Just behind the station, before you reach the traffic island, a river runs thru' a concrete channel.
|
I took you there once; I think it was after the Leadmill.
|
The water was dirty & smelt of industrialisation
|
Little mesters coughing their lungs up & globules the colour of tomato ketchup.
|
But it flows. Yeah, it flows.
|
Underneath the city thru' dirty brickwork conduits
|
Connecting white witches on the Moor with pre-raphaelites down in Broomhall.
|
Beneath the old Trebor factory that burnt down in the early seventies.
|
Leaving an antiquated sweet-shop smell & caverns of nougat & caramel.
|
Nougat. Yeah, nougat & caramel.
|
And the river flows on.
|
Yeah, the river flows on beneath pudgy fifteen-year olds addicted to coffee whitener
|
And it finally comes above ground again at Forge Dam: the place where we first met.
|
|
I went there again for old time's sake
|
Hoping to find the child's toy horse ride that played such a ridiculously tragic tune.
|
It was still there - but none of the kids seemed interested in riding on it.
|
And the cafe was still there too
|
The same press-in plastic letters on the price list & scuffed formica-top tables.
|
I sat as close as possible to the seat where I'd met you that autumn afternoon.
|
And then, after what seemed like hours of thinking about it
|
I finally took your face in my hands & I kissed you for the first time
|
And a feeling like electricity flowed thru' my whole body.
|
And I immediately knew that I'd entered a completely different world.
|
And all the time, in the background, the sound of that ridiculously heartbreaking child's ride outside.
|
|
At the other end of town the river flows underneath an old railway viaduct
|
I went there with you once - except you were somebody else -
|
And we gazed down at the sludgy brown surface of the water together.
|
Then a passer-by told us that it used to be a local custom to jump off the viaduct into the river
|
When coming home from the pub on a Saturday night.
|
But that this custom had died out when someone jumped
|
Landed too near to the riverbank
|
Had sunk in the mud there & drowned before anyone could reach them.
|
I don't know if he'd just made the whole story up, but there's no way you'd get me to jump off that bridge.
|
No chance. Never in a million years.
|
|
Yeah, a river flows underneath this city
|
I'd like to go there with you now my pretty & follow it on for miles & miles, below other people's ordinary lives.
|
Occasionally catching a glimpse of the moon, thru' man-hole covers along the route.
|
Yeah, it's dark sometimes but if you hold my hand, I think I know the way.
|
Oh, this is as far as we got last time
|
But if we go just another mile we will surface surrounded by grass & trees & the fly-over that takes the cars to cities.
|
Buds that explode at the slightest touch, nettles that sting - but not too much.
|
I've never been past this point, what lies ahead I really could not say.
|
I used to live just by the river, in a dis-used factory just off the Wicker
|
The river flowed by day after day
|
"One day" I thought, "One day I will follow it" but that day never came
|
I moved away & lost track but tonight I am thinking about making my way back.
|
I may find you there & float on wherever the river may take me.
|
Wherever the river may take me.
|
Wherever the river may take us.
|
Wherever it wants us to go.
|
Wherever it wants us to go.
|
|
-----------------
|
Wickerman
|
| Pulp |
