When a man of my age shaves his face in the morning,
Who is it that stares back and greets him?
The ghost of his father long dead all these years?
Or the boy that he was, still wet in the ears?
Or the terrible sum of all of his fears,
In the eyes of this stranger who meets him?
So his glance rarely strays from his chin or his jawline,
To face up to the truth of his soul,
It's the eyes he avoids so afraid to acknowledge,
Something strange, unexpected, out of control.
There are times when a man needs to brave his reflection,
And face what he sees without fear,
It takes a man to accept his mortality,
Or be surprised by the presence of a tear.
It was only an arrangement, a practical arrangement,
I forgot the first commandment of the realist's handbook,
Don't be fooled by illusions you created yourself,
And fall in love with someone, when she loves someone else.
Like a covering of snow on a winter's night,
It glistens and it sparkles in the moonlight,
But it's gone by the morning, how quickly it melts,
You still love her but she loves someone else.
And where does that leave you?
You self-styled man of vision.
You feel stupid, you feel angry, are you losing your mind?
To destroy the one she loves, does that become your mission?
Like a pantomime villain with an axe to grind?
To regain your self-respect, hold your head up like a man,
Use the ice around your heart before it melts,
But you're not fooling anybody, you're only fooling yourself.
Like a covering of snow on a winter's night,
It glistens and it sparkles in the moonlight,
But it's gone by the morning, how quickly it melts
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written by Mathes, Robert / Sumner, Gordon
Lyrics © EMI Music Publishing