I Don't Wanna Die
Third track on the album Obituary of the Americas (2016/402), its lyrics are of unexpected origin: Faint-Heart and the Sermon, a track on Peter Hammill's 1974(/329) 🙌 prog rock album In Camera. Both tracks have a YouTube link on the bottom right of their album's Discogs page.
Discerning the words isn't particularly easy, all the more so since they don't connect entirely chronologically; bits of bridge & outro, for example, become more of a chorus. I haven't spent enough time to try and locate all the lines.
[verse 1] With my face drained of colour And my brain of blood Like Billy Budd I'm lashed to the grating With senses growing duller And with quaking heart I make a start At temperature equating And my lungs suck useless air [verse 2] Like paraplegic dancers In formation team My understanding seems Hidebound in its movements Contemplating answers That could break my bonds - To be half wrong Would be, in me, improvement... But my comprehensive faculties are impaired [bridge] And it seems absurd, but now all I've heard Fades in empty words and is worthless As the Human Laugh rocks the cenotaph But the joke is half-true, and mirthless [verse 3] Trying to trace a reason From the spinning words But all I've heard Seem at odds with their meanings Phonetically pleasing But delivered in such haste That in their place My mind commences screaming [bridge] On the verge of belief I crash onto the reef And a cynical thief steals my senses So I cling to the pew with dimensions askew And recognition refuses present tenses All the lives of the saints demonstrate that my faint Is a minor complaint, but the end is Nowhere in sight Why can't I find me a way to go? [verse 4] I don't want to die in the nave But I know it may be with me some day So I've got to find a way I can save up My energies, and find a cause to pray To something for something To which I can give my creed [instrumental bridge] [verse 5] I'd gladly succumb to the wave If I thought the water taught a way to light; I'd gladly succumb - I'm not brave And it's easy to believe what the preacher says Except for the conflict raging between my head and my brain I don't want to die, but just the same Some day... [verse 6] Waiting for a moment That I know will come When I'll have to run And find another sermon Everyman and Norman And the talking priest -- Well, I am at least holding all the doors open Inside me all outside is shared [bridge] As the cracked bells peal it all seems unreal But the seventh seal stays unbroken And the Offertory plate tenders no escape - Still I refuse to scrape up a token Of esteem for these false Alleyways of the course; I must try to divorce sense from sensing Tell me again Tell me the way to go [outro] So when I talk to myself Although I take good care to listen My heart grows ever more faint There's something missing?
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