Sisters of Mercy
Oh the sisters of mercy, they are not departed or gone.
They were waiting for me when I thought that I just can't go on.
And they brought me their comfort and later they brought me this song.
Oh I hope you run into them, you who've been travelling so long.
Yes you who must leave everything that you cannot control.
It begins with your family, but soon it comes around to your soul.
Well I've been where you're hanging, I think I can see how you're pinned:
When you're not feeling holy, your loneliness says that you've sinned.
Well they lay down beside me, I made my confession to them.
They touched both my eyes and I touched the dew on their hem.
If your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn
They will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a stem.
When I left they were sleeping, I hope you run into them soon.
Don't turn on the lights, you can read their address by the moon.
And you won't make me jealous if I hear that they sweetened your night:
We weren't lovers like that and besides it would still be all right.
We weren't lovers like that and besides it would still be all right.
Dress Rehearsal Rag
Four o'clock in the afternoon
and I didn't feel like very much.
I said to myself: Where are you golden boy,
where's your famous golden touch?
I thought you knew where
all of the elephants lie down.
I thought you were the crown prince
of all the wheels in Ivory Town.
Just take a look at your body now,
there's nothing much to save.
And a bitter voice in the mirror cries,
"Hey prince, you need a shave."
Now if you can manage to get
your trembling fingers to behave,
why don't you try unwrapping
a stainless steel razor blade?
That's right, it's come to this.
Yes, it's come to this.
And wasn't it a long way down?
Wasn't it a strange way down?
There's no hot water
and the cold is running thin.
Well, what do you expect from
the kind of places you've been living in?
Don't drink from that cup,
it's all caked and cracked along the rim.
That's not the electric light, my friend,
that is your vision growing dim.
Cover up your face with soap, there,
now you're Santa Claus.
And you've got a gift for anyone
who will give you his applause.
I thought you were a racing man,
ah, but you couldn't take the pace.
That's a funeral in the mirror
and it's stopping at your face.
That's right, it's come to this.
Yes, it's come to this.
And wasn't it a long way down?
Wasn't it a strange way down?
Once there was a path,
and a girl with chestnut hair,
and you passed the summers
picking all of the berries that grew there;
there were times she was a woman,
oh, there were times she was just a child,
and you held her in the shadows
where the raspberries grow wild.
And you climbed the twilight mountains
and you sang about the view,
and everywhere that you wandered,
love seemed to go along with you.
That's a hard one to remember,
yes, it makes you clench your fist.
And then the veins stand out like highways
all along your wrist.
And yes, it's come to this.
It's come to this.
And wasn't it a long way down?
Wasn't it a strange way down?
You can still find a job,
go out and talk to a friend.
On the back of every magazine
there are those coupons you can send.
Why don't you join the Rosicrucians,
they can give you back your hope,
you can find your love with diagrams
on a plain brown envelope.
But you've used up all your coupons
except the one that seems
to be written on your wrist
along with several thousand dreams.
Now Santa Claus comes forward,
that's a razor in his mit;
and he puts on his dark glasses,
and he shows you where to hit.
And then the cameras pan:
the stand-in stunt man
dress rehearsal rag.
It's just the dress rehearsal rag.
You know this dress rehearsal rag.
It's just a dress rehearsal rag.
The Traitor
Now the Swan
It floated on the English river.
The Rose of High Romance
It opened wide.
A sun tanned woman
Yearned me through the summer
And the judges
Watched us from the other side.
I told my mother "Mother I must leave you,
preserve my room but do not shed a tear.
Should rumor of a shabby ending reach you,
it was half my fault and half the atmosphere."
But the Rose
I sickened with a scarlet fever
And the Swan
I tempted with a sense of shame.
She said at last
I was her finest lover
And if she withered
I would be to blame.
The judges said you missed it by a fraction.
Rise up and brace your troops for the attack.
The dreamers ride against the men of action.
Oh see the men of action falling back.
But I lingered on her thighs a fatal moment.
I kissed her lips as though I thirsted still.
My falsity had stung me like a hornet,
the poison sank and paralyzed my will.
I could not move to warn all the younger soldiers
that they had been deserted from above.
So on battlefields from here to Barcelona,
I'm listed with the enemies of love.
And long ago she said "I must be leaving,
but keep my body here to lie upon.
You can move it up and down and when I'm sleeping,
Run some wire through that Rose and wind the Swan."
So daily I renew my idle duty.
I touch her here and there -- I know my place.
I kiss her open mouth and I praise her beauty
And people call me traitor to my face.
Joan of Arc
Now the flames, they followed Joan of Arc
As she came riding through the dark
No moon to keep her armour bright,
No man to get her through this very smoky night.
She said, "I'm tired of the war,
I want the kind of work I had before,
A wedding dress or something white
To wear upon my swollen appetite."
"Well, I'm glad to hear you talk this way,
You know I've watched you riding every day
And something in me yearns to win
Such a cold and lonesome heroine."
"And who are you?" she sternly spoke
To the one beneath the smoke.
"Why, I'm fire," he replied,
"And I love your solitude, I love your pride."
"Then fire, make your body cold,
I'm going to give you mine to hold,"
Saying this she climbed inside
To be his one, to be his only bride.
And deep into his fiery heart
He took the dust of Joan of Arc,
And high above the wedding guests
He hung the ashes of her wedding dress.
It was deep into his fiery heart
He took the dust of Joan of Arc,
And then she clearly understood
If he was fire, oh then, she must be wood.
I saw her wince, I saw her cry,
I saw the glory in her eye.
Myself, I long for love and light,
But must it come so cruel, and oh so bright?