Best Prog Lyricist

Everybody keeps forgetting to list Petrucci  in best lyricist polls. Isnt this beautiful enough?:

'Love, just don't stare'
He used to say to me
every Sunday morning
The spider in the window
The angel in the pool
The old man takes the poison
Now the widow makes the rules

'So speak, I'm right here'
She used to say to me
not a word, not a word
Judas on the ceiling
the Devil in my bed
I guess Easter's never coming
So I'll just wait inside my head

Like a scream but sort of silent
living off my nightmares

Voices repeating me
'Feeling threatened?
We reflect your hopes and fears.'
Voices discussing me
'Others steal your thoughts
they're not confined
within your mind.'

Thought disorder
Dream control
Now they read my mind on the radio
But where was the Garden of Eden?

I feel elated
I feel depressed
Sex is death, Death is sex
Says it right here on my Crucifix

Like a scream but sort of silent
living off my nightmares

Voices protecting me
'Good behavior
brings the Savior
to his knees.'
Voices rejecting me
'Others steal your thoughts
they're not confined
to your own mind.'

I'm kneeling on the floor
staring at the wall
like the spider in the window
I wish that I could speak
Is there fantasy in refuge?
God in politicians?
Should I turn on my religion?
These demons in my head tell me to

I'm lying here in bed
Swear my skin is inside out
Just another Sunday morning

Seen my diary on the newsstand
Seems we've lost the truth to quicksand
It's a shame no one is praying
'Cause these voices in my head
keep saying...

'Love, just don't stare.'
'Reveal the Word when you're
supposed to'
Withdrawn and introverted
Infectiously perverted
'Being laughed at and confused
keeps us pleasantly amused
enough to stay.'

Maybe I'm just Cassandra fleeting
Twentieth century Icon bleeding
Willing to risk Salvation
to escape from isolation

I'm witness to redemption
heard you speak but never listened
Can you rid me of my secrets?
Deliver us from Darkness?

Voices repeating me
'Feeling threatened?
We reflect your hopes and fears.'
Voices discussing me
Don't expect your own Messiah
This neverworld which you desire
is only in your mind.

How about Peter Blegvad of Slap Happy? (And of various solo albums, although those mostly have little to do with prog).

Come on you can't get much better than this. Unless you think its a load
of twaddle being spouted by a rather large scotsman. Which i don't.
Fish you were/are a genius

You can't brush me under the carpet, you can't hide me under the stairs.
The custodian of your private fears, your leading actor of yesteryear,
Who, as you crawled out of the alleys of obscurity,
Sentenced to rejection in the morass of anonymity.
You, who I directed with a lover's will, you who I let hypnotize the lens,
You who I let bathe in the spotlight's glare,
You who wiped me from your memory like a greasepaint mask,
Just like a greasepaint mask.
But now I'm the snake in the grass.
The ghost of film reels past.
And the producer of your nightmare,
And the performance has just begun, Its just begun.
(It's just begun)
Your perimeter of courtiers jerk like celluloid puppets,
As you stutter, paralyzed, with rabbit's eyes.
Searing the shadows, flooding the wings,
to pluck elusive salvation from the understudy's lips.
Retrieve the soliloquy, maintain the obituary.
My cue line in the last act, and you'll wait in silent solitude,
Waiting for the prompt, waiting for the prompt,

Jon Anderson!  I yust love him, and his cosmic lyrics, they blows me awey every time.

House with no Door There's a house with no door and I'm living there; at nights it gets cold and the days are hard to bear inside. There's a house with no roof, so the rain creeps in, falling through my head as I try to think out time. I don't know you, you say you know me; that may be so, there's so much that I am unsure of. You call my name, but it sounds unreal, I forget how I feel: my body's rejecting the cure.          There's a house with no bell but then nobody calls; I sometimes find it hard to tell if any are alive at all outside. There's a house with no sound; yes, it's quiet there - there's not much point in words if there's no-one to share in time. I've learned my lines, I know them so well, I am ready to tell whoever will finally come in of the line in my mind that's cold in the night.... It doesn't seem right when there's that little dark figure running.          There's a house with no door and there's no living there: one day it became a wall...well I didn't really care at the time. There's a house with no light, all the windows are sealed, overtaxed and strained - now nothing is revealed but time I don't know you, you say you know me - that may be so, there's so much that I am unsure of. You call my name, but it sounds unreal; I forget how I feel, my body's rejecting the cure. Won't somebody help me? Never has utter loneliness been better expressed.

BaldFriede wrote:

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House with no Door

....

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 Peter Hammill is outstanding!

incubus411 wrote: I am a HUGE marillian fan and I also sing karaoke so I am always on the look for the correct lyrics to the songs that I really like == Script for a Jester's Tear being one of them.  PROMISED WEDDING NOW A WAKE (as in the bride to be suddenly died).  That is the story behind that song.  A wake being the celebration of one's life after they die.

 

I'm fairly certain that the wake refers to the death of the relationship (So here I am once more in the playground of the broken hearts), and the promised wedding is the starry-eyed protaganist's vision of where it was heading and should have been heading.

There is admission of having made some critical mistakes in a similarly funereal vein "...to bleed the lyric for this song, to write the rites to write my wrongs"

But the line that convinces me that this is about the death of the relationship, not a person, is "So I'll hold my peace forever when you wear your bridal gown..."

This is a fantastic line, with at least 2 clear meanings;

1) I will stop bugging you when I see you married - to me or someone else.

2) When you get married (to someone else), I will have had it with women - just me and my right hand from then on...

 

Fish's lyrics are the absolute best = a true poet of the 20th century - forget Andrew Motion!

Fish, closely followed by Roger Waters.

BaldJean wrote: Also "So I'll hold my peace forever when you wear your bridal gown..." is a direct reference to Peter Hammill's "Lost and Found" from "Over". "and I'll hold my peace forever but I'll hold my passion more... I'll be holding the door".

That's true - Fish was far more inspired by Peter Hammill than Gabriel, contrary to popular opinion - the whole "losing on the swings, losing on the roundabouts" theme also refers to Hammill's lyrics (I forget which album/song).

Who is Dave Brock???

Are you serious?????

 

*psst - try Hawkwind...