LIZARD 1970
CIRKUS including ENTRY OF THE CHAMELEONS (6:28)
INDOOR GAMES (5:38)
HAPPY FAMILY (4:15)
LADY OF THE DANCING WATER (2:43)
LIZARD (22:24)
A:PRINCE RUPERT AWAKES (4:34)
B:BOLERO - THE PEACOCK'S TALE (6:30)
C:THE BATTLE OF GLASS TEARS including 1.DAWN SONG - 2.LAST SKIRMISH
- 3.PRINCE RUPERT'S LAMENT (10:55)
D:THE BIG TOP (1:05)
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ROBERT FRIPP: GUITAR, MELLOTRON, ELECTRIC KEYBOARDS &
DEVICES
MEL COLLINS: FLUTE & SAXES
GORDON HASKELL: BASS GUITAR & VOCALS
ANDY McCULLOCH: DRUMS
PETER SINFIELD: WORDS & PICTURES
with:
ROBIN MILLER: OBOE & COR ANGLAIS
MARK CHARIG: CORNET
NICK EVANS: TROMBONE
KEITH TIPPET: PIANO & ELECTRIC PIANO
JON ANDERSON of YES: VOCALS ON "PRINCE RUPERT AWAKES"
CIRKUS including Entry of the
Chameleons
Night: her sable dome scattered with diamonds,
Fused my dust from a light year,
Squeezed me to her breast, sowed me with carbon,
Strung my warp across time
Gave me each a horse, sunrise and graveyard,
Told me only I was her;
Bid me face the east closed me in questions
Built the sky for my dawn . . .
Cleaned my feet of mud, followed the
empty
Zebra ride to the Cirkus,
Past a painted cage, spoke to the paybox
Glove which wrote on my tongue-
Pushed me down a slide to the arena,
Megaphonium fanfare.
In his cloak of words strode the ringmaster
Bid me join the parade . . .
"Worship!" cried the clown, "I am a
T.I.
Making bandsmen go clockwork,
See the slinky seal Cirkus policeman;
Bareback ladies have fish."
Strongmen by his feet, plate-spinning statesman,
Acrobatically juggling-
Bids his tamers go quiet the tumblers
Lest the mirror stop turning . . .
Elephants forgot, force-fed on stale
chalk,
Ate the floors of their cages.
Strongmen lost their hair, paybox collapsed and
Lions sharpened their teeth.
Gloves raced round the ring, stallions stampeded
Pandemonium seesaw . . .
I ran for the door, ringmasters shouted,
"All the fun of the Cirkus!"
INDOOR GAMES
Indoor fireworks amuse your kitchen staff
Dusting plastic garlic plants
They snigger in the draught
When you ride through the parlour
Wearing nothing but your armour-
Playing Indoor Games.
One string puppet shows amuse
Your sycophantic friends
Who cheer your rancid recipes
In fear they might offend,
Whilst you loaf on your sofa
Sporting falsies and a toga-
Playing Indoor Games, Indoor Games.
Your mean teetotum spins arouse your
seventh wife
Who pats her sixty little skins
And reinsures your life,
Whilst you sulk in your sauna
'Cos you lost your jigsaw corner-
Playing Indoor Games, Indoor Games.
Each afternoon you train baboons to
sing
Or swim in purple perspex water wings.
Come Saturday jump hopper, chelsea brigade,
High bender-trender it's all Indoor Games.
No ball bagatelle incites
Your children to conspire,
They slide across your frying pan
And fertilize your fire;
Still you and Jones go madder
Broken bones-broken ladder-
Hey Ho . . .
HAPPY FAMILY
Happy family, one hand clap, four went by and
none come back.
Brother Judas, ash and sack, swallowed aphrodisiac.
Rufus, Silas, Jonah too sang, "We'll blow our own
canoes,"
Poked a finger in the zoo, punctured all the ballyhoo
Whipped the world and beat the clock,
wound up
with their share of stock.
Silver Rolls from golden rock, shaken by a knock,
knock, knock.
Happy family, wave that grin, what goes round
must surely spin;
Cheesecake, mousetrap, Grip-Pipe-Thynne cried out,
"We're not Rin Tin Tin."
Uncle Rufus grew his nose, threw away
his circus
clothes
Cousin Silas grew a beard, drew another flask of
weird
Nasty Jonah grew a wife, Judas drew his pruning
knife.
Happy family one hand clap, four went on but none
came back
Happy family, pale applause, each to
his revolving
doors.
Silas searching, Rufus neat, Jonah caustic, Jude
so sweet.
Let their sergeant mirror spin if we lose the barbers
win;
Happy family one hand clap, four went on but none
came back
LADY OF THE DANCING WATER
Grass in your hair stretched like a lion in the sun
Restlessly turned moistened your mouth with your
tongue.
Pouring my wine in your eyes caged mine
glowing
Touching your face my fingers strayed
knowing.
I called you lady of the dancing water.
Blown autumn leaves shed to the fire
where you laid
me
Burn slow to ash just as my days now seem to be.
I feel you still always your
eyes glowing
Remembered hours salt, earth and flowers flowing
Farewell my lady of the dancing water.
LIZARD
A:Prince Rupert Awakes
Farewell the temple master's bells
His kiosk and his black worm seed
Courtship solely of his word
With Eden guaranteed.
For now Prince Rupert's tears of glass
Make saffron sabbath eyelids bleed
Scar the sacred tablet of wax
On which the Lizards feed.
Wake your reason's hollow vote
Wear your blizzard season coat
Burn a bridge and burn a boat
Stake a Lizard by the throat.
Go Polonius or kneel
The reapers name their harvest dawn
All your tarnished devil's spoons
Will rust beneath our corn.
Now bears Prince Rupert's garden roam
Across his rain tree shaded lawn
Lizard bones become the clay-
And there a Swan is born
Wake your reasons' hollow vote
Wear your blizzard season coat
Burn a bridge and burn a boat
Stake a Lizard by the throat.
Gone soon Piepowder's moss-weed
court
Round which upholstered Lizards sold
Visions to their leaden flock
Of rainbows' ends and gold.
Now tales Prince Rupert's peacock brings
Of walls and trumpets thousand fold
Prophets chained for burning masks
And reels of dream unrolled . . .
B:Bolero - the Peacock's Tale (Instrumental)
C:The Battle of Glass Tears
Night enfolds her cloak of holes
Around the river meadow.
Old moon-light stalks by broken ploughs
Hides spokeless wheels in shadow.
Sentries lean on thorn wood spears
Blow on their hands, stare eastwards.
Burnt with dream and taut with
fear
Dawn's misty shawl upon them.
Three hills apart great armies stir
Spit oat and curse as day breaks.
Forming lines of horse and steel
By even yards march forward.
D:Big Top (Instrumental)
LARKS' TONGUES IN ASPIC 1973
ROBERT FRIPP: GUITAR, MELLOTRON
& DEVICES
JOHN WETTON: BASS & VOCALS
BILL BRUFORD: DRUMS
JAMIE MUIR: PERCUSSIONS & ALLSORTS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LARKS' TONGUES IN ASPIC, Part One (Instrumental)
BOOK OF SATURDAY
If I only could deceive you
Forgetting the game
Every time I try to leave you
You laugh just the same
'Cause my wheels never touch the
road
And the jumble of lies we told
Just returns to my back to weigh me down...
We lay cards upon the table
The backs of our hands
And I swear I like your people
The boys in the band
Reminiscences gone astray
Coming back to enjoy the fray
In a tangle of night and daylight sounds...
All completeness in the morning
Asleep on your side
I'll be waking up the crewmen
Banana-boat ride
She responds like a limousine
Brought alive on the silent screen
To the shuddering breath of yesterday...
There's the succour of the
needy
Incredible scenes
I'll believe you in the future
Your life and death dreams
As the cavalry of despair
Takes a stand in the lady's hair
For the favour of making sweet sixteen...
You make my life and times
A book of bluesy Saturdays
And I have to chose...
EXILES
Now...in this faraway land
Strange...that the palms of my hands
Should be damp with expectancy
Spring...and the air's turning
mild
City lights...and the glimpse of a child
Of the alleyway infantry
Friends...do they know what I
mean
Rain...and the gathering green
Of an afternoon out-of-town
But Lord I had to go
My trail was laid too slow behind me
To face the call of fame
Or make a drunkard's name for me
Though now this other life
Has brought a different understanding
And from these endless days
Shall come a broader sympathy
And though I count the hours
To be alone's no injury...
My home...was a place near the
sand
Cliffs...and a military band
Blew and air of normality
EASY MONEY
Your admirers on the street
Gotta hoot and stamp their feet
In the heat from your physique
As you twinkle by in moccasin sneakers
And I thought my heart would
break
When you doubled up at the stake
With your fingers all a-shake
You could never tell a winner from a snake
but you always make money
Easy money
With your figure and your face
Strutting out at every race
Throw a glass around the place
Show the colour of your crimson suspenders
We would take the money home
Sit around the family throne
My old dog could chew his bone
For two weeks we could appease the Almighty
Easy money
Got no truck with the la-di-da
Keep my bread in an old fruit jar
Drive you out in a motor-car
Getting fat on your lucky star just making
Easy money.
THE TALKING DRUM (Instrumental)
LARKS' TONGUES IN ASPIC, Part Two (Instrumental)
STARLESS AND BIBLE BLACK 1974
LARKS' TONGUES IN ASPIC, PART ONE (13:36)
BOOK OF SATURDAY(2:59)
EXILES (7:37)
EASY MONEY (7:51)
THE TALKING DRUM (7:28)
LARKS' TONGUES IN ASPIC, PART TWO (7:10)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DAVID CROSS: VIOLIN, VIOLA,
MELLOTRON
THE GREAT DECEIVER (4:03)
LAMENT (4:02)
WE'LL LET YOU KNOW (3:41)
THE NIGHT WATCH (4:42)
TRIO (5:41)
THE MINCER (4:09)
STARLESS AND BIBLE BLACK (9:14)
FRACTURE (11:17)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DAVID CROSS: VIOLIN, VIOLA, KEYBOARDS
ROBERT FRIPP: GUITAR, MELLOTRON, DEVICES
JOHN WETTON: BASS AND VOICE
WILLIAM BRUFORD: PERCUSSIVES
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE GREAT DECEIVER
Health-food faggot with a bartered bride
Likes to comb his hair with a dipper ride
Once had a friend with a cloven foot
Once he called the tune in a chequered quit
Great Deceiver
In the door on the floor in a paper
bag
There's a shoe-shine boy with a gin-shop slag
She raised him up and she called him son
And she canonised the ground that he walked upon
Great Deceiver
Cigarettes, ice cream, figurines of
the Virgin Mary
Cigarettes, ice cream, figurines of the Virgin Mary
Cigarettes, ice cream, cadillacs blue jeans
In the night he's a star in the
Milky Way
He's a man of the world by the light of day
A golden smile and a proposition
And the breath of God smells of sweet sedition
Great Deceiver
Sing hymns make love get high fall
dead
He'll bring his perfume to your bed
He'll charm your life 'til the cold winds blow
Then he'll sell your dreams to a picture show
Cigarettes, ice cream, figurines of
the Virgin Mary
Cigarettes, ice cream, figurines of the Virgin Mary
Cadillacs, blue jeans, dixieland
playing on the ferry
Cadillacs, blues jeans, drop a glass full of antique sherry
LAMENT
I guess I tried to show you how
I'd take the crowd with my guitar
And business men would clap their hands
And clip another fat cigar
And publishers would spread the news
And print my music far and wide
And all the kids who played the blues
Would learn my licks with a bottle neck slide
But now it seems the bubble's
burst
Although you know there was a time
When love songs gathered in my head
With poetry in every line
And strong men strove to hold the doors
While with my friends I passed the age
When people stomped on dirty floors
Before I trod the rock'n'roll stage
I'll thank the man who's on the
'phone
And if he has the time to spend
The problem I'll explain once more
And indicate a sum to lend
That ten percent is now a joke
Maybe thirty, even thirty-five
I'll say my daddy's had a stroke
He'd have one now, if he only was alive
I like the way you look at me
You're laughing too down there inside
I took my chance and you took yours
You crewed my ship, we missed the tide
I like the way the music goes
There's a few good guys who can play it right
I like the way it moves my toes
Just say when you want to go and dance all night...
THE NIGHT WATCH
Shine, shine, the light of good works shine
The watch before the city gates depicted in their prime
That golden light all grimy now
Three hundred years have passed
The worthy Captain and his squad of troopers standing fast
The artist knew their faces
well
The husbands of his lady friends
His creditors and councillors
In armour bright, the merchant men
Official moments of the guild
In poses keen from bygone days
The city fathers frozen there
Upon the canvas dark with age
The smell of paint, a flask of
wine
And turn those faces all to me
The blunderbuss and halberd-shaft
And Dutch respectability
They make their entrance one by
one
Defenders of that way of life
The redbrick home, the bourgeoisie
Guitar lessons for the wife
So many years we suffered here
Our country racked with Spanish wars
Now comes a chance to find ourselves
And quiet reigns behind our doors
We think about posterity again
And so the pride of little men
The burghers good and true
Still living through the painter's hand
Request you all to understand
RED 1974
RED (6:20)
FALLEN ANGEL (6:00)
ONE MORE RED NIGHTMARE (7:07)
PROVIDENCE (8:08)
STARLESS (12:18)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ROBERT FRIPP: GUITAR AND MELLOTRON
JOHN WETTON: BASS AND VOICE
WILLIAM BRUFORD: PERCUSSIVES
with:
DAVID CROSS: VIOLIN
MEL COLLINS: SOPRANO SAXOPHONE
IAN McDONALD: ALTO SAXOPHONE
ROBIN MILLER: OBOE
MARC CHARIG: CORNET
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RED (Instrumental)
FALLEN ANGEL
Tears of joy at the birth of a brother
Never alone from that time
Sixteen Years through knife fights and danger
Strangely why his life not mine
West side skyline crying
Fallen angel dying
Risk a life to make a dime
Lifetimes spent on the streets of a
city
Make us the people we are
Switchblade stings in one tenth of a moment
Better get back to the car
Snow white side streets of cold New
York City
Stained with his blood it all went wrong
Sick and tired blue wicked and wild
God only knows for how long
Fallen angel
Fallen angel
West side skyline
Crying for an angel dying
Life expiring in the city
Fallen angel...
ONE MORE RED NIGHTMARE
Pan American nightmare
Ten thousand feet fun-fair
Convinved that I don't care
It's safe as houses I swear
I was just sitting musing
The virtues of cruising
When altitude dropping
My ears started popping
One more red nightmare
Sweat beginning to pour down
My neck as I turn round
I heard fortune shouting
Just get off of this outing
A farewell swan song
See you know how turbulence can be
The stewardess made me
One more red nightmare
Reality stirred me
My angel had heard me
The prayer had been answered
A reprieve has been granted
The dream was now broken
Thought rudely awoken
Really safe and sound
Asleep on the Greyhound
One more red nightmare
PROVIDENCE (Instrumental)
STARLESS
Sundown dazzling day
Gold through my eyes
But my eyes turned within
Only see
Starless and bible black
Ice blue silver sky
Fades into grey
To a grey hope that oh years to be
Starless and bible black
Old friend charity
Cruel twisted smile
And the smile signals emptiness
For me
Starless and bible black
THREE OF A PERFECT PAIR 1984
THREE OF A PERFECT PAIR (4:11)
MODEL MAN (3:46)
SLEEPLESS (5:18)
MAN WITH AN OPEN HEART (3:01)
NUAGES (That Which Passes, Passes Like Clouds) (4:46)
INDUSTRY (7:22)
DIG ME (2:59)
NO WARNING (3:28)
LARKS' TONGUES IN ASPIC PART III (6:01)
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ADRIAN BELEW: VOICE, FRETTED AND FRETLESS GUITARS
ROBERT FRIPP: GUITAR
TONY LEVIN: BASS, STICK, SYNTH AND BACKGROUND VOICE
BILL BRUFORD: ACOUSTIC AND ELECTRIC DRUMMING
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Three of a Perfect Pair
she is susceptible
he is impossible
they have their cross to share
three of a perfect pair...
he has his contradicting views
she has her cyclothymic moods
they make a study in despair
three of a perfect pair...
one, one too many
schizophrenic tendencies
keeps it complicated
keeps it agggravated
and full of this hopelessness
what a perfect mess...
Model Man
look at the signs
look at the symptoms
look at the slight
calm before the storm
I feel the silence
I feel the signals
I feel the strain
tension in my head
well, what more can be said...
not a model man
not a saviour or a saint
imperfect in a word
make no mistake
but I
give you everything I have
take me as I am...
Sleepless
in the dream I fall into the
sleepless sea
with a swell of panic and pain
my veins are aching for the distant reef
in the crush of emotional waves...
alright, get a hold of yourself
an' don't fight it, it's over your head
it's alright, the rumble in your ears
it's alright to feel a little fear
an' don't fight it, it's over your head
it's alright, you wake up in your bed...
silhouettes like shivering ancient
feelings
they cover my foreign floors and walls
submarines are lurking in my foggy ceiling
they keep me sleepless at night...
hey, can you picture the sight
the figures on the beach in the searing night
and the roaring hurt of my silent fight...
can you pull me out
of this sleepless night
can you pull me out?...
Man with an Open Heart
she wouldn't need to be a bird
without a wing
or be a servant to a telephone ring
she could be sleeping in the comfort of another bed
it wouldn't matter to a man with an open heart
here comes right now...
she could be moody, dramatic as a
play
or be evasive as a shadow in the shade
could be irregular and singing in her underwear...
it wouldn't matter to a man with an open heart
here comes right now...
her wild and wise womanly
introspectiveness
her faults and files of foolishness...
wouldn't matter to a man with an open
heart...
here comes right now...
Nuages (That Which Passes, Passes
Like Clouds) (instrumental)
Industry (instrumental)
Dig Me
it's here I sit and rust amid this
ruin and rancor like tire irons
toothy grills and car parts before me...the acid rain floods
my
floorboard, burns my pores, and rots my upholstry.. once I
was
worshipped, polished magnificently, now I lay in decay by the
dirty
angry bay...
I'm ready to leave
I wanna get out of here
I'm ready to ride away
I don't want to die in here
I'm ready to ride
mmy skin is metallic now, no longer
an elegant powder blue... my body
unhinged and sleeping in the jungle of motor block manifolds and
metal
relics... what was deluxe becomes debris, I never questioned
loyalty,
but this dead end demolishes the dream of an open highway...
dig me...but don't...bury me
No Warning (instrumental)
Larks' Tongues in Aspic Part III (instrumental)
