Peter Hammill Lyrics
"Stumbled"

Wash your hands clean
Don't let anybody see the dirty work
Keep those secrets locked away from sight forever
Hidden safely where your darker side still runs berserk

So much stored-up resentment
All that background fallout from so long ago
It's still here to haunt you in a trunk locked in the attic

Are the clothes that dressed the actions
You discarded but you can't outgrow
There's a false wall in the basement
Where you hide away the history you dare not put on show

And when the hammer
Hits the nail upon the thumb
Then the unvarnished truth is what you stumble on

On your best behavior
Keep on playing out the lily white
But you'll always be stuck there
Going round and round in circles

The mistakes which you repeat
Form up the framework
Which defines your life

You couldn't quantify the depths you'd have to plumb
Or the damage you've collaterally done
Still, your own footprints are the tracks you stumble on

And it's less by design than by random occurrence
That you filled up your time, that you built up the current
To spark the life you've led, the person you've become
With the end in sight the excuses are all gone

The truth is, this conclusion's
What you've stumbled on
Behind you lies the wreckage
That you've stumbled from