Flight - Live - Intellectual

[Spoken Intro]

Now I've got one long song from A Black Box, second side, and this is called "Flight"

[I. Flying Blind]

[Verse 1]

I always forget how crazy things are

So sometimes it catches me off my guard

When they make sense

The line on the road trails the arrow in the sky

I search for the mote in my brother's eye

Beneath the pence...

A time of blunt instruments

Still uncertain when I've woken

Or what constitutes a conscious mind

Though the thought remains unspoken

I know I'm flying blind

[Verse 2]

Breaking into cold sweat on the white-hot coals

The pennies from heaven drop through my soul:

It don't relent

At the back end of dreams I'm amazed to awake...

I offer my theories but just can't shake

That seventh sense

To which there's no defense

Yes, it seemed that the time was for action

Oh, it seemed so cool to be that kind...

My tongue crouchet to form some retraction

Oh, but I knew I was flying blind

[Instrumental Bridge]

[Verse 3]

Well, I want things to be fast, up to the power-dive;

I want the zero-gravity heroes to play dead

But stay alive

And I want it to be slow, all the way to stall;

And now we talk about a thousand things that never change at all

No, it never change...

Oh, no, it never change...

[Verse 4]

It was then that I knew I'd been thoughtless

Something had slipped my mind:

I'd strapped myself into the Fortress

But the Fortress was flying blind

We got full clearance

So someone down there ought to know

The truth of our disappearance -

If even that still shows it accuses and blames me

But nothing was quite what it seemed

Sometimes things work out so strangely

That it might as well all be dreamed

[II. The White Cane Fandango]

[Instrumental]

[Verse 5]

The White Cane Fandango in Morse code

Try to shake through the message

Shake the load;

Only venial sin, running on the spot

Till the dance begins

[Verse 6]

Oh, where does a man go when the muscles cramp?

Try to write out a postcard on a postage stamp

With a drawing pin punching out the Braille

For the whole within?

[Verse 7]

Upset the contango on your future stock;

Paying backwardation, hold onto what you've got -

Such a sideways grin!

Some day you may need to trade that in

Trade that in

Trade

[Verse 8]

If we ride this right

The future will fall in our hands

If we survive the flight

The future will work out -

Nothing's that black and white

[Instrumental]

[III. Control]

[Verse 9]

Colour-coded charts are spread

But we're still gliding deep into the red

The radio is dead

Every valve blown open

The radar screen flicks monochrome

Air traffic controller wants to get on home

He is witing for a phone call

To release him from responsibility

Nobody goes to see him any more

Except for the man from the ministry

[Verse 10]

He wanted to be, he wanted to be

The man that control, in command of the flightpath;

He's flying a chair, quite beyond control;

He's going to have just one more chance

At a barrel roll

[Verse 11]

All in a dream, all as a dream

The colours too bright, the music too deafening -

The black-out world has just begun to show

These cracked-out words I offer...

But I still don't know

[Bridge]

But I still don't know

[Instrumental]

[Verse 12]

Cool blue suffuse the colour gun -

Oh, come in, come in number one:

Your time's nearly run

Speed-freeze the frame

The present and the past hold fast...

It's too fast, oh, the thing don't

Oh, the thing don't

Oh, the thing won't last

[Instrumental]

[IV. Cockpit]

[Verse 13]

The rolling dice clash together, never make up the score;

That old device, the ejector seat is glued to the floor

Everybody waits for everyone to make a show

No-one wants to be the first, admitting that they know

How anythings that's gone down here

Could fit into an analytic groove

Oh, wait for the tactical move

Why don't we wait for some action we all can approve?

[Verse 14]

Too much to drink, for the cup reaches down to the sea;

Too touch, to think, the barometer pressuring me

Every na-na-na, for Easter parade

Reeling out the Maydays in the hope of being saved

But the radio ham's out giving blood -

Oh, no, no, no, he's not listening

The cricketer knows his "Wisden"

The pilot has got his "Jane's"

But the sum of this factual wisdom

Don't help us to fly the plane, no, and it never will...

Beneath the tartan two-piece there's something rips undone...

Ait for the ladder to run

Wait for the snake that the ladder becomes

[Instrumental]

[Verse 15]

A passenger hits the cockpit, willing to chance his game:

He pulls out his gun and cocks it

In the hope that it all might change, it never will...

A fly-leaf from the library shows others have been here before

He tried, failed and kicked out the door;

The aircrew don't care anymore

Now they just wait for the beat of the silk-worm wing

Wait for the heat to come down on us

Force of the law

[V. Silk-Worm Wings]

[Instrumental]

[Verse 16]

Full force of gravity pulls me down

I'll be better off out of there;

Aerobatic spin around

I'll take my chances in the open air

[Verse 17]

Sycamore silk-worm wings

Or Roman Candle to the ground

There's only one thing for sure:

When the balloon goes up

The aeronaut calm down

[VI. Nothing is Nothing]

[Verse 18]

And he says nothing is quite what it seems

And he says nothing is quite what it seems;

Oh, I say nothing is nothing

[Break]

[VII. A Black Box]

[Verse 19]

Softly, the angels sing their time and space refrain:

Oh, there's something in everything if you can only pin down its name

Aerobatic thoughts at the back of my mind -

Is it nothing but the looping line we all follow?

Nothing but the spiral twist of DNA?

There'll be no looking back from tomorrow on today

[Verse 20]

So the wire is tripped, split-seconds defect to their successors;

The umbilical cord is ripped -

Oh, here we all are in free fall

As I stall where I am, as if to see where I've been

Only running down the looping line we all follow

Only chasing on the spiral twist of DNA

There'll be no looking on to tomorrow from today

[Verse 21]

Oh, life/death/night/day...

Cold breath will surely fly away

Is the empire of sensation locked in a black box deep in me, encoded there somehow?

It fires the imagination to fly on a wing and a prayer through my life

Oh, is that how it is?

This is now

Which will be then?

Is this the means?

All I know for shure is

This is the end

[Outro]

Yes, you better be looking on to tomorrow

Yes, you better think on today

[Spoken Outro]

Good night, good night. John Ellis on guitar, Nic Potter on bass and Guy Evans on drums. Thank you