Tony Banks

(Banks)

(Instrumental)

(Banks)

My name is unimportant
And my job you could call mean
But I like the work and I do it well
That’s enough for me.
I think there was a time when I
Could do, and did, much more.
I have dreams in which I captain the ship
And hear the ocean roar.
I’ve lived alone for all I can remember
That only means some six or seven years.
I would rather be nobody else,
I’m happy as I am.
All I need is in my way
And you see no one expects too much from me.
People cry, but no one asks me to advise them.
They want to know but they don’t ask me how.
That’s for someone else and not for me, I don’t know.
Lucky me.
My friends think that I should be trying
To find out who I was.
But I feel that road would bring me pain
And too much would be lost.
How I am is how I’m meant to be now,
Anyhow there’s things I see more clearly
Than those whose heads are searching in the clouds
to make discoveries,
And maybe fail to see
What’s on the ground beneath their feet, not hard to find.
People cry, but no one asks me to advise them
They want to know but they don’t ask me how,
That’s for someone else and not for me, I don’t know.
Lucky me.
No one asks me to advise them.
They want to know but they don’t ask me how.
That’s for someone else and not for me, I don’t know.
Lucky me – oh.

(Banks)


Thirty odd years before on some grass covered wasteland,
A boy is observed on his own who is watching and playing.
He’s just made a pact with himself,
If that rabbit over there
Doesn’t go down yonder hole,
Let the ground beneath him disappear.
And it runs on past,
Fades away in the distance
But the earth doesn’t move, nobody thought that it would.
He makes bets and pledges again and again.
Sometimes he wins, sometimes he loses, no matter,
Some might call him stupid
To tempt fate in this way,
But he really does believe in it
Each time the rules are made
There he goes again,
‘If I never fall for a lady then Let me famous, let me be wise -‘
Now this one I like,
It has a different ring,
Instead of something trivial
That’s a serious undertaking.
So I say to you,
This time I think I’ll act,
I’ll be a witness to this contract,
I’ll settle everything.
So if you should ever fall in love
You’ll not only not be wise,
You’ll lose your memory and most of your mind
And I’ve never been known to lie…
And now he’s not really sure if he truly heard someone,
So what if he did, he thinks, for nothing will happen,
Though he seems to shrug it off
He won’t play that game again,
Forever morning after the night before
When even one drop would cause pain.
And the years go by.
The incident is all but forgotten by one
But the other who lives it remembers that innocent fun.

(Banks)


For a while I could not lose this childhood spectre,
I felt others saw it too.
Now I notice a change in the way that people look at me,
And how those people look to me.
I see they’re not so clever, I like them better for it too.
And one still more.
For now I see more clearly
Many things that passed me by.
Like Paul the visionary,
I see things in a different light.
For now I know what course to take.

Now at last I find a meaning in scenes of life
That made no sense to me before.
And the complicated structures of scientific knowledge
Once just mad, they seem so simple now.
And one I’ve known since childhood, she has new meaning for me too
These things are good.
For now I see more clearly
Many things that passed me by.
Like Paul the visionary,
I see things in a different light.

(Banks)


(It’s a curious feeling)
It’s a curious feeling to see the edge receding,
It seems the more I know, the more I don’t know,
does this ever end?
If you listened to fanatics of the left or right,
You’d think they’d solve it all,
But they don’t convince me.
Some statesmen, gurus, men of science and of philosophy,
All have an answer but they won’t agree.
So if anybody tells you stories
Of how they’re gonna change your world
Be they the Aga Khan, the ex Shah of Iran,
Or the Man from U.N.C.L.E.,
Say I don’t believe you cos I know we don’t need you.
In the name of religion or of any politician,
I’m sure we’ve heard it all.
If races always ran to form they never would be run,
Where would be the fun?
And if ever a man could understand everything there was,
He’d have no reason to carry on.
So when anybody tells you stories
Of how they’re gonna change your world,
Be they the Aga Khan, the ex Shah of Iran,
Or the Man from U.N.C.L.E.,
Say come with me then to the Garden of Eden.
Put back our bites from the apple of the Tree of Knowledge,
Be like the beasts again.

(Banks)

(Instrumental)

(Banks)


How strange I never noticed
Your eyes, or the colour of your hair.
It seems to me you grow more beautiful
In every way.
With every single passing day.
Love crept in unseen,
Found me wanting
I didn’t even have the sense to know
What I was missing,
Or what I was soon to feel for
You the laughter,
You a reason to live.
You the object of all the love I can give,
And all that I possess.
You who meant nothing when I was younger
It seems a memory from another life.
Did you ever think we’d meet this way,
Feel this way.
Did you really even care?
Some changes I foresaw,
But not this one.
This feeling I would not have understood.
Strange to think
I might have lived my whole life without
You the laughter,
You a reason to live.
You the object of all the love I can give,
And all that I possess.
You who meant nothing when I was younger.

(Banks)


Too good to last, how those four words ring in my ears.
A voice from the past has been heard again,
Whether its real or not, I can’t say I care
But my memory’s going and my mind is losing its grip.
I’m walking on thinning ice.
Soon I shall be taken down, drowned in blind ignorance.
Its hard to bear but harder still
To tell the one I care for,
Please to say love is here today, but its going away, going away.
How can I fight a fire that comes from inside myself
That threatens a total end.
So much to lose when I still had so much to learn.
Its hard to bear but harder still
To tell the one I care for.
Please to say love is here today, but its going away, going away.
Millions of people won’t know what I mean,
None can appreciate somebody else’s dream.
Thousands of reasons for staying alive
Explode into fragments,
Dissolve into nothing.
As I prepare for the oncoming night.
Already I feel a creeping coldness chilling my bones,
Dulling my sight and mind.
Soon there shall be only sand where once water flowed.
Nature dies and is reborn, but I shan’t weather this coming storm.
Not for me to die with children around my bed
After a happy life,
Though rain will fall and the sun won’t change in its course.
Its hard to bear but harder still
To tell the one I care for,
Please to say love is here today, but it’s going away, going away.
Millions of people won’t know what I mean,
None can appreciate somebody else’s dream.
Thousands of reasons for staying alive
Explode into fragments,
Dissolve into nothing.
As I prepare for the oncoming night.

(Banks)

(Instrumental)

(Banks)


I feel it leading me
Away to I don’t know where.
I might be back someday,
But the people and things will change
And no one will remember me then.
Don’t need no sympathy,
For soon I’ll forget everything.
I feel it fading now,
And I see in the eyes of my love
Tears for how it might have been.
It sure felt good for a while.
Yes it was good for a while.
I found somebody to take my hand
To the promised land of the loved.
Now as the night draws in,
A dark with no promise of dawn,
I feel my eyes grow dim,
As I see in the eyes of my love
Tears for how it might have been.
It sure felt good for a while.
Yes it was good for a while.
I found somebody to take my hand
To the promised land of the loved.
Yes it was good for a while.
It sure felt good for a while.
I found somebody to take my hand
To the promised land of the loved.

(Banks)

If you know my story now,
Please don’t tell
Don’t want to hear,
It can only bring me pain.
Maybe one day before I die
I’ll open that door,
Maybe I’ll cry,
But for now I’ll live in the Dark.