STEWART, Al

Year Of The Cat

On a morning from a Bogart movie

In a country where they turn back time

You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre

Contemplating a crime

She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running

Like a watercolor in the rain

Don't bother asking for explanations

She'll just tell you that she came

In the year of the cat

She doesn't give you time for questions

As she locks up your arm in hers

And you follow till your sense of which direction

Completely disappears

By the blue tiled walls near the market stalls

There's a hidden door she leads you to

These days, she says, "I feel my life

Just like a river running through"

The year of the cat

Well, she looks at you so coolly

And her eyes shine like the moon in the sea

She comes in incense and patchouli

So you take her, to find what's waiting inside

The year of the cat

Well morning comes and you're still with her

And the bus and the tourists are gone

And you've thrown away your choice and lost your ticket

So you have to stay on

But the drumbeat strains of the night remain

In the rhythm of the new-born day

You know sometime you're bound to leave her

But for now you're going to stay

In the year of the cat

Year of the cat

The Palace of Versailles

The wands of smoke are rising

From the walls of the Bastille

And through the streets of Paris

Runs a sense of the unreal

The Kings have all departed

There servants are nowhere

We burned out their mansions

In the name of Robespierre

And still we wait

To see the day begin

Our time is wasting in the wind

Wondering why

Wondering why, it echoes

Through the lonely palace of Versailles

Inside the midnight councils

The lamps are burning low

On you sit and talk all through the night

But there's just no place to go

And Bonaparte is coming

With his army from the south

Marat your days are numbered

And we live hand to mouth

While we wait

To see the day begin

Our time is wasting in the wind

Wondering why

…..

The ghost of revolution

Still prowls the Paris streets

Down all the restless centuries

It wonders incomplete

It speaks inside the cheap red wine

Of cafe summer nights

Its red and amber voices

Call the cars at traffic lights

Why do you wait

To see the day begin

Your time is wasting in the wind

Wondering why

…..