Written and recorded March 2021

If you could see what this life has done to me...

If you could see what this life has done to me
Losing your mind, well you know it's a crime
When you're doing your time
In a prison of what you believe
But misery is not my kind of company
One of these times I'm still hoping to find
The right mountain to climb
'fore the river runs out to the sea...

One of these days I'll get there
One of these days you'll see
One of these days all the love that I gave
It will find its way back to me
One of these days I'll get there
One of these days you'll see
One of these days when I find all the ways
Then the wonder will set me free
Yes the wonder will set me free

Can you see how this life's a mystery?
Standing in line and you're feeling resigned
That you're not going to find
All the answers before you should leave
But sympathy's not my kind of therapy
Not to rewind but to come from behind
If my stars are aligned
'fore the river runs out to the sea...

One of these days I'll get there...

I know I haven't always been so kind
Trapped inside my soul
I'd like to think I've done the best I could
With what I could control
But I don't want to go and turn back time
Just to find
That every time it comes around
I'd do the same things now

One of these days I'll get there...

And then you'll see, yea you'll see
What this life has done to me...

2021

One of These Days

Recorded August 2021 by Martin Szinger / Victory Hearts
This is a cover of the first part of King Crimson's song Lizard
Musically, a great many liberties were taken
The lyrics are by Peter Sinfield; they were not changed.

Farewell the temple master's bells
His kiosk and his black worm seed
Courtship solely of his word
With Eden guaranteed
For now Prince Rupert's tears of glass
Make saffron sabbath eyelids bleed
Scar the sacred tablet of wax
On which the Lizards feed

Wake your reason's hollow vote
Wear your blizzard season coat
Burn a bridge and burn a boat
Stake a Lizard by the throat

Go Polonius or kneel
The reapers name their harvest dawn
All your tarnished devil's spoons
Will rust beneath our corn
Now bears Prince Rupert's garden roam
Across his rain tree shaded lawn
Lizard bones become the clay-
And there a Swan is born

Wake your reasons' hollow vote
Wear your blizzard season coat
Burn a bridge and burn a boat
Stake a Lizard by the throat

Gone soon Piepowder's moss-weed court
Round which upholstered Lizards sold
Visions to their leaden flock
Of rainbows' ends and gold
Now tales Prince Rupert's peacock brings
Of walls and trumpets thousand fold
Prophets chained for burning masks
And reels of dream unrolled...

Wake your reasons' hollow vote
Wear your blizzard season coat
Burn a bridge and burn a boat
Stake a Lizard by the throat

Prince Rupert Awakes

Tagalong
Recorded 2022 by MArtin Szinger / Victory Hearts

I take back the hurtful words I sent your way
Let's get back to sweet nothings we used to say
I'm cold & tired & I don't want to make the same mistake

You know we never made a promise but come what may
But now our road is winding longer every day
You bear my burdens but I'd never want your heart to break
And now you wake
And so I say

Live your life, you know you've got to
Do what's right, and if you have to
Save yourself, I only want to
Tag along, can I be with you when you're gone?

My girl, I knew you were a winner right from the start
But this world is only ever going to try to break your heart
If I could help you I hope by now you know I'll do my part
It's not so hard now
Coz' baby you're the art

Live your life...

Who's gonna miss me when you're gone?
Who's gonna kiss me when you're gone?
Who's gonna miss me when you're gone?

Whatcha gonna do when it all comes back in spades
The deals you made with the cards you played
At the masquerade?

Live your life...

Live your life...

Who's gonna kiss me when you're gone?
Who's gonna miss me when you're gone?

2022

Tagalong

It's Lickatung!
(c) 2019 Martin Szinger / Victory Hearts
Recorded Oct-Nov-2019

You got a problem you're tryin' to solve
You got a Pokemon you want to evolve
So find a trainer and give him a call and then
You just give him a lick

You got an envelope and stamp to send
You got a lollipop that's nearing its end
You want to drive your sister round the bend?
You just give her a lick, lick woo!

Take a look atta Lickatung
If you could lick like a Lickatung you could be one!
Take a look atta Lickatung
If you could lick like a Lickatung you could be one!
...You could be one!

In a tournament Lickatung is pretty tricky
Situations that he puts you in are sorta sticky
Learns to Rollout and then evolves to Lickilicky
He will give you The Lick

If your life is like a dungeon or a mystery
And no one ever even seems to wants to let you be
Licktung is choosing you and me
You just give him a lick lick woo!

Take a look atta Lickatung
If you could lick like a Lickatung you could be one!
Take a look atta Lickatung
If you could lick like a Lickatung you could be one!
You could be one!

Take a look atta Lickatung
If you could lick like a Lickatung you could be one!
Take a look atta Lickatung
If you could lick like a Lickatung you could be one!
You could be one!
You could be the one!

2019

It's Lickatung!

Limelight
(c) 2020 Victory Hearts / Martin Szinger
Cover of the Rush song, music Lee/Lifeson, lyrics Peart
Additional lyrics Martin Szinger

Living on a lighted stage approaches the unreal
For those who think and feel
In touch with some reality beyond the gilded cage

Cast in this unlikely role
Ill-equipped to act with insufficient tact
One must put up barriers to keep oneself intact

Living in the limelight
The universal dream for those who wish to seem
Those who wish to be must put aside the alienation
Get on with the fascination
The real relation
The underlying theme

Living in a fisheye lens, caught in the camera eye
I have no heart to lie
I can't pretend a stranger is a long-awaited friend

All the world's indeed a stage and we are merely players
Performers and portrayers
Each another's audience outside the gilded cage

Living in the limelight
The universal dream for those who wish to seem
Those who wish to be must put aside the alienation
Get on with the fascination
The real relation
The underlying theme

Living in the limelight
A love in the supreme
But nothing's as it seems
Defying every expectation
Say it with no explanation
And move the picture forward scene by scene
A frame by frame of what might have been

Living in the limelight
The universal dream for those who wish to seem
Those who wish to be must put aside the alienation
Get on with the fascination
The real relation
The underlying theme
The real relation
The underlying theme

2020

Limelight

Pandemic Song

Martin Szinger / Victory Hearts
Lyrics 2002, 2020
Recorded April 2020


Tell me as we walk along through the flames of Eden
Had the serpent got it wrong? It's us that did decieve him
As the pilgrim song did draw us from a distant shore
So we drift along unknowing of the days before
If we wonder why, we might still refuse to know
Earth and sea surrender to the prison of our keeping


Out beyond these ancient stones where prophets once lay sleeping
We would heal the broken bones and hearts lay low from weeping
Now our rites of man are shaded by the light we shine
So we shape our world with hands both dirty and divine
If we've gone too far, we would be the last to know
Bird and beast resign their mortal coil and take their leaving


Tell me as we walk along through the flames of Eden
Did compassion keep us strong and love endure all seaons?
As the darkness blinds us, grasping for our earthly home
So we come to see an ending finding us alone
If we bend and fall, broken by the miles to go
Sun and moon are patient as they wait on Earth's new breathing

If we've gone too far, we would be the last to know
Sun and moon are patient as they wait on Earth's new breathing

Pandemic Song

People Say

Martin Szinger / Victory Hearts
Lyrics 1995
Recorded April 2020


(Us and them and after all we're only ordinary men
 Me and you, God only know it's not what we would choose to do
 Black and blue and who knows which is which and who is who?
 Up and down and in the end it's only round and round)

People say these things about me
I just want to know if they're true
People say these things about me
Man but they can be so cruel
People only try to hurt me
What am I supposed to do
When people say these things about me?
I just hope it isn't you

Desperate people on the brink
Telling stories from the news
If they'd only stop and think
I would pour them a drink and tell them what I know
It's nothing new

People try to steal my loving
I just thought you ought to know
People try to steal my loving
I don't want to let it go
People only use my loving
They're lined up in a row
People only use my loving
I just hope you're laying low

Desperate people on the brink
Telling stories from the news
If they'd only stop and think
I would pour them a drink and tell them what I know
It's nothing new

(Down and out, it can't be helped if there's a lot of it about)

Desperate people on the brink
Don't know the pain they cause me now
If a tear escape my eye
It might help them realize
It might help to make them kind

(With, without, and who'll deny it's what the fighting's all about?)

Desperate people on the brink
Telling stories from the news
If they'd only stop and think
I would pour them a drink and tell them what I know
It's nothing new

Nothing to say when I know it's nothing new

People Say

True, True, True

Martin Szinger / Victory Hearts
Lyrics 2010
Recorded May 2020


I chalk it up to my living right
That I don't cry myself to sleep every night
It's not so much that I've seen the light
Is that I can't find a reason not to put up a fight
I know you want that I'm doing well
When once it was up to you
For all the times that I thought I might
Well my heart's not coming back if it wasn't true

True, True
True, True, True

You make believe but I see how you've
Knocked the beehive over and it don't behoove
It's just a theory I'd like to prove
Is that you don't blame the needle when it skips the groove
I know you hope for my happiness
Like a half-filled glass would do
For all the mountains I had to move
Well my heart's not coming back if it wasn't true

True, True
True, True, True

Kicking, screaming, bloody murder from a distance
Picking meaning doesn't make a world of difference
Always scheming, keep believing
Until you've made those dreams come true

True, True

You take your chances and pay your dues
And if a heart gets broken it's yesterday's news
You spin the wheel and it's win or lose
But how the story gets told is all up to you
So one day you'll look back and say
It was just the thing to do
For all the offers I can't refuse
Well my heart's not coming back
No my heart's not coming back
No my heart's not coming back if it wasn't true

True, True
True, True, True

True, True
I'm telling you that it's all true

True, True, True

Faster Than Your Feet

Martin Szinger / Victory Hearts
Lyrics 2003
Recorded June-July 2020


Look down, faster than your feet
Look down, the wheels will turn
Look down, faster than your feet
You're torn, then you learn
Look down, master on his knees
Look down and freedom earn
Look down, faster than your feet
You're borne, then you burn

Look up until you see your face
Look up, the mirror makes a place
Where time and space defy velocity
Hold onto secrets that you knew 
Remember wishes that are true
'Til come what may is our philosophy
Is our philosophy

Look down, faster than your feet
Look down, the wheels still spin
Look down, faster than your feet
Your scorn, but then you win
Took down the bastards on the beat
'Looked down upon your skin
Look down, faster than your feet
You're born when you begin

Look up until you see your face...

Look up until you see your face...

'Til come what may is not enough
And justice freedom truth and love
Is what our lives must be

Faster Than Your Feet

Fiasco!

Martin Szinger / Victory Hearts
Music & Lyrics September 2020
Recorded September 2020


Hey, I just can't make it go away
Hey, it's a fiasco everyday
Hey, I heard the things that people say
They seem to like a new disaster every day
They say fiasco's not a real word anyway


Hey, now you've become a big disgrace
Hey, you've got fiasco on your face
I'm going to rock the vote and try and save this place, I hope that
They don't shoot me, disappear me, or lock me in a cage
Cause that's fiasco life inside a failed state


Hey, you best be careful what you say
Hey, now the fiasco rules the day
It doesn't think, it doesn't love, it won't obey
We took our history and threw it all away
But look out now for the fiasco ricochet

Martin Szinger / Victory Hearts

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