when you go into the hill town
find the places that they kept you,
where now everything is empty,
as if though it'd ever been --
and the buildings are like theatre
sets abandoned ever after,
everything leans just a little,
over roads three-quarter scale --

chorus:
no one comes to give you letters
there's no money in a card --
no one offers explanations
to girls wandering the streets
when you find a yellowed paper
dated nineteen seventy
it's been sitting there forever
artifacts you'll never see

black obelisk stands guard before
the rusty green and metal bridge
whose creaking wooden roadway
never carried any cars --
there's a long way 'round this river,
takes you through the city gate --
best be gone from here by dark,
you think, some thirty years too late.

[[chorus]]

emptyness in every building
signs propped up against the walls --
some have windows boarded over
hiding nothing left inside --
and when on the midnights dreary
played iniquitous games, they'd cry
"each trial an act of love and trust"
amongst other claims

[[flute solo]]

brick and concrete and a tower
carved in to a twisted house
fifty-seven stairs of climbing
hoping no one's there will see
'round the back where you can enter,
past machines left in the rain,
metal walls reflect the camera's light
but nothing real remains.

[[chorus]]

sometimes when you are seeking explanations that're due
you'll find no one's left to meet you...