A Headlong Stretch

[Part I: Up Ahead]

[Verse 1]
Passage assured
On the good ship Goodbye...
Dare I raise up my eyes
To stare into the rigging?

[Chorus]
(Preparing to go home...)

[Verse 2]
All we could have done
We're at pains to explain
But all our might in the main
Is only empty promise
Unfulfilled at last
Still no-one can be blamed
For breaking daily bread
Thinking ahead

[Chorus]
(Preparing to go home...)
(Preparing to come home...)

[Verse 3]
Blessed with strange grace
And reluctant to face
Ineluctable fate
I say I saw the future
I said forget the past
But I'll not hear the last
Of lives I've never led
Thinking ahead

[Chorus]
(Preparing to go home...)
(Preparing to come home...)
Thinking ahead (Preparing to go home...)
(Preparing to come home...)
Thinking ahead (Preparing to go home...)
(Preparing to come home...)
Thinking ahead (Preparing to go home...)

[Part II: Continental Drift]

[Verse 4]
We make the beds in which we'll stretch
In unconscious pre-planning;
Tending and hedging our bets
Thinking we're thinking ahead

[Verse 5]
Out of the blue comes the given life
Out of the window volition
In small miracles, in constant reinvention
We make sense of each current position

[Bridge]
Every choice that we make, every trick that we turn up
Appears in its principle sound
Yeah, we're self-made men, masters of our destiny
Free and unbound...

[Verse 6]
In to the heart comes the brave new world
Where we're slaves to the strength of conviction...
Yeah, I believe decisions come like continents to conquer
Like I believe we're no strangers to fiction

[Bridge]
Every road that we take
Means a journey rejected
We pretend we can still have it all;
Every future we dream a virtual reality
Only vanity still holds us enthralled
When the best laid plans of mice and men
All unravel in the judgement call

Hey, pride still make us ride for a fall

[Chorus]
Surely we look ripe for a fall
Surely we look ripe for a fall
Surely we look ripe for a fall;
Maybe we just ride for the fall
(Hey!)
Surely we look ripe for a fall
Surely we look ripe for a fall
Surely we look ripe for a fall;
Yeah, maybe we just ride for the fall
Maybe we just ride for the fall
Maybe we just ride for the fall

[Part III: The Twelve]

[Verse 7]
The jury's out upon the matter
And they can barely bear to admit
That all the time that we spend planning
In the end will matter not one whit

[Verse 8]
Though I've certainly considered
Every vital pro and con
I get no scent of an acquittal
I lose the drift... the signs are wrong
What's going on?

[Verse 9]
(Twelve signs of the zodiac
Twelve hours to face
The twelve disciples all aquiver
Twelve arrows strike a twelve-tone case.)

[Verse 10]
Round and round in repetition
Of the flight from boredom into thrill
And all the time we're waiting on the punchline
The hollow laugh within "we will'

[Verse 11]
What won't we give to take up
The turning over of a new leaf?
No one ever reaching future perfect;
Before we know it, beyond belief
We come to grief
We hit the reef

[Part IV: Long Light]

[Verse 12]
Signs serial
Adrift in the air
Immaterial
Face up to the phosphor flare

[Verse 13]
Ghost essence
Fuels fire in the rig;
Incandescence
Let's dance out the mystery jig

[Bridge]
Jig
Dance the dance of mystery light
Dance the dance, jig
Dance the dance infernally bright

[Instrumental Break]

[Verse 14]
Dark water
Dark fire down below...
Storm quarter
Time to dance out the mystery - no!

[Verse 15]
The twelve will swing us to completeness
Right from the cradle to the grave
And all our future projection's
Only second guessing seventh waves...
A break in the connections
We thought were built to last
Here's a change in the weather
Tsunami time -
The wave's already rolling in towards us from the past

[Part V: Backwards Man]

[Intro]
It's only looking backwards
That you retrace your hand
It's only in a moment of reversal
That you can see where you stand...
Ease out, come through the film and through the mirror
Welcome the backwards man

[Verse 16]
Oh yes, the beach still stirs the ocean
And soon the tide will turn the moon round
All is forgiven and all was foreseen -
All's as it ever could be

[Verse 17]
Ends forced motive out of meaning
Means all even out in the end;
Retracing steps
In the process you learn to stand
Learn to walk again
So much gets forgotten, so much is forsworn
In retrospect

[Bridge]
Did I really do that?
Was I ever so young?

[Outro]
It's here, looking backwards
That you confront your own face
It's only in such moments of reversal
That you're secure in place
Through the fire backwards
Again and again
Return to base
Return to base
Return to base
Return to base
Return to base
Return to base
Return to base
Return to base
Return, return...

[Part VI: As You Were]

[Verse 18]
It's some relief
To find the possible in store;
Beyond belief
In overtime, I'm overboard...
Uncharted waters, full fathom five
The future's rising, it's just arrived

[Verse 19]
It's not the same
As I imagined it would be
But there's no blame
If every life's imaginary

[Bridge]
And if I get quite what I deserve
That'll end the sentence, the time I've served
A full stop to the sentence...

[Verse 20]
When it's all done you willed the person you've become
In serious fun it's as you were that you become
And so it's done

[Part VII: Or So I Said]

[Verse 21]
I saw the future
Or so I said...
How strange they seem
The lives I've never led
Thinking ahead

[Chorus]
(I'm ready to go home...)
(I'm ready to come home...)
(I'm ready to go home...)
(I'm ready to come home...)
(I'm ready to go home...)
(I'm ready to come home...)
(I'm ready to go home...)
(I'm ready to come home...)
(I'm ready to go home...)
(I'm ready to come home...)

[Outro]
So head on (I'm ready to go home...)
Headlong (I'm ready to come home...)
So head on (I'm ready to go home...)
Headstrong (I'm ready to come home...)
So head on (I'm ready to go home...)
Headlong (I'm ready to come home...)
So head on (I'm ready to go home...)
Headstrong (I'm ready to come home...)
Headlong (I'm ready to come home...)
So head on (I'm ready to go...)