Brandes

Lyrics

THE BRIDGE

Love disappeared at a quarter to four;
It slipped through the crack where the wall meets the floor.
We thought it was brilliant and lasting and strong;
But now it was jaded and threadbare and gone.

We sat at the table as love drained away.
Nothing was said, there was nothing to say;
I reached for your hand but your fingers were numb;
I wanted to love you but love would not come.

And the city is waking,
The city still sleeps,
And the city betrays
All the secrets it keeps.
This is the time and this is the town,
This is the place where our love must go down.

So we finished our drinks in the night café.
We pulled on our coats and we got up to pay.
And you swept back the hair that fell over your eyes,
And for a moment love flickered, then finally died.

So we walked to the corner where the working girl works.
Making friends in the alley where loneliness lurks.
And a man in the shadows relieves her regrets,
With a cocktail of cocaine and cheap cigarettes.

And her body’s a temple
The faithful profane,
First with desire
And then with disdain.
For this is the time and this is the town,
And here by this lamplight she has to go down.

Now the drunk in the doorway mutters and sways
And he raises his face to the break in the day;
And he prays for a sign that it will all end
In the neck of a bottle and the arms of a friend.

And the statues are pale in the grey of the dawn.
They’re eager for conquest; they're ready for war.
But the hoofs of their horses are frozen in stone,
They cannot set out; they can never come home.






They’re fixed on the future,
But pinned by the past,
The king and the conquered
Have all come to dust.
Here in this city, here in this town,
The horses rear up and the riders fall down.

Well, I'd read in the headlines our love had to die,
Though I always suspected the newspapers lie.
But the journalists told me the story was true,
And they said that the source of the rumours was you.

So I hired detectives and I made them aware
Of the private details of our public affair.
They searched all the airports, they boarded the trains,
But then they came home without Lili Marlene.

You dreamed of freedom
And I dreamt of chains.
You longed for deliverance,
I wanted the same.
This is the time, this is the town,
And here is the place where our love will lie down.

Well, a thousand rehearsals prepared us for this:
The distracted embrace, the indifferent kiss.
But we couldn’t have known that our love would go down
At this time in the morning, in this part of town.

So we stand on the bridge in the frost bitten air.
There’s ice on your eyelids and flakes in your hair.
And I look at you long and you look at me slow,
As we let our love slip to the river below.

Locked arm in arm,
We’d tried to break free.
I broke from you
And then you broke from me.
But now at this time and here in this town,
In these grey frozen waters our love comes to drown.

And love disappeared at a quarter to four.