Silver Kettle - Al Stewart

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