Nine Cats

(album: On The Sunday Of Life - 1991)

[Lyrics: Alan Duffy / Music: Steven Wilson]

The butterfly sailed on the breeze
Past a field of barbed wire trees
Where golden dragons chased around
Pampered poppies on the ground
Two silver trout sat way on high
And watched a royal samurai
Plant two black orchids in a box
And strap it to a laughing fox
A minstrel bought a crooked spoon
He gave it to a blue baboon
Who filled it full of virgin snow
And watched it in the afterglow

Fat toad stood in his ballet shoes
Teaching sixteen kangaroos
How to skip across a lake
They found it hard to stay awake
A pharaoh played a merry tune
And watched nine cats dance on the moon
I didn't know what all this meant
I didn't know why I'd been sent.

The Insignificance version of Nine Cats has the
following additional verse at the end:

I threw 5 clocks down on my bed
The chimes danced out on golden threads
And turned to footprints on my wall
Sequined tears began to fall