Al Stewart

[fox69]

"Samuel, Oh How You've Changed"

"Samuel, Oh How You've Changed"



Most of the better bred
Woollen toys have gone to bed
And the teddy bear is a-sleeping in the cupboard
And the wooden soldiers all
And the rubber bouncing ball
Are list'ning to the tales of mother Hubbard

But the fairy lights are dark
On the Christmas tree as restlessly
I stand here forgotten and alone
I've been too long on the floor,
I can't stay here any more
So Jenny won't you please take me home.

Oh the statues that I see
Are made out of blackest ivory
But I pass them by never guessing of their meaning
And a million voices cry
As I walk across the sky
Though it's restless here, why it's only in-betweening

For the journey that I'm on
Is incomplete so to my feet
I must rise now and travel on alone
Ah, but if you've got some time to spend
In between now and the end
Oh Jenny won't you please take me home.

Now almost every word that I've said that you have heard
Hides another thought left unspoken
And if I may not reach it through the gutter of my speech
Then it best be left unsaid than lie unbroken
And if you wish to see, then from time to time
Look in my eyes
Oh the gold is not far beneath the stone
If that will not say, it doesn't matter anyway
Jenny won't you please take me home.

 

[fox69]

"Sand In Your Shoes"

"Sand In Your Shoes"



You always were a city kid
Though you were country raised
And back in some forgotten time
We shared the cold north days
But the simple life was not your style,
And you just had to escape
So it's goodbye to my lady of the islands

On Remembrance Day the bands all played,
The bells pealed through the park
And you lay there by the "Do Not" signs,
And shamed them with your spark
Now winter moans in old men's bones
As the day falls into dark
And it's goodbye to my lady of the islands

It was just like this

Behind the kisses you so soon swept away
Oh I always knew
That some day you'd
Be bound to just get pulled away

The summer sun beats on and on,
The shops swim in the heat
And you're standing by the traffic signs
With taxis at your feet
Oh I know that in your city skin
You're feeling more complete
So it's goodbye to my lady of the islands

No I never got the letters
That you said you'd send me
So it's goodbye to my lady of the islands

 

[fox69]

"Scandinavian Girl"

"Scandinavian Girl"



The Gothenburg streets were like silver sheets
As I kicked my feet through the snowy world
And in that land there I held the hand of my Scandinavian Girl

We stood as part of a bleak facade
Though the city's heart was still beating
And for a while there I shared a smile with my Scandinavian Girl

And I stood there quite surprised
To see reflected in her eyes
The very thought I left unsaid as too unwise.
And so we passed through a world of glass
And the moment passed and was lost to time
Time too soon with his broken moon took my Scandinavian Girl

 

[fox69]

"Shah Of Shahs"

"Shah Of Shahs"



After these processions comes the sweeping up
The rag and bone possessions, an old tin cup
The army trucks have hauled away the newly slain
The angry crowd retreats, but They'll be back again

And the prisoner in the palace does not understand
The ingratitude around him after all he's done and planned
But if this the way that it must be then he'll be damned
If he will let them take away his perfect dream

Ministers stuff bank notes into leather bags
Their wives have packed the jewelry and the luggage tanks
The word is on the street now, growing day by day
And even the informers know the stay away

And the prisoner in the palace is appalled by this charade
Feeling strangely unprotected by his miles of golden braid
And if this is the way that it must be then I'm afraid
He will not let them take away his perfect dream

And these mountains of equipment brought from foreign lands
Are now stacked up in the desert being buried by the sand
These rows of helicopters rusting where they stand
Are butterflies to take away the perfect dream

He cried inside the limousine and at the airport too
Where the soldier knelt before him and kissed his shoe
He flew across the desert and the open sea
While they tore down all his statues and his legacy

And the victor greets the newsmen with a strange and stoic style
They take a hundred thousand pictures and in none of them a smile
But this is just the way that it must be now for a while
he's only come to bring another perfect dream

 

[fox69]

"Silver Kettle"

"Silver Kettle"



And in the last days of the world of plastic records
He takes the car into town
He hears the voices of salvation through the static
Just turns the volume down

A chain link fence round a boarded up arcade
Towers of glass that petroleum has made
But he wouldn't have been born
At any other moment in the world

And in the morning he will hear the silver kettle
Calling him out of his sleep
The world outside goes by in plastic and in metal
He's got his secrets to keep

The daily news forms a pattern on TV
Violence first, then a cat stuck up a tree
But he wouldn't have been born
At any other moment in this world

One o'clock and the office empties out
He watches as they pass
Nostalgic for something intangible
A time that never was

There is a crack along the plaster in the kitchen
It forms the shape of her face
Just for a moment he will trace it with his finger
One day he'll paint her away

He sees her now - she's got a clean white shirt on
She's someone he'd just love to get the dirt on
And she couldn't have been born
At any other moment in the world

 

[fox69]

"Sirens Of Titan"

"Sirens Of Titan"



I was drawn by the sirens of Titan
Carried along by their call
Seeking for a way to enlighten
Searching for the sense of it all

Like a kiss on the wind I was thrown to the stars
Captured and ordered in the army of Mars
Marching to the sound of the drum in my head

I followed the call
Only to be Malachi Constant
I thought I came to this earth
Living in the heart of the moment
With the riches I gained at my birth

But here in the yellow and blue of my days
I wander the endless Mercurian caves
Watching for the signs the Harmonians make
The words on the walls

I was drawn by the sirens of Titan
And so I came in the end
Under the shadow of Saturn
With statues and birds for my friends

Finding a home at the end of my days
Looking around I've only to say
I was the victim of a series of accidents
As are we all

I was drawn by the sirens of Titan (as are we all)
As are we all
I was drawn by the sirens of Titan (as are we all)
As are we all...

 

[fox69]

"Sleepwalking"

"Sleepwalking"



The stranger comes to town
He is greeted like a prince
Society declares him wise and funny
Celebrities are only decorations in this place
What really matters here is old money
His temporary lover has amber coloured skin
In a lush apartment in the city center
Bankers like his company
They always let him in
There is no door to tell him do not enter
They're following a dream
Following a dream
Sleepwalking
A boy has become a member of a most desired club
He has a fine address in these sixties
If hipness could be diagrammed he would be the hub
Girls follow him round like sexy pixies
There's talk among the money men in Miami beach
The train is leaving
You don't want to miss it
Whatever it is he's offering it's there within your reach
So here is the ring
Why don't you kiss it
They're following a dream
Following a dream
Sleepwalking
But there's a country house a world away from here
Where accusations fill the room today
Something has gone missing and it's absolutely clear
A servent left quite suddenly
He didn't ask for money
He just packed up and left quietly away
Back inside the nouveau world
The rich are sitting down
They realize it's time for some assessments
Their charasmatic friend is somehow no where to be found
Along with beggered will and their investments
Someone said they saw him on a plane to Salvador or Moscow
Now the weather's warming
The lure of easy money keeps him constantly employed
It's a social service he's performing
Following a dream
Following a dream
Sleepwalking
They're following a dream
Willingly it seems
Sleepwalking

 

[fox69]

"Soho (Needless To Say)"

"Soho (Needless To Say)"



Rainstorm, brainstorm, faces in the maelstrom
Huddle by the puddles in the shadows where the drains run
Hot dogs, wet clogs clicking up the sidewalk
Disappearing into the booze shop
Rainbow queues stand down by the news stand, waiting for the late show
Pin ball, sin hall, minds in free fall
Chocolate-coloured ladies making eyes through the smoke-pall

Soho (needless to say)
I'm alone on your streets on a Friday evening
I've been here all of the day
I'm going nowhere with nowhere to go

Football supporters taking the waters
They're looking round for the twilight daughters
Non-stop strip club pornographic bookshop
Come into the back and take your time and have a good look
Old man laughs with flowers in his hair
Newspaper headline "Middle East Deadline"
Jazz musicians are down on the breadline

Soho (needless to say)
I'm alone on your streets on a Friday evening
I've been here all of the day
I'm going nowhere with nowhere to go

Soho feeds the needs and hides the deeds, the mind that bleeds
Disenchanted, downstream in the night
Soho hears the lies, the twisted cries, the lonely sighs
Till she seems lost in dreams

The sun goes down on a neon eon
Though you'd have a job explaining it to Richard Coeur de Lion
Animation, bar conversation, anticipation, disinclination
Poor old wino turns with dust in his eyes
Begs for the dregs from the bottom of the kegs, man
You've never seen a lady lay down and spread her legs like

Soho (needless to say)
I'm alone on your sheets on a Friday evening
I've been here all of the day
I'm going nowhere with nowhere to go
Soho (needless to say)
I'm alone on your streets, or am I dreaming
I've been here all of the day
I'm going nowhere with nowhere to go

 

[fox69]

"Somewhere In England"

"Somewhere In England"



On the platform of an old railway station I enter a dream
And a couple are saying good-bye through the noise and the steam
But it's just "Brief Encounter" my mind is trying to rerun
And I wait for the poignant finale but the dream has moved on

And the train has turned into a ship that is sailing away
And the platform is a beach full of shells under silvery grey
And the girl on the beach is an English Prime Minister's daughter
And she watches the ship disappear at the edge of the water
And it feels like the pain in her heart will be never-ending
And everyone feels this way in the beginning

And she watches the ship disappear for the length of a sigh
And the maker of rhymes on the deck who is going to die
In the corner of some foreign field that will make him so famous
As a light temporarily shines to illumine his pages

Then the scene has changed once again; now it's moonlight on wire
And the night is disturbed by a sudden volcano of fire
And a skull in a trench gazes up open-mouthed at the moon
And the poets are now Wilfred own and Siegfried Sassoon
And nobody talks anymore about losing and winning
And everyone feels that way in the beginning

And I'm up in the air looking down at a girl on a bed
She's lying asleep on her side with a book at her head
And it's someone who left long ago
Was it something I said?
And I hope that she's reading "King Lear", but it's "Twelfth Night" instead.

Now the girl and the beach and the train and the ship are all gone
And the calendar up on the wall says it's ninety years on
I go out into the yard where the newspaper waits
There's a man on the cover we all know, defying the fates
And he seems very sure ashe offers up his opinion
Well everyone feels like this in the beginning

When you feel that the pain in your heart will be unending
Everyone feels this way in the beginning

If you feel that the pain in your heart will be never-ending
Well everyone feels that way in the beginning

 

[fox69]

"Song On The Radio"

"Song On The Radio"



I was making my way through the wasteland
The road into town passes through
I was changing the radio stations
With my mind on you
Oh your friends call you "Lily Paloma"
But that's not the way that you are
It's too much of a gentle misnomer
For a shooting star

But you and me baby
I saw you there
Straight away I knew
There's really no hiding
I'll tell you right now
What we're gonna do
We'll go collecting the days
Putting the moments away
You're on my mind like a
Song on the Radio

I remember the first time I saw you
Alone in the dark with a drink
With a candle flame burning before you
And your thoughts closed in
You were staring out into the distance
Not seeming to hear what I said
Why did you put up such resistance
Like all the lights are red

'Cause you and me baby
I saw you there

Straight away I knew
There's really no hiding
I'll tell you right now
What we're gonna do
We'll go collecting the days
Putting the moments away
You're on my mind like a
Song on the Radio

I don't know what it was that was painful
But sometimes it's there in your face
There are times when you just look disdainful
Of the human race
Ah, but then on the wings of emotion
We circle each other in flight
Till together we roll like the ocean
In its bed at night

'Cause you and me baby
I saw you there
Straight away I knew
There's really no hiding
I'll tell you right now
What we're gonna do
We'll go collecting the days
Putting the moments away
You're on my mind like a
Song on the Radio
You're on my mind like a
Song on the Radio