[In the] Black Room lyrics

I - In the Black Room (I)

I was thinking about thinking

but it really didn't get me very far,

so I thought I'd throw a Tarot,

but I only got the Priestess and the Star.

There's a shadow cast on my future

Past the room and I agree to buy some time....

The cards don't tell truth nor lies,

only options and cusp lines:

the furniture in the black room.

I've been thinking about acid,

but, it seems, there's not a reason to believe.

I don't make a vital breakthrough

and it walks me like a dog upon a lead.

It's all unreal and, the way I feel,

I'd like to try and make it on my own....

Going to the feelings is fine:

I really have me a good pleasure cruise.

But, deep in my mind,

I'm no better or worse, just open to the walls.

Paint peels in the black of my room.

I'm only talking about myself, ordering my treasure shelf,

documenting present feelings as the future sets me reeling....

What I'll be is what I am,

I'm simply trying not to sham or fake.

Use vision as sense and not as crutch!

It doesn't matter all that much;

in the end we will all survive,

I'm trying not to pawn my life.

When I'm (maybe) old and strait-laced,

shall I then deny all that I feel?

In words of bitter compromise,

re-smelt the wrath that's in my eyes like steel?

Be a hermit then?

Or be a miser?

Be a man who hasn't managed yet to write his rules?

The Fool?

The future holds my hand in the room....

Well, then, my ghosts shall steer down through the years

and lay a hand upon my soul

like ice.

II - The Tower

So: onto the familiar top steps!

In cloud-scud moonlight glow

the Tower reels.

Am I, the blind man,

feeling for a path I know...

don't you know that I'm only feeling for how to feel?

Rats run.

Snakes coil.

Fathers

stare out at the whispering night;

rub mud on their arms.

Spiders.

Mud boils.

Children

whimper in the human vortex;

faces glow of worms.

III – Thunder

Thunder...

Silence.

Omens....

I think it's coming,

all signs are very near, all signs are that

pain shall come

and change shall run

down through my heart

and shake my knees

and now it is coming,

all around is the humming

of the World.

Too late, with my balance gone,

dead-eyed doll,

I'm falling, falling

back to where I began....

IV - In the Black Room (II)

I'm feeling like a kid again,

I'm feeling like I just walked in the door,

and with my head on fire

I wrote this song - I don't know who it's for.

Hands held fast in camera,

I'll swear I heard the Stammerer exclaim:

"I am a traveller, unraveller,

I only live through pain, and shame, and change!"

In my room, the secret tomb, I can see

future forms, space-time storms:

they're all me,

and I've only got to choose!

In my head I am dead, if I fall

in the trap,

the subtle lap,

a safety's pall....

but I'm living while I choose....

• Artist:Peter Hammill