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A Louse Is Not A Home by Peter Hammill
A Louse Is Not A Home
A# F Gm D# D A# F Gm D# D
Sometimes it's very scary here; sometimes it's very sad;
D# Gm D# F Gm D# F Gm D# D
sometimes I think I'll disappear; be_times I think I have.
D# F Gm D# D
There's a line snaking down my mirror:
D# F Gm D# D
splintered glass distorts my face,
D# Gm D# F Gm
and though the light is strong and strange
D# F Gm D# D
it can't illuminate the musty corners of this place.
D# F Gm D# D
There is a lofty, lonely, Lohengrenic castle in the clouds -
D# F Gm D# D
[yes and ]I draw my murky meanings there,
D# Gm D# F Gm
but seven years' dark luck is just around the corner
D# F Gm D# D
and in the shadows lurks the spectre of Despair.
Dm
A cracked mirror mid the drapes of the landing:
C
split image, labored understanding -
A# A Dm
I'm only trying to find a place to hide my home...
[trumpet-like:] Dm C Dm Dm C Dm Dm C D
[Bass-Drums:] G Am C Am, G Am C D Am [twice, with different timings] x 2
G Am C Am
I've lived in houses composed of glass
G Am C D Am
where every movement is charted,
G Am C Am
but now the monitor screens are dark
G Am C D Am
and I can't tell if silent eyes are there.
G Am C Am
My words are spiders upon the page,
G Am C D Am
they spin out faith, hope and reason
G Am C D C D
but are they meet and just, or only dust gathering about my
chair?
A# A
Sometimes I get the feeling that there's
Dm
someone else there :
Dm
The faceless watcher [he] makes me uneasy,
C
I can feel him through the floorboards, and His presence is creepy
A# A Dm
He informs me that I shall be expelled...
Dm
What is that but out of and into :
C
[I] don't know the nature of the door that I'd go through,
Am A#
[I] don't know the nature of the nature that I am inside...
G Am C Am
I've lived in houses of brick and lead
G Am C D Am
where all emotion is sacred,
G Am C Am
and if you want to devour the fruit
G Am C D Am
you must first sniff at the fragrance
(same tune and chords, with more intermediate notes played)
G Am C Am
and lay your body before the shrine
G Am C D Am
with poems and posies and papers -
G Am C Am
or, if you catch the ruse, you'll have to choose
C D C D
to stay, a monk, or leave, a vagrant.
A# A
What is this place you call home?
Dm
Is it a sermon or a confession?
C
Is it the chalice that you use for protection?
A# A
Is it really only somewhere you can stay?
Dm
Is it a rule-book or a lecture?
C
Is it a beating at the hands of your Protector?
A# A
Does the idol have feet of clay?
Dm
Home is what you make it, so my friends all say,
C Bm
but dont't you know I rarely see their homes in these dark days.
Dm
Some of them are snails and carry houses on their backs;
C Bm
others live in monuments which, one day, will be racks -
Dm C A# (G A A#)
I keep my home in place with sellotape and tin-tacks,
A# Am Dm
but I still feel there's some other Force here:
F Em (4-0)
He who cracks the mirrors and moves the walls
Dm
keeps staring through the eye-slits of the portraits in my hall;
F Em (4-0)
He ravages my library and taps the telephone -
Dm
I've never actually seen Him,
but I know He's in my home
D# F
and if he goes away,
Gm D# D
I can't stay here either.
D# F Gm D# D D# ...
I believe - er - I think - well, I don't know...
[Here, I only catch notes, not the chords]
I only live in one room at a time,
but all of the walls are ears, [and] all the windows, eyes :
Everything else is foreign,
'Home' is my wordless chant:
mmmmmaah!
Give it a chance!
G Am C Am
I am surrounded by flesh and bone,
G Am C D Am
I am a temple of living,
G Am C Am
I am a hermit, I am a drone,
G Am C D Am
and I am boning out a place to be.
G Am C Am
With secret garlands about my head
G Am C D Am
unearthly silence is broken:
G Am C Am
the room is growing dark, and in the stark light
C D C D
I can see a face I know -
A# A Dm
could this be the guy who never shows
Dm
the cracked mirror what he's feeling,
C
merely mumbles prayers to the ground where he's kneeling :
A#
"Home is home is home is home is home is
A Dm
house is house is house is] home is me!"
Dm
All you people looking for your houses,
C
don't throw your weight around, you might break your glasses
A# A Dm
and if you do, you know you just can't see
Dm
and then how are you to find the dawning of the day?
C Bm
- Day is just a word I use to keep the dark at bay,
Dm
and people are imaginary, nothing else exists
C
except the room I'm sitting in,
Bm
and, of course, the all-pervading mist -
Dm C A# (Em C) Dm
sometimes I wonder if even that's real...
D# F Em D# D
Maybe I should de-louse this place;
D# F Em D# D
Maybe I should de-place this louse;
D# Gm D# F Gm
Maybe I'll maybe my life away
D# F Gm D# D
in the confines of this silent house.
D# F Gm D# D D# F Gm D# D
Sometimes it's very scary here; sometimes it's very sad;
D# Gm D# F Gm D# F Gm D# ... D
sometimes I think I'll disappear; sometimes I think...
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