Song Lyrics

I can see you (from One-sided Love Affair)

Don’t cherish the illusion
that you can hide from me
I shall see you
I can see you now

driving on the highway
that precise highway
or clubbing at
Hernando’s Hideaway
olé

I can see you
see you

shopping at the supermarket
putting this and that
into your plastic basket
And this…and that

I am the invisible
the invincible
the invisible
the invincible
power
and I can see you…
see you

in your digital form
as a man-computer
I can see what you order
I can see what you google

I can see you
in your bank
at the pharmacist
I see the debts
in your account
your medicines
prescribed in Latin
I can see you

Anything else? (from The Noble Folly of Rock’n’roll)

The woman in the low-necked flower patterned dress sells
Smokers’ material, chewing gum and French letters
In her shady shop at 42 Canal Road, which has
A dark passage leading from the shop to the back of the house
On the right side of the premises is a narrow alley
With a side exit which definitely comes in handy
 
Ding-a-dong, ding-a-dong, I’m anxiously awaiting
The hand which will slide aside the curtain
Which hangs in front of the arch-shaped passage
Waiting for her figure and that hand again
Which will fiddle with the strings of her bra and hide them
Underneath the shoulder straps of her dress
 
What can I do you for
She will ask me
Slowly closing and raising her eyelids
One Miss Blanche? So you like ‘em French?
Here we are then…
Anything else?
 
Ding-a-dong, ding-a-dong, I’m back on Canal Road
Bedazzled by the light… or by something else?
In my mind I can see her swaying in the archway
Honey coloured hair flowing over her shoulders
Wiggling her buttocks, slinking through the corridor
To the back room, unknown to me, luring me
 
What can I do you for
She will ask me
Slowly closing and raising her eyelids
A real kiss? So you like ‘em French?
Here we are then…
Anything else?

Tenderness (From ‘Potemkin’)

Let’s play our game
Of indians and indians
Now the grown-ups have all
Descended the loft stairs
Taking away the messy trays
With remnants of wine
And beer, French cheese
Swollen words
Thin conceit
They cannot frighten us anymore
We’re safe in our reservation

Escapees from the glamour and gloss
Humanity’s imprisonment
Touching a cheeck with reassurance
A tenderness not so innocent

I’ll tell you the tale
Of Don Quichotte
In his timeless
Borderless world
Depict his tender moods and gestures
His bravery
His vulnerability
Nobody can threaten us now
We’ll barricade the stair-head
Dress up in fancy armour
Like scarecrows on the warpath

Escapees from the glamour and gloss
Humanity’s imprisonment
Touching a cheeck with reassurance
A tenderness not so innocent

Mobilized (from ‘5, 4, 3, 2, 1,…0’)

We’re moving
We’re mobilized
Proving worthy
Of the movement
By achieving
Improvement
In the movement
To the greater movement
We are in motion
Pebbles in the ocean
Flakes in the avalanche
Overrunning Mother Earth
Our source of fuels
And building materials
We’re mobile
Automobilized
We move as fast
And as far as we can
As far as the traffic jam
WE PANIC, PANIC, PANIC, PANIC!

We reconsider
Communication
And circulation
Trade in the organic
For the technotronic
Create artificial man
Robot Rationalis
Made to measure
Administer justice
Divide subsidies
Play chess, make matches
Faster
Always faster
More efficient
More ambitious
Swallowed up in hollow time
Thrown out again by
Harrisburg
Tsjernobyl
WE PANIC, PANIC, PANIC, PANIC!

We take a new run up
Supress depressions
Surmount despair
We’re fully grown now
Masters of emotion
Constantly in motion
While promoting our interests
And re-investing
In our activities
To raise the quality
Of these activities
We cover the earth
With cable-TV,
All-night disco’s,
Disposables,
Computer toys for the nurseries
We’re moving
We’re jogging
We’re topfit, tough
Professional, succesful
Move until we lose our breath
Until we’re finished
Find ourselves in the end….
STATIC,STATIC,STATIC,STATIC!

Slow fires, inside bodies, bodies as heavy as tombs

Saint-Ex (from ‘Fly Up In The Face Of Life’)

Fly up in the face of life
Don’t give up, keep trying
Eyes are blind, but your heart can find
Stars in the sky, smiling
A vast, ungainly man
With an upturned, pointed nose
And feet like surfboards
Look at him
A miracle, brilliantly walking
A tightrope over the whimsical
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Creator of The Little Prince

An aquarelle, red, blue and beige
A vast ungainly man
In a tiny aeroplane
Trying to tame his vehicle
So that they’ll need only each other
I’ll be the only one for you
And you for me, shall we?

Why doesn’t Saint-Ex
Get up to clean his planet
Asteroid B 612
And uproot the monkeybreadtrees
That will ruin the fragile rose
To whom
Having nurtured
And having cultivated her
He will be responsible?

A vast man tried in vain
To tame a little aeroplane
But neither crashes nor trials
Could prevent Saint-Ex from flying
So he went up, once more
For a flight over Southern France
In 1944
And, choosing to see
Childhood haunts from the air
Took a sentimental detour

Drawn into a German ambush
Saint-Ex-Up was shut down
An aquarelle, red, blue and brown
He didn’t cry, but fell slowly
As a tree, there wasn’t even
A sound
Because of the sand
On which he landed

Space for thoughts (from ‘Leaping the chasm’/’Point of Yucca 3’/’One-sided love affair’)

She’s a Voice Artist, she fills
Space with sounds
But not now
Sitting in her dressing room
Dressed in a dressing gown
Facing a mirror,
Which is bordered
With small light bulbs,
Alternately
White and blue

He’s a Word Artist, he fills
Space with thoughts
But not now
Standing in her dressing room
Hat in hand
Staring at her back
Obsessed by the braid
Of hair in her neck,
Knotted
Circularly

He is hypnotized and still
Without thoughts
Clearly at odds
With the scenery
“Die Mörder sind unter uns”
A title of a film
A flash far from
A thought. She
Blackens her eyelids
Professionally

She gives her chair a half turn
Leans forward over an occasional
Table where a steel dictaphone
Stands, massive, cold
And in a voice
As if dictating a letter
She sends a message
To the stage manager in the hall

The space was cleared for thoughts
But not before the Word Artist
Had imagined how the message
Would have resounded in the hall
Alienated from its source

Sonia Szewcjyk’s Ballet School (from ‘Split EP’/’Vlucht Over Den Haag’)

Back to
Sonia Szewcjyk’s
Ballet School
See her showing a dance
Who is Sonia?
Can we know the dancer from the dance
Shall we know Sonia Szewcjyk?

Let’s go back in time
Sonia Szewcjyk
Showing you dance steps
And movements which bend
Familiar values and meanings
Create confusion…
Lying is ecstacy
Which lasts longer
Than a second

Walking the pavement
Of the Princess Marie Street
Her red hair blowing
Extravagant clothes
And an air of invulnerability
Each and any of her movements
A beautiful lie
Which lasts longer
Than a second

At the end of the school year
When you and the other
Pupils of Sonia
Szewcjyk were allowed
To rummage about in the case
With costumes,
And fancy dresses
And wigs and veils
And ribbons and hats

Now tell me,
did you dress up to be
Just like
Exactly like
Sonia Szewcjyk?”
Lay your hand on the bar”,
Sonia says,
“Look into the mirror
And smile, that’s your first lie
Now move as I show you to do
And deceive me
Pretend it doesn’t hurt
That’s the price
Of ecstacy”

Save The Dormouse (from ‘The Ex-Yu-Single’)

There was a table set out under a tree
In front of a house which recently
Had been shattered by a curtain fire
Caused by militia who couldn’t decipher
The name of the house painted on a sign
So they committed this senseless crime

There was a table set out under a tree
A Hare and a Hatter were having tea at it
A Dormouse was sitting between them, sleeping
And the other two had their elbows resting on it
Which to the Dormouse may have been unkind
But as it was alsleep I think it wouldn’t mind

But then to be or not to be,
In other words to die, to sleep, to dream,
that ……is the question
It’s either taking arms against
A sea of troubles or suffering from them
In frightening dreams which we would gladly
Farm out to the Dormouse

So let it guard our secret fears
It will suppress them in its dreams
And if it wakes up, it will be only
To sing ‘Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle’
Or to tell you a senseless story
About sisters drawing everything
That begins with an M, like ‘muchness’

So let’s save the glorious Dormouse
Let’s not put it away in a teapot,
Because teapots will fly away to
Leave us behind with our nighmares
Let’s put our trust in the Dormouse
Let us place our fate in his dreams
Save the Dormouse, let’s pay the Dormouse
Our life insurance premiums.

Absence (from The Drugs We All Need)

They’re there when I’m not
When I am, they’re not
But in a secluded and quiet place
I can rediscover the simple words
And the simple expression of
My affection

I followed you
To the dangerous thoroughfare
Which you crossed
For the first time in your life
And I saw your arms and your hands
And I felt my own arms and my own hands
And I wished I could steal your fears

I will right the wrong
Sing words of love in a song
Everyday words
Which will do things to you

I will dream your awkward dreams

Black Cat (1925-2020) (from Koala and other metamorphoses-remix)

Let’s all honour Honor
Blackman, a black cat
Dressed in leather
As an Avenger

She was a starlet
In those old English
Black and white
Movies

She was slinky
Like a cat
She was kinky
Just like that

Even James Bond
Had to confront her
In her role as
Pussy Galore

Speaking in Tones like hers
Even an Avenger
Couldn’t be a baddie

It was an honour To see Honor
On tv with the gallant
Patrick Mc Nee

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