Van Der Graaf Generator – Meurglys Iii, The Songwriter's Guild lyrics

(Hammill)

These days I mainly just talk to plants and dogs,
All human contact seems painful, risky, odd,
So I stay acting god in my own universe
Where I trade cigarettes in return for songs.
The deal's made harder the longer I go on:
I find me gone from all but secret languages.

If only I could phrase satisfactory words
In conversation, to make my passion heard,
If only....

Meurglys iii, he's my friend,
The only one that I can trust
To let it be without pretence,
There's no-one else.
It's killing me, but in the end
There's no-one else I know is true,
There's none in all the masks of men,
There's nothing else
But my guitar...
I suppose he'll have to do.

Talking in tongues is easy when you know how,
Quite pleasing, but still nothing works out right.
Pressurised lungs, heart bleeding, you'd better slow down
And show that you can make it through the night.
However dark it seems, the present is just the present,
Beyond it no further darkness lies concealed
And through these desperate dreams,
This longing for friends and comfort,
You know that in the end all will be revealed.
When no more plants or dogs or rooms are there to hear you,
And no-one is left near you, then you'll see:
In the end there's only you and Meurglys iii,
And this is just what you chose to be.
(Fool!)

Though I know all this is just escape,
I run because I don't know where the prison lies.
In songs like this I can bear the weight;
I'm running still,
I shall until,
One day, I hope that I'll arrive.