Ένα “συνειρμικό” podcast με κομμάτια του Peter Hammill των ’70s, από άλμπουμ των Van Der Graaf και σόλο // Αn “associative” podcast of Peter Hammill’s tracks from the ’70s, from Van Der Graaf albums and solo.

00:00 Not For Keith [PH 7] 02:24 Ship Of Fools [Vital] 09:09 Masks [World Record] 16:05 Mr. X (Gets Tense) [PH 7] 21:19 Rubicon [The Silent Corner And The Empty Stage]

NOT FOR KEITH
In Germany, his days finally caught him;
I won’t insult his memory with long-distance grief.
Tears and wakes weren’t his style:
Not him,
Not for Keith.
He’d have laughed in my face
If he saw it get mournful,
He’d pull me up short and say “Life carries on”
In that gentle way of being cruelly scornful…
Now he’s gone.
“I want to see it all, and eat it”
Was as close to ethos as he came;
Though he knew he couldn’t beat it,
He never gave of himself
Anything less than best in the game.
Oh, one for the game…
I never did say, I never quite found time –
He taught me a lot, and I carry it still.
I never thanked him at all for his friendship
And now I never will.
The diaries we write are those that we crave for,
We never put the P.S. at the foot of the final page.
He deserved more time,
But he never was made for middle age,
Not for middle age.
Not for Keith.

SHIP OF FOOLS [LIVE]
The captain’s in a coma, the lieutenant’s on a drunk;
The owner’s in his cabin with his special friend, the monk;
The midget’s on the bridge, dispensing platitudes and junk –
Those wild and special places,
Those strange and dangerous places,
Those sad, sweet faces,
It’s a Ship of Fools.
The nurse in black seamed stockings, she’s already on patrol
For fake fur starlets panicked by the watering-hole;
Everybody’s waiting for the drama to unfold
In those cold and treasured places,
Those old and degenerate places;
Those posed, posed, empty faces
It’s a Ship of Fools.
Run, rabbit, run, you’re the only one that can do it;
Turn, baby, turn, there’s a ring of fire
And you’ve got to go through it.
Fun, baby, fun, when the sands have run to the limit
Turn, baby, turn, there’s a ring of fire and you’re in it.
Looking for logic and adventure
Down the dark end of the street,
Open city, open season, open lips that gleam so sweet
Offer kisses like piranhas
To the soft flesh of your feet,
And any man’s poison is every man’s meat
In those mad and special places,
Those sad and desperate places,
Those sad, sweet soul embraces,
It’s a Ship of Fools
Those strange and special places
Those wild and dangerous places,
Those dead, dead, dead faces…
It’s a Ship of Fools; no rules.

MASKS
He’s a man of the past and one of the present,
A man who hides behind a mask behind a mask;
A clown, a fool, believing it cool to be down
Or that the game is all about who laughs the last.
So he tells all his problems to his friends and relations,
Exposes his neuroses to their view.
They accept as fact every masochistic mumble of his act–
How could they know what was false and what was true?
Sometimes when he wakes
He feels he’s walked into a dream
But all it takes
To remind him things are what they seem
Is the belief that the man behind the mask can really dance
Pirouetting smile
He sees himself cavorting,
Pierrot for a while
Before aborting
To find relief in the shelter of the dark, most telling mask.
After all the pantomimes are ended
He peels all the make-up off his face
To reveal, beneath, the tears running all down his cheeks:
Alone, he opens to the world… but it’s much too late.
He’s been left, in the end, without a face.

MR.X (GETS TENSE)
The current affair gets to be my business
I heard the news on the radio：
The sun on earth… what is this?
Is that the way that the crazy goes?
Attention tuned to the satellites,
Looking down for an overview.
In the chapel of space we are acolytes.
In the battle of time we’re all soldiers too
And the relative choir push the energy higher
Under fire.
The sliding show in the macroscopic,
Finger on the button pointing to progress.
The apparatus roll, no-one here can stop it,
Too busy learning more – always knowing less.
Soon turkey-wrapped in the spaceman blanket
We’ll offer up lame duck apologies
And settle down for the final banquet,
The gourmet dish of technology…
Cryogenic device catches all human life
Under ice.
The current affair gets to be all our businness,
It’s filtered in through the T.V. screen.
The norm, the average… what is this?
When it goes blank what does that all mean?
And what’s the drive of each individual?
And what’s the way that the story ends?
Is it Mr X, left as the last residual
Holder of the flame, conscience of all men?
But he’s so tense to expire
He throws himself on the wire
Under fire.
Is this the way the world ends?
Under ice,
Under fire?
Has there been some mistaken design?
Under ice.
Got to find the human voice.
Lord, deliver us from Babel.

RUBICON
I lay down beside you : I am a unicorn, you a virginal maid,
And I come in laughing play —-
But, maybe, to be saved.
Peer through the backcloth : I am a character in the play,
The words I slur are pre-ordained —-
We know them anyway.
Don’t change your mind, don’t be a fickle friend;
Don’t change your mind, don’t pretend
to something false.
Open the toy-box : you are Pandora, I am the World.
If you cross the stream, you never can return;
If you stay, you’ll surely burn.
Don’t change your mind, don’t come all orchid eyes;
Don’t change your mind, don’t disguise the fear
you feel :
It’s real, and you must
Guard your castle well, for I am the lone wolf,
and the boar at bay —–
Grant me your Pax, you know we only live today,
And on, and on, and into :
“so Long” — it takes so long to drown;
It takes so very long to choke on the taste you’d spurned.
If you cross the stream you never can return;
If you stay you’ll surely burn.

4