Al Stewart

[fox69]

"The Gypsy And The Rose"

"The Gypsy And The Rose"



Torn between the Gypsy and the Rose
I was led on I suppose
For the Gypsy was always out of reach.

I crossed her palm with silver just to know
What the future had to hold
But she only turned her back on me.

The Gypsy said no man could make her stay
I followed anyway, living only day to day
I left the rose as quiet as the night
Whatever she felt then, she kept inside.

Ah, the years they seemed to change my Gypsy's soul
She grew weary of the road
Looking ‘round for a better way to live.

She traded in her caravan for gold
Pretty things to have and hold
Always wanting more than I could give.

Came the day I just had to go
She screamed: ‘I should have known but I never thought I'd fall’
I said: ‘You're the one who had the crystal ball’
‘Perhaps you never saw me there at all’.

Torn between the Gypsy and the Rose
It was Romany I chose
I was only caught up in a dream.

If you see someone wearing Gypsy clothes
Be wary of the pose
For she may not be all that she seems.

The Rose moved on, she left here long ago
For where, nobody knows just to find another life
I think about her sometimes in the night
I never knew the red rose from the white.

Torn between the Gypsy and the Rose.

I was torn between the Gypsy and the Rose.

 

[fox69]

"The Last Day Of June 1934"

"The Last Day Of June 1934"



The morning is humming, it's a quarter past nine
I should be working down in the vines
But I'm lying here with a good friend of mine
Watching the sun in her hair

I pick the grapes from the hills to the sea
The fields of France are a home to me
Ah, but today lying here is a good place to be
I can't go anywhere

But as we slip in and out of embrace
Like some old and familiar place
Reflecting all of my dreams in her face like before
On the last day of June 1934

Just out of Cambridge in a narrow country lane
A bottle-green Bentley in the driving rain
Slips and skids round a corner, then pulls straight again
Heads up the drive to the door

The lights of the party shine over the fields
Where lovers and dancers watch catherine wheels
And argue realities digging their heels
In a world that's finished with war

And a lost wind of summer blows into the streets
Past the tramps in the alleyways, the rich in silk sheets
And Europe lies sleeping,
you feel her heartbeats through the floor
On the last day of June 19...

On the night that Ernst Roehm died voices rang out
In the rolling Bavarian hills
And swept through the cities and danced in the gutters
Grown strong like the joining of wills

Oh echoed away like a roar in the distance
In moonlight carved out of steel
Singing "All the lonely, so long and so long
You don't know how I long, how I long
You can't hold me, I'm strong now I'm strong
Stronger than your law"

I sit here now by the banks of the Rhine
Dipping my feet in the cold stream of time
And I know I'm a dreamer, I know I'm out of line
With the people I see everywhere

The couples pass by me, they're looking so good
Their arms round each other, they head for the woods
They don't care who Ernst Roehm was, no reason they should
Just a shadow that hangs in the air

But I thought I saw him cross over the hill
With a whole ghostly army of men at his heel
And struck in the moment it seemed to be real like before
On the last day of June 1934

 

[fox69]

"The Loneliest Place On The Map"

"The Loneliest Place On The Map"



This place is so far away
From what passes for civilized life
No shops and no cars and no city lights
Just a river of stars
Over the southernmost ocean so cold
A small group of rocks, seagulls and ice

Some ramshackle huts
A paper in french from long ago
A finger that juts out into the foam
No boats come this way
A few expeditions that pass now and then
They'll be back someday
But I don't know when

It's the loneliest place on the map
Night time is utterly black
I came here by some grave mishap
And I can't find my way back

It's all as remote
As the wintry smile that you gave
As you buttoned your coat
And love was erased
So this is goodbye
I see you silently rowing away
The desolate sky threatening rain

It's the loneliest place on the map
Night time is utterly black
I came here by some grave mishap
And I can't find my way back

 

[fox69]

"The News From Spain"

"The News From Spain"



I have heard the news from Spain
Now you say you've many things yet to be learning
And you don't know if or when you'll be returning
It depends on how
Everything works out
If it can somehow
In Carvajal

And I have heard the news from Spain
Now you've found someone you don't have to be tied to
And he dried your eyes, and later he lay beside you
As the simple wine
Of the flow of time
Pulled us out of rhyme
In Carvajal

Into a taxi and down to the airport
In only the clothes I was standing in
A scribbled address, a toothbrush, a passport
The money we saved in the biscuit tin
Running afraid to a strange Spanish town
Searching the sands and the shoreline...

And I have heard the news from Spain
Now the Winter winds possess the Southern reaches
And the sea folds like a mantle on the beaches
And the crowds have gone
And I've left my song
To be killed alone
In Carvajal
In Carvajal
In Carvajal

 

[fox69]

"The One That Got Away"

"The One That Got Away"



I came upon two strangers on a black and white TV
In a hotel room called nowhere, in the dead of half-past three
Their eyes met across the captain's table
Both trying to resist, but just weren't able
The one that got away.

You knew it had to happen, the music grew intense
In love affairs on oceans, the feelings seem immense
Looks like they headed into stormy weather
Oh, they saw it, even though they stuck together
The one that got away

Now he sees past the glamour, she sees past the lies
The night is quick to anger, the dawn is slow to rise
Who knows what the powers are that divide us?
She still keeps a photograph beside her
The one that got away
The one that got away

 

[fox69]

"The Palace Of Versailles"

"The Palace Of Versailles"



The wands of smoke are rising
From the walls of the Bastille
And through the streets of Paris
Runs a sense of the unreal
The Kings have all departed
Their servants are nowhere
We burned out all their mansions
In the name of Robespierre
And still we wait
To see the day begin
Our time is wasting in the wind
Wondering why
Wondering why, it echoes
Through the lonely palace of Versailles

Inside the midnight councils
The lamps are burning low
On you sit and talk all through the night
But there's just no place to go
And Bonaparte is coming
With his army from the South
Marat your days are numbered
And we live hand to mouth
While we wait
To see the day begin
Our time is wasting in the wind
Wondering why

Wondering why, it echoes
Through the lonely palace of Versailles

The ghost of revolution
Still prowls the Paris streets
Down all the restless centuries
It wonders incomplete
It speaks inside the cheap red wine
Of cafe summer nights
Its red and amber voices
Call the cars at traffic lights

Why do you wait
To see the day begin
Your time is wasting in the wind
Wondering why
Wondering why, it echoes
Through the lonely palace of Versailles

Wondering why, it echoes
Through the lonely palace of Versailles

 

[fox69]

"The Ringing Of Bells"

"The Ringing Of Bells"



Upon this day, if all else fails
It seems we'll have to face the truth
I believe for my part in this thing
I really did love you.

What you loved was love itself
And trying to make a lie come true
I believe for your part in this thing
You hardly even knew.

All along the city streets
You can hear the voices swell
Like the ringing of bells.

Memories on days like these
They echo like the rain in wells
Like the ringing of bells.

The saturation point's been reached
Can't soak up any more regrets
I believe from the start of this thing
I must have paid some debts.

Looking at you now and then
You seem to be like someone else
I believe at the heart of this thing
You hardly knew yourself.

All along the city streets
You can hear the voices swell
Like the ringing of bells.

Memories on days like these
They echo like the sea in shells
Like the ringing of bells.

All along the city streets
You can hear the voices swell
Like the ringing of bells.

Memories on days like these
Run deeper than time can tell
Like the ringing of bells.

 

[fox69]

"Three Mules"

"Three Mules"



Three mules came over a hill
They were dragging a cart
Creaking, it seemed to be falling apart
Laden with millions of dreams
It weighed more than they thought
They never noticed the wheels getting caught
They pulled on, staring ahead
With blinkered eyes and lowered heads
Hoping that all would be fine
I see them now
Time out of time

Ramsey and Stanley and Neville
Were the names of the mules
Each wore a bridle encrusted with jewels
And though a murmur of voices
Was rising behind
Each laboured on
And they paid it no mind
They pulled on with never a doubt
Past boulders and holes
Till the road petered out
And giving a snort they sat down
Waiting for somebody else to come round
And from this are our lives writ large
From the beach at Dunkirk
To Pickett's Charge
And it's hard to go back
after coming this far
Down the road

Three mules looked over a fence
At the field beyond
Green as a forest it shone in the sun
Into the stillness they broke
Like a stone in a pond
And kicking the gate down
They brayed at the ground
And pulled on tugging a dream
Out of a smile and into a scream
And tossed the damp soil all around
Until the whole field turned muddy brown
And from this are our lives writ large
From the beach at Dunkirk
To Pickett's Charge
And it's hard to go back
after coming this far
Down the road

Ah, but it's not very easy now being a mule
I don't believe you appreciate all that we do
Look at this long and unfortunate face
Try to imagine that you're in my place
This is my nature
And to it I have to be true

Three mules came over a hill
With a sorrowful air
Though we've been judged, they said
It's hardly fair
All that we did was for you
And the good of the cause
Then they went back to the sound of applause
They went back into the night
Where a sickle of moon
Left a trickle of light
And while we lay under our roofs
The whole night filled up
With the beating of hooves
And from this are our lives writ large
From the beach at Dunkirk
To Pickett's Charge
And it's hard to go back
after coming this far
Down the road

And from this are our lives writ large
And every day
Is Pickett's Charge
And it's hard to go back
after coming this far
Down the road

 

[fox69]

"Time Passages"

"Time Passages"



It was late in December, the sky turned to snow
All round the day was going down slow
Night like a river beginning to flow
I felt the beat of my mind go
Drifting into time passages
Years go falling in the fading light
Time passages
Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight
Well I'm not the kind to live in the past
The years run too short and the days too fast
The things you lean on are the things that don't last
Well it's just now and then my line gets cast into these
Time passages
There's something back here that you left behind
Oh time passages
Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight

Hear the echoes and feel yourself starting to turn
Don't know why you should feel
That there's something to learn
It's just a game that you play

Well the picture is changing
Now you're part of a crowd
They're laughing at something
And the music's loud
A girl comes towards you
You once used to know
You reach out your hand
But you're all alone, in these
Time passages
I know you're in there, you're just out of sight
Time passages
Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight

 

[fox69]

"Timeless Skies"

"Timeless Skies"



Sleeping under the sky
The barges are gone to a lost decade
On overgrown banks here
Lovers footsteps went by
Long before ever the roads were made
And in our turn we passed here
And carved our names on trees
As the days washed by like

Waves of an endless sea
Under timeless arcadian skies
Under timeless arcadian skies

Time runs through your fingers
You never hold it at all till it's gone
Some fragments just linger with you
Like snow in the spring hanging on

I left the village behind in the night
To fade like a sail on the darkening seas
The shifts and changes in the patterns of life
Will weather it more than the centuries
And in another village in a far off foreign land
The new day breaks out opening up its hand
And the sun has the moon in his eyes
As he wanders the timeless skies