Van Der Graaf Generator Lyrics

Album: Still Life

Still Life Lyrics

(Hammill)

Citadel reverberates to a thousand voices, now

dumb:

What have we become?

What have we chosen to be?

Now, all history is reduced to the syllables of

our name-

nothing can ever be the same:

now the Immortals are here.

At the time it seemed a reasonable course

to harness all the force

of life without the threat of death,

but soon we found that boredom and inertia

are not negative, but all the law we know,

and dead are will and words like survival.

Arrival at immunity from all age, all fear and

all end...

why do I pretend?

Our essence is distilled

and all familiar taste is now drained,

and though purity is maintained

it leaves us sterile,

living through the millions of years,

a laugh as close as any tear;

living, if you claim that all

that entails is breathing, eating, defecating,

screwing, drinking,

spewing, sleeping, sinking ever down and down

and ultimately passing away time

which no longer has any meaning.

Take away the threat of death and all you're

left with is a round of make-believe.

Marshal every sullen breath and though you're

ultimately bored by endless ecstasy

it's still the ring by which you hope to be

engaged

to marry the girl who will give you forever-

it's crazy, and plainly

that simply is not enough.

What is the dullest and bluntest of pains,

such that my eyes never close without feeling it

there?

What abject despair demands an end

to all things of infinity?

If we have gained, how do we now meet the

cost?

What have we bargained, and what have we

lost?

What have we relinquished, never even knowing it

was there?

What thoughts now of holding fast the line,

defying death and time?

Everything we had is gone,

everything we laboured for and favoured more

than earthly things reveals the hollow ring

of false hope and false deliverance.

But now the nuptial bed is made,

the dowry has been paid:

the toothless, haggard features of eternity

now welcome me between the sheets

to couple with her withered body - my wife.

Hers forever,

hers forever,

hers forever

in still life.