DEAD CAN DANCE – The Cardinal Sin

Sail to the stars
On your shining desires

“Reasons? There are none”
Cried the whisky laden brain
“When all is said and done
It amounts to just the same”

There in your starry eyes
Lie hopes that have been betrayed

The cause of your desire
Can also lead to your demise
When all is said and done
It will be you who pays the price

As countless fools
Are often loathe to testify
“It’s an illusion of life
The whole cause of our demise”

Sail to the stars
On your shining desires

Lucretia waits in vain
For the child of her dreams
Within her aching womb
There burns a funeral pyre

There in your starry eyes
Lie hopes that have been betrayed

The prize that you claim
Can never be yours to take
Like castles in Spain
Hope is all that will remain

Abstain from the fools paradise
It’s an illusion of life
The whole cause of our desire

(As countless) fools
Are often loathe to testify
“It’s an illusion of life
The whole cause of our demise”

Contemplate the world
And its traitors to the soul
The forces of derision
And its legions manifold

Usurpers of the crown
All pretenders to the throne
Your world is linked in chains
“All in one, one in all”

All in one, one in all
All in one, one in all
All in one, one in all
All in one, one in all

All in one, one in all
All in one, one in all
All in one, one in all
All in one, one in all

(As countless) fools
Are often loathe to testify
“It’s an illusion of life
The whole cause of our demise”

It’s an illusion of life
It’s an illusion of life
It’s an illusion of life
It’s an illusion of life

DEAD CAN DANCE – Spirit

I thought I’d found a reason to live
Just like before when I was a child
Only to find dreams made of sand
Would just fall apart and slip through my hands

But the spirit of life keeps us strong
And the spirit of life is the will to carry on

Adversity
What have I done to you
To cause this reclusive silence
That has come between me and you?

And the spirit of life remains in light
And the spirit of life remains inside, inside

I never thought it would be quite like this
Living outside of mutual bliss
But as long as the veins in our arm still stand up
The spirit of life will keep living on

DEAD CAN DANCE – Song Of Sophia

With one wish
We wake the will within wisdom
With one will
We wish the wisdom within waking
Woken, wishing, willing

DEAD CAN DANCE – Severance

Severance, the birds of leaving call to us
Yet here we stand endowed with the fear of flight
Over land the winds of change consume the land
While we remain in the shadow of summers now past

When all the leaves have fallen and turned to dust
Will we remain entrenched within our ways?
Indifference, the plague that moves throughout this land
Omen signs in the shapes of things to come

Tomorrow’s child is the only child
Tomorrow’s child is the only child

DEAD CAN DANCE – Rakim

Favoured son
Turn in the garden
Shades of one
Sins forgotten

Favoured signs to find hope
In the rounds of life
Favoured rhymes to find hope
In the sands of life

Favoured son
Fence in your heart
Savored son
Sins forgotten

DEAD CAN DANCE – Opium

Sometimes
I feel like I want to live
Far from the metropolis
Just walk through that door
Sometimes
I feel like I want to fly
Reach out to the painted sky
A prisoner to the wind
A bird on the wing

Sometimes
I feel the ocean in my blood
See rain from the sky above
Her salt brined tears
And now
Those tears leave taste on my tongue
Like the warm rush you get from
Black opium
Black opium

Sometimes
I feel like I want to leave
Behind all these memories
And walk through that door
Outside
The black night calls my name
But all roads look the same
They lead nowhere
They lead nowhere

DEAD CAN DANCE – Oman

From the body to the soul
Where our hearts lead we must go
Wherever love may flow

DEAD CAN DANCE – Mesmerism

Frail of heart
Renounce all fear
Locked away inside
All these years
Remain in the light
Renounce all fears
For you have been
Mesmerised
Break this spell
Of silence

DEAD CAN DANCE – In Power We Entrust The Love Advocated

Sail on silver wings
Through this storm what fortune love may bring
Back to my arms again
The love of a former golden age

I am disabled by fears
Concerning which course to take
For now that wheels are turning
I find my faith deserting me

This night is filled with the cries
Of dispossessed children in search of paradise
A sign of unresolved ambition
Drives the pinwheel on and on

I am disabled by fears
Concerning which course to take
When memory bears witness to
The innocents consumed in dying rage

The way lies through our love
There can be no other means to the end
Or keys to my heart you will never find
You will never find

DEAD CAN DANCE – In The Kingdom Of The Blind The One-Eyed Are Kings

If it were within, within our power
Beyond the reach of slavish pride
To no longer harbour grievances
Behind the mask’s opportunist’s facade

We could welcome the responsibility
Like a long lost friend
And re-establish laughter
In the dolls house once again

For time has imprisoned us
In the order of our years
In the discipline of our ways
And in the passing of momentary stillness

We can see our chaos in motion
Our chaos in motion
We can see our chaos in motion
View our chaos in motion

And the subsequent collisions of fools
Well versed in the subtle art of slavery

DEAD CAN DANCE – Fortune Presents Gifts Not According To The Book

Fortune presents gifts
Not according to the book
Fortune presents gifts
Not according to the book

When you expect whistles it’s flutes
When you expect flutes it’s whistles

What various paths are followed
In distributing honours and possessions
She gives awards to some
And penitent’s cloaks to others

When you expect whistles it’s flutes
When you expect flutes it’s whistles

Sometimes she robs the chief goatherd
Of his cottage and goat pen
And to whomever she fancies
The lamest goat has born two kids

When you expect whistles it’s flutes
When you expect flutes it’s whistles

Because in a village a poor lad
Has stolen one egg
He swings in the sun
And another gets away with a thousand crimes

When you expect whistles it’s flutes
When you expect flutes it’s whistles

DEAD CAN DANCE – Enigma Of The Absolute

Saloman hung down her head
Laid bare her heart
For the world to see
She craved for intimacy
Through darkened doors
Her aspect veiled with indecision
Gazed out to sea
She craved lucidity

Cast adrift
Fom past relationships in her life
Hoisted up the ideal
This was her saving grace
Seas of rage that once assailed
Her concern for the truth
Had passed her by
And left her high and dry

In her saviour’s arms
In her saviour’s arms
In her saviour’s arms
In her saviour’s arms

Across the sea
Lies the fountain of renewal
Where you will see
The whole cause of your loneliness
Can be measured in dreams
That transcend all these lies
And I wish and I pray
That there may come a day

For a saviour’s arms
For a saviour’s arms
For a saviour’s arms
For a saviour’s arms

DEAD CAN DANCE – Children Of The Sun

We are ancients
As ancient as the sun
We came from the ocean
Once our ancestral home
So that one day
We could all return
To our birthright
The great celestial dome

We are the children of the sun
Our journey’s just begun
Sunflowers in our hair
We are the children of the sun
There is room for everyone
Sunflowers in our hair

Throughout the ages
Of iron, bronze, and stone
We marvelled at the night sky
And what may lie beyond
We burned offerings
To the elemental ones
Made sacrifices
For beauty, peace and love

We are the children of the sun
Our kingdom will come
Sunflowers in our hair
We are the children of the sun
Our carnival’s begun
Our songs will fill the air

And you know it’s time
To look for reasons why
Just reach up and touch the sky
To the heavens we’ll ascend
We are the children of the sun
Our journey has begun

All the older children
Come out at night
Anaemic, soulless
Great hunger in their eyes
Unaware of the beauty
That sleeps tonight

And all the queen’s horses
And all the king’s men
Will never put these children back
Together again

Faith, hope, our charities
Greed, sloth, our enemies

We are the children of the sun
We are the children of the sun

DEAD CAN DANCE – Anywhere Out Of The World

We scale the face of reason
To find at least one sign
That could reveal the true dimensions
Of life lest we forget

And maybe it’s easier to withdraw from life
With all of it’s misery and wretched lies
Away from harm

We lay by cool still waters
And gazed into the sun
And like the moth’s great imperfection
Succumbed to her fatal charm

Any maybe it’s me who dreams unrequited love
The victim of fools who watch and stand in line
Away from harm

In our vain pursuit
Of life for one’s own end
Will this crooked path
Ever cease to end?

DEAD CAN DANCE – Amnesia

Saw the demonstration
On remembrance day
Lest we forget the lesson
Enshrined in funeral clay
History is never written
By those who’ve lost
The defeated must bear witness to
Our collective memory loss

With every generation comes
Another memory lapse
See the demonstrations of
Failing to learn from our past
We live in the dreamtime
Nothing seems to last
Can you really plan a future
When you no longer have a past

Memories fall from the trees
Amnesia
Memories like autumn leaves

If we are subject to
Empirical minds
I wonder what lies beyond
Our memory’s confines
If memory is the true
Sum of who we are
May your children know the truth
And shine like the brightest star

Memory, help me see
Amnesia
Memory, set me free

All my love and all my kisses
Sweet Mnemosyne
All my love and all my kisses
Sweet Mnemosyne
Sweet Mnemosyne

DEAD CAN DANCE – All In Good Time

All your ships
Have left their moorings
Cast adrift
On the Sargasso Sea
Waiting for the wind
To set your sails free

When you reach
The end of your rainbow
Chasing shadows
And down on your luck
Look for the sign
Look for a sign

As you rise to the very top
Of your mountain
Just remember those
Poor lost souls
On their way down

You taught me patience
Was a virtue
I took my time
Let Nature take her cause
All was revealed
All in good time

Turn back your clocks
Open up your memories
Beneath the veil
Where time stands still
You showed me a sign
You showed me the sign