PORCUPINE TREE – What Happens Now

So I got all these things, but so what?
In the end you can’t take them with you
You think you can save my soul? Well Ok…
Tell me, with all your conviction
What happens now?

Well I could be boarding an aircraft
With a bomb concealed in somebody’s briefcase
And my body will spread through the heavens, across the sky
And my ashes will fall through the cloudburst
What happens now?
What happens now?

PORCUPINE TREE – Waiting – Phase One

Waiting… to be born again

Wanting… the saddest kind of pain
Waiting for the day when I will crawl away

Nothing is what I feel
Waiting… for the drugs to make it real
Waiting… for the day when I will crawl away

Waiting… to be disciplined
Aching… for your nails across my skin
Waiting… for the day when I will crawl away

PORCUPINE TREE – Trains

Train set and match spied under the blind
Shiny and contoured the railway winds
And I’ve heard the sound from my cousin’s bed
The hiss of the train at the railway head

Always the summers are slipping away

A 60 ton angel falls to the earth
A pile of old metal, a radiant blur
Scars in the country, the summer and her

Always the summers are slipping away
Find me a way for making it stay

When I hear the engine pass
I’m kissing you wide
The hissing subsides
I’m in luck

When the evening reaches here
You’re tying me up
I’m dying of love
It’s OK

PORCUPINE TREE – This Is No Rehearsal

How many children did I bring into this world?
How many did I lose in the shopping arcade?

This is no rehearsal – play it back
and throw things at the screen
This is no rehearsal – somebody
interpret this for me

And still I remember how I dressed him this morning
And then he was gone – stolen, my only one

PORCUPINE TREE – The Start Of Something Beautiful

Always in my thoughts you are
Always in my dreams you are
I got your voice on tape, I got your spirit in a photograph
Always out of reach you are

Cold inside my arms you are
Simple like a child you are
I remember when you took my hand and led me through the rain
Down inside my soul you are

The more I show the way I feel
The less I find you give a damn
The more I get to know
The less I find that I understand
Innocent, the time we spent
Forgot to mention we’re good friends
You thought it was the start of something beautiful?
Well think again.

Mother lost her looks for you
Father never wanted you
I trust to love and then I find you never really felt the same
There’s something in your heart so cruel

PORCUPINE TREE – The Sound Of Muzak

Hear the sound of music
Drifting in the aisles
Elevator Prozac
Stretching on for miles

The music of the future
Will not entertain
It’s only meant to repress
And neutralise your brain

Soul gets squeezed out
Edges get blunt
Demographic
Gives what you want

Now the sound of music
Comes in silver pills
Engineered to suit you
Building cheaper thrills

The music of rebellion
Makes you wanna rage
But it’s made by millionaires
Who are nearly twice your age

One of the wonders of the world is going down
It’s going down I know
It’s one of the blunders of the world that no-one cares
No-one cares enough

PORCUPINE TREE – The Long Silence

A systematic killer
Returning from Madrid
Murdered Mozart in his garden
Mussolini ran and hid
He was chosen by his elders
Sitting on the shelf
They passed his heart to Satan
Who showered them with wealth

A Purple Haze crawled on the lawn
Where lonely angels played
And Shakespeare wrote of Vietnam
While a president decayed
Hollow laughter from below
Cracked the sky in two
As Manson dance inside the flames
And the yellow changed to blue

Swinging from a length of rope
Ruth Ellis blew a kiss
Merlin spoke to Norma Jean
And granted her a wish
Mark Chapman stared at fantasy
Bare wires burned his brain
As Sergeant Pepper led the band
Playing through the rain

The third eye on the surface
Opens up my mind
Twin visions in production
This long silence you will find

PORCUPINE TREE – Synesthesia

I’m sending you a letter
Because I don’t think there’s much time
Time to clear the cobwebs
Time to bear the crime

It’s only a number
It’s only a death
Another soldier died in action
The telegram regrets

I’m lying on a stretcher
They’re lying to my face
There’s no-one left to help me
I’m just a waste of space

It’s a matter of moments
I’ll be dead before you’ve read
There’s blood on the table
And my back is full of lead

PORCUPINE TREE – Strip The Soul

This is my home, this is my own, we don’t like no strangers
Raise the kids good, beat the kids good and tie them up
Spread it wide, my wife, my life, push the camera deeper
I can use, I abuse, my muse, I made them all

This machine
Is there to please
Strip the soul
Fill the hole
A fire to feed
A belt to bleed
Strip the soul
Kill them all

They are not gone, they are not gone, they are only sleeping
In graves, in ways, in clay, underneath the floor
Building walls, overalls, getting bored, I got faulty wiring
Brick it up now, brick it up now, but keep the bones

(Do you want a western home in the rubble?)

PORCUPINE TREE – Stars Die

The moon shook and curled up like gentle fire
The ocean glazed and melted wire
Voices buzzed in spiral eyes
Stars dived in blinding skies

Stars die. Blinding skies.

Tree cracked and mountain cried
Bridges broke, window sighed
Cells grew up and rivers burst
Sound obscured and sense reversed

Idle mind and severed soul
Silent nerves and begging bowl
Shallow haze to blast a way
Hyper sleep to end the day

PORCUPINE TREE – Shesmovedon

You move in waves
You never retrace
Your newest craze
Straight out of the Face by the bed unread

I’m left behind
Like all the others
Some fall for you
It doesn’t make much difference if they do

She changes every time you look
By summer it was all gone – now she’s moved on
She called you every other day
So savior it it’s all gone – now she’s moved on

So for a while
Everything seemed new
Did we connect ?
Or was it all just biding time for you ?

PORCUPINE TREE – Sentimental

I never wanna be old
And I don’t want dependents
It’s no fun to be told
That you can’t blame your parents anymore.

I’m finding it hard to hang from a star
I don’t wanna be…
Never wanna be old.

Sullen and bored the kids stay
And in this way wish away each day
Stoned in the mall the kids play
And in this way wish away each day

I don’t really know
If I care what is normal
And I’m not really sure
If the pills I’ve been taking are helping

I’m wasting my life
Hurting inside
I don’t really know
And I’m not really sure…

[x2]
Sullen and bored the kids stay
And in this way wish away each day
Stoned in the mall the kids play
And in this way wish away each day

PORCUPINE TREE – Radioactive Toy

Run through forests on a hot Summer day
Trying to break down walls of numbing pain

Give me the freedom to destroy
Give me radioactive toy

Taste the water from a stream of running death
Eat the apple and cough a dying breath

Feel the sun burning through your black skin
Pour me into a hole, inform my next of kin

Run through graveyards on a dusty Winter day
Spit the dirt out and try to say…

PORCUPINE TREE – Pure Narcotic

You keep me waiting
You keep me alone in a room full of friends
You keep me hating
You keep me listening to the Bends

No amount of pointless days
Can make this go away

You have me on my knees
You have me listless and deranged
You have me in your pocket
You have me distant and estranged

No narcotics in my brain
Can make this go away

I’m sorry that, I’m sorry that I’m not like you
I worry that I don’t act the way you’d like me to

You find me wanting
You find me bloodless but inspired
You find me out
You find me hallucinating fire

No narcotics in my brain
Can make this go away

Have we ever been here before?
Running headlong at the floor
Leave me dreaming on a railway track
Wrap me up and send me back

PORCUPINE TREE – Nine Cats

The butterfly sailed on the breeze
Past a field of barbed wire trees
Where golden dragons chased around
Pampered poppies on the ground
Two silver trout sat way on high
And watched a royal samurai
Plant two black orchids in a box
And strap it to a laughing fox
A minstrel bought a crooked spoon
He gave it to a blue baboon
Who filled it full of virgin snow
And watched it in the afterglow

Fat toad stood in his ballet shoes
Teaching sixteen kangaroos
How to skip across a lake
They found it hard to stay awake
A pharaoh played a merry tune
And watched nine cats dance on the moon
I didn’t know what all this meant
I didn’t know why I’d been sent.

The Insignificance version of Nine Cats has the
following additional verse at the end:

I threw 5 clocks down on my bed
The chimes danced out on golden threads
And turned to footprints on my wall
Sequined tears began to fall

PORCUPINE TREE – Lips Of Ashes

Paralysed
Lips of Ashes
Synchronised
Blue vein crashes

Touching you inside

Idolised
Black Eyes fading
You and I
Connection failing

I drill down inside

PORCUPINE TREE – Lazarus

As the cheerless towns pass my window
I can see a washed out moon through the fog
And then a voice inside my head, breaks the analogue
And says

“Follow me down to the valley below You know
Moonlight is bleeding from out of your soul”

I survived against the will of my twisted folk
But in the deafness of my world the silence broke
And said

“Follow me down to the valley below You know
Moonlight is bleeding from out of your soul”

“My David don’t you worry
This cold world is not for you
So rest your head upon me
I have strength to carry you”

(Ghosts of the twenties rising Golden summers just holding you)

“Follow me down to the valley below You know
Moonlight is bleeding from out of your soul
Come to us, Lazarus
It’s time for you to go”

PORCUPINE TREE – Jupiter Island

Jupiter Island is full of pleasures
Glowing gardens holding hidden treasures
Luminous flowers of yellows and greens
Glittering petals that have to be seen
Here’s your chance don’t let it pass you by
Take my hand and we’ll fly

Jupiter Island is surrounded by oceans
Majestic ballerinas with graceful motions
Magenta forests on a crimson sea
The electric clouds are as vivid as can be
Scarlet moons in a domino sky
Take my hand and we’ll fly

Come on let’s fly to Jupiter Island
Just take my hand and we’ll fly

Jupiter Island is full of mountains
Ruby rivers and sapphire fountains
Chessboard lawns bible black and white
The pink and blue trees are incredibly bright
An orange sunset painted on the sky
Take my hand and we’ll fly

Jupiter Island is full of people
But you can’t see them unless you want to
Lying in the hay on a hot sunny day
Everyone’s happy so no-one’s gay
Laughter from the children dances way on high Take my
hand and we’ll fly

Jupiter Island is full of meadows
Fertile pastures for growing rainbows
Illuminated portraits from strange orchestrations
Lost in a collage of its own creations
Never a chance to wave goodbye
Take my hand and we’ll fly

PORCUPINE TREE – I Find That I’m Not There

We lost the skyline
We stepped right off the map
Drifted in to blank space
And let the clocks relapse

We laughed the rain down
Slow burn on the lawn
Ghosts across the delta
Swallowed up the storm

Sometimes I feel like a fist
Sometimes I am the colour of air
Sometimes it’s only afterwards
I find that I’m not there

In the dream dusk
We walked beside the lake
We watched the sky move sideways
And heard the evening break

PORCUPINE TREE – How Is Your Life Today?

The letters pile up in the hallway
Junk mail and bills from the catalogues
And the neighbours have guessed ‘cos I’ve cancelled the milk
And they don’t hear your voice through the walls anymore

How is your life today ?

I was kissed on the cheek by a cold mouth
While the taxi was waiting like a getaway car
Each second seems like a lifetime
And the cat it’s been staring at me all this time

How is your life today ?