Lyrics

In the archipelago The beetles dance apace Each heavy exoskeleton A holy carapace Like bishops in their bishoprics Intruders in the nave Sacrilege their diocese Vandals at the gate Like creatures of the forest Or secrets of the brain The actors in the newsreel Never explain The pilot's introspection In the darkened aeroplane The trickle of the lipstick The babble of the sane The spooling scree of fiction The bobbin of the film The rough and ready pottery Rotating in its kiln The steeplejack remembering The chimneys he's been in The ice cubes in the whisky The lemon in the gin Black earth under pine trees Fircones on the stone Gas in the volcano Parodies back home Serpentine confetti A tickertape parade It's never been less risky But never more afraid The massive gate is open The fountain choked with leaves Arguing in English But killing in Chinese Encouragement and friendship And the musty smell of beer Losing all the battles But winning the war The murder of the lapdog The mishap on the lake The man who loved his wife too much To realise his mistake The painter trying to capture The way his dream begins The ice cubes in the whisky The lemon in the gin My apprentice devil Swaggers on a horse Swearing by the jaguar He'll kill you with a curse When he flicks the switches Extinguishing the stars He darkens all the universe And gallops back to Mars The bozo's summer holiday The chandeliers that clink The seventeenth commandment Commanding us to drink Black earth under pine trees Back where we begin Ice cubes in the whisky Lemon in the gin