[Spoken Intro]
This is a nearly old Van der Graaf song that we're going to play, it's from The Quiet Zone / The Pleasure Dome, and it's called "The Sphinx in the Face"

[Instrumental Intro]

[Verse 1]
I remember what it felt like at seventeen:
I was a cat, a snake, a lizard, a mouse...
Still got an interest in the limousine
And a spouse and a brat
Country house, London flat

[Verse 2]
I'm gonna head for the island when the summer's out
I'm gonna do all the stuff that I can
Drink like a fish in a waterspout -
I'm a fan of the flow
It began long ago
I'm a man who really should know by now [?]
It just doesn't stop

[Break]

[Accapella]

[Break]
[Verse 3]
It's so much to rеmember
And so much to forget:
Wе're all in the possession of the future tense
We just don't know it yet

[Verse 4]
And the flesh comes through the spirit
And the spirit through the flesh...
We look the Sphinx in the face for answers
But, of course, we're not impressed

[Verse 5]
And we're caught between age and beauty
Experience and youth
So we feel the need acutely
For any kind of Truth

[Bridge]
Oh, but we get copped some days
Caught between options we've failed to play
Such wasted chance
So I join the wastrel's dance:
It has slow as well as fast movements
And any change must be an improvement
On simply fossilizing, standing still
[Instrumental]

[Verse 6]
I got a steady vocation for the Quiet Zone
I just can't wait for the song to be sung
I'm still possessed by the promise of the Pleasure Dome
You're so young, you're so old
You're so here, you're so gone
Such a drag to be told
You're so near, you're so wrong
You're so young, you're so old
You're so queer, you're so strong
You're so, so young

[Instrumental]

[Outro]
You're so young, you're so old

[Spoken Outro]
Thank you