THE FUTURE

First memory of childhood
Back to the Summer garden
Kick the ball in the borders
See the man through the window
What you see couldn’t harm you
As long as you didn’t tell no-one
Summer’s come to haunt you
Back when the grass is longer

And I look to the sky
And I think of the future.
And I look to the sky
And I think of the future

Then it stops and I rewind
I rewind back and I’m Ancient
Anglo Saxon farming the land
Rough itching Hessian.
The butterflies in the bivouac
And the river’s blue in the Springtime
Caught a salmon out on the ridge.
Food for all the family.

And I look to the sky
And I think of the future.
And I look to the sky
And I think of the future

Now caught on the camera
It’s your life - do you take it?
A girl you knew at sixteen
She’s mother of six and works in a canteen
You never forgot the boredom
The glorious teenage boredom
You’d walk her home in twilight
Deep tongues on the doorstep.

And I look to the sky
And I think of the future.
And I look to the sky
And I think about my future

Thought they’d caught the cancer
Good you got there early
The deep smell of chlorine
Surely gonna get better
Then they took her away
And no-one mentions the sparrows
Peck away at the concrete
Out in the frozen car park

And I look to the sky
And I think of the future.
And I look to the sky
And I think of the future

The travellers had nothing
Except what they stood in
Legs as thin as a pelican
And skin baked and weary
Where do you come from?
And what bad things happened to you?
Where will you go in the morning?
We cannot let you stay here.

And I look to the sky
And I think of the future.
And I look to the sky
And I think of the future.

By the time I was forty
I’d drank my weight in gin and rum
I tried to charm you
With drugs and tarnished silver
There’s nothing in the winter
The child was aborted.
By the time you were free it was over
At the end of my bed is a mirror

And I look to the sky
And I think of the future.
And I look to the sky
And I think of the future

Silence makes me happy
Stops me from screaming
A knock on the door is a worry
Trading on my deathwish
Would you buy a trinket?
Sir, it will bring you luck in the end.
Do I look like I need it?
I hand over the money.

And I look to the sky
And I think of the future.
And I look to the sky
And I think of the future