Album Cover Song of Myself

Song of Myself

Nightwish

4

The nightingale is still locked in the cage

The deep breath I took still poisons my lungs

An old oak sheltering me from the blueSun bathing on its dead frozen leaves

A catnap in the ghost town of my heart

She dreams of storytime and the river ghosts

Of mermaids, of Whitman′s and the Ride

Raving harlequins, gigantic toys

A song of me a song in need

Of a courageous symphony

A verse of me a verse in need

Of a pure-heart singing me to peace

All that great heart lying still and slowly dying

All that great heart lying still on an angelwing

All that great heart lying still

In silent suffering

Smiling like a clown until the show has come to an end

What is left for encore

Is the same old Dead Boy's song

Sung in silence

All that great heart lying still and slowly dying

All that great heart lying still on an angelwing

A midnight flight into Covington Woods

A princess and a panther by my side

These are Territories I live for

I′d still give my everything to love you more

A song of me a song in need

Of a courageous symphony

A verse of me a verse in need

Of a pure-heart singing me to peace

All that great heart lying still and slowly dying

All that great heart lying still on an angelwing

All that great heart lying still

In silent suffering

Smiling like a clown until the show has come to an end

What is left for encore

Is the same old Dead Boy's song

Sung in silence

All that great heart lying still and slowly dying

All that great heart lying still on an angelwing

A silent symphony

A hollow opus one, two, three

Sometimes the sky is piano black

Piano black over cleansing waters

Resting pipes, verse of bore

Rusting keys without a door

Sometimes the within is piano black

Piano black over cleansing waters

All that great heart lying still and slowly dying

All that great heart lying still on an angelwing

All that great heart lying still and slowly dying

All that great heart lying still on an angelwing

I see a slow, simple youngster by a busy street

With a begging bowl in his shaking hand

Trying to smile but hurting infinitely

Nobody notices

I do, but walk by

An old man gets naked and kisses a model-doll in his attic

It's half-light and he′s in tears

When he finally comes his eyes are cascading

I see a beaten dog in a pungent alley

He tries to bite me

All pride has left his wild drooling eyes

I wish I had my leg to spare

A mother visits her son,

Smiles to him through the bars

She′s never loved him more

An obese girl enters an elevator with me

All dressed up fancy

A green butterfly on her neck

Terribly sweet perfume deafens me

She's going to dinner alone

That makes her even more beautiful

I see a model′s face on a brick wall

A statue of porcelain perfection beside a violent city kill

A city that worships flesh

The first thing I ever heard

Was a wandering man telling his story

It was you, the grass under my bare feet

The campfire in the dead of the night

The heavenly black of sky and sea

It was us

Roaming the rainy roads

Combing the gilded beaches

Waking up to a new gallery of wonders every morn

Bathing in places no-one's seen before

Shipwrecked on some matt-painted island

Clad in nothing but the surf

Beauty′s finest robe

Beyond all mortality we are

Swinging in the breath of nature

In early air of the dawn of life

A sight to silence the heavens

I want to travel where life travels

Following its permanent lead

Where the air tastes like snow music

Where grass smells like fresh-born Eden

I would pass no man, no stranger, no tragedy or rapture

I would bathe in a world of sensation

Love, Goodness, and Simplicity

(While violated and imprisoned by technology)

The thought of my family's graves was the only moment

I used to experience true love

That love remains infinite

As I′ll never be the man my father is

How can you "just be yourself"

When you don't know who you are?

Stop saying "I know how you feel"

How could anyone know how another feels?

Who am I to judge a priest, beggar, whore, politician, wrongdoer?

I am, you are, all of them already

Dear child, stop working, go play

Forget every rule

There's no fear in a dream

"Is there a village inside this snowflake?"

A child asked me

"What′s the color of our lullaby?"

I′ve never been so close to truth as then

I touched its silver lining

Death is the winner in any war

Nothing noble in dying for your religion

For your country

For ideology, for faith

For another man, yes

Paper is dead without words

Ink idle without a poem

All the world dead without stories

Without love and disarming beauty

Careless realism costs souls

Ever seen the Lord smile?

All the care for the world made Beautiful a sad man?

Why do we still carry a device of torture around our necks?

Oh, how rotten your pre-apocalypse is

All you bible-black fools living over nightmare ground

I see all those empty cradles and wonder

If man will ever change

I, too, wish to be a decent manboy

But all I am

Is smoke and mirrors

Still given everything, may I be deserving

And there forever remains

That change from G to E minor