Mr X (Gets Tense) - Peter Hammill

The current affair gets to be my business

I heard the news on the radio:

The sun on earth… what is this?

Is that the way that the crazy goes?

Attention tuned to the satellites

Looking down for an overview

In the chapel of space we are acolytes

In the battle of time we’re all soldiers too

And the relative choir push the energy higher

Under fire

The sliding show in the macroscopic

Finger on the button pointing to progress

The apparatus roll, no-one here can stop it

Too busy learning more — always knowing less

Soon turkey-wrapped in the spaceman blanket

We’ll offer up lame duck apologies

And settle down for the final banquet

The gourmet dish of technology…

Cryogenic device catches all human life

Under ice

The current affair gets to be all our businness

It’s filtered in through the T.V. screen

The norm, the average… what is this?

When it goes blank what does that all mean?

And what’s the drive of each individual?

And what’s the way that the story ends?

Is it Mr X, left as the last residual

Holder of the flame, conscience of all men?

But he’s so tense to expire

He throws himself on the wire

Under fire

Is this the way the world ends?

Under ice

Under fire?

Has there been some mistaken design?

Under ice

Got to find the human voice

Lord, deliver us from Babel