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Still Life
Van der Graaf Generator
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Citizen, give memories to a thousand voices now dumb
What have we become? What have we chosen to be?
Now all history is reduced to the syllables of our name
Oh, nothing can ever be the same now that the immortals are here
At the time it seemed a reasonable course
To harness all the force of life without the threat of death
But soon we found boredom and inertia are not negatives
But all the more we know and dead our will
And words like "survival, arrival and immunity"
From old age, old fear and old death
Oh, why do I pretend?
Our essence is distilled and all familiar taste is now drained
And though purity is maintained it leaves us sterile
Living through the millions of years
With that laugh as close as any tear
And this is living if you claim that all that entails
Is breathing, eating, defecating
Screwing, drinking, spewing, sleeping
Sinking ever down and down and ultimately passing away
Time, which no longer has any meaning
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And so you take away the threat of death
And all you're left with is a round of make-believe
As you rash all every sullen threat
And still you're ultimately bored by endless ecstasy
And though that's still the rage by which you hope to be engaged
To marry the girl who'll give you whatever
But that's crazy, and crazy is simply enough
It's not enough
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The lips and the taste of dreams that set my eyes
Never closed without feeling it there
And of what object we have glared
From the start and end to all things of infinity
For if we have gained some pound of wisdom
Or meet the cost
Just what have we bargained and what have we lost?
Was we really rich without ever even knowing that it was there?
What chance now of holding fast the blind
Defying death at a time when everything we had is gone
And everything we laboured for, and favoured more
Than earthly things, reveals the hollow ring
Of false hope and of false deliverance
What now but a nuptial bed is made
The dowry has been paid
The toothless, haggard features of eternity
Now welcome me between the sheets
To couple with her withered body
My wife and hers forever
Hers forever
Hers forever
In still life
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