Van Der Graaf Generator - The Sphinx in the Face.

Lyrics:
The Sphinx in the Face.

I remember what it felt like at seventeen:
I was a cat, a snake, a lizard, a mouse.
Still got an interest in the limousine
and a spouse and a brat
country house, London flat

I'm gonna head for the island when the summer's out,
I'm gonna do all the stuff that I can,
drink like a fish in the waterspout -
I'm a fan of the flow
it began long ago
I'm a man who should know
it doesn't stop.

There's so much to remember,
so much to forget:
we're all in the possession of the
future tense, but don't know it yet.
The flesh come through the spirit,
The spirit through the flesh...
We look the sphinx in the face
for answers and of course we're really not impressed.
We're caught between age and beauty,
experience and youth
so we feel the need acutely for any kind of Truth

Oh but we get copped some days,
caught between options we've failed
to play, some wasted chance.

So I join the wastrel's dance:
it has slow as well as fast movement
and any change must be an
improvement on simply fossilising,
standing still

I got a steady vocation for the Quiet Zone,
I just can't wait for the song to be sung,
I'm still possessed by the promise of the Pleasure Dome

You're so young, you're so here, so gone,
so old so near, so wrong,
Such a drag so queer, so strong to be told
Such a drag to be told....