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Chapter Three

from THE CLIMBER by JUDGE SMITH

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lyrics

CHOIR:
Take them up, then bring them down.
We take them up, we bring them down...

THE CLIMBER:
On the mountain at last, moving slowly upward,
rising out of the world…

CHOIR:
We just show people our mountains,
and we bring them safely back again.
That might sound like it was easy,
but it takes a special breed of men.
We know every peak, same as we know the lines upon our hands.
Rocks and ice and clouds read like a book to one who understands.

THE CLIMBER:
Breathing cold and crystal air from a flawless, silent, sapphire sky,
And the guide really knows his job, and the others don’t talk much,
I’m beginning to enjoy myself.

CHOIR:
This is no stroll in the country,
and you need to know what you’re about.
If you don’t you’d be in trouble if the boys weren’t here to get you out.
We know every peak,
we’ve climbed them all a hundred times for sure,
Still there’s things to learn, always it’s new.
There’s always something more.

THE CLIMBER:
Working up the final ridge, legs aching, the horizon expanding,
Then a scramble up the broken rock to the kern on the summit
and it’s done.

I’m floating on a choppy sea of foam-topped waves
all sparkling beneath the sun.
Each white-top breaker frozen in its tracks,
and every wave five thousand feet from trough to crest.
This frozen ocean stretches South
towards the far-off golden mists that mark the North Italian plain.
Above the distant ice of Switzerland,
a smoky sun is slowly sinking in the West.
These were the times when the mountain snow
sang its sweet and secret song to me.

Then I saw it. Mi scusi, Signore, quella montagna, come si chiama?

CHOIR:
She is Monte Cecilia. More small than this,
two thousand metri, but beautiful...

THE CLIMBER:
Si, bella, bellissima..Will you take me?
Will you take me? Will you take me?

credits

from THE CLIMBER, released May 8, 2020

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JUDGE SMITH image

JUDGE SMITH Glastonbury, UK

Judge Smith co-founded the band Van der Graaf Generator in 1967 with Peter Hammill, & has since been involved in many music projects as writer, composer or performer. He has written stage musicals, classical & rock libretti, songs for television & a book on Life after Death; directed a prize-winning short film, & released fourteen CDs & two DVDs. He was born in 1948 & lives near Glastonbury, UK. ... more

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