Fa-fa-fa-freedom...

Lyrics.

After 'Smokescreen' from Come Get Some was used in a US car ad during the recent Super Bowl, so many people have emailed to ask what it is that I'm actually singing.

The truth is I have never put the lyrics to my songs in my sleeve notes - not to be evasive or coy, but because I do not wish to shatter the illusion most people form of what they think the singer is saying and, therefore, what the song is 'about', as it were...

Once the song is out in the public domain, out in the open, it becomes something different entirely and almost belongs to someone else - it's not for me to tell you what the meaning of the song is or that you were wrong when you thought I sang 'believer' instead of 'retriever'.
I can be singing whatever you want me to and, equally it can mean whatever you'd like it to - I make you a gift of it.

Myself, I'm still recovering from the the fact that I thought we were 'perspiring' by the fire, as opposed to 'conspiring' by it in my beloved 'Winter Wonderland' (a song I am content to sing to myself all year round).
And it gave me no end of joy that my own dear mother convinced herself I sang 'You wanna fuck me?' instead of 'You find it funny?' in 'Get In The Ring' from the Uncle Treacle album. Who am I to correct her...?

When we get on to 'meaning' there lies even murkier waters. I once had a favourite poem which gave me great comfort and inspiration until I read a note on the author's website where she corrected and actually berated anyone who had got the wrong end of the stick and thought her words were symbolic of faith and hope in trying times. Crikey, you would've thought her work was being commandeered by the Hitler Youth the way she went on...
When it's out in the public domain, it is not (unless of course the Nazi party are involved) for you to tell people how to feel and think about your work and it's meaning - it can mean what it wants to whomsoever it wishes.

And that is surely the beauty of any kind of art? You take from it what you will.

But here, for those people who've been so supportive and said such nice things about 'Smokescreen', for one night only, are the lyrics.
Don't ask me what they mean. I haven't the foggiest...

Smokescreen

Freedom, desire
What is written
What is read
The tongue burns with fire
Is there a difference between what we say
And what is said?


Solution
I'm able to see through your smokescreen
The cloth on the table is careful
To cover what you mean


Well you can be without it every place that you turn
But can you do without it?
There's a lesson to learn


Free to desire
What was written I have seen
So what's good enough for you, babe
Is good enough for me