Song: The Old Man's Back Again (Dedicated to the Neo-Stalinist Regime)
Artist: Scott Walker
Album: Scott 4 (1969)
Written by Noel Scott Engel
[Intro]
C#m
[Verse 1]
G#m E F#
I seen a hand, I seen a vision
E F# G# C#m
It was reaching through the clouds to risk a dream
G#m E F# E F# G#
A shadow crossed the sky and it crushed it to the ground
C#m
Just like a beast
F# A G# C#m
The old man's back again, the old man's back again
[Verse 2]
G#m E F#
I seen a woman standing in the snow
E F# G# C#m
She was silent as she watched them take her man
G#m E F#
Teardrops burned her cheeks
E F# G# C#m
For she thought she'd heard the shadow had left this land
F# A G# C#m
The old man's back again, the old man's back again
[Verse 3]
G#m E F#
The crowds just gather, their faces turned away
E F# G# C#m
And they queue all day like dragons of disgust
G# E F#
Older women whispering
E F# G# C#m
Wondering just what these young hotheads want of us
G#m E F#
And 'entrez vie' he cries with eyes that ring like chimes
E F# G# C#m
His anti-worlds go spinning through his head
G#m E F#
He burns them in his dreams
E F# G# C#m
For half-awake, they may as well be dead
F# A G# C#m
The old man's back again, I see he's back again
[Verse 4]
G# E F#
I see a soldier, he's standing in the rain
E F# G# C#m
For him there's no old man to walk behind
G# E F# E F# G# C#m
Devoured by his pain, bewildered by the faces that pass him by
G# E F# E F# G# C#m
He'd like another name, the one he's got's a curse, these people cry
G# E F# E F# G# C#m
Why can't they understand? His mother called him Ivan, then she died
F# A G# C#m
The old man's back again, the old man's back again
F# A G# C#m
I can see him back again
[Outro]
F# A G# C#m
Vocal Jazz to fade