Material Possession Songtext
von Peter Hammill

Every loss a legacy
But every gain ill-gotten
The golden apples on the tree
Are all potentially rotten
Pluck the fruit and bear no mind
So the poisonous bloom advances
The hand that grasps too tight
Will never grasp its chances

All the things that you′ve got
Will not be worth a lot
If the owning becomes an obsession
Meaning nothing more
Than mere material possession


Broken, lost, the precious thing
But does that make your life so empty?
Stars shine alike upon the ditch
And on the land of plenty
The thing that's gone
Was always going to be gone
What′s left is some remembered pleasure
Only their loss confirms the things
We ever learned to treasure

And the things that you claim
Are only ever yours in name
Do you think that they'll leave an impression?
Only flesh and bone
Are the true material possessions

Your life is worth the watch you're watching
Buy a car, your car is worth a house
And rooms to rattle round in

Try to make the house a home
That′s yours and yours alone
Your treasure lake of dreams
To fill with tears and drown in

And now the flame will soon be doused
The time is running out
The wheel will turn full circle
Then we′ll all be found lame


And all the things that we own
They're never ours alone
For they just pass through our hands in succession
Shake the spirit, shake the blood
Shake the flesh and shake the bone
Shake free from material possession

Every loss is treasure drawn
Every gain is faded
Every taste, every touch
Will finally be jaded
And then in the end all life is spent
What we bought was mere digression
The price we pay, shaking free from material possession