Peter Hammill Vainglorious Boy Lyrics

I said steady up, settle down, make way for the Idiot Boy. He's here to sell you some kind of a story; like a stuck-up sore thumb he'll be coming on bashful and coy, all of the while pumping up his vainglory.

I said give it up, slap it down, idolise the Idiot Boy; love's what he wants, or at least some attention and he believes all the hype... like an archetypal Geijin-cum-goy he plays up the Alien Genius Pretension.

He'd fake his own confession to get you on his side.

Oh, I say lighten up, calm it down, time out for His Idiocy now. What's going to happen when the audience dwindles? The tide's out, the ride's up, the world's got no comfort somehow truth to tell, it'll be himself that he's swindled in a broken-down profession of over-weaning pride. Nowhere to hide....
Heaven sent compliments that were meant sincerely fall flat and the bitterest pill is the one he can't swallow.

The idiotic thing is what we have always known: however great success is, however far you've flown you'll come to face this audience: yourself, yourself alone.

You'll come to face yourself alone, you idiot, idiot boy!