Songtext The sphinx in the face Van Der Graaf Generator

The sphinx in the face

I remember what it felt like at seventeen,
I was a cat, a snake, a lizard, a mouse;
still got an interest in the limousine
and a spouse and a brat,
country house, London flat.

I'm gonna head for the island when the summer's out,
I'm gonna do all the stuff that I can,
drink like a fish in a waterspout -
I'm a fan of the flow,
it began long ago,
I'm a man who should know it doesn't stop.

There's so much to remember,
so much to forget:
we're all in the possession of the future tense,
but don't know it yet.
The flesh comes through the spirit,
the spirit through the flesh...
we look the Sphinx in the face for answers
and, of course, we're really not impressed.
We're caught between age and beauty,
experience and youth,so we feel the need acutely
for any kind of Truth.

Oh, but we get copped some days,
caught between options we've failed
to play, such wasted chance.
So I join the wastrel's dance:
it has slow as well as fast movement,
and any change must be an improvement
on simply fossilising, standing still.

I got a steady vocation for the Quiet Zone,
I just can't wait for the song to be sung,
I'm still possessed by the promise
of the Pleasure Dome

You're so young, you're so here,so gone,
so old, so near,so wrong,
such a drag so queer,so strong,so...
to be told.
Such a drag to be told...