Here are the lyrics to the songs we are playing. I will add to these as we go along. Names in brackets indicate principle writers. All arrangements by the band.
All lyrics copyright That Legendary Wooden Lion
Oh God (The Risk Song), Just Words, Triangle, Insufficient Data, The Machine Stops, This Torch, On the Blink, Happy, Harpies, Man in a Cage, Blank Moments, The Rage, The Writing , Sulphur and Heat, Another Slow Day (for fast women) , Follow My Leader (in the dark
Insufficient Data (Weard/Raymond/Bensusan)
I know you tried so very hard to understand me
You’ve done equations but the problem is unsolved
Common denominator, slipping through your hands - you’re unresolved
You fed your information into a computer
You ran a program on my actions and my deeds
You paid a grass to act out as a snoop – he came up weeds
But tonight, as I stumble into slumber
I feel that I’m no different at all
All alone, as I bundle up my blunders
I can be the smiling fool
The grinning ghoul
The know it all
The silent pool.
I think you take it all so serious in your world
You just can’t see the orbit you are moving in
Too much reliance on the clothes, the car, the new girl – and the sin!
Sometimes I turn on the light and catch you crying
That candid photograph reveals more than you see
Somewhere, inside your head, a mirrored fear of dying – and of me.
Still tonight, as you undress undercover
We can’t see if you are different to us
All alone, so distraught, we can’t discover
Why you’re making so much fuss,
So little trust
Such macho thrust
Turning to rust
Your Readers Digest world is so far from my own
When I don’t fit into the pattern you predict you’re really thrown – and all alone.
We’re all like snow flakes, on a heated window
A transient pattern that is fading as we go
Close up we’re different, but from a long way off – we look like snow
But tonight, as the moon sets on the snowscape
We cannot feel there’s any space between us all
All alone, all confused and all encumbered
By the weight that drags you down
That turns you round
That makes you frown
That kills all sound.
But tonight
Time is creeping slowly
It’s your life that drags you down
All alone
You stand there so bewildered
It’s your life that drags you down
And tonight
Someone holds a hand out to you
It’s your life that drags you down
You reach out
Grasp a hand so warmly
Stop your life dragging you down
Oh God (The Risk Song). (Weard/Bensusan)
It’s a far cry from that restless, questing, spirit
That dragged me through the sixties on a rush
It’s a long time always pushing to the limit
With your body screaming ‘stop me’ and your brain cells turned to slush.
Oh God – I’ve still got some risks to take
Oh God – It’s a steep hill, I’ve got no brakes
You could never do that kind of madness now
Or take that step and look over the edge
You could never be so reckless or so feckless
Now you’ve signed in blood the Health and Safety pledge
Oh God – I’ve still got some risks to take
Oh God – It’s a steep hill, I’ve got no brakes
And I really need to be there in the peril and the haze
And feel of slipstream, pounding of my heart
A touch of danger and that tingle down the spine
The pressure in the dark depths and the feeling it imparts
Oh God – I’ve still got some risks to take
Oh God – It’s a steep hill, I’ve got no brakes
Too late to choke back angry Words
To halt the arrow of the curse
Witness the damage
You can’t manage to reverse
And in a second’s thoughtless rush
Propelled by anger, mindless thrust
You make a statement
No abatement, you can’t hush
And in the heat of argument
The cut and parry of dissent
Red faced you bellow
In your hell of discontent
And hard the blood pulse in the veins
Your hand are slipping from the reins
You’re losing grip
A red haze slips across your brain.
Then hit the climax at full tilt
Attacking forces, blood is spilt
And you feel righteous
And your might must never wilt
Full on, you wallow in your power
You are the master of the hour
You stand there feted,
You’re decorated, in full flower
That red rage crashes on the shore
Control is lost in anger’s roar
The temples pulse, the heart explodes
Rise up as hot invective flows
You’ve let the wild beast off the leash
You’ve given mayhem its release
Wide eyed and rampant there you stand
All reason gone – no master plan.
As the adrenaline slips away
And, claws retracted, there you sway
Looking around you
The red pound turning to grey
And now you wonder if, in haste
You maybe made some huge mistake
Now so uncertain
Almost hurting and defaced.
Blank Moments (Weard / Raymond / Bensusan)
It's like staring out the window on a late night tube
The pattern slowly changes but you're not sure if it moves
All alone and all exhausted but you haven't got a thing
Somewhere in your head an alarm bell rings
Blank moments
They torment
Blank moments
Waste away your life
You've been driving through the city, but you don't recall the road
Now with a jolt you wake up, 'cause the truck ahead just slowed
You've just come fifteen miles with your eyes blank and dead
And it hasn't left a trace of memory in your head
Blank moments
They torment
Blank moments
Waste away your life
I've been staring at this paper with a pen clasped in my hand
Now it's covered with my spider scrawl I barely understand
So I read it through and sign my sign with deft accomplishment
Was it me who crossed the T or was it one of them
Blank moments
They torment
Blank moments
Waste away your life
Don’t tell me your name
I don’t want a label to store you by
In that place in my brain
That haven of succubi
I don’t want you to write down your number
I don’t want to call you up
Make another blunder
I don’t want you to trip me up.
Not now when I’m riding high
Not now when I’m in the sky
Not now, I don’t want to lie
Not now, not now, not now
When I’m happy
Just give me your hand
I don’t want a relationship
This is uncharted land
This is our mystery trip
I’ll just use my, use my eyes
Photo engraven images
Before the light dies
I will absorb the vestiges
Of your beautiful face
Of your unspoken grace
Of the filigree trace
Of your presence
‘Cause I’m happy
Don’t tell me the time
All of those minutes are millstones
Just spin me your lines
All of your markers and milestones
Oh yes and don’t just say ‘goodbye’
That is always a lonely word
A word with tears in its eyes
The saddest sound I ever heard
Like a wave on a beach
Like a life out of reach
Like someone gasping for speech
And the moment
Right now I’m happy
On the Blink (Weard/ Juan D'Erful / Trelawney)
Always two steps from reality
And one step back from the fall
Seeing binocular vision
Blinkered by the solid walls
My hand passing through your flesh
My mental gears unmesh
Scrabbling in my book for your number
As if it were a life line
As if your eyes saw any clearer
Than these bloodshot orbs of mine
Somehow it won’t appear
I’m sure I put it there
Faltering words at midnight
Meaning escapes to the stars
We talk to avoid a silence
That twists serpentine through the hours
My ears register vibration
My body, sensation
Six million years from reality
Lost in the world of the fall
Suspended in vacuum revolving
Saving my breath for the call
But dumb here I stand
On the run, on the lam.
Shattered blinded
He reels back away from the light
His feelings injured
His eyes are staring for sight
He reaches out his hand
Tries to understand
The universe is just beyond his hand
Unvanquished unbeaten
He’s trying hard to succeed
He rises slowly
And hovers there on his knees
His feelings unsure
Positions so unsafe
He’s always fearing the door slammed in his face
Force-fed on Bibles
Brainwashed by civilised lies
Appearance is distant
He’s helpless weak in the eyes
And when he tries to speak
You shut his voice
And when he makes a move you make his choice
Till later broken
You’ve stuffed him into a mould
You grant his freedom
Because he is eighteen years old
Then crippled half-blind
Lost his reason
The child has now become a modern man
I’ve just reached that dark stage
But I’m not ready to act
The audience sitting there, silent
A pile up with little impact.
So I call for backup
And you don’t let me down
‘Cause you get my back up
Every time you’re around
You promised you’d turn me on
But you just turned on me
Spun round on a sixpence
Happy to watch me bleed
If this was not my life
Just a day job
I’d take a day off
Sit on the sofa and slob
But its so invasive
This occupying herd
And naked in the high court.
I utter just words.
The Machine Stops (Weard/Raymond/Bensusan)
This is my world, just these four walls
I never go out in the air
Ah, you my think, ‘its very small’
But somehow I’ve learned not to care
I’ve got my video for company
And on my TV phone people talk to me
I have been here, all my adult life
It does not seem so strange to me
I do not feel I need a wife
I watch adult movies on TV
Autoeroticism’s OK by me
Real people never match my fantasies
There in the corner, is my job
I press the buttons every day
And if I do, this daily slog
I get a credit for my pay
I’ve never touched another person flesh to flesh
To be that close to someone would cause such distress
I am a human being in a box
Watching a box, Talking to a box (rpt 4x)
I am a human being in a box
Watching a box, Talking to a box (rpt4x)
The machine stops
The machine stops
The machine stops
The machine stops
The machine.
I’ve held this torch for you for so long
My fingers burnt down to the bone (rpt)
I suppose I ought to cut and run,
The situation’s out of hand
It looked unsafe when we begun
Our ideals always seemed so grand
I’ve held this torch for you so long
My fingers are burnt to the bone
I’ve built an altar to you in my heart
And that was made of light, not stone
Now from the distance where I stand
And Look at this and wonder why
When you were just there by my hand
I somehow let you slip on by
I’ve held this torch for you so long
My fingers are burnt to the bone
I’ve built an altar to you in my heart
And that was made of light, not stone
A fleeting glance, a passing touch
So electric you always seem to me
And I’ve been looking at you now
It feels like an eternity
I’ve held this torch for you so long
My fingers are burnt to the bone
I’ve built an altar to you in my heart
And that was made of light, not stone
The elastic that connects us
Sometimes it feels so tight it’s pain
It sends us hurtling together
Don’t let us fly apart again.
I’ve held this torch for you for so long
My fingers burnt down to the bone (rpt)
Just one quick kiss and you are out of the car
And then I’m driving home alone
The time we had didn’t go far
Now it’s back to the telephone
And the city lights dim in the rear view mirror
And the flames in my heart still scorch
The headlights dotted along the road
But all I can see is this torch
Triangle (Weard / Raymond / Bensusan)
We took off from Bimini a few hours before dawn
Our captain never flew this route before
It was a routine patrol
But I felt deep in my soul
I would not be coming home no more
We were strangers in the night.
We were lost and never found
I was only seventeen
Inexperienced and green
Never more to stand
On the solid ground.
You want to make a mystery about this tragic flight
You want to call on aliens from space
But when I flew into that storm
Began to wish I’d not been born
Or sent to train in that airspace.
We were strangers in the night.
We were lost and never found
We flew north instead of west
Our captain said that he knew best
As we flew into heavy cloud.
We were strangers in the night.
We were lost and never found
Fuel supplies were running short
A hurricane had got us caught
Paralysed in fear at the engine sound (x4)
There’s something, very nasty in the air
There’s something very threatening, about the ladies at the bar.
There’s something very cold about their stare
I’m feeling very, very scared, like running for my car.
Harpies drinking Pernod
Lips as red as blood clots
Harpies at the disco, they’re all
Hanging, round the meat lot
Hanging, round the meat lot
A chemist’s shelf of makeup in their room
A tanker load of cheap perfume, parked discretely round the side
Rouging, up their cheeks to make them bloom
They’ve got all the trappings of a hooker on the slide
Harpies drinking Pernod
Lips as red as blood clots
Harpies at the disco, they’re all
Hanging, round the meat lot
Hanging, round the meat lot
Faces, painted up like mannequins
Silver nails, translucent skin, like an early Hammer Horror.
Their eyes are, just like black holes sucking on
My blood this evening – they will be after yours tomorrow.
Harpies drinking Pernod
Lips as red as blood clots
Harpies at the disco, they’re all
Hanging, round the meat lot
Hanging, round the meat lot
Beauty’s in the mind
The Writing (Weard / Juan D'Erful / Bensusan)
He wrote to her again today
His hand was shaking and his skin was pale
He couldn’t find the words to say
All of his emotions were scrambled
Hissing like the eggs in the saucepan
Hissing like the snakes in the pit
Hissing like an angry Desperate Dan
Hissing ‘this is it!’
She wrote to him about her work
She’d been dancing on the Saturday
Behind that letter something lurks
She couldn’t quite express it
Rattling like a train at full steam
Rattling like an un-oiled excuse
Rattling like a door in the slipstream
Rattling and shaking loose
Crying for a friend or pen pal
Crying for a soul to confide
Crying for a lover but somehow
Crying left them drowning inside (rpt)
Across their posts their dreams collide
Mistakes are not drawn in fine type
Is passion spelled out on the screens
Or is it lying to their hearts
Pounding like the drums in an epic
Pounding like a quake at full bore
Pounding and so energetic
Pounding them into the floor
Crying for a friend or pen pal
Crying for a soul to confide
Crying for a lover but somehow
Crying left them drowning inside (rpt)
Halfway down the runway the engine explodes
Collective gasp of surprise
All senses switch into survival mode
You can see it all there in their eyes
Ch
Staring Death in the face
It’s all back to his place
For a snifter of Sulphur and Heat
You protest you’ve been good
Sadly misunderstood
But the quicksand still sucks at your feet
Speed around the long curve and the traction expires
The gravel slips beneath the wheels
Fight it back frantic but it never tires
Nowhere to dig in your heels
Ch
Staring Death in the face
It’s all back to his place
For a snifter of Sulphur and Heat
You protest you’ve been good
Sadly misunderstood
But the quicksand still sucks at your feet
Standing on the edge just as it crumbles away
A swift downward lurch in the shale
Scrabble for purchase but you’re gone anyway
In the last Doppler shift of your wail
Ch
Staring Death in the face
It’s all back to his place
For a snifter of Sulphur and Heat
You protest you’ve been good
Sadly misunderstood
But the quicksand still sucks at your feet
We’re all so fragile and so easy to break
It’s just in cartoons that we bounce
Face the dragon , grab the tail of the snake
Looking for danger to trounce.
Ch
Staring Death in the face
It’s all back to his place
For a snifter of Sulphur and Heat
You protest you’ve been good
Sadly misunderstood
But the quicksand still sucks at your feet
Another Slow Day (for fast women) (Weard/Cottage)
There was a certain look in his eyes that night
Reflected from the stark blue light
Shining from the pumps
Sitting there alone with his lukewarm beer
Wondering why he ever came in here
Another low life dump
And his eyes are glazed
And his head is swimming
In the cigarette haze
Its been a slow day,
A slow day
A low, slow day
For fast women
He is thinking back twenty years ago
Had everything he needed to know
To get him through the day
He had real thick hair and a very thin waist
Its in reverse, to his distaste
He’s forgotten what to say
And his eyes are glazed
And his head is swimming
In the cigarette haze
Its been a slow day,
A slow day
A low, slow day
For fast women
He drinks his beer and gets to his feet
Heads off down those empty streets
Making for his home
Too many drinks and cold memories
Those lost lovers and old enemies
Have left him here alone
And his eyes are glazed
And his head is swimming
In the cigarette haze
Its been a slow day,
A slow day
A low, slow day
For fast women
Follow My Leader (in the dark) (Weard/Biggles/Bensusan)
Sharp, like the bolt of the taser strike
Left twitching and thrashing on the floor
Marked, like the man left on the spike
Rooted to the spot, nailed through the core - and
Follow my leader in the dark
A Game we play with blinded eyes
Follow my leader in the dark
And when we stumble – no surprise.
Taste the tang of the cordite rush
Blinded by the tracer and the flare
Waste our time on blind, mad, trust
Pull apart the tunic, the chest laid bare - and
Follow my leader in the dark
A Game we play with blinded eyes
Follow my leader in the dark
And when we stumble – no surprise.
Lied to and brainwashed by patriot scams
Tricked into giving again, again, again, again
Spied on and controlled you’re in their hands
Fooled into singing that old, old refrain - and.
Follow my leader in the dark
A Game we play with blinded eyes
Follow my leader in the dark
And when we stumble – no surprise.
Interred, at the last, with military honour
Fold the flag neatly for future use
Confer the medals, but you’re still a ‘goner’
Parents and lovers can only accuse – and
Follow my leader in the dark
A Game we play with blinded eyes
Follow my leader in the dark
And when we stumble – no surprise.
Oh God (The Risk Song), Just Words, Triangle, Insufficient Data, The Machine Stops, This Torch, On the Blink, Happy, Harpies, Man in a Cage, Blank Moments, The Rage, The Writing,
Sulphur and Heat, Another Slow Day(for fast women), Follow My Leader (in the dark