Empty Sky (1969)

1. Empty Sky - 8:28
2. Valhalla - 4:02
3. Western Ford Gateway - 3:15
4. Hymn 2000 - 8:09
5. Lady What's Tomorrow - 3:08
6. Sails - 3:45
7. The Scaffold - 3:18
8. Skyline Pigeon - 1:51
9. Gulliver/Hay Chewed(Reprise) - 6:59

1995 CD Re-Issue Bonus Tracks
10. Lady Samantha (1969 Single A-Side)
11. All Across The Havens (1969 Single B-Side to Lady Samantha)
12. It's Me That You Need (1969 Single A-Side)
13. Just Like Strange Rain (1969 Single B-Side to It's Me That You Need)

Empty Sky
I'm not a rat to be spat on locked up in this room
Those bars that look towards the sun at night look towards the moon
Everyday the swallows play in the clouds of love
Make me wish that I had wings take me high above

And I looked high and saw the empty sky
If I could only, I could only fly
I'd drift with them in endless space
But no man flies from this place

At night I lay upon my bench and stare towards the stars
The cold night air comes creeping in and home seems oh so far
If only I could swing upon those twinkling dots above
I'd look down from the heavens upon the ones I love

Hey the lucky locket hangs around your precious neck
Some luck I ever got with you and I wouldn't like to bet
That sooner or later you'll own just one half of this land
By shining your eyes on the wealth of every man

Just send up my love ain't seen nothing but tears
Now I've got myself in this room for years
I don't see no one, I never see anyone
 

Valhalla
The seadogs have all sailed their ships
Into the docks of dawn
While the sirens sit and comb their hair
And twiddle with their thumbs

Western Ford Gateway
It's hard to feel what's in your head
Where the gas lamps grow
And the garbage blows
Around the paper standsAnd a baby cried

And I saw a light
And I wondered where
And I wondered why
There'd be a loss of life
Down here tonight

Down on Western Ford Gateway
That's a place where the dead say
That a man lives no more
Than his fair share of days
Down on Western Ford Gateway

It flowed upon the cobbled floor
For the bottle's dead
And they're drunk again
By the tavern door

Hymn 2000
She chose the soft center
And took it to bed with her mother
And the ideal confusion
Was just an illusion
To gain further news of her brother

And the comfort of mother
Was just an appeal for protection
For the cat from next door
Was found later at four
In surgical dissection

And I don't want to be
The son of any freak
Who for a chocolate center
Can take you off the street

For soon they'll plough the desert
And God knows where I'll be
Collecting submarine numbers
On the main street of the sea

The Vicar is thicker
And I just can't see through to him
For his cardinal sings
A collection of hymns
And a collection of coins is made after

And who wrote the Bible
Was it Judas or Pilate
Well one cleans his hands
While the other one hangs
But still I continue to stand


Lady What's Tomorrow
Look up little brother
Can you see the clover
No not over there
A little bit left and over there

Now look and see the lilac tree
The lily pond, the skylark's song
The open air but no one cares
If branches live and die out there

Remember when you were nine
And I was ten
We would run into the woods
No we never will again

And Lady, what's tomorrow
What's tomorrow anyway
If it's not the same as now
It's the same as yesterday

Yes Lady, what's tomorrow
Will it be the same as now
Will the farmer push the pen
Will the writer pull the plough

Look up little brother
Can you see the clover
Oh sorry but it's over
Now there's concrete and no clover

I viewed in my presence
My hand on my forehead
And sighting the liners
Of mad merchant seamen
In search of the living
Or the spices of China

Sails
I viewed in my presence
My hand on my forehead
And sighting the liners
Of mad merchant seamen
In search of the living
Or the spices of China

Lucy walked gently
Between the damp barrels
And shut out my eyes
With the width of her fingers
Said she'd guessed the number
Of bales in the back room

While the seagulls were screaming
Lucy was eating
Then we hauled up our colors
The way the mother had told us
And together we just watched the sails

Lucy I said
In a passage of cotton kegs
Can we hold hands
I'm sure that it's warmer
Then the gulls ate the crumbs
Of Lucy's sandwich


The Scaffold
In Orient where wise I was
To please the way I live
Come give the beggar chance at hand
His life is on his lip

Three score a thousand times
Where once in Amazon
Where Eldorado holds the key
No keeper holds my hand

Unchain the gate of solitude
The ruler says you run
Run hard unto the scaffold high
Your chance to jump the gun

Oh how high the scaffold grows
The plant life of your widow
In black lace curtains brought you near
From out the plate glass window

The Minotaur with bloody hands
Is enraged by the sun
Caged he by the corpses
Brought forth by the dawn

In Orient is as I told
The buckshee hangman swears
For open crypts to silence
Nylon knots to sway by prayer

In Orient where wise I was
To please the way I live
Come give the beggar chance at hand
His life is on his lip


Pigeon
Turn me loose from your hands
Let me fly to distant lands
Over green fields, trees and mountains
Flowers and forest fountains
Home along the lanes of the skyway

For this dark and lonely room
Projects a shadow cast in gloom
And my eyes are mirrors
Of the world outside
Thinking of the way
That the wind can turn the tide
And these shadows turn
From purple into grey

For just a Skyline Pigeon
Dreaming of the open
Waiting for the day
He can spread his wings
And fly away again
Fly away skyline pigeon fly
Towards the dreams
You've left so very far behind
Fly away skyline pigeon fly
Towards the dreams
You've left so very far behind

Just let me wake up in the morning
To the smell of new mown hay
To laugh and cry, to live and die
In the brightness of my day

I want to hear the pealing bells
Of distant churches sing
But most of all please free me
From this aching metal ring
And open out this cage towards the sun

For just a Skyline Pigeon
Dreaming of the open
Waiting for the day
He can spread his wings
And fly away again
Fly away skyline pigeon fly
Towards the dreams
You've left so very far behind
Fly away skyline pigeon fly
Towards the dreams
You've left so very, so very far behind


Gulliver/Hay-Chewed/Reprise
Gulliver's gone to the final command of his master
His watery eyes had washed all the hills with his laughter
And the seasons can change all the light from the grey to the dim
But the light in his eyes will see no more bright
As the sheep that he locked in the pen

There's four feet of ground in front of the barn
That's sun baked and rain soaked and part of the farm
But now it lies empty so cold and so bare
Gulliver's gone but his memory lies there

By passing the doors of his life was a stage I remember
And in later years he would cease to bare teeth to a stranger
For sentiment touched him as cyclamen holds him
And later men came from the town
Who said clear the child this won't take a while
And Gulliver's gone with the dawn


Lady Samantha
When the shrill winds are screaming
And the evening is still
Lady Samantha glides over the hill
In a long satin dress that she wears every day
Her home is the hillside, her bed is the grave

Lady Samantha glides like a tiger
Over the hills with no one beside her
No one comes near
They all live in fear
But Lady Samantha, she sheds only tears

The tales that I told round the fire every night
Are out of proportion and none of them right
She is harmless and empty of anything bad
For she once had something that most of you have


All Across The Havens
The sister of sunlight
Comes to my lonely life
Bearing the crosses I hung
I hung on my lonely wife
And the anchor told me
If I prayed by the river
That the sweet sound of water
Would always go with her

All across the havens to the waterfall
They told me I would meet her there
Inside those icy walls
But how on earth in this universe
Can they forgive me of my pains
For all across the havens
I must stumble locked in chains

Then the mother of mercy
Showed me her stable
And told me you would be safe
Safe in her cradle
And the waterfall opened
And the water withdrew
Leaving me standing


It's Me That You Need
Hey there
Look in the mirror
Are you afraid you might see me looking at you
Waiting, waiting at windows
Oh it's me that you need
Yes it's me and I'm waiting for you

But I remain silent
Oh I won't say a word
I leave you to realise I'm the light in your world
And it's me, yes it's me, yes it's me, yes it's me
That you're needing
It's me, yes it's me, yes it's me, yes it's me
That you need
Yes it's me, yes it's me, yes it's me
If you want to be living
I'm the one who's forgiving
Admit that it's me that you need

Watching, watching the swallows fly
It all means the same
Just like them
You can fly home again
But don't, no don't forget yesterday
Pride is an ugly word girl
And you still know my name


Strange Rain
I looked up from my glass into the sky
There's no one in my comic book to buy
Calendar swung on the wall held by a rusty nail
Down came the strange rain and washed my thoughts away

So stop in the sky and tell me why
You're changing your colours before my eyes
Yellow, blue, green and grey
Settled on the window pane

It made the rain that came seem strange
Just like strange rain
It made the rain that came seem strange
Just like strange rain

Still I sit beside the fire and watched as it fell
Come in colours from above into my citadel
My eyes are all embroidered with the rainbow you have made
And now it seems as though it's just, just like strange rain