Has to be the might Len - total genius, probably the most gifted lyricist this world has ever seen.
I think YouTube links are a bit counter-productive here as most people will hear his voice and switch off, so here's some lyrics instead;
AVALANCHE
Well I stepped into an avalanche, it covered up my soul;
when I am not this hunchback that you see, I sleep beneath the golden hill.
You who wish to conquer pain, you must learn, learn to serve me well.
You strike my side by accident as you go down for your gold.
The cripple here that you clothe and feed is neither starved nor cold;
he does not ask for your company, not at the centre, the centre of the world.
When I am on a pedestal, you did not raise me there.
Your laws do not compel me to kneel grotesque and bare.
I myself am the pedestal for this ugly hump at which you stare.
You who wish to conquer pain, you must learn what makes me kind;
the crumbs of love that you offer me, they're the crumbs I've left behind.
Your pain is no credential here, it's just the shadow, shadow of my wound.
I have begun to long for you, I who have no greed;
I have begun to ask for you, I who have no need.
You say you've gone away from me, but I can feel you when you breathe.
Do not dress in those rags for me, I know you are not poor;
you don't love me quite so fiercely now when you know that you are not sure,
it is your turn, beloved, it ïs your flesh that I wear.
DRESS REHEARSAL RAG
Four o'clock in the afternoon and I didn't feel like very much.
I said to myself, "Where are you golden boy, where is your famous golden touch?"
I thought you knew where all of the elephants lie down,
I thought you were the crown prince of all the wheels in Ivory Town.
Just take a look at your body now, there's nothing much to save
and a bitter voice in the mirror cries, "Hey, Prince, you need a shave."
Now if you can manage to get your trembling fingers to behave,
why don't you try unwrapping a stainless steel razor blade?
That's right, it's come to this, yes it's come to this,
and wasn't it a long way down, wasn't it a strange way down?
There's no hot water and the cold is running thin.
Well, what do you expect from the kind of places you've been living in?
Don't drink from that cup, it's all caked and cracked along the rim.
That's not the electric light, my friend, that is your vision growing dim.
Cover up your face with soap, there, now you're Santa Claus.
And you've got a gift for anyone who will give you his applause.
I thought you were a racing man, ah, but you couldn't take the pace.
That's a funeral in the mirror and it's stopping at your face.
That's right, it's come to this, yes it's come to this,
and wasn't it a long way down, ah wasn't it a strange way down?
Once there was a path and a girl with chestnut hair,
and you passed the summers picking all of the berries that grew there;
there were times she was a woman, oh, there were times she was just a child,
and you held her in the shadows where the raspberries grow wild.
And you climbed the twilight mountains and you sang about the view,
and everywhere that you wandered love seemed to go along with you.
That's a hard one to remember, yes it makes you clench your fist.
And then the veins stand out like highways, all along your wrist.
And yes it's come to this, it's come to this,
and wasn't it a long way down, wasn't it a strange way down?
You can still find a job, go out and talk to a friend.
On the back of every magazine there are those coupons you can send.
Why don't you join the Rosicrucians, they can give you back your hope,
you can find your love with diagrams on a plain brown envelope.
But you've used up all your coupons except the one that seems
to be written on your wrist along with several thousand dreams.
Now Santa Claus comes forward, that's a razor in his mit;
and he puts on his dark glasses and he shows you where to hit;
and then the cameras pan, the stand in stunt man,
dress rehearsal rag, it's just the dress rehearsal rag,
you know this dress rehearsal rag, ït's just a dress rehearsal rag.
SING ANOTHER SONG BOYS
Ah his fingernails, I see they're broken, his ships they're all on fire.
The moneylender's lovely little daughter ah, she's eaten, she's eaten with desire.
She spies him through the glasses from the pawnshops of her wicked father.
She hails him with a microphone that some poor singer, just like me, had to leave her.
She tempts him with a clarinet, she waves a Nazi dagger.
She finds him lying in a heap; she wants to be his woman.
He says, "Yes, I might go to sleep but kindly leave, leave the future, leave it open."
He stands where it is steep, oh I guess he thinks that he's the very first one,
his hand upon his leather belt now like it was the wheel of some big ocean liner.
And she will learn to touch herself so well as all the sails burn down like paper.
And he has lit the chain of his famous cigarillo.
Ah, they'll never, they'll never ever reach the moon, at least not the one that we're after;
it's floating broken on the open sea, look out there, my friends, and it carries no survivors.
But lets leave these lovers wondering why they cannot have each other,
and let's sing another song, boys, this one has grown old and bïtter.
