We've had so much of trading insults
Oaths and vows are useless, like before
Petty thoughts and skeletons in closets
Are lying all across our wooden floor
And nothing we believe is sacred in our massive quest to hurt.

Everything we're good at is in question
Everything we've achieved is in the mire
And all we have is bile and sick, the ending just can't come too quick
All that we've created has to die
We rip ourselves apart and fall asleep exhausted by the strain

This is not a rehearsal
This is not a drill
Madness rides tonight, banners flying
And it's for real

They get stronger, while we get weaker... and no-one cares

Southend On Sea

I'm standing on a stage in England, blinded by the lights
Hard to even know you're there,
But inside I know the switches have been thrown in your mind
Just a question of when and where

And all of these years I took for granted,
Come on back now and whisper in my ears...
"I never thought twice.....
As blind as three mice"
But I never thought I'd be alone

The A1 North Of Paris

It's time to bring the curtain down,
Time to say our final words,
I can feel it in my bones
I can feel it in my water

Traffic jams and French landscape flash by
Lost in a blur of deja vu
Still, I can't keep my fingers off
The self destruction buttons

And suddenly... it's happening!
I'm sliding into the void I built with you
My lifetime ahead is slipping away
My fingers are clawing but nothing seems any use

What we set in gear has meshed at last
Question marks hover over our past
Like barrage balloons that wait over some
Defended... terrified city

But through it all, I Love You still,
Yet only find spiteful, hurtful things to say,
We take the vow, we make the dive
And head for the exit without even knowing the way

Four Last Days

And the water turns to wine
And the wine turns into pills
And the pills turn into games
But the games are just cheap thrills

Beware of the promises of songs
When you know the road ahead can be so long,
And all my anger cannot move
Or even seek to disprove,
The need I have inside me,
For the love I lost, which can never be removed

The D599 And The A61 (Dusk)

Lying on our backs
A Thousand miles apart
At whatever moment
With synchronised hearts
We'll watch the stars
We'll watch them fall

And from whatever country it's still the same milky way
And I only can dream that maybe some day
We'll meet again