Lord Chancellor's Nightmare Song Songtext
von Todd Rundgren

Love unrequited, robs me of me rest
Love, hopeless love, my ardent soul encumbers
Love, nightmare like, lies heavy on me chest
And weaves itself into my midnight slumbers


When you′re lying awake with a dismal headache and repose is tabooed by anxiety
I conceive you may use any language you choose to indulge in, without impropriety
For your brain is on fire, the bedclothes conspire of usual slumber to plunder you
First your counterpane goes, and uncovers your toes and your sheet slips demurely from under you
Then the blanketing tickles, you feel like mixed pickles, so terribly sharp is the pricking
And you're hot and you′re cross, and you tumble and toss 'til there's nothing ′twixt you and the ticking
Then the bedclothes all creep to the ground in a heap and you pick ′em all up in a tangle
Next your pillow resigns and politely declines to remain at its usual angle!
Well, you get some repose in the form of a doze, with hot eyeballs and head ever aching
But your slumbering teems with such horrible dreams that you'd very much better be waking
For you dream you are crossing the channel and tossing about in a steamer from Harwich
Which is something between a large bathing machine and a very small second class carriage
And you′re serving a treat (penny ice and cold meat) to a party of friends and relations
They're a ravenous horde, and they all come on board at Sloane Square and South Kensington stations
And bound on that journey you find your attorney (who started this morning from Devon)
He′s a bit undersized and you don't feel surprised when he tells you he′s only eleven
Well you're driving like mad with this singular lad (by the bye the ship's now a four wheeler)
And you′re playing round games, and he calls you bad names when you tell him that "ties pay the dealer"
But this you can′t stand so you throw up your hand and you find you're as cold as an icicle
In your shirt and your socks (the black silk with gold clocks) crossing Salisbury Plain on a bicycle
And he and the crew are on bicycles too, which they′ve somehow or other invested in
And he's telling the tars all the particulars of a company he′s interested in
It's a scheme of devices, to get at low prices, all goods from cough mixtures to cables
(Which tickled the sailors), by treating retailers as though they were all vegetables
You get a good spadesman to plant a small tradesman (first take off his boots with a boot tree)
And his legs will take root, and his fingers will shoot, and they′ll blossom and bud like a fruit tree
From the green grocer tree you get grapes and green pea, cauliflower, pineapple and cranberries
While the pastry cook plant cherry brandy will grant apple puffs, and three corners, and banburys
The shares are a penny and ever so many are taken by Rothschild and Baring
And just as a few are allotted to you, you awake
With a shudder despairing

You're a regular wreck, with a crick in your neck, and no wonder you snore, for your head's on the floor
And you′ve needles and pins from your soles to your shins, and your flesh is acreep, for your left leg′s asleep
A cramp in your toes, and a fly on your nose and some fluff in your lung, and a feverish tongue
And a thirst that's intense and a general sense that you haven′t been sleeping in clover

But the darkness has passed, and it's daylight at last
And the night has been long, ditto, ditto my song
And thank goodness they′re both of them over!