THEATRE OF TRAGEDY LYRICS

1. Machine

Look up here
Look down there
I am the new man
I'm tangled in wires
Chipset adept
Memory load
Keep your vogue code that all have
Tomorrow's world we've all seen
Keep your modern ways
And keep your bugs
The Metal Man is here to stay

Talk talk
You say I only work, all night and day
Talk talk
Do say 'Use me, I'm cheap to rent'

Computerised
Voice synthesised
Call me the mech man
In a world of machines
What can I do but to serve
Store the data and calculate
Speak and spell and operate
Engineer the rail and motorway
Automaton of yesterday

Talk talk
You say I only work, all night and day
Talk talk
Do say 'Use me, I'm cheap to rent'

2. City Of Light

High-rise buildings
Low cost apartments
Financial district
Industrial area
Rows of blue collars
Steelworkers' clink-clang
Metal rhythm left and right
This is the city, city of light

Flicker
Click on
Click off
Click on
The faceless men
The machines of the city

6 p.m. whistle
Next the inner city
Smiling grimey faces
Tea at the local pub
Low-cut dresses
High-spirited workers
Sizzling neon-lights, click on
This is the city, city of light

Flicker
Click on
Click off
Click on
The faceless men
The machines of the city

2 a.m. binge
Low-life slagheap
Used up and burnt out
Like a kick in the teeth
Ramble, shamble on home
Grime back in harness
Metal rhythm left and right
This is the city, city of light

Flicker
Click on
Click off
Click on
The faceless men
The machines of the city

3. Fragment

Broken frames
Shattered glass
Like a monochrome film
The replaceable background
Flickers and dissolves
Out of control

There's no sense, it's all Volta, Amphere and Ohm
Earth to Moon, it's the same as London-Rome

Out of focus, blurred image
As solid as a liquid monument
A second of life
The time-frame of '69
Technology, machinery, humanity
It's all the same

There's no sense, it's all Volta, Amphere and Ohm
Earth to Moon, it's the same as London-Rome

Time and age, what's the difference
Based upon the same reference
Touch-and-go, who's to know the random order
Contorted, distorted it doesn't make any sense at all
A fragment, a segment - bits and pieces, bits and Hz
Angular, circular
It's all the same

There's no sense, it's all Volta, Amphere and Ohm
Earth to Moon, it's the same as London-Rome

4. Musique

I synthesise and press a lighted key
Turn it on, compose a melody
Redo from start, I need more rhythm
1 and 4 was for the Commodore
A catchy beat, I put it on repeat
I program more, but still it's incomplete
Start and stop, where's the perfect pitch?
I won't give up until I tap my feet.

I'm gonna make a perfect line
Gonna make it stick to your mind
I won't give up that magic rhyme
Got to hear it just one more time

Computer music is just like oxygen
Try and fail, again, again, again
I need the recipe for the perfect melody
I add more tracks, run out of DSP
Timbre and tone, I want it synthetic
Knobs and sliders, no button pushing matrix
Dadaistic, nothing too profound
Electric music resounding all around

I'm gonna make a perfect line
Gonna make it stick to your mind
I won't give up that magic rhyme
Got to hear it just one more time

5. Commute

Mobile phones
Commuter trains
The Terminus is full of men
Crisscross network
Zigzag railway
The next stop is Waterloo

White-collar timetable
9 to 5 urban robot

Standby, I'm on a trip with you
Standby, I thought it lasted through
Standby, I'm on a trip with you
It's more fun to commute

Take the Tube
Take the M25
There's traffic jam all around
Double-decker
A fare to Chequers
To tell about my points of view

Standby, I'm on a trip with you
Standby, I thought it lasted through
Standby, I'm on a trip with you
It's more fun to commute

Public transport
No need for comfort
It's all so and so, touch-and-go
Pass a train wreck
Call the tube-tech
I'll make it to work some other day

White-collar timetable
9 to 5 urban robot

Standby, I'm on a trip with you
Standby, I thought it lasted through
Standby, I'm on a trip with you
It's more fun to commute

He pulls
She pushed
I read the papers in the transit lounge
I dial the number
Now I'm certain
I'll make it home some other day

6. Radio

Electric broadcast
The new transmission waves
Turn the dial
Transistor radio
The deadpan voice I want to hear
Receive the news
Receive the tunes
We've tuned in to the ether melody
It's bright and clear and full of energy
Music won't stop
Electro pop
Commercial workshop
I want your time, I need your time to make a rhyme

On the radio now
Ether melody news
For you and me

Antennae beaming sound, news and speech
Marconi's words
'Let it be so'
Apparatus signal it out
Information
Communication
We're in the building of the wireless voice
Static morse
Radar, television
The interference
Incoherence
Scrambled signals
I want your waves
Spectral sound
Tune in, tune out

On the radio now
Ether melody news
For you and me

Radio for you and me
The airwaves are fully free
Radio for you and me
Oscillating energy

On the radio now
Ether melody news
For you and me

7. Image

You act a pansy, pushover
Do live your fancy, go lower
Who is that, something says your name
You seem chancy, moreover
The call is mine

I'm gonna get you up
I wanna get on top
The call is mine

On the skew, you're dancing all over
You are the anti-fashion statement
In a blue suit, orange pullover
You look like my old dog Rover

I'm gonna get you up
I wanna get on top
The call is mine

8. Crash / Concrete

[lyrics by Raymond I. Rohonyi]
[music by Theatre of Tragedy]

Head crash - I can't see you
Spit teeth - I can hear you
I feel your pounding me onto the street
I've learned to know the taste of concrete

Why don't you follow me?

Street brash - time flies, tick-tock
Eyes flash - feels like electroshock
I feel the blood gushing, crumbling away
I know this marks the end of my hey-day

Why don't you follow me?

9. Retrospect

Here we are
We stand in line
One more time today
There is no sense
The cigarette in hand
It's all gone bad
No name, privilege, no hope and fame

We've seen it all before
And it seems like a mirror of our future

We were waiting for something
We were listening to the heartbeats
It could take us
It could take our names; it's the same as no hope and fame

We've seen it all before
And it seems like a mirror of our future

This is no age for us
It seems we're out of class
We are fragile
Like statues made of sand

We've seen it all before
And it seems like a mirror of our future

10. Reverie

Car-crash and an elevator
Make you someone else
Never try yourself
Restore you
Tick-tock clock and teddy boys
Bop 'till you're fagged out
Open windows shout
She wore me, she wore you

Walk these streets
She's concrete
Reverie
All is free

Knick-knack, flashy bric-a-brac
Seesaw heartbeat, she is back
Windscreen eyes are black and blue
She saw you
The Fleet Street scooter-boys are due
They want to see you
You're vogue and hip and on a rendezvous
Adore you

Walk these streets
She's concrete
Reverie
All is free

11. Space Age

Space age pioneers
Exporing the outer spheres
Stars, planets, cosmos
Sterne, Planeten, Kosmos

12. The New Man

Broken bottles, and a broken nose
No reason not to lounge in a pose
I could stand in shade light and laugh at you
You were wrong - it's happened to you too

This is the new circuit
Tell me of your pain
'Shove you around?', now close the door
This is not love
This is my sort of softly touching you
A Brownian motion of whacks on your face
'Who are you?'

Hat-stand man-man in a fancy suit
He's a laugh, it's him and Jim and his prostitute
Gold teeth spat out onto the concrete street
Get into the car with its vinyl seats

This is the new circuit
Tell me of your pain
'Shove you around?', now close the door
This is not love
This is my sort of softly touching you
A Brownian motion of whacks on your face
'who are you?'
This is not the new man
'who are you?'
This is not the new man
This is not love







THEATRE OF TRAGEDY LYRICS