Artist: Pete Townshend Album: White City: A Novel {1985}

Give blood - but you may find that blood is not enough
Give blood - and there are some who'll say it's not enough
Give blood - but don't expect too ever see reward
Give blood - you can give it all but still you're asked for more

Give blood - but it could cost more than your dignity
Give blood - parade your pallor in iniquity
Give blood - they will cry and say they're in our debt
Give blood - but then they'll sigh and they will soon forget

We're heading for the day of reckoning
I'm telling ya
Its all building up to something
Something that can be redeemed with fire

So give love and keep blood between brothers
Give love and keep blood between brothers
Give love and keep blood between brothers
Give love and keep blood between brothers

Give blood - but you may find that blood is not enough
Give blood - and there are some who'll say it's not enough
Give blood - but don't expect too ever see reward
Give blood - you can give it all but still you'll be asked for more

So give love and keep blood between brothers
Give love and keep blood between brothers
Give love and keep blood between brothers
Give love, give love and keep blood between brothers

Give your love and keep blood between brothers
Give your love and keep blood between brothers
Give love, give love, give love and keep blood between brothers
Give love, give your love and keep blood between brothers

Say goodbye to the brilliant blues
Say goodbye to the brilliant blues
Say goodbye

It's time to live
So make me, take me
It's time to give
So don't betray me, pay me

The brilliant blues don't want to be frozen
I'll spend my mornings at the Sunshine Cafe
I've read the news and the clique-ridden notions
I know that now is the time to say

It's time - say goodbye to the brilliant blues
To teach - say goodbye to the brilliant blues
So tell me - say goodbye to the brilliant blues
Come on tell me - say goodbye to the brilliant blues
It's time - say goodbye to the brilliant blues
To preach - say goodbye to the brilliant blues
So help me - say goodbye to the brilliant blues
Come on and help me - say goodbye to the brilliant blues

The brilliant blues will never flow this way again
The color of the river is grey
The brilliant blues have faded into sadness and pain
And now is the time to say it's time

You and me are going to finally sail away
We'll get far away from the blues and the mist in the rain
You and me are going to fight until we reach the day
For now is the time that we must say goodbye to

The brilliant blues - I don't want to be frozen
I'll spend my mornings at the Sunshine Cafe
I've read the news, the clique-ridden notions
I know that now is the time to say

It's time - say goodbye to the brilliant blues
To trust - say goodbye to the brilliant blues
So buy me - say goodbye to the brilliant blues
Come on and try me - say goodbye to the brilliant blues
It's time - say goodbye to the brilliant blues
To thrust - say goodbye to the brilliant blues
So guide me - say goodbye to the brilliant blues
Stay beside me - say goodbye to the brilliant blues

The brilliant blues will never flow this way again
The color of the river is grey
The brilliant blues have faded into sadness and pain
And now is the time to say it's time

Face the face, got to face the face
Face the face, got to face the face

You must have heard the cautionary tales
The dangers hidden on the cul-de-sac trails
From wiser folk who've been through it all
And the name sprayed up on the wall

We've got to judge the judge
We've got to find the finds
We've got to scheme the schemes
We got to line the lines
We must stake the stakes
We got to show the shown
We got to take the takes
We got to know the known

Try to place the place
Where we can face the face
We got to face the face
Try to place the place
Where we can face the face

Face the face, got to face the face
Face the face, got to face the face
Got to
Got to

You must have tried and defied belief
Maybe buried your head in insular grief
I need your hunger, you need mine
A million miles can swallow up time

We've got to fool the fools
We got to plan the plans
We got to rule the rules
We got to stand the stands
We got to fight the fight
We must fall the falls
We got to light the light
We got to call the calls

We must race the race
So we can face the face
We got to race the race
We must race the race
So we can face the face

Face the face
We got to face the face
We got to race the race
We got to
Keep looking

New York, Chicago
London and Glasgow
Keep looking

Keep on looking, keep on cooking
Got to stay on this case
Study the pix, watch the flicks
We've got to find the face
Face the face, got to face the face
Watch the flicks
Got to

We've got to judge the judge
We got to find the finds
We got to scheme the schemes
We got to line the lines
We got to fight the fight
We got to fall the falls
We got to light the light
We got to call the calls

Try to place the place
Where we can face the face
We got to face the face
Try to place the place
Where we can face the face
Try to place the place
Where we can face the face
Keep looking, keep looking
We must race the race
So we can face the face
We got to race the race
We must race the race
So we can face the face
We got to face the face
We must race the race
We got to race the race

From my window I see roads
Lead to darkness, leading home
And in the midnight hour a soul's unsleeping
I hear the waterfall of women weeping
Hear the distant noise of traffic stalling
I hear the prostituted children calling, calling out

From the barred and mesh-floor streets
Of a winter's night, without a moon
I am safe hidden here
I am safe hidden here
Hiding out

I look over chequerd fields
And the towering web of steel
Young and old will sit and judge, unfeeling
While the empty church's bell are pealing, pealing now
And the green hills lay ignored, untended
The lonely watchers remain unbefriended, without a friend

And out, out in the one way streets
Is a swelling maze without a door
I am safe hidden here
I am safe hidden here, yeah
I am safe hidden here
I am safe hidden here
I am safe, I am safe hidden here
Hiding out
I am safe, I am safe hidden here
Hiding out
I am safe, I am safe hidden here
Hiding out
I am safe hidden here
Hiding out

I gotta hide out, yeah

Don't bring me secondhand love
Don't bring me secondhand love

Now you went out tonight
Who you been hanging round this time
I don't care if he's black or white
I just don't like his kind
I don't want your secondhand love
I don't want your secondhand love
I don't want your secondhand love
Don't bring me secondhand love

He's been leaving his scent on you
I can sense it from a mile
And all my money is spent on you
But you're still selling your smile
Don't bring me secondhand love
Don't bring me secondhand love
I don't want your secondhand love
I don't want your secondhand love

Give your love and keep blood between brothers
Give your love and keep blood between brothers
I don't want your secondhand love
Don't bring me your secondhand love
Don't bring me secondhand love

I can guess where you been tonight, yeah
You been hanging out on the street
Wearing your dress too tight
Showing out to anyone you meet
But I don't want your secondhand love
I don't want your secondhand love
Don't bring me your secondhand love
Don't bring me your secondhand love

I want the first call on your kiss
Answer me one question - can you promise me this
I want my defenses laying in your hands
I don't want to rest in the palm of another man
I don't want your secondhand love
Don't want, don't want your secondhand love
I don't want, I don't want your secondhand love
I don't want, I don't want your secondhand love
I don't want, I don't want your secondhand love

Nothing must pass this line
Unless it is well defined
You just have to be resigned
You're crashing by design

You once believed that crazy accidents were happening to you
You were chasing a capricious wind
Whenever bad luck and trouble happened to pursue you
The dice would surely save your skin
But when you look back you must realize
That nothing in your life's divine
Everything that's ever befallen you
Happened simply cos it crossed your mind
You're crashing by design

Nothing can pass this line
Unless it is well defined
You just have to be resigned
You're crashing by design

In your single-roomed flat in a courtyard building
You sit alone just like a broken toy
Where's your mother, where's your lover, where are your children
Are you a man or are you still a boy
Who left you behind or did you run
From the crush of so many options
Now you know the special despair of the man
Discussed, debated and offered for adoption

Nothing can pass this line
Unless it is well defined
You just have to be resigned

Another man without a woman
Dropped like a useless tool no longer required
A man who longs for the stifling milk flowing bosom
A fool who's no longer desired

Another man without a woman
Too many rages have cost you this time
Another man among a hundred children
You're just a child who is lost in time

You're crashing by design
You're crashing by design
It all happens by design
It all happens by design
Crashing by design
It all happens by design
It all happens by design
You're crashing by design

My room looks out to the wide open spaces
My heart is touched by awakening faces
I see the panic of people in motion
I can stand here, look out on an ocean
I am a wall awaiting a catchword
I see the city laid out like a patchwork

Alone I am free from hatred and blindness
I hope that this life is frozen and timeless
My man is here, we grow old by inches
Tomorrow I'll walk among heroes and princes
I feed the boys, I hear secrets whispered
I know the hearts that are battered and blistered

I am secure
In this world of apartheid
This is my cell
But it's connected to star light

The White City, that's a joke of a name
It's a black violent place if I remember the game
I couldn't wait to get out, but I love to go home
To remember the White City fighting

The White City fighting, remember, remember
The White City fighting, remember, remember

Down to the refuge near QPR
I drive to committees in my German car
Prone to violence, prone to shame
I glide in silence - my pride in vain
For no one remembers, not that I can see
That we were defenders, we were the free

The White City, blood was an addiction
Now it is analyzed just as though it were fiction
That battles were won and battles were blown
At the height of the White City fighting

The White City fighting, remember, remember
The White City fighting, remember, remember

No one remembers, not that I can see
That we were defenders, we were the free

Yeah, the White City, I finally grew up
To resist the temptation, the gutters all threw up
But I have to go back, I guess I'm violence prone
To remember the White City fighting, yeah

The White City fighting, remember, remember
The White City fighting, remember, remember
The White City fighting, remember, remember
The White City fighting, remember, remember
The White City fighting, remember, remember
The White City fighting, remember, remember

His pride is like a bandage
He's wrapped in a warm cocoon
His pride is just like heroin
He's back inside the womb
His pride is like an ocean
Encircled by a reef
His pride's a hypnotic potion
His memory is a leaf

Her pride is like an armor
Flaming ring of fire
Her pride is like a blindness
An ever tightening wire
Her pride is like a razor
A surgeon's purging knife
Her pride is like a censor
She's slashed out half her life