My mind was a timebomb
That was set to explode
So I packed up my cares
Into the sunset I rode
A path to hell that's paved
With good intentions.

Well I guess you and I
Will never see eye to eye
But if there's one thing I'll be 
Glad to know when I die
It's that I never entertained your
'Can't Conventions.'

Two men gaze from behind
Their prison bars
One man sees dirt
The other sees stars

I'm just thinking aloud
Isn't thinking allowed?

Just let your mind wander
It may never come back
Set off on a new train of thought
On life's track.

I'm just thinking aloud
Isn't thinking allowed?
Why is nobody thinking?

How can you call me a failure
Or a social defective
When to find your own mind
You'd need a private detective?
I'm not a statistic or 
A regular family man.

I don't give a damn about public relations
I'll never live up to
Your great expectations
You can take or leave me
Just the way I am.

Your straight jacket emotions
Only stifle and kill
The spirit within us all
I call free will.

I'm just thinking aloud
Isn't thinking allowed?

Two men gaze from behind
Their prison bars
One man sees dirt
The other sees stars.

I'm just thinking aloud
Isn't thinking allowed?
				

Vibrant and real I lie 
Mantled by the open sky
The wind and waves my lullaby
I am the land.

Why do you view me with
Eyes unable to see
The beauty in all that is pure
When it's left to live free?

So hot the fires within my breast
Rock and steel can't stand their test
Yet songbirds in my green beard nest
I am the land.

That which is so strong and old
Cannot be bought or sold
Mine is the green and gold
Wealth without end.

Ruled by the ebb of my oceans
Slaves to the dusk and the dawn
Your petri - dish civilisations
Are buried and born.

I watch as you live
With your heads in the sand
Unable to hear the cry of the land.

I was once a 'Happy Hunting Ground'
Then one day the eyes of science found
A blue - green planet
Spinning round a shining star.

The timeless giver of all life
Offered as a sacrifice
The priceless finds it's price
In the greed of man.

You bury your fears
And your heads in the sand
So you'll never hear the cry of the land.
				

Moonlit faces - ghostly white
Robed in midnight leather
Death - heads adorn their necks
But they have lived forever.

Malign, nocturnal predators
In search of human cattle
Drawn toward their anguished cries
Drowned by machine gun rattle.

Compassionless as mortals die
They feed as we lie sleeping
To our otherworldly overlords
We are a harvest for the reaping.

He said "Hush my child, please don't fight
Your faith is no salvation
Which is worse - a fatal kiss
Or slow asphyxiation?
I must eat so you must die
This is the natural order
Lambs to the slaughter."

Huddled in their barbed wire pens
These frightened rabbits cower
What shortlived comfort daylight brings
The jaws of night devour
Shadowed by their twisted cross
They take their seats to dine
Gorge themselves upon the blood
Of the last of Davids line
While outside in the frosty dawn
Cold sentries dare not wonder why
When daybreak brings the reveille
Their officers in slumber lie?

She cried "Holy Father save the children
Of your chosen nation
From the dead that walk this earth
(living abominations)
We cannot fight what can't be killed
Only the strong survive...
And evil never dies."
				

Just a blank expression sitting in an easy chair
The living incarnation of a world that doesn't care
Mesmerized by media lies
Now they're "New and Improved" by a cunning disguise
It drinks their poisoned water
And thrives off noxious air.

The avant garde of apathy
Waits on the front line
Ever so patiently just biding its' time
They're an advertisers dream
With a greed habit
Their only fear is the fear
Of a green planet.

The avant garde of apathy
Looks after itself
Long past its sell by date
you're still preserved on the shelf
They'd rather ruin the world
Than let their children have it
Their only fear is fear of a green planet.
The avant garde of apathy
Vegetates undefeated
But if you don't want to join it
Then you're helping to beat it
Don't let the chance pass you by
You've got to reach out and grab it
Turn this world they have made
Into a green planet.
				

I stand here before you
The way life has made me
Ill mannered, foul mouthed
Bad tempered and lazy
I stare at your world 
Down the neck of a bottle
Every day is a death ride
When I hold the throttle.

To the drowning I am water
For your calm I am the storm
I'm the fiend who's with your daughter
In bed well before the dawn.

Was I the cat that got the bird?
They'll put the blame on me
Everything was grand in wonderland
Till Charles Manson came to tea.

Each moment's a game
And I must play it to win
And if you cannot bear it
Then you'll just have to grin
All the world is a stage
So I aim to upstage you
("By the pricking of my thumbs")
Kill me off - but like Banquo
I'll come back to plague you
("Something wicked this way comes")

All martyrs seek their cross and nails
The rebels grail his cause
So I'll just sign away my soul
And forget the buy-out clause.

The few who see me through my disguise
Abhore, deplore, hate and despise me
I care not what you perceive
Fall unto your knees
Jack the Ripper went to Sunday school
With his best friends Mack the Knife
And the blue eyed boy
Who lives next door
He's a junkie Jesus Christ.

Do you think I'll be sad
'cus you don't like me
Well I consider it highly unlikely
Spill the milk but I won't cry
My eyes are watertight
Like my alibi.

Yes I'll love you then leave you
For no apparent reason
My names are many
My friends call me "Legion"
The light that casts the shadows
Darker shades of black
That hide the drugged up mugger
Who will stab you in the back.

I'm not the type of angel 
Who fell from divine grace
I'm the one who was so bad
He never got there in the first place
The vulture in the wings
As the battle flags unfurl
"Pleased to meet you,
I'm the wickedest man in the world."
				

He was just a lad of fifteen years
Who barely fit his breeches
A latter day Dick Whittington
Who dreamt of fame and riches
His teachers took him to one side
And promised him the earth
When all he really wanted
Was a taste of wine and mirth.

They said "Attend our university
Accept responsibility
Chant our mantra of morality
Until your throat is sore."
A feast of knowledge this contrite
Could not supress his appetite
"Please sir I want some more and more..."

Christianity was apparent as a fallacy
The Devil take your Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
The ones who have the answers
Are they who pipe the dancers
Earth Mother, the Sun and the Furious Host.

I'll give the whole nation
A sound education
Welcome to the school of hard knocks
Where the ones who know the answers 
Are they that take their chances

For a small fish cast into an ocean
Full of unknown terrors
There's nothing much to smile at
In his comedy of errors.
Where streets aren't really paved with gold
And rags don't turn to riches
In this catalogue of disasters
The models were all bitches.

A Christ on every corner
For a coin he'll save your soul
But it's hard to be enlightened
While you're queueing for your dole.
When I think of all those shallow lies
They fed me in the past
There's one thing I must admit they've taught me...
That is how to laugh
At Christianity (it's nothing but a fallacy)
The Devil take your Father, Son and Holy Ghost
The ones who have the answers
Are they who pipe the dancers
Earth Mother, the Sun and the Furious Host.

This one's for the teachers
Who want to be preachers
Will God keep you warm 
When you're cold?
You'd put those wracked by malnutrition
Straight onto your diet of superstition.
				

Midsummer 2045 they lay upon
The beaches burning
Insects on a ball of rock
Upon it's axis slowly turning
Steel and concrete melanomas
Punctuate the hot sunrise
Spines now chilled by global warming
Microwave their last goodbyes.

For sixty years or more they say
Mankind had known there'd come a day
When there would be a price to pay.
"Square Eyes" watched
The fools game show
The first to go and last to know
Sat eating junkfood on death row
(Feeding the fall of the human empire)

No prophet cast the money lenders
From their polystyrene temples
Noone heard the penny drop
All interest shown was incidental.

Pity the chairman of the board
For all these years he's piled his hoard
But penniless he'll meet the lord
As all the world prepares to die
He stands before the needles eye
Whilst countless millions pass him by
(Fleeing the fall of the human empire)

Recalling all those wasted hours
Of motions passed and minutes taken
Maybe now he feels remorse
For all the souls he has forsaken.

Silhouettes of living corpses
Remnants of a transcient race
March toward the red horizon
Evanesce without a trace.

The proud rub shoulders with the meek
On debris littered city streets
They fight like dogs for scraps to eat
The welfare state's in dissaray
All social order slips away
The "Primrose Path" lead to decay
(The Curtain falls on the human empire)

Codes of conduct redefine
As justice turns to legal crime
These monsters masked by human features
Are by far the blindest creatures.
				

(Narration)
Nobody could have conceived in the final decade of the 20th century
That our humble affairs were being manipulated by computer interface.
Not a soul could have summised that the lives of billions were of
Less consequence than a decimal point in the stock exchanges of the world.

Rare few even questioned the relentless exploitation of our rapidly 
Dwindling natural resources.  And yet across the polished boardroom tables, 
Beings immensely more devious than ourselves surveyed this defiled planet
With jaundiced eyes, and swiftly and ruthlessly, they hatched foul plots 
Against us.
				

From far outside
Earth's fragile atmosphere
It's clearly apparent that the end is near
The sleeper wakens and removes
His golden casque
Vital signs return to his quiescent craft.

He is truth - a word to the wise
Gods children are so young
They cannot realise
The difference between extinction
And life is now only a matter of time.

In the beginning was the knowledge 
He had carried far across
The great unknown
Millenia have passed since he walked
On the savannah where the seeds
Of life were sown.
Yet even deep in slumber he could hear 
His children blunder to destruction
The caretaker of creation placed a fail-safe
At the heart of his construction.

Technologies intended
As mans slaves mutated
Now they are his masters
The trust they place in progress
Only serves to bring
The last days nearer faster.

He is truth - a word to the wise
Gods children are so young
They cannot realise
The difference between extinction 
And life is now only a matter of time.  

I can see the oceans
Stagnent and overflowing
Filled with man made waste discharged
From my cosmic auditorium
I view this crematorium
That is your world at large
My ears hear the wailing of your children 
In a future close at hand
Just as it was before - so it may be again
(If you don't try to understand)...
The seas will rise before your very eyes
Until they swallow up the land
If your polar ice caps melt
The cards are dealt
And you have died by your own hands
I will never help you while you still persist 
In acting like you're blameless
I would rather let your species die forgotten
So your folly remains nameless.

He is truth - a word to the wise
Gods children are so young
They cannot realise
The difference between extinction
And life is now only a matter of time.

"When to mischief mortals bend their will
How quick they find the instruments of ill."
				

See the brave toreador
just look at him thrive
Off the crowd as they roar.

For death brings a thrill
To the everyday lives of the
"non-com" observers
Who gloat and chastise
My mind can't believe we maintain
This barbarous blood thirsty game.

In their picturesque dwellings the aristo-classes 
Spill blood that's not claret from cut-crystal glasses.
Never once pausing to contemplate why
For vanity's victories innocents die.

No better than bloodhounds
Hot on the scent
They butcher their prey 
When its' energy's spent
My mind can't believe we maintain
This barbarous blood thirsty game.

Please show me this "sportsman"
You mention with pride
With his dog to defend him
And his gun at his side
If courage is the one thing
Your kind do not lack
Then why don't you hunt something
That can fight you back?

I see only cowardice ridden by guilt
And your hands won't wash clean of the blood they have spilt.
What measure of madness makes you all so ill
That your passport to pleaseure's a licence to kill?

So I won't waste my time trying to understand why
For vanity's victories innocents die
'Cus you're all vicious bastards I'm sick of your crap
So I won't bat an eyelid when it's you in the trap.
I still can't believe we maintain
This barbarous blood thirsty game.
				

Sometimes I believe that we're already dead
Each day on the T.V. our last rights are read
Some fair weather oil tanker bleeding its' load
Powder keg powder plant ripe to explode.

Mister Prime Minister hear what I say,
Please Mister President listen I pray.
You have the influence and you have the power
To turn back the clocks on mankind's final hour.

When death is the helmsman who steers "Jonah's Ark"
Tomorrows an iceberg that lurks in the dark.
The band plays our song... it's the Funeral March.
				

Thin lizzy's song

Down from the glen came the marching men
With their shields and their swords
To fight the fight they believed to be right
To overthrow the overlords.

To the towns where there was plenty
They brought plunder, swords and flame
When they left the town was empty
And the children would never play again.

From the graves I heard the fallen
Above the battle cry
By the bridge near the border
There were many born to die

Then onward over the mountain
And outward toward the sea
They come to claim the Emerald
Without it they could not leave.
				

I stare at fading visions now much fainter than before
Of the faces gathered round me and the clock upon my wall
My loved-ones stand in mourning but the china timepiece laughs
As it counts away the seconds (it knows all things must pass...)

From darkness into light
Still in my mind but out of sight.
No longer held by space and time
I cross the fine dividing line...

That separates the dear departed from their final breath
The moment when my weary soul is born again in death
No longer flesh my carnal cage can keep me here no more
I leave my cell of shadows for a brighter room next door.

I fracture the shell of this solitary hell
Embrace the unknown as my friend
Mortal barriers falling (the white light is calling)
This wheel of life spins without end.
So up from the ashes a pheonix I rise
On a cord of fine silver my tired spirit flies
To a 'quickening' foetus (the new infant cries)
A bright spark ignites with each old flame that dies.
The cycle continues - incarnate once more
I embark on a journey I've travelled before.

I separate the dear departed from their final breath,
The moment when your weary soul is born again in death
No longer flesh your carnal cage can keep you here no more
You leave your cell of shadows for a brighter room next door.
				

To whom it may concern (whoever that may be)
For I can think of no-one who has shown concern for me.

My last will and testament I now bequeath
To all those I trusted (to those who deceived me)
Though by hope deserted of this I am sure
That where I am going you'll hurt me no more.

While your plotting my downfall I'm planning my wake
Still you're trying to see how much more I can take
In this game that we're playing I know I can't win
And my dreams have all ended before they begin.

One for the wish that would never come true
Two for the kisses betraying a fool
Three for the life that was my bed of nails
For there's only one answer when all else fails.

I fear I have been here too long for my own good
Outstaying my welcome when all the time I should
Have heeded my heart when it said take your bow
But I'm sadder and wiser and listening now.

In this life that you're leading you're fooling yourself
If you think you are better than anyone else
So shed not your tears for me now pretty child
For when I was crying - remember, you smiled.

The knife that I'm holding was never as sharp
As the words from your cruel lips that punctured my heart
Tell me where was your friendship in my hour of need
When you stood and you laughed while watching me bleed?

One for the wish that would never come true
Two for the kisses betraying a fool
Three for the life that was my bed of nails
For there's only one answer when all else fails.

Don't talk to me of loneliness - don't speak to me of tears
For I have had enough of both to last a thousand years
"If music be the food of love" then let a famine rage
To starve my childish innocence before it comes of age.

One for the wish that would never come true
Two for the kisses betraying a fool
Three for the life that was my bed of nails
For there's only one answer when all else fails.

I beg you forgive me - I apologise
For wasting your time with such lengthy goodbyes
But as I depart - unto destiny kneel
I pray that one day you will know how I feel.
				

Live

There's a "Fat Cat" sitting in a Caddilac
Riding ten feet off the floor
Who says "I used to do a little, but I couldn't get enough
And so a little got more and more."
Well I've nothing to show for all these years -
But it still makes me smile
That the ones you always hear the most
Say nothing that's worthwhile.

No gold, no frankincense or myrrh we bring
Just faith and this "burnt offering"
So raise your voice with mine and sing
A hymn to long lost causes.

[CHORUS:]
Pledge allegiance to pretence
The white flag of indifference
You sought a grail forged of fools gold
And on the quest your souls were sold.

Living the life of milk and honey
I bet it tastes real sweet
Now the "chicks" are queueing cus
They all want screwing down on
Institution street.
Does it feel so cool when you act
The fool with "Charlie", "H" and "E"?
Well to my way of thinking there's
A whole lot of nothing where your
Brains should be.

This planet burns and you couldn't really care
That your head (unlike the Earth) is full of air
If there's anybody in there - time has come to face the real world

[REPEAT CHORUS]

They're walking tall yet heading nowhere
Shouting loud but saying nothing
So empty-headed, hollow hearted
Tell me how this farce got started

If there's anybody in there - time has come to face the real world.

[REPEAT CHORUS]
				

Live

She came down from the Western Hills when we were not prepared
I turned deaf ears to words of warning now I'm running scared.
Casting caution to the wind now that the cat's away
I say my grace - fill my face (then for forgiveness pray).
Gon knows I was an honest man - the same as any other
Who loved his wife - worked all his life to keep his family
Until the 'beast' that never sleeps beneath my silken covers
Reared its head and bit its thumb at my morality.

[Chorus:]
Her passion for passion - it will devour
Cruel are the thorns of this delicate flower
Her lust for lust - it will consume
A siren song summons all men to their doom.

She whispered of her innocence - (a plea I must contest)
While baptising helpless sinners with a missionary zest
She will exorcise your demons - then exercise your thighs
Await your 'second-coming' with a hunger in her eyes.

Her sweetmeats are the souls of men - she'll gorge herself to bursting
And for yours her heart is thirsting - as a spider craves a fly
No mortal man could ever hope to suit her as a suitor
Sh'll rewrite the Kama Sutra if you'd care to watch her try.

[Repeat Chorus]

I reach for heaven - desire drags me down
When fools choose their king I'll be heir to that crown
A strange kind of madness I cannot condone
If you are without sin come cast the first stone.
				

Live

I'll sing to you of days departed,
Times when men proud and stouthearted carved their names on history's bloody
Page,
The corpse of chivalry long dead
Is turning in his loamy bed indignant at your new 'enlightened' age
White-collared knights at boardroom tables dream their own financial fables,
Fight to make their incomes larger--mounted on their 'credit charges.'

Held within the safety of this mundane existence--
Facing endless grey Mondays of dull nine to fives,
We all climb the social ladder with a dogged persistence,
Forging chains we shall carry for the rest of our lives.

We cannot see through clothes may maketh man they cannot give us shelter--
On this mortal helter-skelter if our loyalties are torn,
Between the values we believe in and the egos we are feeding--
We stand all together naked as the day we were born.
And so cast off the lies that are our lives and find the truth within.

SKYCLAD--the veil has lifted,
SKYCLAD--now I see through,
SKYCLAD--your mask of illusion,
SKYCLAD--to the fake that is you.

Financial wizards read their spells from filofaxes
Concrete hells of their own making pass for Avalon.
These men self-made by shrewd investing spend their weekends child-molesting,
Lost in 'green-belt' dreams they do no wrong.

Your mortgage payment rocket--
Like your blood pressure rising,
Executive stresses are the dragons you fight.
In your Armani armour you are practically shining,
So have no code of honour--you must always be right.

Just give me a simple life--my tastes are not demanding,
And whatever life may hand me I'll accept it with good grace;
For I'm just a simple lad with few ideas about my station,
So ale and song will apt suffice to keep me in my place.

How can you know the cost of everything yet never see its worth?
If you think because you've paid the piper you should call the tune--
Well think again my friend life is a gain of chance,
By Fate's command we win or lose,
But still retain the right to choose
If we should stumble on--or shed our cares and dance

SKYCLAD--the veil has lifted,
SKYCLAD--no I see through,
SKYCLAD--your mask of illusion,
SKYCLAD--to the fake that is you.

You charge each other for the time and breath it takes to say 'good morning,'
But the truth is slowly dawning--things are getting out of hand,
We all pursue our shattered dreams along the roads to our own ruin--
Watch our empires sink and wash away like castles made of sand.

And so cast off the lies that are your lives and find the truth within