I’m floating over strange land
It’s a soulless, sequined, showbiz moon
I’m floating over strange land
And then stranger still, there’s no balloon
But I’m getting higher
Wafted up by fame’s fickle fire 'til the
Chalk hills and children
Anchor my feet
Chalk hills and children
Bringing me back to earth
Eternally and ever Ermine Street
(Even I never know where I go when my eyes are closed)
I’m skating over thin ice
Upon blunted blades of metal soft
I’m skating over thin ice
While some none such net holds me aloft
But I’m getting higher
Lifted up on lucks' circus wire 'til the
Chalk hills and children
Anchor my feet
Chalk hills and children
Bringing me back to earth
Eternally and ever Ermine Street
Even I never know where I go when my eyes are closed
Even I never spied that the scenes were posed
Even I never knew this is what I’d be
Even eyes never mean that you’re sure to see
Still I’m getting higher
Rolling up on three empty tyres, 'til the
Chalk hills and children
Anchor my feet
Chalk hills and children
Bringing me back to earth
Eternally and ever Ermine Street
I’m soaring over hushed crowds
The reluctant cannonball it seems
I’m soaring over hushed crowds
I’m propelled up here by long dead dreams
Still I’m getting higher
Icarus regrets and retires puzzled
Chalk hills and children
Anchor my feet
Chalk hills and children
Oddly complete
(Even I never know where I go when my eyes are all closed)
Here I go again
There are so many great XTC songs to choose as a favorite. It would be hard but a labor of love to pick the top 50 songs. This is definitely a band where they progressed as they aged. Albums from Skylarking, Nonsuch, Orange & Lemons and the Apple Venus albums are incredible works of art. You can hear the Beatle & Beach Boy influence. The lyrics are beyond most anything that comes out a radio. I feel sorry for people when they haven't heard of XTC. Long live XTC!
XTC was an amazingly creative band. I'll never forget the first time I listened to the "Skylarking" album. I completely wore out the cassette tape in record time. haha (~_~)
XTC was an extremely underrated band. They had a very progressive style. This brings me back to college. Great song and great memories playing this on college radio at WBKX in Marquette, MI. Rock on BKXers of old.
Absolutely.... I borrowed the Cassette tape of their 1984 album "The big express" from Coventry city library, I was at college there in1987? I had to buy another cassette for them when I WORE OUT that tape too.
HOWEVER, Coventry was a very lonely place for me...... and without XTC, well..... who knows...?
I only came to XTC rather recently. Song after song delights and intrigues. It's amazing that a band whose sound was so (understandably) defined by contemporaneous synth and guitar colours can remain so startlingly fresh and un-dated. Of course the overlaid vocal harmonies (as many commentators reiterate) gently evoke the Beach Boys, but certainly - in my view - don't sound derivative. The way the music drifts effortlessly into polytonality without sounding "clever" in the worst sense is remarkable. The pristinely "in-tune" vocals over a bass-line which suspends unexpected harmonies gives a wonderfully 3-D texture to the sound. Well-placed chords of the added 11th always make me believe human beings might be able to fly without wings; XTC pops them in them with regular inventiveness and skill. The drumming too - with its occasional nods to kodo drumming and tabla - is incredibly tasteful and colourful. I love the perfectly formed fills that never clutter the texture, but punctuate the music with great style an wit. I agree with everyone who raves about this music. As I listen to one undiscovered (by me!) album after the next, I feel the same sense of happiness that this music exists as I felt when I first listened to Ravel's "Le Tombeau de Couperin."
The first time I flew in a plane was a year after this album came out (my family was poor, so I was in my early 20s by then). I made sure to have this cassette on my Walkman, and played this song as we went through the clouds. It was, yes, transcendent! Now I have this on my iPod every time I fly.
