‘This Is London’ Lyrics

The traffic has gone quiet
Just the finger-tip drumming
Of the last train on the hill
Now only I can hear it coming

And the moon is way up high
Like a giant map-maker
She paints the windows of our house
With a yellow highlighter

And a voice says This Is London
And I wait and count the beats
And the night fills up the valley
And the cleaners clean the streets

And the words bounce off the satellites
And they fall back down to earth
Across miles and miles of ocean
To the city of my birth

And the inattentive drivers
And the black ice on the bridges
And the friends who break their promises
And the comfortless strangers

I can see them all a-circling
Out there in the future
But tonight they can’t hurt you
Tonight they don’t matter

Ch

I know you are asleep now
You’ve gone heavy on my shoulder
I carry you to your bed
Like a boat across the water

Ch

‘Toy Factory Fire’ Lyrics

Here’s Bart Simpson, with his arms all melted and twisted
And here’s one of Big Bird, with his feathers all matted and black
And here are the rows of young women
Wrapped up in bolts of white nylon
And the families from the countryside come to take their daughters back

I look up from my desk as the light turns the Hudson to mercury
The rest of the office are getting ready to leave
But it’s 10 years since the fire
The Toy Factory fire
It’s going to be one of those weeks; I roll up my sleeves

They said it was a death-trap from a text-book
Fire Exits just painted on
Locks and chains to keep out the unions
And piles of white nylon all around

But we’ve built a dozen more to fill our orders
We’ve had to keep moving around
Since May 10th 1993
When the Kader Toy Factory burnt down

A fire in Thailand could be a bus crash in Africa
The stories weren’t big; they did not make the six o’clock news
But the pictures were something else
They could have driven us down to hell
I knew this was a fight we couldn’t afford to lose

CH

I look at the photographs once more in the Manhattan sunset
The same light falls on the one of my wife and my kids
Then I put them back in the file
Permit myself a smile
Keeping them hidden was the best work I ever did

‘Cause people like us, we do make the world better
And if it’s better for us, it’s better for everyone
I open the window to the rush hour sirens on West Street
I see the Power and the Glory all over this town
All over this town

‘Blame’ Lyrics

He built for them a tower
So they’d look out on everything
The more he worked on it
The less they saw of him

And no-one was to blame

The walls were made of paper
The floors were made of air
He made them take their shoes off
And he carried them everywhere

And no-one was to blame

But It was more than they could do
More than they could do
To open up the gate
More than they could take
To break his bones,
And set them straight

They could see that he was glad
As the tower climbed more and more
And after he would go inside
They’d lock the door

And no-one was to blame

And the children they would whisper
When they went out to play
And though they needed him like oxygen
They’d lock it anyway

And no-one was to blame

But It was more than they could do
More than they could do
To open up the gate
More than they could take
To break his bones,
And set them straight

‘Harbour Bridge’ Lyrics

Oh Harbour Bridge
Why’d you have to be so grey?
I drove her to the airport
And I ran out of things to say
The colour of the girders
The colour of the day
All the colour washing
All the colour washing
All the colour washing away

Oh Harbour Bridge
Why’d you have to be so long?
I had some things to tell her
But I looked and she was gone
She says we can be free now
We both can move along
All the clouds are drifting
All the clouds are drifting
All the clouds are drifting
To the sun

Oh Harbour Bridge
Why’d you have to be so high?
Lights across the water
A bracelet in the sky
You made it so convenient
To get from A to B

I sit in my car
The car sits on its wheels
The wheels sit high above the waves
On tons of Japanese steel
The steel goes through the water
It’s bolted to the ground
And everything is turning
Gracefully we’re turning
All the world is turning around

‘Courier’ Lyrics

I catch the ferry with the evening sun
Everywhere you look there’s police with guns
On the bulkheads, hand-lettered signs
In every language but mine
But no mistaking their intention
I think of what I’ll buy with the money I’ll get
But one false move and I’ll get caught
My blood is humming like the engines

My jacket’s big to hide the shape
A high-street fortune under silver tape
More uniforms on the lower deck
I think by now they can see me sweat
How I wish I’d never planned this
I think of how you looked when you saw me off
Your green dress slowly getting lost
Among the crowd along the landing

And there’s far too many people in the world
For everyone to be just background noise
A handful have to matter more than we could ever say
I just learned this today

The boat leaves the city like a painter stepping back
Centre frame the buildings shrinking into black
While all around the sky expands
I see the clouds hanging on the land
And the grey night descending
The stern wave folds its paper dart
I know this story off by heart
But all at once I can see the ending

And there’s far too many people in the world
For everyone to be just background noise
A handful have to matter more than we could ever say
I just learned this today

I don’t know why I never told you
I’m out of my depth and I need to hold you

‘Passenger 26’ Lyrics

The last passenger on my list, number twenty six
She has to sit up the front with me
I’m joking on the intercom ’cause this part of Highway One
You wouldn’t exactly pay to see
Backyards, rusting cars and sheets out on the line till the six lanes come down to two
And all the time she’s giving me that look I’ve seen before
But this time I don’t know what to do

Changing down on the road to the bay
Parking on the gravel strip
By the motel and the putting green
Once the travellers’ cheques are signed
She and I wait behind; I get us Ice-creams from the machine
John runs this motel and
He has a scar and a crooked hand
He says: business hasn’t been too good
Ever since the river mouth shifted to the south
And the trees washed down in the flood

And he says; you remember Mary and Jack?
They had a baby – a few months back. That’s their house – on that hill
He’s a fine and healthy child
His dad’s eyes and his mother’s smile, but he’s got webbed fingers and a fish’s tail

After dark we meet in the bus
Her skin tastes like salt
She rolls her eyes back when she comes

I wake up to the sound of the tide
I don’t see her so I walk outside

The Coromandels turn in their sleep
They breathe ; across the deep
As I climb the hill
Just like the way she – breathed on me
Once she was still

The moon spills on the sea like silver paint on a black dress
I check my list again
There were only ever twentyfive

And didn’t John with the crooked hand say:
Its not human and it’s not a bird
But sometimes you’d swear you heard a cry
It means gales are coming
It means gales are coming
Through the gap

I think of my passenger
Wind’s getting up
Wind’s getting up

‘I Will Not Let You Down’ Lyrics

‘Interlude’ Lyrics

‘Miracle Sun’ Lyrics

They say when people get to the water
They don’t undress, they just keep on walking out from the beach

They say men weep when they see the dolphin
He comes in close and does tricks for the children just out of reach

And we’re on our way
Through the big forest
There’s a line of cars
Coming down the hill

They say he lets you go right up and touch him
They say he lets you ride on his back all slippery and gold

And the sun comes in through the hot windscreen
And the trees reach out all dusty and green along the road

And we’re on our way
Through the big forest
There’s a line of cars
Coming down the hill

Are you going where we’re going?
Are you going where we’re going?
I hope you will

Miracle Sun
Shine on my sister
Shine on our car

Miracle Sun
Shine on the water
Shine in my heart

‘Queen Of The Night’ Lyrics

The scented skin of your arm
Lies heavy on my chest
Outside the morning has begun
The day we’ve spoken of
That day has finally come

When Christian took the Bounty
I kept my carpenters’ tools
And built this house on the island
I wonder if I’ll build again
Now they’ve come to take me home

Queen Of The Night
I’m going away
The strange black ship
Now lies in the bay

I have stayed
Much too long
And I cannot put things right
Queen Of The Night
Queen Of The Night

Put on your cloak of beaten cloth
And put that comb in your hair
The one I carved from mother-of-pearl
To mark the end of our first year…
The landing party’s here

Ch x2