NIGHTWISH LYRICS

1. Shudder Before The Beautiful

The deepest solace lies in understanding
This ancient unseen stream
A shudder before the beautiful
[Professor Richard Dawkins]

Awake, oceanborn
Behold this force
Bring the outside in
Explode the self to epiphany

The very core of life
The soaring high of truth and light

The music of this awe
Deep silence between the notes
Deafens me with endless love
This vagrant island Earth
A pilgrim shining bright
We are shuddering
Before the beautiful
Before the plentiful
We, the voyagers

Tales from the seas
Cathedral of green

The very core of life
Is soaring higher of truth and light

The music of this awe
Deep silence between the notes
Deafens me with endless love
This vagrant island Earth
A pilgrim shining bright
We are shuddering
Before the beautiful
Before the plentiful
We, the voyagers

The unknown
The grand show
The choir of the stars
Interstellar
Theatre play
The nebulae curtain falls
Imagination
Evolution
A species from the vale
Walks in wonder
In search of
The source of the tale

The music of this awe
Deep silence between the notes
Deafens me with endless love
This vagrant island Earth
A pilgrim shining bright
We are shuddering
Before the beautiful
Before the plentiful
We, the voyagers

2. Weak Fantasy

These stories given to us all
Are filled with sacrifice and robes of lust
Dissonant choirs and downcast eyes
Self-hood of a condescending ape

Behold the crown of a heavenly spy
Forged in blood of those who defy
Kiss the ring, praise and sing
He loves you dwelling in fear and sin

Fear is a choice you embrace

Your only truth
Tribal poetry
Witchcraft filling your void
Lust for fantasy
Male necrocracy
Every child worthy of a better tale

Pick your author from à la carte fantasy
Filled with suffering and slavery
You live only for the days to come
Shoveling trash of the upper caste

Smiling mouth in a rotting head
Sucking dry the teat of the scared
A storytelling breed we are
A starving crew with show-off toys

Fear is a choice you embrace

Your only truth
Tribal poetry
Witchcraft filling your void
Lust for fantasy
Male necrocracy
Every child worthy of a better tale

From words into war of the worlds
This one we forsake with scorn
From lies the strength of our love
Mother's milk laced with poison for this newborn

Wake up child, I have a story to tell
Once upon a time

Your only truth
Tribal poetry
Witchcraft filling your void
Lust for fantasy
Male necrocracy
Every child worthy of a better tale

3. Élan

Leave the sleep and let the springtime talk
In tongues from the time before man
Listen to a daffodil tell her tale
Let the guest in, walk out, be the first to greet the morn

The meadows of heaven await harvest
The cliffs unjumped, cold waters untouched
The elsewhere creatures yet unseen
Finally your number came up, free fall awaits the brave

Come
Taste the wine
Race the blind
They will guide you from the light
Writing noughts till the end of time
Come
Surf the clouds
Race the dark
It feeds from the runs undone
Meet me where the cliff greets the sea

The answer to the riddle before your eyes
Is in dead leaves and fleeting skies
Returning swans and sedulous mice
Writings on the garden's book
In the minute of a lover's look

Building a sandcastle close to the shore
A house of cards from a worn out deck
A home from the fellowship, poise and calm
Write a lyric for the song only you can understand

Riding hard every shooting star
Come to life, open mind, have a laugh at the orthodox
Come, drink deep let the dam of mind seep
Travel with great élan, dance a jig at the funeral

Come!

4. Yours Is An Empty Hope

Tear me to bits, enjoy the scene
Of screen name verbal vanity
Churning the words imbued in filth
Your tongue oily water under my bridge

You have the world, it's all for you
I wish you'd find the lost in you
Grateful for the pain, it proves we're alive
Can you feel it

I can't make you want the truth
It's up to you

Yours is an empty hope
Yours is an empty hope

Feed me to pigs in your fantasies
Your sea roars bitter elegies
Like narcissus who bribes the pool
A hollow voice ruin with a roof

Stop! Life is now, still all for you
Turn from the hate, turn from the smoke
I see the parchment of your soul
The notes, the song
Join your voice

I can let you have the world
It's all for you

Yours is an empty hope
Yours is an empty hope

5. Our Decades In The Sun

I climbed off your back
Not so long ago
To a blooming meadow
To a path you'd made for the lightest feet

Mother, I am always close to you
I will be waving every time you leave
Oh, I am you, the care, the love, the memories
We are the story of one

Father, I am always close to you
I will be waving every time you leave
Oh, I am you, the care, the love, the memories
You are forever in me

This verse we wrote on our road home
For you, all this for you
All this for you

Our walk has been sublime
A soaring ride and gentle leap
You have the heart of a true friend
One day we'll meet on that shore again

Mother, I am always close to you
I will be waving every time you leave
Oh, I am you, the care, the love, the memories
We are the story of one

Oh father, I am always close to you
I will be waving every time you leave
Oh, I am you, the care, the love, the memories
You are forever in me

6. My Walden

Sain y niwl,
Gwynt y goedwig fwsog,
Gwenith faen, ger y coed, a'r lleuad,
Un gwef adenydd i dapestri bywyd

light shines bright beyond all the cities of gold
On a road of bird song and chocolate shops
Of buskers, jugglers, innkeeper's welcoming call
The sound of mist, smell of moss-grown woods

Weaving my wings from many-colored yarns
Flying higher, higher, higher into the wild
Weaving my world into tapestry of life
Its fire, golden, in my Walden

I will taste the manna in every tree
Liquid honey and wine from the distant hills
An early morning green wood concerto
Greets my Walden with its eternal voice

Weaving my wings from many colored yarns
Flying higher, higher, higher into the wild
Weaving my world into a tapestry of life
It's fire, golden, in my Walden

Weaving my wings from many colored yarns
Flying higher, higher, higher into the wild
Weaving my world into a tapestry of life
It's fire, golden, in my Walden

Weaving my wings from many colored yarns
Flying higher, higher, higher, higher, higher, higher, higher, higher, higher, higher

I do not wish to evade the world
Yet I will forever build my own

Forever build my own
Forever my home

7. Endless Forms Most Beautiful

Come on; hop on; let's take a ride
Come and meet the travelers who came to town
They have a tale from the past to tell
From the great dark between the stars

We are a special speck of dust
A fleeting moment on an ark
A celebration, a rest haven of life

Lay on a field of green with mother Eve
With father Pine reaching high
Look at yourself in the eyes of aye-aye
Unfolding rendezvous

Deep into the past
Follow the aeon path
Greet a blade of grass
Every endless form most beautiful
Alive, aware, in awe
Before the grandeur of it all
Our floating pale blue ark
Of endless forms most beautiful

Beyond aeons we take a ride
Welcoming the shrew that survived
To see the Tiktaalik
Take her first walk; witness the birth of flight

Deeper down in Panthalassa
A eukaryote finds her way
We return to the very first one
Greet the one we'll soon become

Lay on a field of green with mother Eve
With father Pine reaching high
Look at yourself in the eyes of aye-aye
Unfolding rendezvous

Deep into the past
Follow the eon path
Greet a blade of grass
Every endless form most beautiful

Alive, aware, in awe
Before the grandeur of it all
Our floating pale blue ark
Of endless forms most beautiful

Deep into the past
Follow the eon path
Greet a blade of grass
Every endless form most beautiful

Alive, aware, in awe
Before the grandeur of it all
Our floating pale blue ark
Of endless forms most beautiful

8. Edema Ruh

One by one we light the candles of this show
One by one, enter the theatre of the primal birth
Silently watch the planetary curtain go down
Laugh and rejoice, as the powerful play greets you tonight

[Chorus:]
We are the Edema Ruh
We know the songs the sirens sang
See us dream every tale true
The verse we leave with you will take you home

[Verse 2]
We’ll give you a key to open all of the gates
We’ll show you a sea of starlight to drown all your cares
Mirrorhouses, the sweetest kisses and wines
A Debussy dialogue between wind and the roaring sea

[Chorus]

[Guitar solo]

[Bridge]
Dance to the whistle to the play to the story
To infinite encores
Laugh at the royalty with sad crowns
And repeat the chorus once more

[Chorus]

9. Alpenglow

Once upon a time a song was heard
Giving birth to a child of Earth and verse

Together we slay another fright
Every Jubjub bird, spooks of the past
Close your eyes and take a peek
The truth is easy to see

We were here, roaming on the endless prairie
Writing an endless story
Building a Walden of our own
We were here, grieving the saddened faces
Conquering the darkest places
Time to rest now, and to finish the show
And become the music, one with alpenglow

Hand in hand guiding me into light
You, the fairy tale guise in blue and white

Together we slay another fright
Every Jub-jub birds moves soft and fast
Close your eyes and take a peek
The truth is easy to see

We were here...
We were here, roaming on the endless prairie
Writing an endless story
Building a Walden of our own
We were here, grieving the saddened faces
Conquering the darkest places
Time to rest now, and to finish the show
And become the music, one with alpenglow

You are my path, my home, my star
A beautiful tale within the tale
And when the dust needs to move on
I will tuck us in on a bed of snow
Painting white, silencing the valley we built
Together we'll sleep, devoured by life

We were here, roaming the endless prairie
Writing an endless story
Building a Walden of our own
We were here, grieving the saddened faces
Conquering the darkest places
Time to rest now, and to finish the show
And become the music, one with alpenglow

We were here, roaming on the endless prairie
Writing an endless story
Building a Walden of our own
We were here, grieving the saddened faces
Conquering the darkest places
Time to rest now, and to finish the show
And become the music, one with alpenglow

10. The Eyes Of Sharbat Gula

[Instrumental]

11. The Greatest Show On Earth

[1. Four Point Six]

Archaean horizon
The first sunrise
On a pristine Gaea
Opus perfectum
Somewhere there
Us sleeping

"After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn't it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it?"
[- Professor Richard Dawkins]

[2. Life]

The cosmic law of gravity
Pulled the newborns around a fire
A careless, cold infinity in every vast direction

Lonely farer in the Goldilocks zone
She has a tale to tell
From the stellar nursery into a carbon feast
Enter LUCA

The tapestry of chemistry
There is a writing in the garden
Leading us to the mother of all

We are one
We are a universe
Forbears of what will be
Scions of the Devonian sea

Aeons pass
writing the tale of us all
A day-to-day new opening
For the greatest show on Earth

Ion channels welcoming the outside world
to the stuff of stars
Bedding the tree of a biological holy
Enter life

The tapestry of chemistry
There is a writing in the garden
Leading us to the mother of all

We are one
We are a universe
Forbears of what will be
Scions of the Devonian sea

Aeons pass
Writing the tale of us all
A day-to-day new opening
For the greatest show on Earth

We are one
We are a universe
Forbears in what will be
Scions of the Devonian sea

Aeons pass
writing the tale of us all
A day-to-day new opening
For the greatest show on Earth

We are here to care for the garden
The wonder of birth
Of every form most beautiful

[3. The Toolmaker]

After a billion years
The show is still here
Not a single one of your fathers died young
The handy travelers
out of Africa
Little Lucy of the afar

Gave birth to fantasy
To idolatry
To self-destructive weaponry
Enter the god of gaps
Deep within the past
Atavistic dread of the hunter

Enter Ionia, the cradle of thought
The architecture of understanding
The human lust to feel so exceptional
To rule the Earth

Hunger for shiny rocks
For giant mushroom clouds
The will to do just as you'd be done by
Enter history, the grand finale
Enter Ratkind

[3x]
Man, he took his time in the sun
Had a dream to understand
A single grain of sand
He gave birth to poetry
But one day'll cease to be
Greet the last light of the library

We were here
We were here
We were here
We were here

[4. The Understanding]

[5. Sea-Worn Driftwood]

"We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Sahara. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of those stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?"
[- Professor Richard Dawkins]

"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."
[- Charles Darwin]







NIGHTWISH LYRICS