Lyrics

sunday morning she's still asleep and breathing soft,
awoken by the kettle whistle.
send from the distant moss-hung keep to the drowsy croft
a prayer my flower won't become her thistle,
as i train my fingers to the steel to bring us luck,
and now she's found my weakness
she's in my heart and in my dreams and in my waking up;
she's in the clay and the landscape drawing on my coffee cup.

bleary-eyed the dawn birds sing their songs of love,
looking for someone to hold them;
free from all our aimless thoughts they fly above,
like us just doing as mother told them
in leaving footprints in the lawn when the dew drops freeze;
while the world keeps spinning
she's in the keen touch of the frost and the wind that moves the trees;
she's in the smoke from the bonfire burning up the autumn leaves.

i numb my fingers in the steam, watch the dog run away;
from safe behind my window
i think up rhyme to keep us calm and fill the day;
now she's in each vowel and consonant of every word i say.

when you've got a heavy heart
and everything around you is falling apart,
you can pin it on a rotten day,
nothing that tomorrow won't blow away,
or the hope you get every time you pray.

i know we've got so many minds,
so many hidden meanings between the lines;
and it seems such a simple thing
not to worry what the winter wind'll bring
with the sad song that the robins sing.
but when the puddles freeze it's time

to turn the heating on, dear, because the summer's over;
instead of pinning our luck on a four-leaf clover
just give me a call and i'll come right over.

and i know i've got a lot of faults
and all those hidden futures locked in the vault;
and only time can tell if we stay together and we both stay well,
with a quiet place for our hearts to dwell;
but the foghorns say you're mine...

so put the kettle on, dear, now the battle's over,
instead of pinning our luck on a four-leaf clover
just give me a call, i'm coming over.

i got a call from you...

ferris wheel turning slow,
waving at mother below;
yes i'll try my best mum not to let go.

picture a long summer night,
watching the comets burn bright;
and we'd sit for hours bathed in the moonlight.

let's throw sticks in the park,
and try teach the dog not to bark;
and i'll try not to be scared, mum, when it gets dark.

oh river run true;
driftwood i'll follow you,
'til eddies swirl me around deep in the dark blue.

now it's getting time to move on;
they've faded, the stars that once shone.
and i'll try not to be sad mum when they're all gone.

when you've been filed in the wrong category,
and both your dog and your cat agree
that you shouldn't be alone,
take a leaf from a different tome,
place a wreath on your empty home,
and pick up the phone,

just because i hold you dear,
just because i need you here,
just because i'm see-through,
just because i miss you.

from the clouds brewing over you,
to the leaves rotting under you
in the death-fed stew of life,
from the mud fields of the steeplechase,
to the bloodstains on my delsey case
i'm in this race

just because i hold you dear,
just because i need you here,
just because i'm see-through,
just because i miss you.

from the bottles by the hedgerow,
to the moss on my gravestone;
from the dawn to the setting sun,
from the end to when it all begun;
from these pictures of ourselves,
to the dust on these shelves.

got the mobile spinning from the ceiling
and the moon's making patterns on the wall,
reflected from the spires and the midnight briers
where the owls start the call:

"goodnight to the shadows climbing up the door,
goodnight to the scary clothes heap",
you kiss goodnight the ghosts underneath the bed
before you fall asleep.

and your mind's spinning through all the day's scenes
as your heart beats loud in your ear,
apparently surprised now you've closed your eyes
to find your troubles are still here;

and you're trying hard to distract yourself
but now you've run out of sheep,
and then you get the whole world inside your brain
just because you can't sleep.

bring out a drum for the hiding sun,
pull out the heart from your ear...
just a little reminder that you're still alive
before your wits disappear.

leave the moon to the ghouls and the midnight pools
and the vampires too tired to sleep,
and don't let the world occupy your brain
just because there are no more sheep.

and hug all the monsters underneath your bed
before you go to sleep.

and kiss goodnight the ghosts that live in your head
as they fall asleep.

leaves in the wind,
rain on my window...
the tears from above
catch the moonlight and glisten;
weather's on the radio,
we'd do as well not to listen.

the birds are asleep,
the bugs are a-sleeping,
under the ground where one
day we'll all go;
pushing up the flowers
that our kids'll grow.

it's warm in the sun,
but we can't depend on the sunshine
to see us through the daylight
gloom the whole time;
high above the clouds
the sun always shines.

the needle's set to change,
and the times they are a-changin',
but somewhere in the trees
there's a home for you and me;
far from all the noise
and by a windless sea.

oh girl that i love,
girl ever lovely,
let me be your coat
through the stormy ol' weather;
then even in the hailstorms
and the fog we'll stay together.

and even through the thunder
and the flood we'll be together.

sepia-toned, waiting alone to be sold;
where is the boy, now his precious toy is getting old?

where are the times, the rosy times of long ago?
who is this man? whose are these hands that he holds?

now all your colours are fading
through a life of waiting
for someone to come and take you home.

cheer up they said, paint on a smile and be a clown;
and just go to bed, if this wooden life gets you down.

now all your colours are fading
through a lifetime waiting
for someone to come and take you home.

blue sky, sunshine, fill up my hall,
and leave me the feeling to keep
for when it's dark and i can't see the light at all
and i can't sleep

songbirds, spitfires swooping in the sky,
well i don't know that much it's true
but i know that everybody's born to die
and that i love you

sara i see you used to like it here,
but now there's room on your bench for two
i'll share this quiet place and talk with the trees
about how they miss you

with songs to live by and maintain a heavy heart,
there's music for the melancholy soul;
but mothers and lovers smiling in the park
know something you don't

samuel taylor where can you be now
you're not walking your quantock way?
xanadu and kubla too are just over the brow
but you're so far away

and i know too we'll join you soon
under the ground but until that day...

put another log on the fire,
push another nest from its tree,
sing a happy song for a melancholy choir,
before you fly back home for tea.

and as you pass, the oak trees sigh,
and peter rabbit's doing fine;
oh mrs mcgregor please don't put me in your pie,
i swear that i'll try harder next time.

bad news from the treetops,
all your friends flew away
when they saw the writing on the kitchen wall
said magpie pie today.

on a nothing afternoon that always ends too soon.

an aching heart as sundown
heralds the sunday blues;
and with the woodsmoke from the chimneytops,
i'll fly away with the sunday news.

the shadows grow long in the churchyard
as the skylarks fly away,
and lost to the loam, all the dreams we'll never know;
we'll dream them there one day.

i've sung the hymn from its first bars,
and i fought my way through the gameplan;
now for all the world i feel like a little girl,
but i'll do my best to be a man.

rook on the bough, what tales have you to tell me
from over the stile and the hills of this evening view?
if only these stones, quiet in the moon, would allay my fears,
and we could have dreams asleep under the yew.

into the past go our futures,
in running streams will our thoughts flow,
unto the earth, the sum of all our worth,
and the seasons that we'll never know;
and that garden we'll never grow.

rook, fly away from your bough into the night sky,
and carry our prayers on your wings up to the moon,
and watch the world spin until we've all had our turn
and it's time to go home,
back to the earth to sleep under the yew;

safe in the earth asleep under the yew.

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