Incubus Lyrics - Fish

When footlights dim in reverence to prescient passion 

Forwarned my audience leaves the stage, floating ahead 

Perfumed shift, within the stammering silence 

The face that launched a thousand frames 

Betrayed by a porcelain tear, a stained career 

You've played this scene before, you've played this scene before 

I, the mote in your eye, 

I, the mote in your eye, a misplaced reaction, reaction 

The darkroom unleashes imagination, in pornographic images 

In which you will always be the star 

Untouchable, unapproachable 

Constant in the darkness, in the darkness 

Nursing an erection, a misplaced reaction 

With no flower to place before this gravestone 

And the walls become enticingly newspaper thin 

But that would only be developing the negative view 

And you have to be exposed in voyeuristic color, the public act 

Let you model your shame on the mannequin catwalk, catwalk 

Let the cats walk 

I've played, this scene before, I've played, this scene before 

I, the mote in your eye, 

I, the mote in your eye, a misplaced reaction, satisfaction 

You can't brush me under the carpet, you can't hide me under the stairs 

The custodian of your private fears, your leading actor of yesteryear 

Who, as you crawled out of the alleys of obscurity 

Sentenced to rejection in the morass of anonymity 

You, who I directed with a lover's will, you who I let hypnotize the lens 

You who I let bathe in the spotlight's glare 

You who wiped me from your memory like a greasepaint mask 

Just like a greasepaint mask 

But now I'm the snake in the grass 

The ghost of film reels past 

The producer of your nightmare 

And the performance has just begun, it's just begun 

Begun, it's just begun 

Your perimeter of courtiers jerk like celluloid puppets 

As you stutter, paralyzed, with rabbit's eyes 

Searing the shadows, flooding the wings 

To pluck elusive salvation from the understudy's lips 

Retrieve the soliloquy, maintain the obituary 

My cue line in the last act, and you'll wait in silent solitude 

Waiting for the prompt, waiting for the prompt, waiting for the prompt. 

You've played this scene before