Strike, with hand of fire, O weird musician, thy harp strung with Apollo's golden hair; fill the vast cathedral aisles with symphonies sweet and dim, deft toucher of the organ keys; blow, bugler, blow, until thy silver notes do touch and kiss the moonlit waves, and charm the lovers wandering 'mid the vine-clad hills. But know, your sweetest strains are discords all, compared with childhood's happy laugh—the laugh that fills the eyes with light and every heart with joy. O rippling river of laughter, thou art the blessed boundary line between the beasts and men; and every wayward wave of thine doth drown some fretful fiend of care. O Laughter, rose-lipped daughter of Joy, there are dimples enough in thy cheeks to catch and hold and glorify all the tears of grief.

It was so late and she’d be sleepingHe came through her home townWith the moonlight on the crossroadsAnd the green light shining downAnd the bell at the railroad crossingAnd the horn from far awayAnd his Silver Eagle passingHalf a mile from where she layAt his feet a sea of facesMake devotions with their loveClap their hands and plead their casesCall for blessings from aboveLike the rolling waves forever massingTo crash and foam and creep awayAnd the Silver Eagle passingHalf a mile from where she layRoad signs flow into the headlightsWhisper names and fall behindHe finds some honor in the darknessHopes for grace and peace of mindAnd he thinks of how they’d lay togetherHe’d run his fingers through her hairAnd he wonders if she’ll everCome to know that he was there

But we are the same, yes, but were not. We are three completely different people, we play three completely different instruments and all epically fail when trying to play each other’s" he said as Daniel and I nodded slowly. That was far to true. "I wrote this piece because I love that these three instruments that make three different sounds, are played three different ways and look different, can create such a beautiful harmony if they're played correctly" he swallowed again then looked at Daniel and I "And I think although we are three different people, who - usually - look different, and who come out with three different kinds of ridiculous-ness" he said and we both laughed "If we come together we work perfectly with each other and can in some senses create a beautiful harmony

Half asleep and half awake, I became lost in a deep span of my version of a perfect world. A place I wanted so desperately to reach, but would never find except from within the catacombs of my mind.A place where the sun rose in the west and set in the east, where the mountains bowed to the wind like trees, and the rain sprinkled up from the ground below and onto the clouds above. A place where no one hurt or lost, or felt any tinge of desperation. A place where heartbeats were the only words needed, and music floated on the wind like dust.A place where no place was home. Where a single person could be the only sustenance needed to survive. A place where there were no yesterdays or todays, only tomorrows. A place for me to find solace, an escape from the real world I was forced to live in.

So no one told your life wasGonna be this wayYour job's a jokey brokeYour love life's D.O.A.It's like you're always stuckIn second gearWhen it hasn't been your dayYour week, your monthOr even your year but,I'll be there for youWhen the rain starts to pourI'll be there for youLike I've been there beforeI'll be there for you'Cause you're there for me tooYou're still in bed at tenand work began at eightYou burned your breakfastSo far things are going greatYour mother warned you there'd beDays like theseBut she didn't tell you whenThe world has brought youDown to your knees thatI'll be there for youWhen the rain starts to pourI'll be there for youLike I've been there beforeI'll be there for you'Cause you're there for me too

Astral Weeks,” insofar as it can be pinned down, is a record about people stunned by life, completely overwhelmed, stalled in their skins, their ages and selves, paralyzed by the enormity of what in one moment of vision they can comprehend. It is a precious and terrible gift, born of a terrible truth, because what they see is both infinitely beautiful and terminally horrifying: the unlimited human ability to create or destroy, according to whim. It’s no Eastern mystic or psychedelic vision of the emerald beyond, nor is it some Baudelairean perception of the beauty of sleaze and grotesquerie. Maybe what it boils down to is one moment’s knowledge of the miracle of life, with its inevitable concomitant, a vertiginous glimpse of the capacity to be hurt, and the capacity to inflict that hurt.

Pong had mutated into large stand-up Sega consoles by '82 and here was some extra revenue the guys were well up for. So the space on the left of the entrance was to be the games room. Until two weeks to opening."Where's the cloakroom?""The what?""The cloakroom, the fucking cloakroom.""What's your problem?""We don't have a cloakroom. We have special polished South African granite bar tops that we haven't told Erasmus about 'cause he has a thing about apartheid, we have a balcony balustrade made of shaped QE-fucking-2 mahogany, but we seem to have built an entire club without a cloakroom.""Fuck."Hence you did not pass the games room but the cloakroom, the only cloakroom in the Manchester with forty-two power points. if you ever wanted to do a bit of ironing, these people were there for you.

Think of music as being a great snarl of a city [...]. In the years I spent living there, I came to know its streets. Not just the main streets. Not just the alleys. I knew shortcuts and rooftops and parts of the sewers. Because of this, I could move through the city like a rabbit in a bramble. I was quick and cunning an clever.Denna, on the other hand, had never been trained. She knew nothing of shortcuts. You’d think she’d be forced to wander the city, lost and helpless, trapped in a twisting maze of mortared stone. But instead, she simply walked through the walls. She didn’t know any better. Nobody had ever told her she couldn’t. Because of this, she moved through the city like some faerie creature. She walked roads no one else could see, and it made her music wild and strange and free.

That was when they noticed that every musician on the stage was wearing mourning black. That was when they shut up. And when the conductor raised his arms, it was not a symphony that filled the cavernous space.It was the Song of Eyllwe.Then Song of Fenharrow. And Melisande. And Terrasen. Each nation that had people in those labour camps.And finally, not for pomp or triumph, but to mourn what they had become, they played the Song of Adarlan. When the final note finished, the conductor turned to the crowd, the musicians standing with him. As one, they looked to the boxes, to all those jewels bought with the blood of a continent. And without a word, without a bow or another gesture, they walked off the stage.The next morning, by royal decree, the theatre was shut down.No one saw those musicians or their conductor again.

He had always wanted to write music, and he could give no other identity to the thing he sought. If you want to know what it is, he told himself, listen to the first phrases of Tchaikovsky’s First Concerto--or the last movement of Rachmaninoff’s Second. Men have not found the words for it, nor the deed nor the thought, but they have found the music. Let me see that in one single act of man on earth. Let me see it made real. Let me see the answer to the promise of that music. Not servants nor those served; not altars and immolations; but the final, the fulfilled, innocent of pain. Don’t help me or serve me, but let me see it once, because I need it. Don’t work for my happiness, my brothers--show me yours--show me that it is possible--show me your achievement--and the knowledge will give me courage for mine.

There's a stranger in a car Driving down your street Acts like he knows who you are Slaps his hand on the empty seat and says "Are you gonna get in Or are you gonna stay out?" Just a stranger in a car Might be the one they told you about Well you never were one for cautiousness You open the door He gives you a tender kiss And you can't even hear them no more --All the voices of choices Now only one road remains And strangers in a car Two hearts Two souls Tonight Two lanes You don't know where you're goin' You don't know what you're doin' Hell it might be the highway to heaven And it might be the road to ruin But this is a song For strangers in a car Baby maybe that's all We really are Strangers in a car (Driving down your street) Just strangers in a car (Driving down your street) Strangers in a ca

The houses have been condemned on Memory LaneI’m tired of this struggle that leaves everything the sameI’ve tried so hard to make it workthat I’m dying insideWell, you can take my pastBut you can’t have my tomorrowPromises that remain promises are useless and they’re cheapI wish I could put a price on words so I could make them keepI put so much faith in youI lost all my faith in meWell, you can take my pastBut you can’t have my tomorrowI’m giving up on giving upI can’t leave it all to prayer‘Cause the first step in getting betteris knowing what’s not thereYou said you’d make it betterand that just makes it worseWell, you can take my pastBut you can’t have my tomorrowYes, I want my life to lastSo you can’t have my tomorrowNo, you can’t have my tomorrow

I think records were just a little bubble through time and those who made a living from them for a while were lucky. There is no reason why anyone should have made so much money from selling records except that everything was right for this period of time. I always knew it would run out sooner or later. It couldn't last, and now it's running out. I don't particularly care that it is and like the way things are going. The record age was just a blip. It was a bit like if you had a source of whale blubber in the 1840s and it could be used as fuel. Before gas came along, if you traded in whale blubber, you were the richest man on Earth. Then gas came along and you'd be stuck with your whale blubber. Sorry mate – history's moving along. Recorded music equals whale blubber. Eventually, something else will replace it.

This was different. It had synths droning and sending saltwater waves under my feet. It had drumbeats bursting like fireworks, rumbling the furniture out of place, and then a crazy, irregular, disharmonious, spiral crescendo of pure electric noise, like a typhoon dragging our bodies into it. It featured brass orchestras and choirs of mermaids and a piano in Iceland, all of them right there, visible, touchable, in Axton House. It shook us, fucked us, suspended us far above the reach of Help bouncing on his hind legs. It spoke of magenta sunsets and plastic patio chairs growing moss under summer storms rolling on caterpillar tracks. It sprinkled a bokeh of car lights rushing through night highways and slapped our faces like the wind at a hundred and twenty miles an hour. It pictured Niamh playing guitar, washed up naked on a beach in Fiji.

Cinematic describes the effect on your imagination when you listen to our music. I want us to leave enough space between the lines to let people’s imagination run free. Pop forms the contrast to show that our music is not just niche music and should not be seen as such. As a representative of my artists I don’t want to tell someone like Ólafur (Ólafur Arnalds) that his music is “niche”. I mean, you would never ever say that to your kids, would you? “You’re kind of niche.” Nobody wants to hear that. Literally, Erased Tapes could be described as a crossover from extremes such as techno or classical music to pop. What I like about the word pop the most, is its universal meaning – it knows no boundaries. So if people feel the need to pigeonhole our music, I prefer our box to be open.