EVERYTHING / EVERYTHING: LYRICS

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THE FLOOD

(Leo sings / Alice sings)

Do not be afraid of the flood ...be aware
We have built a promontory to save you ...gather there
Every civilization knows it ...make a list
Myriad mythologies ...on a disc

The tide sweeps up below you ...far below
A deluge of all known facts and figures ...ebb and flow
Come to wash away Babylon ...purify
Accretive information systems ...multiply

You'd be wrong to be afraid of the flood ...incorrect
The wave brings only enlightenment ...intellect
Humankind's last chance to ...edify
Join hands or drown ...standing by

...the flood ...the flood

If you can swim
Then you're safe from the flood
If you can think
Then you're free from superstition
Medea informs
Now you can sow the dragon's teeth

This is not the end ...or eschatology

DUMB TERMINAL

I'm moved
It's more than a change of address: this town is sinking slowly
I've moved and you've moved too
(It's) neither tectonic plates, nor the pull of the moon

It's cruel
You must swim the sea
Because you can't use the plane to come here to see me
You'll need goose fat and goggles

Who built this dumb terminal?

We've moved
Like a slide down smooth into a mess of our own making
Is it true? We shouldn't second guess

I've moved
And you've moved through
From being tiny, careless consumer
To something serious...

...men and women sinking slowly...

PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A FOUNTAIN

A portrait of the artist as a fountain
Riding off into the sunset alone
Checks his ears, nose and eyes as he travels
He's a cowboy, he's the cowboy now

A portrait of the artist as a fountain
Wishes farewell to the clowns on the way
And he says, "run from fear, fun from rear"
That's what he'll say, that's what he'll say to them

CARBON

Spaceship Earth is buried under a thick, black dust
Buckminster Fuller, let me shake you by the hand, I must
Quick, sketch the scene in charcoal
We're nearly done (done in)
Grind out a diamond before the sun goes supernova

Young man, you amaze me... architect, visionary
Young man, you amaze me... eat me, eat me, eat me
Young man, you amaze me... show me your sweet DNA
Crystalline debris... show me

Lake Michigan exhibits a meniscus of petrol
Stare into the sun
Blinded by the spectral
Grasp hold the diamond
Sketch in graphite pencils
Print 10,000 copies
Use Xerox, use stencils

Young man, you amaze me... engineer, poet
Young man, you amaze me... clothe me, kill me
Young man, you amaze me... show me your sweet DNA
Observing this C60... show me

VICTORINOX

See the place on the map
A circle in black de-marking the place which we will attack
Set fire to the sails, set forth on the sea
See the place on the map, Valhalla in black
The place where you live is under attack
Gather food, change the locks
Choose your tools... victorinox

Better beware the groundswell
Better beware the hard sell
What did you hear? a death knell
Step on up
Kiss farewell to probity, for enmity
Use sophistry or fallacy
Ban the mail
Suppress the press
If you can, ban telepathy
Senate House pretends to be the ministry of love
Throw rocks or breeze blocks
You're out-foxed... victorinox

Try to ignore the ear pound
Try to ignore the drum sound
Try to ignore the pitch of the floor
Never mind what's next door
Use chemicals
Unleash wild animals
Use phosphorus
Wreck.. wreck the Hesperus
Monstrous animosity
Rhinoceros of animus
And all because hope's lost to us
Burn the box... victorinox

Il TRIONFO DEL TEMPO... (RIDLEY ROAD)

ll Trionfo del tempo e del disinganno

Ridley Road

Damask, Ghanaian rainbow
Ackee and plaintain still breathing, green

Carpet of cabbage precipitates
Stab your nemesis in broad daylight

Crucifix of chicken
Nipple-pink fish in fire and ice

Muscular, carnal snails loitering illegally
Beauty, pleasure, truth and time

Ridley Road

SYNCHROTRON

Can you see Sirius?
Do you know her luminosity?
Can you read the stars?
(Though this is not astrology)
Do you know if you're alive or dead or asleep or awake?
Could you tell at all?

The only journey that I professed to know
Was catalogues and indices
Some queer, bookish Ulysses

Can you build the atom?
Particle by particle?
Can you hear the stars?
And the music of the spheres?
Can you feed the entire population?
Every boy, every girl?
Could you supply them all?

You thought you'd found the answer to everything
Turns out you were wrong
Assumed you weren't the idiot, but omniscient
But you didn't build the synchrotron

Can you see?
Can you read?
Can you think?
Can you build?

How insignificant you are!

A CRACK IN LARSEN C

How are you going to look?
What you going to do when you're older?
Will you feel more special than anybody else?
Who are you going to love when the earth spins colder?

Will I regret the books I never read?
Formalised Music? ...awake...
When will I have plastic surgery? (you need it)
Can you recall your greatest mistake to date?

What drugs will we be on and for how long?
How many hours will we have wasted together?
Will the future crash in in the next five minutes?
And if it does, will we be burning or frozen?

Step into the sky, let me show you an orphan

All the oil drained away and there's a crack in Larsen C
Ada Lovelace, unveil the computer (in 1853)
Luna fell out of her orbit at her apogee
And the Gulf Stream fades away, no apology

Step into the sky, let me show you an orphan

THE ALSATIAN DOG

The Alsatian dog walks past Adam and Eve
The Alsatian dog find it hard to believe...

...that the lead is long and life's so long

The Alsatian dog has been dreaming of Mumbai
He reckons he'd look swell all lit up on the silver screen
A juggernaut crashes into the lexicon
A juggernaut crashes into a bungalow too

And he says...

"You can't define me
Try as you might to pin me down
If I loose my tongue for some reason
I'll still be spoken all over town"

"I'm going to give you some offspring
That's what I'm going to do
But don't you dare think for one minute
That they'll look like me, or sound like you"

...and the lead is long and life's so long

What does he eat?

Dog food or oyster sauce
Millefeuille off the kitchen floor
Plastic or kerosene
Toast, jam, margarine
Rare breeds or poppy seeds
A peace pipe found amongst the weeds
No time for the Saxon beast
What does he eat?
The French meats:
Venison, beef, pork, venison
Beef, pork, venison, beef
Pork, venison, beef, pork
What does he use?
A knife, a fork and language

A NEW SENSE OF HUMOUR

Some people in this town where I live...
...are just psychopaths
...are just dull
...have got a photograph, with holes where the eyes were
...have got a plastic bag inside a plastic bag

I want to know
Which one am I?
It's not that I don't understand
It's just I can't decide
I need to know
Which one am I?
And should I turn on my TV set?

Some people in this town where I live...
...have got some multicoloured stationery
...get hell-fire death-threats through the post more than most
...have got 4-wheel drive on the windmills of their mind
...just watch the cathode ray

I need a new sense of humour
And someone who can pick me up
Not drag me down

Some people can break your heart
Some people can rot your skin

COLOPHON

Bede in his scriptorium....

A ligature
A telescope
The bathyscaphe descends five miles down

One tear from each of his eyes smears history
One page left to write he'll never witness
One page to write before the frozen dawn

If I die tommorrow
What difference the type I used?
What if these pages turn to dirt?
What are these words?
What are these words?

New books, as yet unwritten, let them say,
"All struggle now forgotten
Don't you see this window of time to program...
...AMNESTY"

It's not too late to re-write history
Not too late to save ourselves
Not too late to pull this species
Above, beyond, above, beyond and home