Marillion - This strange engine (1997) Songlist: I’m the man of a thousand faces One Fine Day 80 Days Estonia Memory of Water An Accidental Man Hope for the future This Strange Engine I’m the man of a thousand faces I’m the man of a thousand faces A little piece of me in every part I take I hold the tape for a thousand races A different point of view in every speech I make Cut me a piece of my divided soul Cry me a river, call it rock and roll Give me an attitude and watch me make it lie Pass me a microphone I need to testify Well I speak to machines with the voice of humanity Speak to the wise with the voice of insanity Speak to the present in the past and future tense Speak to a slave with the voice of obedience I’m the man of a thousand ages You see my face in the stones of the Parthenon You hear my song in the babble of Babylon I’m the man of a thousand riches Be my guest at the feast of Satyricon You spend the money that my logo’s printed on Well I'll speak to machines with the voice of humanity Speak to the wise with the voice of insanity Speak to the present in the past and future tense Speak to a slave with the voice of obedience I stole a fire but it burned up much too soon I took a leap and I landed on the moon Look at my life and it looks like CNN You see something once y’know it’s gonna come around again Well I’ll speak to machines with the voice of humanity Speak to the wise with the voice of insanity Speak to a woman with the fatal charm of a snake Forgive like a giver and account for all I take Yes, I Speak to machines with the voice of humanity Speak to the wise with the voice of insanity Speak like a leader with the voice of power and command And when I talk to God I know he’ll understand Cause I’m the man of a thousand faces Yes I’m the man of a thousand faces I stole a fire but it burned up too much too soon I took a leap and I landed on the moon.. Voice of command Voice of a snake Voice of humanity Voice of insanity Voice of command Voice of a snake Voice of humanity Voice of insanity Voice of command Voice of obedience Thousand faces Thousand races Cry me a river Face in the stars Stones in the Parthenon Babble of Babylon Voice of command Voice of a snake Voice of humanity Voice of insanity Thousand faces Thousand races Cry me a river Steal a fire Face in the stars Stones in the Parthenon Babble of Babylon Landed on the moon One Fine Day When we were young you used to say Things would be different One fine day The walls would crumble Nations sing as one We live in hope, ‘cause so far It hasn’t come Listenin’ to the pouring rain Waiting for the world to change Beginning to wonder if we’ll wait in vain For one fine day Oh, how years change the things for which we strive A better world.. or just a quiet life What seemed so simple Is still so far away Don’t hold you breath waitin For one fine day Listenin’ to the pouring rain Waiting for the world to change Beginning to wonder if we’ll wait in vain For one fine day Life is strange It can seem you’re high and dry Turn around You find there’s nothing in this world you recognise Did we fall asleep babe? Dreaming that dream babe? Listenin’ to the pouring rain... Did we fall asleep babe? Dreaming that dream babe? 80 Days Staring down from this high window At the faces in the line Cold from hours of waiting How many people can you love? When you’re black and blue with bruises From collisions on the road The friction grind of traveling This is the never ending show All over the world in eighty days Head in a blur of information What kind of a man could live this way I do what I can I do OK But right now All I want to do is Get real If that’s allright with you Woke up last night under the mountains Driving from Zurich to Milan I lay there listening to the echos Thinking of Iceland and Japan So many miles So many faces And my home so far away I lose some of me in all these places And I can’t help the way I’m changed All over the world in eighty days Memories turn like magazine pages What kind of a man could live this way I do what I can But I can’t escape it Right now All I want to do Is get real If that’s allright with you Right now All I want to do Somehow Be myself with you All over the world in eighty days Alcohol haze of information What kind of a man could live this way As long as I have And stay the same Right now All I want to do is Get real If that’s allright with you Right now All I want to do Get real If that’s allright with you For just one night with you Get real somehow Estonia Feeling you shake Feel your heart break Thinking If only, If only, If only And the salt water runs Through your veins and your bones Telling you no not this way, not this way, not this way And you would give anything Give up everything Offer your life blood away For yesterday No one leaves you When you live in their heart and mind And no one dies They just move to the other side When we’re gone.. Watch the world simply carry on We live on laughing and in no pain We’ll stay and be happy With those who have loved us today Finding the answer It’s a human obsession But you might as well talk to the stones and the trees and the sea Cause nobody knows And so few can see There’s only beauty and caring and truth beyond darkness No one leaves you When you live in their heart and mind And we won’t understand your grief Because time is illusion As this watery world spins around This timeless sun Will dry your eyes And calm your mind No one leaves you When you live in their heart and mind And no one dies They just move to the other side Watch the world simply carry on It’s okay, we will stay and be happy Stay and be happy With those who have loved us today Who loved us today Memory of Water I wonder if my rope’s still hanging from the tree By the standing pool where you drank me And filled me full of thirsty love And the memory of water? Wonder if a king still fishes there His back towards the burned out air His laughing catches singing loud The memory of water Your taste is blood and ecstasy But I must drink you all alone You’re freckled like a speckled egg A dove… but this bird has flown O stay with me sweet memory O stay with me... Wonder if my rope’s still hanging from the tree By the standing pool where you drank me As pain flows through me like champagne Of the memory of water An Accidental Man I was taught from much too young To never give myself away Yes I was taught for every secret There’s a price you have to pay An accident of gender An accident of birth That holds me to this point of view This time and place on earth This time and place on earth You ask me how I’m feeling I only wish you knew How hard it is for me to share Share those kind of things with you It’s not that I don’t love you It’s just I can’t connect Cause I was taught from much too young To shine and not reflect I’m an accidental man You ask me if I’m happy I only wish I knew Cause happiness is not something That I ever learned to do It’s not that I’m complaining It’s all the same to me If everything that happens, happens Accidentally I’m an accidental man I was taught for every secret There’s a price you have to pay I was thought from much too young To never give myself away I was born to worthy causes I was born to take the reins I was taught from much too young To never give myself away An accident of gender An accident of birth That holds me to this point of view This time and place on earth So try and understand if I don’t say all I can A stranger to myself I am An accidental man I’m an accident I’m an accidental man Hope for the future I’ve been feeling kind of down and loose Like a Rosicrucian pope Head down deep in the womb of time Carrying a message of hope My hands steady as a hangman’s hands Surer than the hangman’s rope I could sleep for invisible years Carrying a message of hope For the future For the future Carrying a message Carrying a message Carrying a message Message of hope I found a power on a dusty shelf Hey!the languages I learned... Now I’m so powerful I hurt myself I hurt myself I feel kind of limbie brain Like the library of an astronaut Found hidden in a pyramid Shadowing a body of thought Carrying a message Message of hope Madam I’m Adam, I’m a palindrome Never odd or even any time Fishin' and smilin' like a garden gnome Twisting tales and spinning lines Spinning lines Twisting tales Why don’t we twist like we did last year? Carrying, carrying a message Message of hope This Strange Engine There was a boy who came into this world at the hands of a holy woman in a holy place He wore a red coat and walked a bulldog Saw them reflected in the mirror of the lakes Lived in the shadow of the mountains with the smells of disinfectant, dusty old leather and the polished wood of his bed No more than a baby feeding swans on the river holding the hands of his mother, and the wax paperbag of yesterdays bread And his father on the other side of the world On the ships railings and some far away tide With the silent dry tear of home thoughts from abroad in his far away eyes In his faraway eyes- The smell of the wax on the wooden floor Mixture of polish and soap No children to fear or to play with Rows of empty hooks for the coats An upright piano and the boys in the choir Still remind him of just before he was born Remind him of just before he was breathing Strange misty visions of God Turn the cities into families Into villages of souls Hovering in the air while they’re sleeping With their houses invisible Running as fast as I could run Send to me the ghosts of Christmas Whispering: "You’re the only one" And ever since I was a boy I never felt that I belonged Like everything they did to me Was an experiment to see How I would cope with the illusion In which direction would I jump Would I do it all the same As the actors in the game Or would I spit it back at them And not get caught up in their rules And live according to my own And not be used To find the fundamental truths It was going to take some time Thirty five summers down the line The wisdom of each passing year Seems to serve only to confuse Daddy came out the navy and took us away to his dirty gray home town And he worked down on a coal mine for National Service so that he could be around There was a magical purple in the chrome of the exhaust of his Triumph motor bike And a warmth of oil and metal and the thrill of the hard corner holding tight From the horizon... To buried alive Took his dream underground Buried his treasure in his faraway eyes And one day as the boy lay sleeping in the sunshine of a half remembered afternoon A cloud of bees with no particular aim, and no brain Found the boy, decided that his time had come Came down out of the sky Stung him in the face Again and again Blue pain Screaming like baptism Intraveinous, Jesus! Like being chosen Blue pain from something with no brain I can’t explain It’s happening again Oh mummy, daddy, will you sit a while with me Oh mummy, daddy, will you jog my memory Tell me Tall tales of Montego Bay, Table mountain, Flying fish, Banana spiders, Pots of paint And the sun on the equator Setting like an ember thrown to deep water From crimson to black But coming back... Tomorrow on the horizon The blue pain Fades to a point where it doesn’t fade It stayed.. Blue Stirred his red coat heart to his strange engine This love This love This inconvenient, blind, blood-diamond This puzzle I don’t understand That knows no faith And tries and fails And tries again Stares at the sea The night’s dark deep For one last time And bleeds And bleeds And dies for you And lies And is to blame And is ashamed And is not the same And is true