Peter Hammill - A Black Box (1980)

Flying Blind 
The White Cane Fandango 
Control 
Cockpit 
Silk-Worm Wings 
Nothing is Nothing 
A Black Box

If you choose to throw your soul around the attitude 
reasoning and independent thought go down the tube 
as you go slavening after every inane platitude - 
how weak you find yourself here. 
Do you really need to lose yourself completely? 
How come you seem to rate it all so cheaply? 
It's so weak-kneed 
to go for the golden promises, 
mail-order holy vows; 
you go for the golden promises - 
I think you really ought to know better by now. 

So I do my best and I do my nut, 
I try to explain all these angles 
but you turn away. 
oh, now you're looking in the white of my eyes, 
and you know what I'm going to say: - 
don't go for the golden promises, 
don't go for the easy way... 
It's right here on the doorstep: 
fool's gold - don't throw your life away.
 

Most of the things we say mean we most of the time 
treat our speech with derision, 
flap our hands in body-telegram - I know that gets through 
so much better than anything said with precision. 
We've got a problem with communication 
and it's getting quite absurd... 
Well, I think I'm going to flip out from the sheer frustration, 
yes, I'm losing faith in words. 

We've got a problem with communication, 
only getting through in anagrams - 
I try to get some linkage from articulation, 
I try to get some head-room from the elevation, 
I try to pull back something from my education... 
Yes, I try to, try to, try to but I just don't understand, 
I try, I just don't understand, 
I talk, you just don't understand. 

Sometimes I don't know why I bother, 
but I'm bothered.
 

All questions become so simple 
if we eat the inane answer 
if we all agree to ju-ju speak 
we fit into the formula 
we all without exception 
approve the rule. 

We don't understand 
he must be clever 
he must be clever 
he must be right 
he must be right 
we don't understand 

Closed the ranks and barricades 
imposed the secret language 
complexity all catch-phrased 
word-drugged any anguish 
pigeon-holed allusions 
shut the vault behind us 
It's an obvious conclusion 
we'll be the chattels of His Highness. 

Bow down to the Jargon King 
and his minion code-words. 

Here comes the reign.
 

I've been kicking around like a dog, 
lost myself in the blank mass of fog, 
it's some kind of service. 
All humanity's fall-out is there, 
slumped in doorways 
and mouthing cold air - 
I have heard this. 

Fogwalking, fogwalking. 

Since the curfew 
the streets are half-dead, 
all the good folk asleep in their beds, 
it's so easy to go off the rails 
when the fog spores 
are breeding inside by head. 

Fogwalking: there's a presence that I sense 
Fogwalking: the neck muscles tense 
Fogwalking: it's right here inside me, 
try to find a defense - oh, no. 

Fogwalking through the wreckage, 
fogwalking through the worm-eaten 
Night Apple, 
fogwalking through what used to be 
Whitechapel.
 

That sharp halogene flash jars the eyeball, 
the limbs pump in overdrive; 
the body grows seemingly weaker 
but the spirit won't be denied. 

Yeah, the ash-mark stands out on the forehead 
as the vacuum sneaks up on the eyes; 
the body becomes a constant traitor 
but the spirit won't be denied. 

And they call that living a normal live, 
but normality's not standardised. 
Though the body gets ever more root-bound 
the spirit won't be denied 

Yes, the spirit survives.
 

Dance the dance 
in the back of the car 
in the cocktail bar 
till show time let it ride 
Dance the dance 
I feel I've been here before 
this could be anywhere at all 
in slow time. 

Danced the dance, or it soon will be; 
danced the dance, I'll be back here with me 
in no time. 

In no time danced the dance 
It's show time dance the dance 
in slow time.
 

I always forget how crazy things are 
so sometimes it catches me off my guard 
when they make sense. 
The line on the road trail the arrow in the sky, 
I search for the mote in my brother's eye 
beneath the pence... 
a time of blunt instruments. 
Still uncertain when I've woken 
or what constitutes a conscious mind, 
though the thought remains unspoken 
I know I'm flying blind. 

Breaking into cold sweat on the white-hot coals 
the pennies from heaven drop through my soul: 
it don't relent. 
At the back end of dreams I'm amazed to awake... 
I offer my theories but just can't shake 
that seventh sense 
to which there's no defense. 
It seemed the time was for action, 
it seemed so cool to be that kind... 
my tongue writhed to form some retraction 
but I knew I was flying blind. 

I want things to be fast, down to the power-drive; 
I want the zero-gravity heroes to play dead, 
but stay alive. 
We want it to be slow, all the way to stall; 
we talk about a thousand things that never change at all. 
No, it never change... 

It was then that I knew I'd been thoughtless - 
something had slipped my mind: 
I'd strapped myself into the Fortress 
but the Fortress was flying blind. 
We got full clearance, so someone down there 
ought to know the truth of our disappearance - 
If even that still shows it accuses and blames me, 
but nothing was quite what it seemed. 

Sometimes things work out so strangely 
that it might as well all be dreamed. 

The White Cane Fandango 

The White Cane Fandango in Morse code, 
try to shake through the message, 
shake the load; 
only venial sin, running on the spot - 
till the dance begins. 

Where does a man go when the muscles cramp? 
Try to write out a postcard on a postage stamp 
with a drawing pin punching out the Braille 
for the whole within? 

Upset the contango on your future stock; 
paying backwardation, hold onto what you've got - 
such a sideways grin! Some day you may need 
to trade that in. 

If we ride this right 
the future will fall in our hands. 
If we survive the flight 
the future will work out - 
nothing's that black and white. 

Control 

The colour-coded charts are spread, 
but we're still gliding deep into the red, 
the radio is dead 
every valve blown open. 
The radar screen flicks monochrome, 
air traffic controller wants to get on home, 
waiting for a phone call 
to release him from responsibility. 
Nobody goes to see him any more 
except for the man from the ministry. 

He wanted to be, he wanted to be 
the man at the helm, in command of the flightpath; 
he's flying a chair, quite beyond control; 
he's going to have just one more chance 
at a barrel roll. 

All in a dream, all as a dream, 
the colours too bright, the music too deafening - 
the black-out world has just begun to show. 
These cracked-out words I offer... 
but I still don't know. 

Cool blue suffuse the colour gun - 
oh come in, come in number one: 
your time's nearly run. 
Speed-freeze the frame, 
the present and the past hold fast... 
It's too fast, the thing don't, 
the thing won't, 
the thing don't last. 

Cockpit 

The rolling dice clash together never make up the score; 
that old device, the ejector seat, glued to the floor. 
Everybody waits for everyone to make a show - 
no-one wants to be the first, admitting that they know 
how anythings that's gone down here 
could fit into an analytic groove... 
Wait for the tactical move, 
wait for some action we all can approve. 

Too much to drink, for the cup reaches down to the sea; 
too much to think, the barometer pressuring me. 
Rolling down the weather for an Easter parade, 
reeling out the Maydays in the hope of being saved, 
but the radio ham's out giving blood - 
no, no, no, he's not listening. 
The cricketer knows his "Wisden", 
the pilot has got his "Jane's", 
but the sum of this factual wisdom 
don't help us to fly the plane 
(no, and it never will...) 
Beneath the tartan two-piece something rips undone... 
Wait for the ladder to run 
wait for the snake that the ladder becomes. 

A passenger hits the cockpit, willing to chance his game: 
pulls out his gun and cocks it 
in the hope that it all might change. (oh, but it never will...) 
A fly-leaf from the library shows others have been here before, 
tried, failed and kicked out the door; 
the aircrew don't care anymore - 
now they just wait 
for the beat of the silk-worm wing, 
wait for the heat to come down on us 
full force of the law. 

Silk-Worm Wings 

Full force of gravity pulls me down, 
I'll be better off out of there; 
aerobatic spin around, 
I'll take my chances in the open air. 

Sycamore silk-worm wings 
or Roman Candle to the ground, 
there's only one thing for shure: 
when the balloon goes up 
the aeronaut calm down. 

Nothing is Nothing 

He say nothing is quite what it seems, 
he say nothing is quite what it seems; 
I say nothing is nothing. 

A Black Box 

Softly, the angels sing their time and space refrain: 
there's something in everything if you can only pin down its name 
Aerobatic thoughts at the back of my mind - 
Is it nothing but the looping line we all follow? 
Nothing but the spiral twist of DNA 
There'll be no looking back from tomorrow on today. 

So the wire is tripped, split-seconds defect to their successors; 
the umbilical cord is ripped - 
here we all are in free fall. 
I stall where I am, as if to see where I've been: 
only running down the looping line we all follow, 
only chasing down the spiral twist of DNA - 
There can be no looking on to tomorrow from today. 

Life/death/night/day - cold breath will surely fly away. 
Is the empire of sensation locked in a black box 
deep in me, encoded there somehow? 
It fires the imagination to fly on a wing and a prayer 
through my life - is that how it is? 
There'll be no looking back on this... 
this is now, which will be then - 
is this the means? All I know for shure is 
this is the end. 

No looking back from tomorrow, 
no, there'll be no looking back on today; 
better be looking on to tomorrow... 
better think on today.

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