German Overalls Songtext
von Peter Hammill

Mannheim, rainy Saturday
With no money nor friend
Only to key our cannon: the boredom
Try to reach London for a pocket of hope
We′re children and we grope in the dark
Hugh spends his last mark on coffee and cheese
I feel just like a refugee

Red hot keepers and traffic police
Middle-aged maids with rotting teeth
Industrial magazines and old Sunday Times
Reading material, bleeding lines
What are we doing here?

Memorial menace, eager for revenge
Has begun to bend our minds
Shall curtain imperative in the presence of the massing
Now feeling placid is death
I try to hold my breath as the PA comes down
Here we all are in K-Town


The big wheel never fails to grind around
It drags me up, it drugs me down
Seven senses wonder: "Can this be real?"
Or am I become a performing seal?
Why are we dying here?

I walk the streets alone, try to find a single sign of love
I've crushed the plaster bone in the freaky clubs
I have been the brute, but all I live for is to play
And I′m tired of the nights and the days of

Airports, taxis, and motorway showers
Groping for tea in the Operas
David takes to tramping in the van
He knows that we all can understand
We're at the mercy of the cosmos' draw
Making a pilgrimage to the German lords
But we′re still crippled here

Cathedrals spiral skywards
I think I′m getting vertigo
I think I don't know what is real
One more sudden spotlight, one more madness is over
I must not show a sign of fear


Words echo round my ears
I think I′m going to laugh
Think I'll just go and take a bath
I guess I′ll wash my clothes
And don't you know I′ll go
I'll go and make my name
Maybe be a servant in the fame game
Stake my sane and rest my life on the line
Now lay me asunder and rend my mind
At the fall of the curtain let this be my ghost