Fireships - Peter Hammill

There’s a smokescreen on the horizon,

Fireships under sail tonight…

Here’s the Armada of Souls,

Here’s the flotilla from God knows where:

From gopher-wood to the last of the ironclads

In common concert they send up the flares.

While we turn and turn around

The rocket hits the roof…

We never think that we’ll get burned,

We’re fireproof,

We think we’re fireproof.

Keep a stiff upper lip,

The band play on Through the raising of the toast;

The captain’s steady

At the attention on the bridge

It’s surface matters

That appear to matter most.

We watch the galleons run aground,

Still we stand aloof;

We never think that we’ll get burned,

We think we’re fireproof.

We think we’re fireproof,

We never think that we’ll get burnaed;

We sail on fireships,

We never think, so we’ll get burned.

Straight for the eye of the hurricane,

Down to the last eye tooth

We never think that we’ll get burned,

We think we’re fireproof.

Here’s the Armada of light,

Here’s the flotilla, for heaven’s sake…

We’re sailing under a flag of convenience,

Casting our messages in bottles in our wake

So we turn and turn around

The rocket hits the roof…

We never think that we’ll get burned,

We think we’re fireproof.

We never think that we’ll get burned,

We think we’re fireproof.

(PH — Guitars, Keyboards, Bass, Percussion, Vox;

Stuart Gordon — Violin;

David Jackson — Alto Sax)