"The Mousetrap (Caught In)" lyrics - PETER HAMMILL

After all is said and done,
Not very much will have been either way:
I'm a chronicler of action,
I'm an actor in the play.
I know the lines I have to speak,
I know that I won't ever quit, corpse, or dry,
But the performance gets so pointless
And the days just drift on by.

Every time that I go to turn the pages of the calendar
In the third act of this twenty-ninth year of the show
I'm aware of the latest leading lady and get mad at her...
It's perfunctory, but why she'll never know.

When I began I had my hopes,
Believed that I could be a leading light of the stage,
But now I've stunned myself to silence,
Exhausted all my inner rage,
Extinguished all my joy and violence,
Trapped all my feelings in a cage.

And every time that I go to turn the pages of the calendar
I can see that I'm not really going anywhere;
All these years I have skirted round experience like a scavenger.
Can I really feel? I wonder if I dare?
At the end of the run, will there be anyone who cares?
And behind the actor's pose, heaven knows
If there's anyone left in there.