The Emperor In His War-room Lyrics - Singles - Van Der Graaf Generator

i. THE EMPEROR 

Standing in the space that holds the silent lace of night 

away from you 

You think that you can hold the searing, moulten gold between 

your fingers ... 

But it slips through, tearing tendons as it goes, 

exposing the white of a knuckle ... 

flesh-and-metal forming letters in the mould. 

Cradling you gun, after choosing the ones you think should die- 

Lying on the hill ... crawling over the windowsill into your 

living-room 

They stare out, glass-eyed aimless heads, 

bodies torn by vultures .. 

you are the man whose hands are rank with the smell of death. 

Saviour of the Fallen, Protector of the Weak, 

Friend of the Tall Ones, Keeper of the Peace ... 

Ah, but it is the only way you know ..... 

Looking out to sea, a flattened plane of weeds which bear no living 

You crush life in your fist as your heart is kissed by the lips 

of death 

Ghosts betray you, ghosts betray you, in the night they steal your eye 

from its socket ... 

and the ball hangs fallen on your cheek. 

Complaining tongues are stilled; a thousand mouths are filled 

with rusting metal. 

Your face a shade of green; somehow you try to speak through all the 

garbage in your mouth 

But it won't come out, and you cannot frame the words 

as your stepson 

throws your fame into the flames and you are burned. 

Saviour of the Fallen, Protector of the Weak, 

Friend of the Tall Ones, Keeper of the Peace. 

Ah, but it is the only way you know .......... 

ii. THE ROOM 

Live by sword and you shall die so, 

All your power shall come to nought, 

every life you take is part of your own, 

death, not power, is what you've bought. 

Cringing in your room as the outriders of doom step 

on your threshold; 

Begging for your life as the impartial knife sinks in your 

screaming flesh ... 

without malice, merely taking murder's toll, 

you must pay the price of hate, and that price is 

your soul .... 

Live in peace or die forever in your war-room