Marillion : Script for a Jester's Tear

Neo Prog / United-Kingdom
(1983 - EMI Records)
Learn more

Lyrics

1. SCRIPT FOR A JESTER'S TEAR

So here i am once more
In the playground of the broken hearts
One more experience, one more entry in a diary, self-penned
Yet another emotional suicide
Overdosed on sentiment and pride
Too late to say i love you
Too late to restage the play
Abandoning the relics in my playground of yesterday

I'm losing on the swings
I'm losing on the roundabouts
I'm losing on the swings
I'm losing on the roundabouts
Too much, too soon, too far to go, too late to play
The game is over, the game is over

So here i am once more
In the playground of the broken hearts
I'm losing on the swings
I'm losing on the roundabouts
The game is over

Yet another emotional suicide
Overdosed on sentiment and pride
I'm losing on the swings
I'm losing on the roundabouts, roundabouts, the game is over

Too late to say i love you
Too late to restage the play
The game is over

I act the role in classic style
Of a martyr carved with twisted smile
To bleed the lyric for this song
To write the rites to right my wrongs
An epitaph to a broken dream
To exercise this silent scream
A scream that's born from sorrow

I never did write that lovesong
The words just never seemed to flow
Now sad in reflection did i gaze through perfection
And examine the shadows on the other side of morning
And examine the shadows on the other side of morning
Promised wedding now a wake
Promised wedding now a wake, awake

The fool escaped from paradise
Will look over his shoulder and cry
Sit and chew on daffodils and struggle to answer "why?"
As you grow up and leave the playground
Where you kissed your prince and found your frog
Remember the jester that showed you tears, the script for tears

So i'll hold our peace forever when you wear your bridal gown
In the silence of my shame the mute that sang the sirens' song
Has gone solo in the game
I've gone solo in the game, but the game is over

Can you still say you love me
Can you still say you love me
Can you still say that you love me
Do you love me
Do you love me
Do you love me
Do you love me, the jester's tear

Can you still say you love me
Can you still say you love me
Can you still say that you love me?

The jester's tear, the jester's tear
Do you love me


2. HE KNOWS YOU KNOW

He knows, you know, he knows, you know
Problems, problems, problems, problems
Light switch, yellow fever, crawling up your bathroom wall
Singing psychedelic praises to the depths of a China bowl
You've got venom in your stomach, you've got poison in your head
You should have listened to the priest at the confession
When he offered you the sacred bread
He knows, you know, he knows, you know, he knows, you know
But he's got problems
Fast feed, crystal fever, swarming through a fractured mind
Chilling needles freeze emotion, the blind shall lead the blind
You've got venom in you stomach, you've got poison in your head
When your conscience whispered, the vein lines stiffened
You were walking with the dead
He knows, you know, he knows, you know, he knows, you know
He's got experience
He's got experience, he knows, you know
But he's got problems
Problems, problems, problems, problems, problems, problems.
He knows...
Slash wrist, scarlet fever, crawled under your bathroom door
Pumping arteries ooze the problem, through the gap that the razor tore
You've got venom in your stomach, you've got poison in your head
You should have listened to your analyst questions when yo lay on his leather bed
He knows, you know, he knows, you know, he knows, you know
But he's got problems
Blank eyes, purple fever, streaming through the frosted pane
You learned your lesson far to late from the links in a chemist chain
You've got venom in your stomach, you've got poison in your head
You should have stayed at home and talked with father
Listen to the lies he fed
He knows, you know, he knows, you know, he knows, you know
But he's got problems
He knows, you know, he knows, you know, he knows, you know
He's got experience
He's got experience, he knows, you know
He knows, you know, you know, you know
You know, you know, you know, you know
Problems, problems, problems, problems, problems, problems


3. THE WEB

The rain auditions at my window
Its symphony echoes in my womb
My gaze scans the walls of this apartment
To rectify the confines of my tomb

I'm the cyclops in the tenement
I'm the soul without the cause
Crying midst my rubber plants, ignoring beckoning doors
Clippings from ancient newspapers lie scattered cross the floor
Stained by the wine from a shattered glass
Meaningless words
Yellowed by time
Faded photos exposing pain
Celluloid leeches bleeding my mind
Christ, you've finished playing hangman
You've cast the fateful dice
Advice, advice, advice me, this shroud will not suffice
And thus begins the web

Attempting to discard these clinging memories
I only serve to wallow in our past
I fabricate the weave with my excuses
Its strands i hope and pray shall last
Oh please do last
Oh please do last

The flytrap needs the insects
Ivy caresses the wall
Needles make love to the junkies
The sirens seduce with their call
Confidence has deserted me, with you it has forsaken me
Confused and rejected, despised and alone, i kiss isolation on its fevered brow
Security clutching me
Obscurity threatening me
Christ, your reasons were so obvious as my friends have qualified
I only laughed away your tears, but even jesters cry
But even jesters cry

I realise i hold the key to freedom
Oh i cannot let my life be ruled by threads
The time has come to make decisions
The changes have to be made

I realise i hold the key to freedom
I cannot let my life be ruled by threads
The time has come to make decisions
The changes have to be made

Now i leave you
The past does have its say
You're all but forgotten
A mote in my heart
Decisions have been made
They've been made

Decisions have been made
I've conquered my fears, all my fears
The flaming shroud, the flaming shroud
Thus ends the web, the web, the web, the web, the web


4. GARDEN PARTY

Garden party held today
Invites call the debs to play
Social climbers polish ladders
Wayward sons again have fathers
"hello, dad!", "hello, dad!"

Edgy eggs and queuing cumbers
Rudely wakened from their slumbers
Time has come again for slaughter
On the lawns by still "cam" waters
It's a slaughter, it's a slaughter

Champagne corks are firing at the sun again
Swooping swallows chased by violins again
Straafed by strauss they sulk in crumbling eaves again
Oh god not again!

Aperitifs consumed en masse display
Their owners on the grass
Couples loiter in the cloisters
Social leeches quoting chaucer
Doctor's son a parson's daughter
Where why not and should they oughta

Please don't lie upon the grass
Unless accompanied by a fellow
May i be so bold as to perhaps suggest othello
Punting on the cam is jolly fun they say
Beagling on the downs, oh please do come they say
Rugger is the tops, a game for men they say
They say, good god they say

I'm punting
I'm beagling
I'm wining
Reclining
I'm rucking
I'm fucking
So welcome
It's a party

Angie chalks another blue
Mother smiles she did it too
Chitters chat and gossips lash
Posers pose, pressmen flash, flash
Smiles polluted with false charm
Locking on to royal arms
Society columns now ensured
Returns to mingle with the crowds
Oh what a crowd

Oh, punting on the cam
Oh please do come they say
Beagling on the downs
Oh please so come they say
Garden party held today they say
Oh please do come
Oh please do come, they say


5. CHELSEA MONDAY

Catalogue princess, apprentice seductress
Hiding in her cellophane world in glitter town
Awaiting the prince in his white capri
Dynamic young tarzan courts the bedsit queen

Shes playing the actress in this bedroom scene
Shes learning her lines from glossy magazines
Stringing all her pearls from her childhood dreams
Auditioning for the leading role on the silver screen

Patience my tinsel angel, patience my perfumed child
One day they really love you, youll charm them with that smile
But for now its just another chelsea monday


Tju
In the city of dreamers...
Drifting with her incense in the labyrinth of london
Playing games with faces in the neon wonderland
Perform to scattered shadows on the shattered cobbled aisles
Would she dare recite soliloquies at the risk of stark applause
To chelsea monday

Shell pray for endless sundays as she enters saffron sunsets
Conjure phantom lovers from the tattered shreds of dawn
Fulfilled and yet forgotten the st. tropez mirage
Fragrant aphrodisiac, the withered tuberose
Of chelsea monday
Sweet chelsea monday

Patience my tinsel angel, patience my perfumed child
One day they really love you, youll charm them with that smile
But for now its just another chelsea monday
Sweet chelsea monday

Voice: hello john, did you see the standard about four hours ago?
Fished a young chick out of the old father
Blond hair, blue eyes
She said she wanted to be an actress or something
Nobody knows where she came from, where she was going
Funny thing was she had a smile on her face
She was smiling
What a waste!

Catalogue princess, apprentice seductress
Buried in her cellophane world in glitter town
Of chelsea monday
Chelsea monday
She was only dreaming


6. FORGOTTEN SONS

Armalite, street lights, nightsights
Searching the roofs for a sniper, a viper, a fighter
Death in the shadows he'll maim you, he'll wound you, he'll kill you
For a long forgotten cause
On not so foreign shores
Boys baptised in war
Boys baptised in war

Morphine, chill scream, bad dream
Serving as numbers on dogtags, flakrags, sandbags
Your girl has married your best friend, loves end, poison pen
Your flesh will always creep, tossing turning sleep
The wounds that burn so deep, burn so deep

Your mother sits on the edge of the world when the cameras start to roll
Panoramic viewpoint resurrect the killing fold
Your father drains another beer, he's one of the few that cares
Crawling behind a saracen's hull from the safety of his living room chair
Forgotten sons
Forgotten sons
Forgotten sons

And so as i patrol in the valley of the shadow of the tricolour i must fear evil
For i am but mortal and mortals can only die
Asking questions, pleading answers from the nameless faceless watchers
That parade the carpeted corridors of whitehall
Who orders desecration, mutilation, verbal masturbation in the guarded bureaucratic wombs
Minister, minister care for your children
Order them not into damnation
To eliminate those who would trespass against you
For whose is the kingdom, the power, the glory for ever and ever
Amen
Amen
Amen
Amen
Amen
Amen
Amen

"halt who goes there!" - " death!!"
"approach ... friend"
You're just another coffin on its way down the emerald aisle
When your children's stony glances mourn
Your death in a terrorist's smile
The bomber's arm placing fiery gifts on the supermarket shelves
Alley sings with shrapnel detonate a temporary hell
Forgotten sons
Forgotten sons

From the dolequeue to the regiment a profession in a flash
But remember monday signings when from door to door you dash
On the news a nation mourns you unknown soldier count the cost
For a second you'll be famous but labelled posthumous

Ring-a-ring-o-roses, they all fall down
Ring-a-ring-o-roses, they all fall down
Ring-a-ring-o-roses
Ring-a-ring-o-roses
Ring-a-ring-o-roses, they all fall down

Forgotten son
Forgotten son
Forgotten son
They're still forgotten, they're still still forgotten
Peace on earth and mercy mild, mother brown has lost her child
Just another forgotten son

lyrics added by Bakounine - Modify this lyrics