A Plague of Lighthouse-Keepers - Van Der Graaf Generator

I. Eyewitness

Still waiting for my saviour

Storms tear me limb from limb

My fingers feel like seaweed

I’m so far out I’m too far in

I am a lonely man

My solitude is true

My eyes have borne stark witness

And now my knights are numbered too

I’ve seen the smiles on dead hands

The stars shine, but they’re not for me

I prophesy disaster

And then I count the cost

I shine but, shining, dying

I know that I am almost lost

On the table lies blank paper

But my tower is built on stone

I only have blunt scissors

I only have the bluntest hone

I’ve been the witness, and the seal of death

Lingers in the molten wax that is my head

When you see the skeletons of sailing-ship spars sinking low

You’ll begin to wonder if the points of all the ancient myths

Are solemnly directed straight at you

II.

Pictures/Lighthouse

III.

Eyewitness

No time now for contrition

The time for that’s long past

The walls are thin as tissue

And if I talk I’ll crack the glass

So I only think on how it might have been

Locked in silent monologue, in silent scream

Anyway, I’m much too tired to speak

And, as the waves crash on the bleak

Stones of the tower, I start to freak

And find that I am overcome

IV.

S.H.M

«Unreal, unreal!», ghost helmsmen scream

And fall in through the sky

Not breaking through my seagull shrieks

No breaks until I die

The spectres scratch on window slits

Hollowed faces, mindless grins

Only intent on destroying

What they’ve lost

I claw the wall till steepness ends in the vertical fall

My pail has sailed into the sea: no joking hopes at dawn

White bone shine in the iron-jaw mask

Lost mastheads pierce the freezing dark

And parallel my isolated tower

No paraffin for the flame

No harbour left to gain

V. The Presence of the Night

«Alone, alone», the ghosts all call

Pinpoint me in the light

The only life I feel at all

Is the presence of the night

Would you cry if I died?

Would you cry if I died?

Would you catch the final words of mine?

Would you catch my words?

I know that there’s no time

I know that there’s no rhyme

(False signs find me)

I don’t want to hate

I just want to grow

Why can’t I let me

Live and be free?

But I

Die very slowly alone

I know no more ways

I am so afraid

Myself won’t let me

Just be myself and so

I am completely alone

VI.

Kosmos Tours

The maelstrom of my memory

Is a vampire and it feeds on me

Now, staggering madly, over the brink I

Fall

VII.

(Custard's) Last Stand

Lighthouses might house the key

But can I reach the door?

I want to walk on the sea

So that I may better find a shore

But how can I ever keep my feet dry?

I scan the horizon

I must keep my eyes on

All parts of me

Looking back on the years

It seems that I have lost my way

Like a dog in the night, I have run to a manger

Now I am the stranger I stay in

All of the grief I have seen

Leaves me chasing solitary peace

But I hold experience in my head

I’m too close to the light

I don’t think I see right

For I blind me

VIII.

The Clot Thickens

Where is the God that guides my hand?

How can the hands of others reach me?

When will I find what I grope for?

Who is going to teach me?

I am me, me are we, we can’t see

Any way out of here

Crashing sea, atrophied history

Chance has lost my Guinevere

I don’t want to be one wave in the water

But sea will drag me deep

One more haggard drowned man

I can see the lemmings coming

But I know I’m just a man

Do I join or do I founder?

Which can is the best I may?

IX.

Land’s End (Sineline)

Oceans drifting sideways

I am pulled into the spell

I feel you around me

I know you well

Stars slice horizons

Where the lines stand much too stark

I feel I am drowning

Hands stretch in the dark

Camps of panoply and majesty

What is Freedom of Choice?

Where do I stand in the pageantry

Whose is my voice?

It doesn’t feel so very bad now

I think the end is the start

Begin to feel very glad now

All things are a part

All things are apart

All things are a part

X. We Go Now

Ohhh

Ohhh

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