High Land, Hard Rain
Album - 19 aprile 1983 - Debaser id 45405

From the mountain tops
Down to the sunny street
A different drum is playing a different kind of beat
It's like a mystery
That never ends
I see you crying and I want to kill your friends

I hear your footsteps in the street
It won't be long before we meet
It's obvious
Just count me in and count me out
And I'll be waiting for the shout
Oblivious

Met Mo and she's okay
Said no one really changed
Got different badges but they wear them just the same
Down by the ballroom
I recognized
That flaming fountain in those kindred caring eyes

I hear your footsteps in the street
It won't be long before we meet
It's obvious
Just count me in and count me out
And I'll be waiting for the shout
Oblivious

I hope it haunts me 'til I'm hopeless
I hope it hits you when you go
And sometimes on the edge of sleeping
It rises up to let me know
It's not so deep, I'm not so slow

They're calling all the shots
They'll call and say they phoned
They'll call us lonely when we're really just alone
And like a funny film
It's kinda cute
They've bought the bullets and there's no one left to shoot

I hear your footsteps in the street
It won't be long before we meet
It's obvious
Just count me in and count me out
And I'll be waiting for the shout
Oblivious

I hear your footsteps in the street
It won't be long before we meet
It's obvious
Just count me in and count me out
And I'll be waiting for the shout
Oblivious

I brought you some francs
From my travelling chest
You'll spare me the thanks
'Til you know I'm the best

So, come Hogmonay
When love comes in slurs
Resolutions I'll make
And you can label them hers

We threw our hands up high
We nearly touched the sky
We clicked our heels and spat and swore we'd never let it die

All those boy wonders
Sold their medals when they saw this train
Now this boy wonders
When he'll feel the fall of honest rain
I came from high land where the hopefuls have to hesitate
Now this boy wonders
Why the words were never worth the wait

I'm waiting, waiting
In pastel paper, pink over grey
We wrap, wrap, wrap and chuck, chuck away
The poor excuse they peddle as their prose

Dry your tears, tie your tongue
And you're never sixteen
And I'll give you a glimpse
Of the hard and the clean
And my travelling chest
Will be open to you
And boy will you learn
That you haven't a clue

I even asked my best friend
But he could not explain
It hit me when I left him
I felt the rain and called it genius
Called it genius

All those boy wonders
Sold their medals when they saw this train
Now this boy wonders
When he'll feel the fall of honest rain
I came from high land where the hopefuls have to hesitate
Now this boy wonders
Why the words were never worth the wait

Walk out to winter, swear I'll be there.
Chill will wake you, high and dry
You'll wonder why.

We met in the summer and walked 'til the fall
And breathless we talked, it was tongues.
Despite what they'll say, it wasn't youth, we'd hit the truth

Faces of Strummer that fell from your wall
And nothing was left where they hung
So sweet and bitter, they're what we found
So drink them down and

Walk out to winter, swear I'll be there.
Chill will wake you, high and dry
You'll wonder why.
Walk out to winter, swear I'll be there.
Chance is buried just below the blinding snow.

You burn in the breadline and ribbons and all
So walk to winter
You won't be late, you'll always wait
This generation, the walk to the wall
But I'm not angry, get your gear
Get out of here and

Walk out to winter, swear I'll be there.
Chill will wake you, high and dry
You'll wonder why.
Walk out to winter, swear I'll be there.
Chance is buried just below the blinding snow.

Walk out to winter, swear I'll be there.
Chill will wake you, high and dry

Walk out to winter, swear I'll be there.
You'll find,
Snowblind
This is life
This is life

You said you're free, for me that says it all
You're free to push me and I'm free to fall
So if we weaken we can call it stress
You've got my trust, I've got your home address
And now the only chance that we could take
Is the chance that someone else won't make it all come true

We're making tracks that show our touch and go
And now it's touch and come, and you should know
But then four years won't mean that much to me
When I've been smothered in the sympathy you bleed

Just close your eyes again
Until these things get better
You're never far away
But we could send letters

While you were gone I reached another town
They couldn't help me, but they showed me round
And now I've seen what you can't understand
I'd try to lead you but I'd crush your hand

Because the people in the village know
It doesn't matter where you choose to go
The end's the same

I found some blood I wasn't meant to find
I found some feelings that we'd left behind
But then some blood won't mean that much to me
When I've been smothered in the sympathy you bleed

Just close your eyes again
Until these things get better
You're never far away
But we could send letters

I found some blood I wasn't meant to find
I found some feelings that we'd left behind
But then some blood won't mean that much to me
When I've been smothered in the sympathy you bleed

Just close your eyes again
Until these things get better
You're never far away
But we could send letters

Words and music by Roddy Frame

Once I was happy in happy extremes
Packing my bags for the path of the free
From pillar to post I am driven it seems
These bitter tokens are worthless to me

So you appear and say how I've grown
and fill me up with faces I've known.
In this light they're far from divine
I'll save them up and spend them when I have time.

The salted taste of all your tears and woes
Sent me in haste my melancholy rose
Those tasteless lips were closed
You watched me come, you'll see me go.

Once I was happy in happy extremes
Packing my bags for the path of the free
From pillar to post I am driven it seems
These bitter tokens are worthless to me

Just like June the curtains are closed
The ghost of shame he sits here and sighs
I'll love the flames like I've loved the cold
I'll learn to love the life of the "could I, could I, could I"
So I don't cross my fingers any more
You looked for rags and found them at your door
How could you ask for more
Than everything you've heard before?

Once I was happy in happy extremes
Packing my bags for the path of the free
From pillar to post I am driven it seems
These bitter tokens are worthless to me

Words and music by roddy frame

Chorus:
I put all the love and beauty
In the spirit of the night
And I'm holding my ticket tight.
Stupidity and suffering
Are on that ticket, too
And I'm going down the dip with you.

I swear I'm touched but then I'm tired
Everyone who tries to tie me.
'cause I seem to realize
That my cup overflows.
And then I tumble down and take your hand
And no one even knows.
With the broken backs
And the pack of macks
Sayin' that's the way it goes.


Chorus

'cause I been facin' all the red
Me, I'm chasin' all the orange.
And while the bourgeois breed
All you need is greed
And that quiet remembrance day.
I'm gonna pull that chain
'til the heavens rain
And I see them wash away.

'cause I've bound myself to virtue
But I'm bound to be amused.
If it's less than this
You know I can't approve.
I've been hangin' with the hollow men
Who never got the groove
And I'm going down the dip with you.

Chorus