Gates of Eden

Bryan Ferry

Of war and peace, the truth just twists
It's curfew gull, it glides
Upon four-legged forest clouds
The cowboy angel rides

With his candle lit into the sun
Though its glow is waxed in black
All except when 'neath the trees of Eden

The savage soldier sticks his head in sand
And then complains
Unto the shoeless hunter who's gone deaf
But still remains

Upon the beach where hound dogs bay
At ships with tattooed sails
Heading for the gates of Eden

With a time-rusted compass blade
Alladin and his lamp
Sits with Utopian hermit monks
Side saddle on the golden calf

On their promises of paradise
You will not hear a laugh
All except inside the gates of Eden

Relationships of a ownership
They whisper in the wings
To those condemned accordingly
To wait for succeeding kings

And I try to harmonize with songs
The lonesome sparrow sings
There are no kings inside the gates of Eden

The motorcycle black Madonna
A two-wheeled gypsy queen
And her silver-studded phantom cause
The gray flannel dwarf to scream

As he weeps to wicked birds of prey
Who pick up on his bread crumb sins
And there are no sins inside the gates of Eden

At dawn my lover comes to me
And tells me of her dreams
With no attempts to shovel the glimpse
Into the ditch of what each one means

At times I think there are no words
But these to tell what's true
And there are no truths outside the gates of Eden