A Headlong Stretch - Intellectual

[Part I: Up Ahead]

[Verse 1]

Passage assured

On the good ship Goodbye...

Dare I raise up my eyes

To stare into the rigging?

[Chorus]

(Preparing to go home...)

[Verse 2]

All we could have done

We're at pains to explain

But all our might in the main

Is only empty promise

Unfulfilled at last

Still no-one can be blamed

For breaking daily bread

Thinking ahead

[Chorus]

(Preparing to go home...)

(Preparing to come home...)

[Verse 3]

Blessed with strange grace

And reluctant to face

Ineluctable fate

I say I saw the future

I said forget the past

But I'll not hear the last

Of lives I've never led

Thinking ahead

[Chorus]

(Preparing to go home...)

(Preparing to come home...)

Thinking ahead (Preparing to go home...)

(Preparing to come home...)

Thinking ahead (Preparing to go home...)

(Preparing to come home...)

Thinking ahead (Preparing to go home...)

[Part II: Continental Drift]

[Verse 4]

We make the beds in which we'll stretch

In unconscious pre-planning;

Tending and hedging our bets

Thinking we're thinking ahead

[Verse 5]

Out of the blue comes the given life

Out of the window volition

In small miracles, in constant reinvention

We make sense of each current position

[Bridge]

Every choice that we make, every trick that we turn up

Appears in its principle sound

Yeah, we're self-made men, masters of our destiny

Free and unbound...

[Verse 6]

In to the heart comes the brave new world

Where we're slaves to the strength of conviction...

Yeah, I believe decisions come like continents to conquer

Like I believe we're no strangers to fiction

[Bridge]

Every road that we take

Means a journey rejected

We pretend we can still have it all;

Every future we dream a virtual reality

Only vanity still holds us enthralled

When the best laid plans of mice and men

All unravel in the judgement call

Hey, pride still make us ride for a fall

[Chorus]

Surely we look ripe for a fall

Surely we look ripe for a fall;

Maybe we just ride for the fall

(Hey!)

Surely we look ripe for a fall

Surely we look ripe for a fall;

Yeah, maybe we just ride for the fall

Maybe we just ride for the fall

[Part III: The Twelve]

[Verse 7]

The jury's out upon the matter

And they can barely bear to admit

That all the time that we spend planning

In the end will matter not one whit

[Verse 8]

Though I've certainly considered

Every vital pro and con

I get no scent of an acquittal

I lose the drift... the signs are wrong

What's going on?

[Verse 9]

(Twelve signs of the zodiac

Twelve hours to face

The twelve disciples all aquiver

Twelve arrows strike a twelve-tone case.)

[Verse 10]

Round and round in repetition

Of the flight from boredom into thrill

And all the time we're waiting on the punchline

The hollow laugh within "we will'

[Verse 11]

What won't we give to take up

The turning over of a new leaf?

No one ever reaching future perfect;

Before we know it, beyond belief

We come to grief

We hit the reef

[Part IV: Long Light]

[Verse 12]

Signs serial

Adrift in the air

Immaterial

Face up to the phosphor flare

[Verse 13]

Ghost essence

Fuels fire in the rig;

Incandescence

Let's dance out the mystery jig

[Bridge]

Jig

Dance the dance of mystery light

Dance the dance, jig

Dance the dance infernally bright

[Instrumental Break]

[Verse 14]

Dark water

Dark fire down below...

Storm quarter

Time to dance out the mystery - no!

[Verse 15]

The twelve will swing us to completeness

Right from the cradle to the grave

And all our future projection's

Only second guessing seventh waves...

A break in the connections

We thought were built to last

Here's a change in the weather

Tsunami time -

The wave's already rolling in towards us from the past

[Part V: Backwards Man]

[Intro]

It's only looking backwards

That you retrace your hand

It's only in a moment of reversal

That you can see where you stand...

Ease out, come through the film and through the mirror

Welcome the backwards man

[Verse 16]

Oh yes, the beach still stirs the ocean

And soon the tide will turn the moon round

All is forgiven and all was foreseen -

All's as it ever could be

[Verse 17]

Ends forced motive out of meaning

Means all even out in the end;

Retracing steps

In the process you learn to stand

Learn to walk again

So much gets forgotten, so much is forsworn

In retrospect

[Bridge]

Did I really do that?

Was I ever so young?

[Outro]

It's here, looking backwards

That you confront your own face

It's only in such moments of reversal

That you're secure in place

Through the fire backwards

Again and again

Return to base

Return, return...

[Part VI: As You Were]

[Verse 18]

It's some relief

To find the possible in store;

Beyond belief

In overtime, I'm overboard...

Uncharted waters, full fathom five

The future's rising, it's just arrived

[Verse 19]

It's not the same

As I imagined it would be

But there's no blame

If every life's imaginary

[Bridge]

And if I get quite what I deserve

That'll end the sentence, the time I've served

A full stop to the sentence...

[Verse 20]

When it's all done you willed the person you've become

In serious fun it's as you were that you become

And so it's done

[Part VII: Or So I Said]

[Verse 21]

I saw the future

Or so I said...

How strange they seem

The lives I've never led

Thinking ahead

[Chorus]

(I'm ready to go home...)

(I'm ready to come home...)

(I'm ready to go home...)

(I'm ready to come home...)

(I'm ready to go home...)

(I'm ready to come home...)

(I'm ready to go home...)

(I'm ready to come home...)

(I'm ready to go home...)

(I'm ready to come home...)

[Outro]

So head on (I'm ready to go home...)

Headlong (I'm ready to come home...)

So head on (I'm ready to go home...)

Headstrong (I'm ready to come home...)

So head on (I'm ready to go home...)

Headlong (I'm ready to come home...)

So head on (I'm ready to go home...)

Headstrong (I'm ready to come home...)

Headlong (I'm ready to come home...)

So head on (I'm ready to go...)