A gentleman's excuse me

Do you still keep paper flowers in the bottom drawer with your Belgian lace
taking them out every year to watch the colors fade away?
Do you still believe in fairy tales, in battlements of shining castles
safe from the dragons that lie beneath the hill?
Are you still a Russian princess rescued by a gypsy dancer
to anyone who'll listen is that a story you tell?
You live a life of fantasy, your diary romantic fiction.
Can't you see it's hard for me, can you see what I am trying to say?
It's a gentleman's excuse me so I'll take on step to the side.
Can you get it in your head I'm tired of dancing?
For every one step forward we're taking two steps back.
Can you get it in your head I'm tired of dancing?
I know you still like old fashioned waltzes
your reflection in the mirror that you flirt with as you glide across the floor
but if I told you the music's over would you want to hear
that your dance card is empty that there's no-one really there?
Do you still believe in Santa Claus, that there's a millionaire
looking at your front door with a key to a life that you'd never understand?
All I have to offer is the love that I have, it's freely given
you'll see its value when you see what I've tried to say.
It's a gentleman's excuse me so I'll take on step to the side.
Can you get it in your head I'm tired of dancing?
For every one step forward I'm taking two steps back.
Can you get it in your head that from this one step forward
there's no turning back?
Can you get it in your head I'm tired of dancing?
We're finished dancing.

The Company

Where beggars take cheques and children steal credit cards
From the pockets of wrecks in the middle of the road.
I came to in my future and that was just yesterday,
Unsure of my past and that's a knot in my gut.

You buy me a drink then you think that you've got the right
To crawl in my head and rifle my soul.
You tell me I'm free and want me to compromise
To sell out my dreams you say you'll make it worthwhile.

Oh, boys would you drink to me now
Here on the hill, half way up, half way down

You tell me I'm drunk then you sit back and smug a while
Convinced that youre right, that you're still in command of your senses.
I laugh at your superior attitude
Your insincere plattitudes make me throw up.

Oh, boys would you drink to me now
Here on the hill, half way up, half way down
Oh, boys would you drink to me now
Here on the hill, half way up, half way down
Oh for the company born to the company
Live for the company until I die.

The sooner you realise that I'm perfectly happy
If I'm left to decide the company I choose
The company I choose is solidly singular
Totally trustworthy, straight and sincere
Polished, experienced, witty and charming
So why don't you push off, this company's my own.

Oh, boys would you drink to me now
Here on the hill, half way up, half way down
Oh, boys would you drink to me now
Here on the hill, half way up, half way down
Oh for the company, dream of the company
Live for the company until I die.
Oh for the company, dream of the company
Drink to the company until we die
Until we die
Until we die.

Internal Exile

I saw a blue umbrella in Princes Street Gardens
Heading out west for the Lothian Road
An Evening News stuffed deep in his pocket
Wrapped up in his problems to keep away the cold
Grierson's spirit haunts the dockyards,
Where the only men working are on documentary crews,
Shooting film as the lines get longer,
As the seams run out, as the oil runs dry.

chorus

Hey there laddie, Internal Exile!
When will you realise we've got to let go?
Hey there lassie, Internal Exile!
When will you realise we've got to let go?

Starlings wheeling round Georgian spires,
And the fires of Grangemouth burn the skies.
A lion sleeps in a tenement close,
In a country that's tired and deaf to his roar

chorus

They bury a wasteland deep in the wilderness
Poison the soil and reap the harvest,
Of blind indifference, greed and apathy
Sowed way back in our history
The fish are few the harbours empty
The keels now rot on our oil slicked shores
The sheep are gone, the farms deserted
We're out of sight and we're out of mind.

chorus

Like our fathers before us,
We've eyes for America.
Dream of a new life on foreign shores.
But wherever we go, we'll always know,
That the land we stand on, is never our own.

G2

El pasado 30 de enero tuvimos la oportunidad de asistir, en la sala Luz de Gas de Barcelona, al concierto de G2. G2 es una banda de tributo a Genesis, dedicada a recrear el show de las giras de A Trick of the Tail y Wind and Wuthering, que quedaron inmortalizados en el doble en directo Seconds Out.

Recrear esta época de Genesis tiene un problema fundamental: mientras que los grupos de tributo que recrean la época Gabriel de Genesis, como Musical Box tienen una audiencia similar a la que tuvo el grupo original, G2 se ven obligados a ofrecer una versión "de bolsillo" de Seconds Out. G2 está compuesto de cinco miembros (un solo batería por tanto) y busca recrear el sonido original, y no el show entero.

Los resultados son bastante convincentes. La mejor versión fue sin duda la de Firth of Fifth, y el mejor instrumentista el guitarra. Aunque a algunos no les convenció la imagen del cantante (es difícil tener el carisma de Collins), el punto más flojo del concierto fue quizás las baterías de las canciones de The Lamb... Aunque esto puede ser más mérito de Collins que demérito del batería.

G2 es una excelente oportunidad para revisitar una determinada época de Genesis, que gustará sobre todo a aquellos que lamentaron más la marcha de Steve Hackett que la de Peter Gabriel.