- 1
Peter Hammill - The Birds
- 2
Peter Hammill - My Favourite
- 3
Peter Hammill - The Institute Of Mental Health, Burning
- 4
Peter Hammill - Time For A Change
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Peter Hammill - (No More) The Submariner
- 6
Peter Hammill - (On Tuesday She Used To Do) Yoga
- 7
Peter Hammill - A Better Time
- 8
Peter Hammill - A Forest Of Pronouns
- 9
Peter Hammill - A Headlong Stretch: i. Up Ahead
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Peter Hammill - A Headlong Stretch: ii. Continental Drift
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Peter Hammill - A Headlong Stretch: iii. The Twelve
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Peter Hammill - A Headlong Stretch: iv. Long Light
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Peter Hammill - A Headlong Stretch: v. Backwards Man
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Peter Hammill - A Headlong Stretch: vi. As You Were
- 15
Peter Hammill - A Headlong Stretch: vii. Or So I Said
- 16
Peter Hammill - A Louse Is Not A Home
- 17
Peter Hammill - Again
- 18
Peter Hammill - Been Alone So Long
- 19
Peter Hammill - Candle
- 20
Peter Hammill - Child
- 21
Peter Hammill - Comfortable
- 22
Peter Hammill - Crying Wolf
- 23
Peter Hammill - Faint-Heart and the Sermon
- 24
Peter Hammill - Ferret And Featherbird
- 25
Peter Hammill - Fight
- 26
Peter Hammill - Forsaken Gardens
- 27
Peter Hammill - Four Pails
- 28
Peter Hammill - Gog
- 29
Peter Hammill - Happy
- 30
Peter Hammill - I Once Wrote Some Poems
- 31
Peter Hammill - Imperial Zeppelin
- 32
Peter Hammill - Just Good Friends
- 33
Peter Hammill - Lost And Found
- 34
Peter Hammill - Magog (In Bromine Chambers)
- 35
Peter Hammill - Man-Erg
- 36
Peter Hammill - Material Possession
- 37
Peter Hammill - Mediaevil
- 38
Peter Hammill - Mirror Images
- 39
Peter Hammill - Modern
- 40
Peter Hammill - Mr. X (Gets Tense)
- 41
Peter Hammill - My Experience
- 42
Peter Hammill - Nadir's Big Chance
- 43
Peter Hammill - Narcissus (Bar & Grill)
- 44
Peter Hammill - Nightman
- 45
Peter Hammill - No Moon In The Water
- 46
Peter Hammill - Nobody's Business
- 47
Peter Hammill - None Of The Above
- 48
Peter Hammill - Not For Keith
- 49
Peter Hammill - Not The Man
- 50
Peter Hammill - Nothing Comes
- 51
Peter Hammill - Now Lover
- 52
Peter Hammill - Now More Than Ever
- 53
Peter Hammill - Oasis
- 54
Peter Hammill - On The Surface
- 55
Peter Hammill - Open your Eyes (The Locarno Song)
- 56
Peter Hammill - Ophelia
- 57
Peter Hammill - Other Old Clichés
- 58
Peter Hammill - Our Oyster
- 59
Peter Hammill - Painting By Numbers
- 60
Peter Hammill - Palinurus (Castaway)
- 61
Peter Hammill - Paradox Drive
- 62
Peter Hammill - Patient
- 63
Peter Hammill - People You Were Going To
- 64
Peter Hammill - Personality
- 65
Peter Hammill - Phosphorescence
- 66
Peter Hammill - Planet Coventry
- 67
Peter Hammill - Pompeii
- 68
Peter Hammill - Porton Down
- 69
Peter Hammill - Power Of Speech
- 70
Peter Hammill - Primo on the Parapet
- 71
Peter Hammill - Pushing Thirty
- 72
Peter Hammill - Rain, 3 a.m.
- 73
Peter Hammill - Ram Origami
- 74
Peter Hammill - Re-Awakening
- 75
Peter Hammill - Red Shift
- 76
Peter Hammill - Reprise
- 77
Peter Hammill - Rock and Rôle
- 78
Peter Hammill - Rubicon
- 79
Peter Hammill - Sci-Finance
- 80
Peter Hammill - Seven Wonders
- 81
Peter Hammill - Sharply Unclear
- 82
Peter Hammill - She Wraps It Up
- 83
Peter Hammill - Shell
- 84
Peter Hammill - Shingle Song
- 85
Peter Hammill - Sign
- 86
Peter Hammill - Silver
- 87
Peter Hammill - Since The Kids
- 88
Peter Hammill - Sitting Targets
- 89
Peter Hammill - Skin
- 90
Peter Hammill - Sleep Now
- 91
Peter Hammill - Slender Threads
- 92
Peter Hammill - Smile
- 93
Peter Hammill - Solitude
- 94
Peter Hammill - Something About Ysabel's Dance
- 95
Peter Hammill - Still In The Dark
- 96
Peter Hammill - Still Life
- 97
Peter Hammill - Stranger Still
- 98
Peter Hammill - Stupid
- 99
Peter Hammill - Summer Song (In the Autumn)
- 100
Peter Hammill - Sun City Nightlife
- 101
Peter Hammill - Sunshine
- 102
Peter Hammill - Tapeworm
- 103
Peter Hammill - Tenderness
- 104
Peter Hammill - The Comet, The Course, The Tail
- 105
Peter Hammill - The Cut
- 106
Peter Hammill - The Future Now
- 107
Peter Hammill - The Gift of Fire (Talk Turkey)
- 108
Peter Hammill - The Great European Department Store
- 109
Peter Hammill - The Great Experiment
- 110
Peter Hammill - The Jargon King
- 111
Peter Hammill - The Lie (Bernini's St. Theresa)
- 112
Peter Hammill - The Light Continent
- 113
Peter Hammill - The Meanings Changed
- 114
Peter Hammill - The Moebius Loop
- 115
Peter Hammill - The Mousetrap (Caught In)
- 116
Peter Hammill - The Noise
- 117
Peter Hammill - The Old School Tie
- 118
Peter Hammill - The Play's The Thing
- 119
Peter Hammill - The Polaroid
- 120
Peter Hammill - The Second Hand
- 121
Peter Hammill - The Spirit
- 122
Peter Hammill - The Tower
- 123
Peter Hammill - The Unconscious Life
- 124
Peter Hammill - This Book
- 125
Peter Hammill - This Side Of The Looking Glass
- 126
Peter Hammill - Time Heals
- 127
Peter Hammill - Time To Burn
- 128
Peter Hammill - Too Many Of My Yesterdays
- 129
Peter Hammill - Traintime
- 130
Peter Hammill - Trappings
- 131
Peter Hammill - Two Or Three Spectres
- 132
Peter Hammill - Under Cover Names
- 133
Peter Hammill - Unrehearshed
- 134
Peter Hammill - Viking
- 135
Peter Hammill - Vision
- 136
Peter Hammill - Vote Brand X
- 137
Peter Hammill - What I Did
- 138
Peter Hammill - What's it Worth?
- 139
Peter Hammill - When Language Corrodes
- 140
Peter Hammill - Where The Mouth Is
- 141
Peter Hammill - Wilhelmina
- 142
Peter Hammill - You Can't Want What You Always Get...
- 143
Peter Hammill - You Hit Me Where I Live
- 144
Peter Hammill - Your Word
The Gift of Fire (Talk Turkey)
Peter Hammill
like a swell on the ocean
would the spell be unbroken if it was never phrased?
She was always the precious child,
she was always a strange one,
a derangement runs deep down through her innocent gaze.....
The gift of fire and the gift of tongues,
the gift to see what Goddess Fortune held in store -
pretty soon there were whisperings of witchcraft
from the couple next door.
She had the gift of talk turkey,
the gift of talk turkey.
She had no message for the marketplace,
she was inflamed by each moment,
she had the silver spoon of soothsay for destiny.
She was always coming on with
the gift of fire and the gift of tongues;
family affair, it was a fortune that they'd got -
pretty soon they were cooking up a story
for the communal pot;
on the prime time slot
they shot the gift of talk turkey.
Oh now she can't stop talking about the way she sees is
and she can't stop talking about her prescience.
She can't stop talking, how dangerous that is
and she can't stop talking, no, she can't stop talking..
It's the curse of the fire and she's burning up before us
in the talk of tongues, flames that lick around the dross;
the gift of fire, if she's burning up before us
it's our communal loss, the inevitable cost
of the gift of talk turkey.
What a windfall of wickedness
when truth gets warped to perversion;
in the official version
they'll always make it quite plain
what we're really not meant to see.
The gift of fire consumes all those who touch it
and the gift of tongues is always double-edged;
they grew aware that she would take them to the ledge
so pretty soon they were working up a story
about the bets they could hedge.
The gift of fire and the gift of tongues...
they take her name and they grind it in the dust;
all at once they've got alibis to cover any possible bust
and she's gagged, bound and trussed
by the gift of talk turkey.
But she can't stop talking, though her audience disappears
and she can't stop talking about her prescience.
She can't stop talking, though she knows that no-one hears
She can't stop talking, she can't stop talking,
She can't stop talking - how miraculous this is!
She can't stop talking, just like Bernadette.
She can't stop talking, how dangerous that is,
and she can't stop talking, she can't stop talking,
no, she can't stop talking about the way she sees it is,
she can't stop talking, just like Joan of Arc.
She can't stop talking - Man, how dangerous she is,
she can't stop talking,
she can't stop the gift of talk turkey,
the gift of talk turkey.
No, she can't stop talking.