The Lizards

(album: The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday - 1987)

Passing through the corridor I came upon an aging knight
Who leaned against the wall in gnarly armor
He was on his way to see the king
Wilson
Wilson
Wilson
He led me through the streets of Prussia talking
As he tried to crush a bug that scurried underneath his bootheel
He said there was a place where we should go
So he lead me through the forest to the edge of a lagoon by which
We wandered 'til we reached a bubbly spring
The knight grew very quiet as we stood there
Then he lifted up his visor and he turned to me and he began to sing

[Chorus:]
He said I come from the land of darkness
I said I come from the land of doom
He said I come from the land of Gamehendge
From the land of the big baboon
But I'm never never going back there
And I couldn't if I tried
'Cause I come from the land of Lizards
And the Lizards they have died
And the Lizards they have died
And the Lizards they have died
And the Lizards they have died

He told me that the Lizards were a race of people practically extinct
From doing things smart people don't do
He said that he was once a Lizard too
His name was Rutherford the Brave and he was on a quest to save
His people from the fate that lay before them.
Their clumsy end was perilously near
The Lizards would be saved, he said, if they could be enlightened
By the writings of the Helping Friendly Book
In all of Prussia only one existed
And Wilson had declared that any person who possessed it was a crook

[Chorus]

The Helping Friendly Book, it seemed, possessed the ancient secrets
Of eternal joy and never-ending splendor
The trick was to surrender to the flow
We walked along beneath the moon
He lead us through the bush 'till soon
We saw before our eyes a raging river
He said that we could swim it if we tried
And saying this the knight dove in forgetting that his suit of arms
Would surely weigh him down and so he sunk
And as his body disappeared before me
I bowed my head in silence and remembered all thoughts that he had thunk

[chorus]

But Rutherford and Forbin weren't alone. And suddenly an unexpected movement caught his eye. On the far side of the river he saw a shaggy creature standing in the weeds who stared across at Forbin with an unrelenting gaze. A gigantic mass of muscles and claws. The hideous beast reared back and hurled himself in the water and swam toward the region where Rutherford lay. And in a flash, the beast was gone, underneath the surface to the frosty depths below while Forbin, bewildered, waited alone. The seconds dragged by in what seemed like hours till finally the colonel felt it all had been a dream. Defeated, he bowed his head then turned to go. Suddenly with a roar, the creature emerged before him and held the brave knight's body to the sky. And the creature laid the knight upon the shore. And the colonel fell beside his friend in prayer that he'd survive. And Rutherford, brave Rutherford was alive.

Forbin and the unit monster were crouched over the soggy knight carefully removing his bulky helmet when the colonel heard a sound behind him. He turned around and came face to face with an enormous shaggy horse-like creature covered from head to tail with alternating blotches of brown and white. It was a two-toned multi-beast, and atop the multi-beast sat the most beautiful woman the colonel had ever seen. After fifty-two years of undaunted bachelorhood, the colonel felt a feeling rush over him as he had never felt before.