Lyrics Paul Shapera - The Coal That Sings Hosanna

Alice:
The wishes that the drop might wish
Before the brush’s bristled kiss
But in the end, expectation is a liar

Into scenes at last is spread
A splash of white, a spot of red
On a canvas grand and awful shall expire

It’s not for you to wish or dream
A painter’s drop on endless seas
Take your place in history’s grand design

Little drop before you go
Perhaps you’re loved, perhaps not so
Perhaps your solace come to you in time

It’s over tonight, the canticle sung
Ah the task at last is now done
Tonight the last band plays and then retires

It’s over tonight, they fall where they may
Ah and those who can will walk away
The coal that sings hosanna in the fire

…

The princess laughs and grasps the night
In love beneath red endless skies
Little drop before the brush arrives

The cackling girl lost underground
Burnt out like stars fallen down
The sad, mad coal still singing in the fire

It’s over tonight, the canticle sung
Ah the task at last is now done
Tonight the last band plays and then retires

It’s over tonight, they fall where they may
Ah and those who can will walk away
The coal that sings hosanna in the fire

…

Four years of fog, of city, tunnels, always running
And your head is always buzzing and you never can think straight
A blur, a whirl, a swirl your body it decays you madly scramble
Angel’s order, dolls and corridors but sometimes recall the day

When only love is what you wanted
Only love could find a way
His eyes, although most nights now you cannot recall his face
Only love is what you wanted
All your people and your place
The moment you were happy back before the endless ache

The dizzy dream and always stealing, building reeling
Through the darkness like a good girl but i only want to think
I want to think just for a second, for a second could i stop just for
A second just to think, i’m dying, too late now but wait

Only love is what i wanted
Only love to find a way
Held on by a lover
By your family, your friends

Only love is what you wanted back before the hand of fate
Came to snatch you and to grab you as the days fade into day
All your memories fade away like the memory of their face
Which you’ll never see again

Oh Hosanna, hosanna hosanna
Oh Hosanna, hosanna hosanna

In the basements far beneath them
The furnace where you’ll burn away
Dream about the land
The soft touch of his careful hand
A million miles away
A million miles away

The wishes that the drop might yearn or dream or yet desire
Expectation is a liar is a liar is a liar
Enjoy the innocence, the first red endless day
In the end you’re just a drop of paint waiting to be painted

With a stroke and a crash on a canvas spread and swept
And of you in the end there will be most nothing left
But i did it yes i did it will a will of steel and fire
It is time now it is time yes

It’s over tonight, the canticle sung
Ah the task at last is now done
It’s over tonight, they fall where they may
Ah, and those who can will walk away

It’s over tonight, the last act retires
The coal that sings hosanna in the fire
Hosanna hosanna