Naked To The Flame - Peter Hammill

She was waxed up to face the camera like butter wouldn’t melt

In the back room Agencies hammered out a deal: points on the pelt

In the airlessly frenzied atmosphere she was the mistress of misrule

Seeming careless of everything except her look, cooler than cool

And she’s singing for her supper and she’s dancing in the dark

And she’s running for her life if she but knew it

And though her heart is hard as stone

That’s still the flint from which she’ll spark…

Like a moth to the flame

She was so eager to make it

Her ambition became naked

How iconically arched the eyebrow pluck, how vaselined the lens

Now ironically even highbrow critics rush to her defence…

And she’s spinning in the spotlight, but increasingly confused

About the context that she finds herself wrapped up in

Is it in this skin she’s living or in the last one she abused?

Nothing quite like a dame, was she the broken or the breaking?

The girl, the woman became

Naked

I preferred her in anonymity, but now that cover’s blown

And, absurdly, she stars, eponymously cast: it’s Salome’s show

Oh, be careful what you wish for as your own head might get turned

You might find the biter bit before you know it;

Though ever eager for the spotlight she was never quite ready to be burned

At the end of the game the signature dish will get plated

She’ll go out as she came, written in light as her fate is

The moth discovers the flame’s

Naked