Category: Lyrics

The Faint Horizon

The Faint Horizon

In youth, we think too little
In age, we think too much
In youth, of what’s to come
In age, of what we’ve lost
We always want tomorrow
So never live today
And that’s the curse of our lives
We wish our lives away

With time, the faint horizon
Comes clearer by the day
For some, it’s far too soon
Whilst others cannot wait
And all men need distraction
And some men need their gods
For without these diversions
Then everything is lost

In life, we carve the land up
That is not ours to carve
We cannot take it with us
But cut the greater half
And herein lies the problem
And herein the blame
You enter life with nothing
You leave it with the same

 

(Lyrics – GA Johnson)

The Fun Of The Century

The Fun Of The Century

Could it be that you drove me into your fleet of hand-melt candy?
Could it be that you sent me falling off the roof backwards, gently?
Do not let my words depress you –
I’m here to uplift you now
(I’m here to uplift you now)

Her eyes have gone south –
Terrible lies she denies
Could it be that you broke me into a sheet of rain swept sideways?
Could it be that you wrote me a dead attempt?
It just plain scares me
Do not let my words distract you from all the fun you demand –
From the fun of the century

No more glistening wet poems in your honour,
Captain of alienation, New York, money, compassion

 

 

 

(Lyrics – GA Johnson)

The Index

The Index

I have thought about you in your Summer abode
In your lunatic smock, in chronicle mode
The typewriter smack as you nail in the words
And the turntable’s drunk reflection occurs

I have thought about you in your grasshopper pose
And the cigarette smoke carving trails through your clothes
Your Spanish guitar pins your bed to the floor
So your dreams can’t escape
And they’re yours evermore

Paris, she bleeds night into her cup
As you index the birds and you label them up

 

 

(Lyrics – GA Johnson)

The Journal Of A Disappointed Man

The Journal Of A Disappointed Man

I slip and slide through my life, trying to get a grip on the rail. I’m grasping in the dark for a switch that’ll turn on some almighty bright white light and thus, illuminate the way, the path, make everything clear as day. And every breath I take seems to be quickly rolled up behind me and filed away in memory. Only a particular scent or dose of weather can pinprick the past and even then, the drawer opens flirtatiously for just a moment.

I have lost touch with everyone I went to school with, everyone in the village where I spent most of my formulative years, everyone I went to college with, everyone I ever worked with. They too, are filed away, often angrily slamming the drawer behind them, over something I said or something I didn’t say.
My lovers cannot be traced. I know. I’ve tried. I’ve taken trains to their cities and stood on street corners in the miraculous off-chance that they might wander by. But each time, I have returned home, defeated and had to force myself to sleep so that my heart didn’t kill me.

I began my autobiography at 23 years old, with the intention that I wouldn’t live ’til 25. But I’d done nothing, loved no-one, said nothing of any great importance by that time. The journal of a disappointed man.
I took a position at the Natural History Museum but left after only 3 months due to allergies. Whilst deluding myself that I could reinforce the scientist’s power of detached analysis with a poetic intensity, I would cough up my guts on the glass that held the giant stuffed man-o-war. I had a gift of incisive and candid comment, but I failed to ignite it when faced with the apple-cheeked Irish girl who served the tea in the basement canteen. Drunk most nights, in the Black Swan on Canal St, I would attempt to put my own complicated nature under the microscope of a beer glass. I walked home alone, opening the air with bolshy, slurred dictums against religion, ethics, love and life itself.

Lonely, penniless, paralysed by the guilt of never having told my father I loved him, I wander hospital corridors, posing as a visitor. I have wept, enjoyed, struggled and overcome but I remain disappointed.

 

 

(Words – GA Johnson)

The King Cannot Be Found

The King Cannot Be Found

I know your story
I looked into your eyes
And everything had died
Time was, you glistened
You had a lot to say
But you threw it all away

And now your silence is just an excuse
And I’m embarrassed by the lies you produce
You start to crack up when you’re faced with the truth
You start to crack up when you’re faced with the truth

The king cannot be found
The king cannot be found

I know your story
Your hands are cut to maps
Your heart, a photograph
Time was they loved you
You wore the Golden Fleece
You had them on their knees

But now you’re missing from the history
Now you’re missing from the tapestry
And there’s a shadow where you used to be
There’s a shadow where you used to be

The king cannot be found
The king cannot be found

Black out the windows
It’s the start of the plague
Black out the windows
It’s the start of the plague

 

(Lyrics – GA Johnson)

The Last Engineer

The Last Engineer

I feel alone in the city
I feel alone in the crowd
I try to listen to reason
But the city’s too loud
I took my heart to a doctor
He took one look in my eyes
He told me hearts may be broken
But the love never dies

I tried to follow my father
He was the last engineer
But they’d closed all the factories
And his steps disappeared
I thought I’d follow the train lines
But it started to rain
And everything looked clearer then
Everything was in its place

 

 

(Lyrics – GA Johnson)

The Last Engineer

The Last Engineer

I feel alone in the city
I feel alone in the crowd
I tried to listen to reason
But the city’s too loud

I took my heart to a doctor
He took one look in my eyes
He told me hearts may be broken
But the love never dies

I tried to follow my father
He was the last engineer
But they’d closed all the factories
And his steps disappeared

I thought I’d follow the train lines
But it started to rain
And everything looked clearer then
Everything was in its place

 

 

(Lyrics by GA Johnson)

THE LAST ENGINEER

I feel alone in the city
I feel alone in the crowd
I tried to listen to reason
But the city’s too loud

I took my heart to a doctor
He took one look in my eyes
He told me hearts may be broken
But the love never dies

I tried to follow my father
He was the last engineer
But they’d closed all the factories
And his steps disappeared

I thought I’d follow the train lines
But it started to rain
And everything looked clearer then
Everything was in its place

The Nightmare Goes On

The Nightmare Goes On

I cannot shake this notion
It haunts me through the streets
The height is that of giants
The depth is that of seas
The words refuse my tongue
They tear me from my sleep
You ask me why I cry
But I cannot bear to speak

The nightmare goes on
Won’t somebody wake me?
The nightmare goes on

I cannot bear this notion
Its hand, an icy clasp
I bear its weight at all times
You need not even ask
This sadness in my eyes
The burden drags me down
It shames the storm outside
God knows I’ve tried and tried

The nightmare goes on
Won’t somebody wake me?
The nightmare goes on

 

(Lyrics – GA Johnson)

The Nostalgist

The Nostalgist

I can’t get on
I can’t get on
Because I live in the past and it’s too strong
I can’t get on
I can’t get on
Because I live in the past and it’s too strong

And the present is imperfect
And the future, well, it’s conditional
And the past’s a foreign land
That I’m trying to understand

And all the girls are framed
In the order that they came
And the best friends do their worst
To remind me that I’m cursed
And I’d just like to say
That I’m sorry to everyone
That just wants to get on
That just wants to get on
But I…

 

(Lyrics – GA Johnson)

Theory Of Ghosts

Theory Of Ghosts

I’ve a theory of ghosts and I’m a monster to girls
I stick in their heart like a rusty spur
But I’ve a theory of ghosts :
They’re alive and we’re all dead
That they’re trying to tell us that it’s this way around

And I’ve a theory of girls :
They always seem to leave in the Spring,
As if they know that it hurts more
To carry a heartbreak through the Summer

In the calendar storm,
I circled a day and tried to hold on
And in the last powercut
I whispered her name ‘til the lights came on
Smoked my Indian pipe
Listened to static,
The snow on the wire
Smoked my Indian pipe
Listened to static,
The snow on the wire

I have one photograph that captures her smile
But I don’t have a tape of her laugh

Watercolours can’t help me

 

(Words – GA Johnson)

The Season Is Long

The Season Is Long

The season is long and I’ve got the chills
The city steps back, replaced by the hills
There’s snow on my heart and snow on my pills
The season is long and this season kills

Don’t you ever think that you might love me?
Don’t you ever think that you might love me?

The season is long and I’m coming home
I captured your ghost in the throat of the phone
There’s snow on my heart and snow on my pills
The season is long and this season kills

Don’t you ever think that you might love me?
Don’t you ever think that you might love me?

(Lyrics – GA Johnson)