"The Museum Of Fog" lyrics

One Friday night in late summer
I was walking the old canal
Cars passed, open windows blaring hits by Madonna
And lightly as I hummed the words
I left the torn path as the light began to fade
And I found myself in a proper car park

From this battered sign, I recognized the fox and hounds
I'd last visited two decades ago
Before I left the town for good
A sixteen year old slumped over an Illegal rum and Coke
A police man had been straying towards the door
And the land lady bundled me and my friends
Out of a window in the gents toilets
In which we nearly landed on the canal toy path
And melted into the night, love

Inside nothing changed
Jukebox still boasted a forty-five by twinkle
Thirty years after it dropped out of the charts
Mock tutor windows still faced the road
And old beams above blackened in a puff of smoke
No one was drinking that night
The crowd didn't begin to gather until nine
Kids, not cool, except me
But some how leading I
I guessed from the posters on that walls
They had come to see a band

Soon they were filing towards me
Paying an entrance fee to a man in stonewashed denim
And disappearing into a back room
The idea of the night drinking alone was unpleasant to me
The pub was now empty
I had nothing to do
So I picked up my beer, paid my money in front of the man

The room was cramped and dark
And during a moment rehearsed
The singer on the stage was introduced as the phantom
He was wearing the kind of plastic mask sold in art shops
And a superheroes cape
To a round of applause, several other musicians formed a circle
And just turned in on each other like ravens on a prairie
I looked around me
The crowd was bathed in the red glow of the stage lights
For a moment the buzz of amps filled the expecting quiet
Then, without counting, the band began to play

Almost immediately I froze
The sound their instruments made was almost human
My beer glass slithered through my fingers
I recognized it as my own sixteen year old laughter
Escaping through taught moment
Retreating from a policeman
Turning back through the lung track of years which it passed
Represented, relived in front of the audience
In it's disembodied state
It was one of the most purely beautiful things I've ever heard
It briefly brought the past back to life
All hopes and instance burst into sudden clouds
I was sweating, shaking in a dark corner
The tears welling in my eyes
But within seconds the laughter died

Everyone around stood up
I had the physical sensation of shapes
Evaporating away into the night outside
Slowly the music took on a harsher, more abstract tone
And in it I heard the faint seashell noises of the motorway
Building into a long drone
It slowly became overwhelming and roaring like a jet engine
To me, at that moment, it seemed to express my years
In living with that motorway sound
Years of it underscoring every day and night
Every experience we lived through
Planting it from our bodies and minds
And in beckoning catharsis
I was shaken as the plan around it that was set up
With a wash of bells and wind chimes

As they left the stage to scattered applause
It occurred to me that the phantom had not sung a note
He was pushing through the crowds, towards the exit
And bitten by acolytes
I tried to get near him but I couldn't
A dozen flood of sudden bright lights in the room
I'm certain he drifted away
And the sounds I heard weren't exactly what I thought they were
I was in a difficult neurotic state
Perhaps those memories welling up that I couldn't control
I felt suddenly depressed and tired
Disgusted with my own numbness

Kids were leaving, ignitions starting up outside
The phantom and joined a car load
Rolling on off the road, towards the town and it's only night club
The pub was closing down
I stood in the night and I wondered what had been taken from me