Ian Anderson
Old Aces Die Hard
The light, it is fading along the green belt
As the millions weep for their children
Sitting detached in the suburban ness
As politics brew in the cauldron
Dark ages
Spilling no secrets from the old house of cards
That stand immune as the great disease rages
Through the pack stacked with jokers
Old aces die hard
Unfinished flyovers crack in the winter
And the grass grows still through the concrete
The last words of Prime Ministers drop like the pin
Breaking silence left by their cold feet
Dark ages
Spilling no secrets from the old house of cards
That stand immune as the great disease rages
Through the pack stacked with jokers
Old aces die hard
And mother superior calls for the light
To mark heaven's request for repentance
But the football crowds mutter and pray for the night
And march to their doom with acceptance
Dark ages
Plant their last seed on the withering land
To grow in the dust of yesterday's wages
Underwritten by the pen of history's hand
And the blue dawn
And cracks on the morn
Of another day
Ten thousand years away
And the seeds that were sown
Into young men have grown
Fathers to
Their youngest child to place
In the camp fire's sight
Dead as the night
That he can't quite recall
He can't quite recall
When the dreams in his head were the stones
In his bed and the shouts of the sun as it falls
And the women wake and they laugh as they shake
Their frosty sleep from their hair
And put that same old kettle on
And sing that same old pagan song
Dark ages
History's karma is rattling its chains
Dark ages
Civilization's menstrual pains
The bone's in the china, the fat's in the fire
There's no turkey left on the table
The commuters return on the six o'clock flyer
Brings no bale of straw for the stable
Dark ages
Spilling no secrets from the old house of cards
That stand immune as the great disease rages
Through the pack stacked with jokers
Old aces die hard
Dark ages
Spilling no secrets from the old house of cards
That stands immune as the great disease rages
Through the pack stacked with jokers
Old aces die hard