THE HUMAN LEAGUE

THE HUMAN LEAGUE - LYRICS

CIRCUS OF DEATH

(Marsh/Oakey/Ware)

7” VERSION:

This is a song called the Circus Of Death

It tells the true story of a circus we met

The first two verses concern the actual arrival at Heathrow Airport of Commissioner Steve McGarrett

The third emotionally describes a map showing the range of the circus

The fourth and fifth were extracted from an article in the Guardian of March the 19th, 1962

The last is a short wave radio message from the last man on Earth

Nine o'clock flight from Hawaii

The Trident is just touching down

We're waiting here on the tarmac

McGarrett is wearing a frown

He's here to help with a problem

A blood-spattered curse on our land

Please cast your eye over this map, sir

This business is quite out of hand

The circus of death is approaching

Its pathway is painted in red

Before it the frightened and helpless

Behind it a trail of the dead

The narcotic that forges their union is a substance known only to one

To the clown it is known as Dominion

It's a secret that he'll give to none

The drug which gives the clown power means the circus can never be stopped

And his dream can go on unhindered 'til the last human being has dropped

Spare me and my family

I've done you no wrong

Go away, please let us be

I've known you for too long

Think we'll ever find any real intelligent life out there?

Who cares?

ALBUM VERSION:

There's something in your soul that makes me feel so old
In fact I think I've died about six hundred times
There's less of me now and more of me then
I'm moving back to the age of men
Jump off the tarmac there's no stagecoach speed limit
Outside the office hangs the man on the gibbet
Soft lenses
Grow to glasses
Small world
Dimly seen through cataracts
Your program
Newspaper
So they say
Rumour spread by word of mouth
Jump onto the escalator
Press the button on the lift
Raise the dust on old stair carpets
Endless treads like waves of regret
Now it seems I'm going madder
Falling off this rotting ladder
Soft lenses
Grow to glasses
Small world
Dimly seen through cataracts
Jump onto the escalator
Press the button on the lift
Raise the dust on old stair carpets
Endless treads like waves of regret
Now it seems I'm going madder
Falling off this rotting ladder
Your program
Newspaper
So they say
Rumour spread by word of mouth
Jump onto the escalator
Press the button on the lift
Raise the dust on old stair carpets
Endless treads like waves of regret
Now it seems I'm going madder
Falling through this rotting ladder
There's something in your soul that makes me feel so old
In fact I think I've died about six hundred times
There's less of me now and more of me then
I'm moving back to the age of men
Jump off the tarmac there's no stagecoach speed limit
Outside the office hangs the man on the gibbet
Jump off the tarmac there's no stagecoach speed limit
Outside the office swings the man on the gibbet

DEMO LYRICS

Theories of violent, prolonged solar storms, lasting several years,

caused by a certain instability in the sun, had enlarged the Van Allen belts

and diminished the Earth's gravitational hold upon the outer layers of the ionosphere

As these vanished into space, depleting the Esrth's barrier against the full impact

of solar radiation, temperatures began to climb steadily