Forsaken Gardens chords by Peter Hammill

Forsaken Gardens (PETER HAMMILL: The Silent Corner, The Empty Stage)


(No chords, just voice.)

F                Dm
Where are all the joys of yesterday?

F                 (already piano:) Dm
Where, now, is the happiness and laughter that we shared?

Am7               G
Gone, like our childhood dreams, aspirations and beliefs -

      Am      F
Time is a thief, and he ravages our gardens,

               Dm
stripping saplings, felling trees,

F                         Dm
trampling on our flowers, sucking sap and drying seeds.

Am             G
In the midnight candle-light of experience

      Am          D C B
all colour fades, green fingers grey...

G                  Em
Time, alone, shall murder all the flowers,

G                              F
still, there's time to share our plots and all that we call 'ours'.

Am                         F
How much worse, then, if we all deny each others' needs

A#     F    Dm    C
and keep our garden's privately?

Am                    Em
Its getting colder, wind and rain leave gashes;

Am               F   G   Am G Am
looking back, I only see the friends I've lost.

Am                 Em
Fires smoulder, raking through the ashes

Am
my hands are dirty, my mind is numb,

  F   G Am G  F
I count the cost of 'I':

Em                   Bm
"I need to get on, I've got to tend my garden;

Em                     C D  Em Bm
got to shut you out, no time to crave your pardon no_ ow".

F#m Bm G# A# C

F                         Dm
Now I see the garden that I've grown is just the same
as those outside;

F                        D#
the fences, [that] erected to protect, simply divide...

Gm
There's ruination everywhere, the weather has

    D#
played havoc with the grass -

Gm                        F
does anyone believe his [their] garden's really going to last?

Am                        F
[and] In the time allotted us, can any man keep miserly his own?

Am                  F   Em Am
Is there any pleasure in a solitary growth?

F G Am G Am Em Am

Am G Am G F

Em Bm Em C D Em

Bm F#m Bm G# A# C C# Fm

F               Dm
Come and see my garden if you will -

  F                        Dm
I'd like someone to see it all before each root is killed.

Am7        G
Surely now its time to open up each life to all -

        Am7          D C B
tear down the walls, if its not too late!

G                Em
There is so much sorrow in the world;

G                       F
there is so much emptiness and heartbreak and pain;

Am                        F
Somewhere on the road we have all taken a wrong turn -

A#     F       Dm   C F C A#
how can we build the right path aga_  _in?

       Am7        Gm
Through the grief, through the pain,

                Am7
our flowers need each others' rain...