I'll sing to you of days departed,
Times when men proud and stouthearted
Carved their names
On history's bloody page.
The corpse of chivalry long dead
Is turning in his loamy bed,
Indignant at your new 'enlightened' age.
White-collared knights at boardroom tables
Dream their own financial fables,
Fight to make their incomes larger
Mounted on their 'credit charges'.
Held within the safety
Of this mundane existence,
Facing endless grey Mondays
Of dull nine to fives,
We all climb the social ladder
With a dogged persistence,
Forging chains we shall carry
For the rest of our lives.
We cannot see through,
Clothes may maketh man,
They cannot give us shelter
On this mortal helter-skelter
If our loyalties are torn.
Between the values we believe in
And the egos we are feeding,
We stand all together naked
As the day we were born.
And so cast off the lies
That are our lives
And find the truth within.
Skyclad! The veil has lifted,
Skyclad! Now I see through,
Skyclad! Your mask of illusion,
Skyclad! To the fake that is you.
Financial wizards read their spells from filofaxes,
Concrete hells of their own making pass for Avalon.
These men, self-made by shrewd investing,
Spend their weekends child-molesting,
Lost in 'green-belt' dreams, they do no wrong.
Your mortgage payment rocket
Like your blood pressure rising,
Executive stresses
Are the dragons you fight.
In your Armani armour
You are practically shining,
So have no code of honour,
You must always be right.
Just give me a simple life,
My tastes are not demanding,
And whatever life may hand me,
I'll accept it with good grace.
For I'm just a simple lad
With few ideas about my station,
So ale and song will apt suffice
To keep me in my place.
How can you know the cost of everything
Yet never see its worth?
If you think because you've paid the piper,
You should call the tune,
Well, think again, my friend.
Life is a gain of chance,
By Fate's command we win or lose,
But still retain the right to choose,
If we should stumble on
Or shed our cares and dance.
Skyclad! The veil has lifted,
Skyclad! Now I see through,
Skyclad! Your mask of illusion,
Skyclad! To the fake that is you.
You charge each other for the time
And breath it takes to say 'good morning',
But the truth is slowly dawning,
Things are getting out of hand.
We all pursue our shattered dreams
Along the roads to our own ruin,
Watch our empires sink and wash away
Like castles made of sand.
And so cast off the lies
That are your lives
And find the truth within.