l'Elite

Tes procès on le sait ne sont pas fondés
Dans tes camps on le sait on supprime sans gants
Elle se dit l'élite des peuples civilisés
Elle pourrait arborer sans aucune gêne la croix gammée
Elle a pour principe de protéger les gens
De leur littérature de leurs pensées de leurs chansons
Elle dit que c'est fondé sur l'esprit de liberté
Elle ne fait que parjurer les traités déjà signés

L'élite est entrée sans prévenir
Devant ses chars d'assaut vous n'aviez que des idées
Renforçons l'amitié proclament vos slogans
Amitié enfermant des gens nommés dissidents

Elle fut scandalisée en voyant ce génocide
Elle a combattu et vaincu quel homicide
La seule leçon qu'elle ait su en tirer
C'est de financer des états policiers

L'élite est entrée sans prévenir
Devant ses chars d'assaut vous n'aviez que des idées
Renforçons l'amitié proclament vos slogans
Amitié enfermant des gens nommés dissidents

INFIDEL

Inspired by the definition of Infidel inThe Devil’s dictionary by Ambrose Bierce (1911)

You can call me a scoundrel
Or the wandering infidel.
Am I profoundly different?
I’m just not reverent.
I don’t require a pope
To give me hope
I don’t count on a parson
To prevent an arson.
Go away, you deacons,
My tolerance weakens,
Black friars, begone! Leave me alone!

I am the one in the bottomless pit, in the furnace Appollyon!

Shut up, hierophant!
Your chant is irrelevant,
I spit on you
And your charm-selling crew.
The world needs no nun
Hiding from the sun,
No prophet, no pilgrim
When the light goes dim.
I don’t believe in God,
I may run, I may plod
I may see or be blind but I won’t change my mind.

I am the one in the bottomless pit, in the furnace Appollyon!

You can call me a villain,
Catch me if you can, chaplain!
Torture me till I confess
To the crimes that obsess
Your acolytes and you,
And all novices too!
Logic lies dead
Where missionaries tread,
“Reason's out of fashion,
It's time for passion”
Says the bloody bishop, oh! Will it ever stop?

I am the one in the bottomless pit, in the furnace Appollyon!

No dollar-hungry mollah here,
No bloody fakeer,
No medicine-man around,
No voodoo baron downtown.
No levitating, lama!
No smoking, Torquemada!
No whirling, dervish!
No child-molesting in the parish
Please,
I don’t want any of these
Religions old and new in my world now.

I am the one in the bottomless pit, in the furnace Appollyon!

BEDLAM

Sometimes, not very often,
I feel the presence of the other side.
I know I shouldn't have spoken,
A secret like that you never confide.

Frankly, most of the time,
Four walls and a ceiling are all that I see,
So please, I wanna go home,
A dark cell in Bedlam is no place for me.

Sometimes, tables are turning,
Is that a way for tables to behave?
I get these visions returning,
A message in a bottle from beyond the grave.

“They called me mad, I called them mad,
But damn them to hell, they outvoted me*,”
For every year that God will carve,
Deep down in Bedlam is where I'll be.

Something is happening here,
Why is it always when I'm all alone,
If only you could see, if you could hear
The whitelady's desperate drone.

Help me, and I'll save you,
That's what the whitelady said to me.
Take my hand and don't look back,
The bricks of Bedlam are no good for thee.

A penny to view the lunatics,
Step inside! Don't be afraid!
Just a penny to laugh at their antics,
One day, we may laugh at you instead.

When you are sad, and losing control,
or, simply, when you just look like me
For every year that God will mould,
Deep down in Bedlam is where you'll be.

THE RUTTED ROAD

This is a road so many have travelled
Since it started by Basingstoke Canal.
You can hear them or their ghosts,
Their everlasting sad chorale.

You can follow in their footsteps,
Pagan pilgrim, proud yet humble.
Far behind their chariots of gold,
You go barefoot but you don’t stumble.

There is blood on the thorns of a pale rose,
This road is rutted but it’s the one I chose.

If your dreams are full of clichés,
The Rhine gold, the Round Table,
You should journey on with me,
We’d revive the Age of Fable.

If you still shed a tear, as I often do,
On Guinevere, on Lady of Shalott
You won't listen to those who scorn the past,
You won't listen, I will not.

There is blood on the thorns of a pale rose,
This road is rutted but it’s the one I chose.

TEN SWORDS

There's an ocean to fathom / and a mountain to climb / your journey is long / and short is the time / if you surrender / to the fiends of fear and lack / here is your journey's end / ten swords in your back... /... Defeated you lie / by your own mind betrayed / while others fly / their wings outspread / I saw you stagger / on a treacherous track / what a pity to see you now / ten swords in your back.

Many Changes will come / that you cannot avoid / if you struggle too hard / you might be destroyed / horizons are lost / and the sky is pitch black / you’re not going anywhere / ten swords in your back... /... You’d like to be viewed / as a victim of fate / you’d better change your mind / the hour is getting late / but the darkness can still / be dispelled by the sun / ten swords in your back / don’t hurt more than one.

A TALE FROM THE CRYPT

The last thing I saw before I died
Was my friend laughing and the smile of my bride.
Now I'm back like in Tales From The Crypt
A fuckin' revenant, though it sounds like a bad trip.
The one I love is the one who denied me,
I'll have no rest till she's buried beside me.
Oh! Have you ever been sincere?
Now death must come to you my dear...

Some guys are lucky, they've got a blushing bride,
Me, I got engaged to an ex-Mrs Hyde.
But I'm not gone, Heaven can wait,
And thanks to the worms, I'm losing weight.
The one I trusted, the one I relied on,
He judassed me on my wedding dawn
If I had a tongue, I'd make it clear
That death must come to you my dear...

Black widow baby, got nowhere to hide,
Your bridegroom has returned from the other side.
I'm not gonna stab you in the back,
And you're too cold to have a heart attack,
But I will haunt you till your hair turn grey,
Till you're too weary to run away,
Till your eyes don't see and your ears don't hear,
Then death will come to you my dear...

OTHER GODS

Meet us in the churches
Or in the synagogues,
We answer the call to prayer
Just like Pavlov’s dogs.
We read the gospel daily
Or feed the sacred cow,
When you lead the procession,
We quietly follow.

The gods we worship
Are as many as the stars
And you don’t need marble
To make their altars.
You don’t need to learn Latin
Or any language of the old,
You just have to open your eyes
And behold.

SEA-HORSES

Inspired by WH Hodgson

There's a fever on the coast, and it's killing children,
We are safer out on the sea where wild horses run,
Sea-horses with tails
Like if they were whales,
Coming and going with the tide.

I'm an old sea dog with a heavy diving gear,
Overwhelmed by sadness as the ocean-floor draws near,
Above, the north-winds roar,
Below, I'm looking for
Underwater ruins, for to hide.

Just a dozen fathoms deep is the place where I go
Roaming in the twilight with a little boy I know.
Would you say I'm insane
If you saw the white mane,
Me and my grandson on a sea-horse ride.

ANCIENT MARINER

Inspired by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Who are you, stranger? A sinner?
How heavy is your cross?
Are you the Ancient Mariner
Who shot the albatross?
Water, water everywhere
But not a drop to share
With the old sea ghosts around you,
Death-in-life has finally found you.

Where is your crew now, master?
Did you leave them behind
To serve the sweet disaster
That made you lose your mind?
Water, water everywhere
But not a drop to share
With the old sea ghosts around you,
Death-in-life has finally found you.

What happened to your vessel?
What storms did you go through?
Some say you had to wrestle
With life-in-death, is it true?
Water, water everywhere
But not a drop to share
With the old sea ghosts around you,
Death-in-life has finally found you.

Now I know that you are real
And no devil in disguise,
You surely know the way I feel,
A little sad and nearly wise.
Water, water everywhere
But not a drop to share
With the old sea ghosts around you,
Death-in-life has finally found you.

TAMSIN BLIGHT

Tamsin Blight, Isobel Goldie,
Mary Butters, Margaret Jones,
This one's for you, not for the clergymen
And their morbid taste for bones.
Their prayers are vain, their warnings too,
I'd rather drink your witch's brew.

Are you a witch of Wicca too ?
Do you raise the dead like witches do?

Before dawn a spell is woven
By hands no rosary has tied,
In the evening don't be scared
If you have a guest from the other side;
Marie Laveau away in the Bayou
Has played a little trick on you.

Are you a witch of Wicca too ?
Do you raise the dead like witches do?

Tamsin Blight, Isobel Goldie,
Mary Butters, Margaret Jones,
When you were born in the country,
You don't fear the Great Old Ones.
Witchfinder please, leave them alone,
they don't really hurt anyone!

Are you a witch of Wicca too ?
Do you raise the dead like witches do?

TYBURN

There are many ways to execute a man,
The gas chamber, the electric chair.
A lethal injection is certainly cleaner
But I miss the gallows on Tyburn square.

Tyburn, Tyburn

Wake me early, mother, 'cause I want to see
The highwayman and the Catholic priest,
Swinging together from the triple tree,
While the crowd cheers or roars like a beast.

Tyburn, Tyburn

Now, would you like to face the firing squad,
Each gunman meeting your stare?
That’s alright, boys, but nothing compares
To the old gallows on Tyburn square

Tyburn, Tyburn

Boiled, burnt or broken on the wheel?
Quartered, impaled, how does it feel?
Thrown in the ocean, can you swim?
To be crucified is fine but you’re not Him!

So let’s get back to the days of yore,
When foul was foul and fair was fair!
One of the things I miss the most
Are the wooden gallows on Tyburn square.

Tyburn, Tyburn

FROM THE ANCIENT WOODLAND

Inspired by Robert Holdstock

From the ancient woodland
Where heroes were made out of water and sand,
Arise, arise, arise
To save us from the lord of the flies !

From the golden foliage
Waving there since the ice age,
Arise, arise, arise
In a shape we all may recognise !

Are you Herne the hunter?
Can you wield thunderbolts like Jupiter?
Rob from the rich and give to the poor?
I thought no-one believed in you any more.

Are you real, my Lion-heart?
Could you just take Jerusalem (for a start)
And then sink the ship of fools,
It's time to break the rules.

From the forest primeval
Come all things good and all things evil.
Choose your path! Choose your mask!
Choose your quest (an endless task)!

Wounded on the paths of glory,
Healed beyond the gates of ivory
Arise, arise, arise,
With hellfire burning in your eyes !

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are bitter
Arise, arise, arise,
To regain Paradise !

From the ancient woodland
Where heroes were made out of water and sand,
Arise, arise, arise
To save us from the lord of the flies !

CALLING C. (HIDDEN TRACK)

Volcanic isles / a dozen miles / only from the coast / in my dream / a hooded pilgrim / gives a terrible toast / to Him... /...
Underwater caves / half-human slaves / antediluvian cult / puritan throngs / your prayers and songs / are an insult / to Him... /... Lovecraft wrote / About these harbours remote / and left many a clue / to guide us across / the nameless moss / to You / And he said not a word is true, but we knew that he lied...

It’s been 7 years since Pale Roses came to light. Now it’s time to return to obscurity. Our final release Farewell To Albion is a 6-track EP only available on our bandcamp page. The title says it all, “Albion” because all 6 songs are firmly rooted in “dark Brittanica”, inspired by Henry James or Algernon Blackwood, and featuring characters such as Peter Pan or Spring-heeled Jack; “Farewell”, well, we don’t really mean Pale Roses are gone forever, but we just wish to launch our new project Dragon-Lune, a doom-folk (if that's possible) bass/drum duet, with French lyrics focused on esoterism and “fantastic realism”. So thanks to all who followed and helped us through these 7 years, Farewell To Albion is free for you to download, and keep an eye on Dragon-Lune in the months to come.