Список песен:
1. Spiral
2. Dot com
3. A.W.O.L.
4. Nothing @ all
5. Wicked windows
6. Hunt by numbers
7. Hot mango flush
8. El Nino
9. Black Mamba
10. Mango surprise
11. Bends like a willow
12. Far Alaska
13. The dog-ear years
14. A gift of roses
15. The secret language of birds (bonus)
Комментарий Иана Андерсона к альбому:
На альбоме - множество таких элементов, про которые, я могу вообразить, как люди скажут - о, да, это тот самый Талл, что мы помним. Это рок-альбом для выросших детей в штанишках.На диске вы не найдете пропасти эффектов и наворотов. Его звучание довольно скудно, с него снято все ненужное и оставлено лишь то, что наиболее важно.Добавляет Мартин Барре: "Прошлые три диска нас кое-чему научили. Оказалось, что на них слишком мало треков, которые хорошо играть живьем. Но на концертах нам нужен сильный материал! Так что новый альбом вышел куда более прямолинейным. Вы не найдете там снова "хитрые" размеры - мы всегда с удовольствием разучивали какую-нибудь сложную аранжировку не менее сложной вещи... Но зрители ("punters") тоже ведь должны ее понять и словить кайф!"**********Если меня спросят, какие наши диски мне нравятся больше всего, я наверняка скажу, что это "Aqualung", а также "Stand Up" и "Crest of a Knave". Видимо, наши ранние альбомы пользуются наибольшим признанием среди слушателей, но, пожалуй, это неизбежно для любой группы. С другой стороны, должен сказать, музыку последних 15 лет нам больше всего нравится играть живьем. Так что в результате все это неплохо сбалансировано.
Тексты песен:
1. Spiral
Kilometers from nowhere on a scented avenue -
Lined with poppy girls.
I didnt stop, stop to say hello.
Curious vendors - waving bric-a-brac -
Looked me over -
Thought it best, best that I should go.
Dont wake me: I'm falling.
Slow spiral into morning.
Who's out there? cant hear you.
Ears covered - early warning.
Alarm bells ringing.
Time to make my peace with the dreary day.
I waited tables - I was tipped in roubles.
Wine to water
Was the best that I could do.
Wild office parties split the silence.
Loaves and fishes at an empty table laid for two.
Down the spiral, spinning madly.
Gathering momentum
On a disneyesque adventure ride.
I fly in colours from richer palettes.
Famous artists running scared as worlds collide.
2. Dot Com
It's a wide world out there
So much wider than imagined
I can't quite put my finger on the pulse
Of your heart softly beating
Just beneath the raw silk sheen
That reflects the tints of Autumn from the hills.
So punch my name.
And in case you wonder -
I'll be yours - yours, dot com.
Executive accommodation
Bland but nonetheless appealing
Waiters discretely at your beck and call
Place the tall sun-down potion
Lightly by your velvet elbow
While you compose a message on the wall
So punch my name.
And in case you wonder -
I'll be yours - yours, dot com.
With your handmade leather valise
Packed and ready, ready waiting
Showered and dressed down lightly for the heat
Give a clue; leave a kind word
Hint as to a destination
A domain where our cyber-souls might meet.
So punch my name.
And in case you wonder -
I'll be yours, I'll be yours dot com.
3. A.W.O.L.
Stormy-eyed on the edge of dawn:
Nose pressed against the triple glaze.
Floor to ceiling, wall to wall,
Silent traffic streams both ways.
Along the fussy freeway drivers
Dream of sunday barbecues.
Of a sudden, seems I can barely
Face my self: no face to lose.
Call the bosses. call supervisors.
Wont be in today to work for you.
E-mail that girl whos working nights.
She can dress down for this wind and rain.
Leave her new korean compact:
Let some cabbie take the strain.
Take a shower. take big espresso.
Take to the hills, and take a view.
Little black dress stretching over
Hard crystal peaks: soft valleys too.
Call the bosses. call for nurses.
Unfit today to work for you.
No wet excuses. absent without leave.
Ill be her dayshift driver: exotic engineer.
Stormy-eyed on the edge of night:
(december, eastern time: late afternoon.)
Atlantic city tight behind.
Trump casina calls pontoon.
Gristle-burger, frazzled fries
End this romantic interlude.
Tomorrow mornings sweet awakening
Could hardly prove to be as rude.
Make the journey. make amends.
Work some hasty overtime in lieu.
No wet excuses. absent without leave.
Ill be her dayshift driver: exotic engineer.
Примечание. A.W.O.L. (Absent Without Oficcial Leave) - дезертирство, самовольное оставление воинской части (официальное название в американской армии)
4. Nothing @ All
[Instrumental]
5. Wicked Windows
I review my past through wicked windows framed in silver
and hung in toughened glass, upon my face, around and over.
Now and then... memories of men who loved me.
No stolen kiss - could match their march on hot coals for me.
I have walked a line both faint and narrow, hard to follow.
Caught up in circumstance. Harsh truth for history to mellow.
Through my eyes... loyalties and obligation
magnified. Obedience... the better fellow.
Better not remember me. Don't miss my passing.
Fierce winter fails to ruffle my icy sleep.
We never quite vanish. No wet soft surrender.
Still waiting... bad blood running in close families.
I laughed like any child - although you might find that strange
and Christmas was my favourite holiday.
Christmas was my favourite holiday.
I am not alone in seeing the world through wicked windows
while others hide likewise behind this vulnerable squinting.
It's in the stare... it's in the silent scrutinizing.
Strip you bare... I offer you no more disguising.
Better not remember me. Don't miss my passing.
Fierce winter fails to ruffle my icy sleep.
We never quite vanish. No wet soft surrender.
Same bad blood running in new families.
6.Hunt by numbers
Hey little buddies:
soft and silky night walkers.
Dangerous species -
Tiptoe menace long grass stalkers
on my bed:
no butter melting in your jaws.
Bonding monster -
Lethal weapon wearing claws.
Let's go out to hunt by numbers.
Tabby, spotted, black as coal -
Serval, Margy, Caracal.
Moggie in the moonlight listens:
whiskered sensory miracle.
Felis, befriend us -
Egyptian Mau - Freya's familiar.
Long in the future -
Cloned disciples, the castle guard.
Now, let's go out and hunt by numbers.
7.Hot mango flush
Hot mango flush.
Ladies with ice cream hair -
Gyroscopic pink neon beams -
Everybodys happy about something.
The crowd moves like a flock of startings: they
Switch direction as one.
Jive on the jukebox - jack and joker
Split the night air with whoop and holler.
Faint aroma - wood smoke, old fish,
Diesel harbour, roadside mongrel,
Painted man with buttons barely
Holding, bursting belly bulging.
Doe-eyed ragamuffin mumbling -
Scolded for some vague infraction.
Stole a penny candy-coloured
Sweetheart kiss down at the market.
Down at the market all the world
Seems to simmer:
Hot mango flush.
8.El' Nino
As one, wet merchants turn their eyes towards the west.
Trade winds falter as if in dire consequence.
Freezing fish to fry, fail to materialise.
Christ-child, blood-warm current sends to touch the skies.
El nino.
Bathing in uncertainty, another age
Seems to wing from t.v. screens in weather rage.
Savage retribution makes for a headline feats.
Planet-warming, opinion-forming headless beast.
El nino.
Cold thrust tongue extends its dark and watery touch.
Forces gather, martial stand against the rush.
Wily child in mischief here to make his play.
Leaves toys for little sister on another day
El nino.
9.Black mamba
Hand in the snake pit - black mamba chase.
Head through the lions cage - head on a plate.
Two feet on the hot coals - last dance at the ball.
Blindfold on the tightrope - whenever you call.
Be my slippery slider, black mamba crawl over me.
Dark thoughts of the sleepless - hung out to dry.
Slip through the bedclothes - unblinking eye.
Long tongue flickering - fixed stare grip.
Sweet venomous potion, held to my lip.
Be my slippery slider, black mamba crwal over me.
A tropical whisper. a sibilant kiss.
Soft strike teasing. dangerous bliss.
10.Mango surprise
Hot mango flush...
11.Bends like a willow
Shes catching the wind: the gentlest of breezes.
Its a sensitive passage shes sailing -
Through stormy straits, navigates my unfathomable failings.
She rises before me, reading me clearly.
Empty nest left pressed in the pillow.
She can shift, she can sway
And bend like a willow.
Im swept in the riptide, caught in a fish trap.
Gift-wrapped in my soft self centre.
Summer sun leaves me as one who can only taste winter.
Shes a good, a good god-send: she can bend like a willow.
With a fully armed angel to cover me quickly.
Im cool under enemy fire.
If I fall, she can crawl right under the wire.
When Im caustic and cold, she might dare to be bold -
Ease me round to her warm way of thinking:
Fill me up from the cup of love that shes drinking.
And I find, given time. I can bend like a willow.
She bends like a willow.
12.Far Alaska
Placing people in their dreamscape
With fantasies of foreign fields
Lofty spires all well appointed
In off-season special deals.
To far alaska: down to ria in the carnival
Norwegian fjords in the ever-light of solstice call
A part of me might travel with you
In a freebie bucket seat for one
Business first - at last, forever
Hopeless thoughts of flying fun
Now get me out of here I cry in air rage psycho-doom
Im only dream-arranging from the safety of my room
Pick a place or stcik a pin in
Any corner of the sphere
Post me cards and tell me nicely
Say you wish that I was here
To far alaska: down to rio in the carnival
Norwegian fjords in the ever-light of solstice call
13. The Dog-Ear Years
Rusted and ropy.
Dog-eared old copy.
Vintage and classic,
or just plain jurassic...
all words to describe me.
Relaxed in the knowledge
that happily present
are all things to sustain me,
nurture and claim me;
roll back the mileage.
You have settled beside me.
To the far and the wide of me.
A matter of choosing,
of finding and losing
on the rough ride with me.
Take whisky with water,
kick stones down the gutter.
Think back to long days with
stale breath recycled in my face.
Rattling through airways -
plastic on cold trays.
Watching through windows,
deep landscapes below
another time and space.
There must come some time
to walk through the night line.
Hands tight... heads high.
These are the dog-ear years.
Don't turn back. Don't linger.
For God's sake keep moving.
Primitive shadows sidle beside.
14.A gift of roses
I count the hours: you count the days.
Together, we count the minutes in this passion play.
Walk dusty miles. and I ride that train
On a first class ticket, just to be with you again.
Picking up tired feet. back from a far horizon.
Cleaned up and brushed down. dressed to look the part.
Fresh from gods garden, I bring a gift of roses:
To stand in sweet spring water and press them to your
heart.
Like the kipling cat, I walk alone -
Never inviting trouble, never casting the stone.
But this badge of honour is of tarnished tin.
Lightyour guiding beacon to bring this fisher in.
The secret language of birds
This sparkling wine is all but empty.
Too late for trains and no taxis.
I know the feeling. seems all too contrived.
There was no master plan but the fact is:
You must stay with me and learn the secret language of
birds.
A tentative dawn about to be breaking
On a rousseau garden with monkeys in hiding.
The truth of the matter, yet to be spoken
In words on which everything, everythings riding.
Now stay with me and learn the secret language of birds.
Circled by swallows
In a world for the weary.
Courted by warblers; wicked and eloquent trilling.
Lie in the stillness, window cracked open.
Extended moments, hours for the taking.
Careless hair on the pillow, a bold brushstroke.
Painted verse with a chorus in waiting.
Stay with me and learn the secret language of birds.
