Scorched Earth (Remastered 2021) Songtext
von Van der Graaf Generator

Just one crazy moment while the dice are cast
He looks into the future
And remembers what is past
Wonders what he′s doing on this battlefield
Shrugs to his shadow
Impatient, too proud yet to kneel

In his wake, he leaves scorched earth
And work in vain
Smoke drifts up behind him
He is free again
Free to run before the onslaught
Of a deadly foe
Leaving nothing fit for pillage
Hardly leaving home

And it's far too late to turn
Unless it′s to stone


Charging madly forward
Tracks across the snow
Wind screams madness to him
Ever on he goes
Leaving spoor to mark his passage
Trace his weary climb
Cross the moor and make the headland
Stumbling, wayward, blind

In the end, his footprints extend
As one single line
(One line)

This latest exponent of heresy
Is goaded into an attack
Persuaded to charge at his enemy
Too late, he knows it is
Too late now to turn back
Too soon by far to falter
The past sits uneasily at his rear
He's walking right into the trap
Surrounded, but striving through will and fear

Ahead of him, he knows there waits an ambuscade
But the dice slip through his fingers
And he's living from day to day
Carrying his world around upon his back
Leaving nothing behind
But the telltale of his track


He will not be hostage
He will not be slave
No snare of past can trap him
Though the future may
Still, he runs and burns behind him
In advanced retreat
Still, his life remains unfettered
He denies defeat

It′s far too late to turn
Unless it′s to stone
Leave the past to burn
At least that's been his own

Scorched earth, that′s all that's left when he′s done
Holding nothing but beholden to no one
Claiming nothing out of no false pride
He survives
Snow tracks, that's all that′s left to be seen
Of a man who entered the course of a dream
Claiming nothing, but the life he's known
Well, this, at least, has been his own