Andy Tillison - In Earnest lyrics

[I. The Radio Amateur] Keying his mic' as he searches for life A gentle old man sits alone in the dark He's scanning the waves Looking for memories he can share His correspondents collect him like stamps Adding his callsign to their trophies and maps And none of them wonder just who it is they're talking to None of them think to ask the kind of man he was... "I was a pilot, in a war long ago And it all seemed to matter way back then..." And now and then he feels the ground-rush As his plane hits the air Or feels his ground crew rally round him once again [II. Worthy of Memory part 1] He remembers everything about flying Spitfires, sending Morse The crackle of the radio, the tension of the news reports He flew to save his people! His people do not want to know him now He remembers every detail about those sand-bagged days But every chapter that came after, vanishes in blurry haze He has no great love story, just medals and a glory, gone for good He gave his youth - just like he should [III. Demobilized] He demobbed in 1945 as the world he'd fought for came alive He looked for his friends to find that most of them had gone He scanned the radio the next few years, until the last ones disappeared When no-one was left, our Earnest looked to pastures new, from his viewpoint A mile above the ground He looked down on his oyster, green and blue [IV. Dehumanized] He sits in a hundred countries, counting off his latter years, while... Leaders sit in panelled War-Rooms, fuelled by their peoples' fears They'll find so many willing So many, ready to do what he has done [V. Flights of Fancy] He remembers smoky jazz bars in the years after war The feeling of nostalgia was creeping up and taking over And after that it all just seemed the same How could he ever equal it again? And in his flights of fancy he's still the captain of his crew His navigator on the double ba**? Is that Lofty up there with him too? But it all came down so fast And this be-bop won't last And in his flights of fancy he never even left the R.A.F It all came down so fast, and Earnest only has the past He's a hero in November But all year long he's last in the Queue [VI. Worthy of Memory part 2] He remembers something - about a motorbike in Lincolnshire? A rally -- for Ham Radio?, his kids on a trip?, to Brighton Pier? His heart is in the 40's His roaming engines still sport his name... In Earnest, we all had a friend [VII. The Silent Key (instrumental)] [VIII. Earnest Dreams of 617] Lifelong memories as he hits the dam Of Bouncing Bombs and slide rules Radio cans... It's Earnest in the co*kpit and he'll never know A moment to compare to this one On the Earth... below [IX. Some Crazy Old Guy] Sipping his pint as he sits at the bar A lonely old man sits alone with his thoughts Around him we buzz, and never notice that he's there He's in the way when we order our drinks He's there every night of the week Some Crazy Old Guy who tells those stories all the time... ...But he's not with us, he's miles away from here In the only past we gave him worth his thoughts So we'll never see his Spitfire as it makes its final roll And we'll never learn the lessons he was taught [X. In Earnest] Don't leave me nostalgic for the wrong things in my life I don't want adventures among your grand designs of war! I'll take a clear morning with the wind in my hair I beg you, In Earnest, for nothing more