Incubus Lyrics - Singles - Marillion

When footlights dim in reverence to prescient passion forewarned 

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 played this scene before, you played this scene before 

I the mote in your eye, I the mote in your eye 

A misplaced reaction 

The darkroom unleashes imagination in pornographic images 

In which you will always be the star, always be the star, untouchable 

Unapproachable, constant 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 be developing the negative view 

And you have to be exposed in voyeuristic colour 

The public act, let you model your shame 

On the mannequin catwalk, catwalk 

Let the cats walk, and the cat walks 

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 lovers will, you who I let hypnotise the lens 

You who I let bathe in the spotlights 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 

I'm the producer of your nightmare and the performance has just begun 

It's just begun 

Your perimeter of courtiers jerk like celluloid puppets 

As you stutter paralysed with rabbits 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 wait in silent solitude 

Waiting for the prompt, waiting for the prompt 

You've played this scene before