Peter Hammill
Medley (Parts of ‘A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers’ and ’The Sleepwalkers’) [Live]
[(i) A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers]

[(a) Eyewitness]

[Instrumental Intro]

[Verse 1]
Still waiting for my saviour
Storms tear me limb from limb
My fingers feel like seaweed
I'm so far out I'm too far in
On the table lies blank paper
But my tower is built on stone
I only have blunt scissors
I only have the bluntest hone

I've been the witness, and the seal of death
Lingers in the molten wax that is my head

[Verse 2]
I prophesy disaster
And then I count the cost
I shine but, shining, dying
I know that I am almost lost
No time now for contrition
The time for that's long past
The walls are thin as tissue
And if I talk I'll, I'll, I'll crack the glass
So I only think on how it might have been
But I'm locked in silent monologue, in silеnt scream

[Verse 3]
I'm much too tired to speak
And, as thе waves crash on the bleak
Stones of the tower, I start to freak
And find that I am overcome

[Break]

[(b) The Clot Thickens]

[Verse 4]
Where is the God that guides my hand?
How can the hands of others reach me?
When will I find what I grope for?
Who is going to teach me?
I am me, me are we, we can't see
Any way out of here
Crashing sea, atrophied history
Chance has lost my Guinevere, ah!

[Instrumental]

[(ii) The Sleepwalkers]
[Instrumental]

[Verse 5]
Tonight, before you lay down to the sweetness of your sleep
Oh, do you question your surrender to the drop from Lover's Leap
Or does the anaesthetic darkness take hold on its very own?
Does your body rise in service with not one dissenting groan?
These waking dreams of life and death
In the mirror are twisted and buckled;
Lashes flicker, a catch of breath
Skin whitening at the knuckles
The army of sleepwalkers shake their limbs and are loose
And though I am a talker, I can phrase no excuse
Not to rise again
In the chorus of the night-time I belong
And I, like you, must dance to that moonlight song
And in the end I, too, must pay the cost of this life
If all is lost none is known
And how could we lose what we've never owned?
Oh, I'd search out every knowledge that I could find
Unravel all the mysteries of mind
If I only had time
If I only had time
But soon my time is ended, ended
Soon my time is ended
[Instrumental]