Lyrics The Siren Song - Van Der Graaf Generator

The Siren Song

Letters in pencil, some of them as heavy as lead
As dated as carbon, as black as coal, but burning as red
Clues faintly stencilled: the message, though leeched, is unbled
As secret as marble — as young, as old, as living, as dead
And always that laugh
That comes as though it’s from pain:
Though I’m lashed to the mast
Still it hammers round my brain
Laughter in the backbone
Laughter impossibly wise
That same laughter that comes
Every time I flash on that look in your eyes
Which whispers of a black zone
Which’ll mock all my credos as lies
Where all logic is done
And time will smash every theory I devise
And the hour-glass is shattered
Only by the magic of your touch
Where nothing really matters…
No, Nothing matters very much!
So the siren song runs through the ages
And it courses through my veins like champagne;
And with all the sweet kisses of addiction
It’s calling me to break my bonds again
Future memory exploding like shrapnel
Some splinters escape on my tongue
Some of them scar comprehension…
Beneath the scab they burn, but the wound becomes numb
And always the song draws me forward
Rejoicing in the search and the prayer
Bored with all but the mad, the strange
The freak, the impossible dare
Still your laugh chills my marrow
Till I embrace it on my knees…
Oh, when the mast becomes a flagpole
What becomes of me?
What becomes, oh, what becomes of me?