Famous Last Words - Peter Hammill

«If I close my eyes I can pretend

The best is still before me, the worst is at an end

Time for goodbyes to the audiences that adored me;

They never realised

Just how much I came to despise all their eagerness.»

Famous last words

Made in jest, overheard

Is that your best testament?

Or are you coining a phrase

Just to see how it plays

When you’re at your wits' end

Famous last words

To the last you’ll self-serve

What a waste of your breath

When you close your eyes will you pretend

That nothing bad has happened, that we are still close friends?

So many lies, after all the illusions are shattered

Still at all costs you must hide

The emptiness where your true feelings used to reside

Famous last words

They’re so over-rehearsed —

They just sound like pretence

You’ll go out in style

To the last in denial

Of what anything’s meant

Famous last words

To the last you’ll self-serve

What a waste of all that breath

(It's a little too late for sorry…

In a race against the clock

Now you hit that mental block

Time to take that poison cup

Now your time is all used up.)