Song Lyrics

Short arctic desert day ---
And someone left their snow-shoes in the tundra.
Look around every which way
But I can't see just where the footprints go.
Is it a casual disappearance? ---
Plucked from the middle atmosphere
Like straw wind-blown.
No speck on the horizon ---
No simple message scrawled
Upon the snow.

Unearthly visitation ---
Someone left their snow-shoes in the tundra.
Hungry buzzard flier
Circling round and round
Rattling death's tambourine.

Have to run it down the cold wire ---
Late insertion in tomorrow's lost and found.
Should I spread out searching?
But I'm a little thin upon the ground.

So I raise my lips to coax
The last drop of brandy from the bottle.
Rest my feet and contemplate
The mystery that's haunting
This siberian space.

Show-shoes they bind me down ---
I'm just one more parasite of the surface layer.
I begin to get the feeling
I've been on this stage before
And I'm the only player.

One more arctic desert day ---
Another set of shoes out in the tundra snow.
I make my fade to white-out
And you can't see me where my footprints go.

Ian Anderson, Peter Vettese