Blind Curve

[Track Info] [The Lyrics] [Explanation]

Blind Curve - Track Info

Album version (09:29) [Misplaced Childhood (1985)]
Live (London, England - "Hammersmith Odeon", January 9/10th '86) (09:39) [The Thieving Magpie - La Gazza Ladra (1988)]

Notes: This song is joined to Lords Of The Backstage (which comes before) and Childhoods End? (which comes after). Blind Curve is divided into five parts: i) Vocal Under A Bloodlight, ii) Passing Strangers, iii) Mylo, iv) Perimeter Walk, v) Threshold (in "The Thieving Magpie" CD, Lords Of The Backstage track includes Vocal Under A Bloodlight, Passing Strangers and Mylo, but we consider them as a part of Blind Curve). Live version has several variations compared to studio version.

Lyrics by Derek William Dick (Fish)
Performed Live for the first Time: August 17th 1985 (part) September 4th 1985 (Complete)

Published by Marillion Music, Charisma Music Publishing Co. Ltd., Chappell Music Ltd.

Blind Curve - The Lyrics

a) Vocal Under A Bloodlight

Last night you said I was cold, untouchable.
A lonely piece of action from another town.
I just want to be free, I'm happy to be lonely.
Can't you stay away?
Just leave me alone with my thoughts.
Just a runaway, just a runaway,
I'm saving myself.

b) Passing Strangers

Strung out below a necklace of carnival lights.
Cold moan, held on the crest of the night.
I'm too tired to fight.

So now we're passing strangers, at single tables.
Still trying to get over,
Still trying to write love songs for passing strangers.
All those passing strangers.

And the twinkling lies, all those twinkling lies,
Sparkle with the wet ink on the paper.

c) Mylo

Oh I remember Toronto when Mylo went down,
And we sat and cried on the phone.
I never felt so alone,
He was the first of our own.
Some of us go down in a blaze of obscurity.
Some of us go down in a haze of publicity.
The price of infamy, the edge of insanity.

Another Holiday Inn, another temporary home,
and an interviewer threatened me with a microphone,
'Talk to me, won't you tell me your stories.'

So I talked about conscience and I talked about pain,
and he looked out the window and it started to rain.
I thought maybe I've already gone crazy.
So I reached for a bottle and he reached for the door,
And I picked up the sleeping pills crushed on the floor.
Inviting me to a casual obscenity.

d) Perimeter Walk

It would be incredible if we could
Retrace all the times that we lived here.
All the collisions.
Wasted, I've never been so wasted.
I've never been this far out before.

Perimeter walk.
There's a presence here.
I feel could have been ancient,
I could have been mystical.

There's a presence,
A childhood, my childhood,
My childhood, childhood, a misplaced childhood,
My childhood, a misplaced childhood,
Give it back to me, give it back to me.
A childhood, that childhood, that childhood,
that childhood, that childhood.
Oh please give it back to me.

e) Threshold

I saw a war widow in a launderette,
Washing the memories from her husband's clothes.
She had medals pinned to a threadbare greatcoat
A lump in her throat with cemetery eyes.

I see convoys curbcrawling West German Autobahns
Trying to pick up a war.
They're going to even the score.
Oh... I can't take any more.
I see black flags on factories,
Soup ladies poised on the lips of the poor.
I see children with vacant stares,
destined for rape in the alleyways.
Does anybody care, I can't take any more!
Should we say goodbye? Hey

I see priests, politicians?
The heroes in black plastic body-bags under nations' flags
I see children pleading with outstretched hands,
drenched in napalm, this is no Vietnam.

I can't take any more, should we say goodbye,
How can we justify?
They call us civilised!

Copyright © 1997 Fraser Marshall, Matthew Anderson & Bert ter Steege.

Blind Curve

‘Passing Strangers’
Passing Strangers (1974) A movie directed by Arthur J. Bressan Jr.

Sources:

Last Modified: 27 Jul 2000