Touching From a Distance

Yet there’s still this appeal that we’ve kept through our lives

But love, love will tear us apart again.

Love, love will tear us apart again.

You cry out in your sleep,

All my failings exposed.

And there’s a taste in my mouth,

As desperation takes hold.

Just that something so good just can’t function no more.

But love, love will tear us apart again.

Love, love will tear us apart again.

Love, love will tear us apart again.

Love, love will tear us apart again.

These Days (1980)

Morning seems strange, almost out of place.

Searched hard for you and your special ways.

These days, these days.

Spent all my time, learnt a killer’s art.

Took threats and abuse ‘till I’d learned the part.

Can you stay for these days?

These days, these days.

Used outward deception to get away,

Broken heart romance to make it pay.

These days, these days.

We’ll drift through it all, it’s the modern age.

Take care of it all now these debts are paid.

Can you stay for these days?

The Sound of Music (1979)

See my true reflection,

Cut off my own connections,

I can see life getting harder,

So sad is this sensation,

Reverse the situation,

I can’t see it getting better.

I’ll walk you through the heartbreak,

Show you all the out takes,

I can’t see it getting higher,

Systematically degraded,

Emotionally a scapegoat,

I can’t see it getting better.

Perverse and unrealistic,

Try to make it all stick,

I can’t see it getting better,

Hollow now, I’m burned out,

All I need to break out,

I can’t see life getting higher,

Love, life, makes you feel higher,

Love, of life, makes you feel higher,

Higher, higher, higher, higher,

Higher, higher, higher, higher,

Love of life, makes you feel higher.

The Only Mistake (1979)

Made the fatal mistake,

Like I did once before,

A tendency just to take,

Till the purpose turned sour,

Strain, take the strain, these days we love,

Strain, take the strain, these days we love.

Yeah, the only mistake was that you ran away,

Avenues lined with trees, strangled words for the day,

Yeah, the only mistake, like I made once before,

Yeah, the only mistake, could have made it before.

Strain, take the strain, these days we love,

Strain, take the strain, these days we love.

And the only mistake, led to rumours unfound,

Led to pressures unknown, different feelings and sounds,

Yeah, the only mistake, like I made once before,

Yeah, the only mistake, could have made it before.

Atrocity Exhibition (1980)

Asylums with doors open wide,

Where people had paid to see inside,

For entertainment they watch his body twist,

Behind his eyes he says, ‘I still exist’

This is the way, step inside.

This is the way, step inside.

This is the way, step inside.

This is the way, step inside.

In arenas he kills for a prize,

Wins a minute to add to his life.

But the sickness is drowned by cries for more,

Pray to God, make it quick, watch him fail.

This is the way, step inside.

This is the way, step inside.

This is the way, step inside.

This is the way, step inside.

This is the way.

This is the way.

This is the way.

This is the way.

This is the way, step inside.

This is the way, step inside.

This is the way, step inside.

This is the way, step inside.

You’ll see the horrors of a faraway place,

Meet the architects of law face to face.

See mass murder on a scale you’ve never seen,

And all the ones who try hard to succeed.

This is the way, step inside.

This is the way, step inside.

This is the way, step inside.

This is the way, step inside.

And I picked on the whims of a thousand or more,

Still pursuing the path that’s been buried for years,

All the dead wood from jungles and cities on fire,

Can’t replace or relate, can’t release or repair,

Take my hand and I’ll show you what was and will be.

Isolation (1980)

In fear every day, every evening,

He calls her aloud from above,

Carefully watched for a reason,

Painstaking devotion and love,

Surrendered to self preservation,

From others who care for themselves.

A blindness that touches perfection,

But hurts just like anything else.

Isolation, isolation, isolation.

Mother I tried please believe me,

I’m doing the best that I can.

Pm ashamed of the things I’ve been put through,

Pm ashamed of the person I am.

Isolation, isolation, isolation.

But if you could just see the beauty,

These things I could never describe,

These pleasures a wayward distraction,

This is my one lucky prize.

Isolation, isolation, isolation, isolation, isolation.

Passover (1980)

This is a crisis I knew had to come,

Destroying the balance I’d kept.

Doubting, unsettling and turning around,

Wondering what will come next.

Is this the role that you wanted to live?

I was foolish to ask for so much.

Without the protection and infancy’s guard,

It all falls apart at first touch.

Watching the reel as it comes to a close,

Brutally taking its time,

People who change for no reason at all,

It’s happening all of the time.

Can I go on with this train of events?

Disturbing and purging my mind,

Back out of my duties, when all’s said and done,

I know that I’ll lose every time.