Remote Luxury

Dark, small, so fragile
A treasure to your heart
Grace your fingers across the lacquer
Think of someone miles away
Piano sounds that bow in the distance
Bring me back to my room again
Ten thousand miles away
My memory is leaking
She lost a ruby thing
Trying to focus, times in the past
The music has stopped and can't carry on
All of a sudden i start to remember
Summer, germany, then it's gone
Ten thousand miles away
The dancers are sleepy
The keys are put away
The jewel on my jacket talking, talking
Telling stories everyone's heard
My box of ghosts bids me goodnight
Clockwork spirits have the last word
Ten thousand miles away

Borrowed grapes from stores of gold
Put plastic back where metal's sold
Men in quarries connect their bomb
One two three a new saigon
Check the bottle is it full?
Have you found which pin to pull?
Boys in shirts get dirty hands
Smoke kills seagulls on the sands
They have pages, they take ages
To read and to learn they're heavy to carry
And easy to burn
Volumes have secrets, take them on holiday
Book them a room, save them a moment
Swallow their swoon
Pretty things all in a row
Flowers who can't seem to grow
Finding the pearls then finding the blood
Then finding the water is wood
The something i wanted has just flown by
It looked at me sideways and told me to try
I hope it's a message from someone obscure
I hope it's the man next door

Me and the puzzled travelers
We searched the ground for wealth
And scoured the dreaming valleys
On days where shadows melt
Digging for the blue and the green
Constant in opal or ultramarine
If you could only find yourself that way
And dust was my companion
And thirst caked all our words
Unearthing nearly nothing
We swarmed like carrion birds
Some for fortune, some for greed
Some for want, some for need
If you could only find yourself that way
In hearts suspicion flowers
In hands numb with jealousy
Sleepwalking lightning showers
Transform effortlessly
Thinking of all that i left behind
Down in the shaft when my mind was blind
But you couldn't even find yourself that way

Newspaper face against the ground
Phantom bus pass through violet town
On its way through the yellow fields
Past the graying fences
When i'm here i have this feeling
I don't want to know
Inviolate town
Big trees throw shade that falls around
The empty streets of violet town
Gardeners the houses stand
And eyes in windows, strange...
Big truth progresses never to be found
I walk the corners straight to violet town
And i tell you sometimes when we're old
Of the useless boy and his dream

Badman's woman with that look in her eye
You stop to wonder as she passes by
Something inside you is never the same
Something outside you is always to blame
Follow her home where she lives with some friends
They have some good things to add to the blend
The games expanded, invaded the place
You're the only one who's forgotten his face

You're saying no no no i must be on my way
But it really has been a pleasant night
And you go so slow hope they'll ask you to stay
And indifference gives you a fright

Walking outside you come to a door
You go inside and you wonder what for
At least it's good to be out of the wind
You turn around and the clocks all begin
Just like the winter your memory thaws
Just like the ocean your memory pours
So many pieces to match or to find
So many doubts to have in one mind

It's hard to see how the tables have turned
It's hard to see how the people have learned
It's hard to watch the past drizzling past
It's hard to watch them picking the cast
And it stacks up badly that it never makes sense
You sense that sensation is who's paying the rent
And she beckons to you with her fingers and lies
She says: can't you slice the price of your paradise