"Bareknuckle Trade" lyrics - PETER HAMMILL

And when you feel you can't go on what kind of laurels do you look to? Sometimes we get what we want, sometimes we take a good hook too. Once you thought you were so strong...some young pretender came and shook you. Now there's a lesson to be learned: we must respect what is gone and still expect there'll be something more, but there's a tab left to pay for the experience we're gaining day after day as our knuckles are grazed by the marks that we made with the tools of the trade.A telegraph is on its way that might explain my every action. Sometimes we get what we want and then forget what we came here for. From fitness to decay we trade in opposite attractions. There are still lessons to be learned and when we get what we want we find it less than we might deserve. Now I'm a little bit lost, not for the first time I'm here in some disarray and returning in spades are the hands that I've played with the tools of the trade. If I learned my lesson well I've got time to buy and sell with the tools of the trade.
"What do you want? What do you get? What do you want? What do you expect?" What you want, what you want's not what you get. The tools of the trade, look what you made with the tools of the trade. But what price has been paid for the tools of the trade? And here's a message in my hands, though I'm not sure I can decode it. Sometimes we get what we want and yet still don't know quite what that is. Timidity be damned - hang on to that towel, never throw it. Still there are lessons to be learned: if we don't get what we want at least we get to request the bill, carrying on until the last one is standing still in the game. With quick breath we all pay for the fists that we made: these, the tools of the trade.