And will we see a barren world
Where only one god reigns supreme
A world where death is the only dance
And every song’s the same
Where all obey one single line
And colours fade to monochrome
Where forests fall and tarmac carves
Through meadow hill and stream
Where day by day the wildness dies
Till there is nothing left to save
And will we see the earth put on
A uniform grey as the grave?
And does it have to be that way
And does it have to be that way?
[Chorus:] [1]
For all life is holy the poet once said
And all that is different is part of the dance
And the web of life’s colours needs each single thread
For the dance to continue unbroken.
Where only one god reigns supreme
A world where death is the only dance
And every song’s the same
Where all obey one single line
And colours fade to monochrome
Where forests fall and tarmac carves
Through meadow hill and stream
Where day by day the wildness dies
Till there is nothing left to save
And will we see the earth put on
A uniform grey as the grave?
And does it have to be that way
And does it have to be that way?
[Chorus:] [1]
For all life is holy the poet once said
And all that is different is part of the dance
And the web of life’s colours needs each single thread
For the dance to continue unbroken.
[1] The chorus is pure Blake, incorporating on the one hand the isolated, individualistic Blake who preferred abstract divinity to politics, and on the other the revolutionary Blake who saw perhaps more clearly than anyone else the fantastic, kaleidoscopic potential of human liberation..
Contributed by giorgio - 2020/8/29 - 10:35
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Lyrics by Chris Foster & Leon Rosselson, based on a poem by William Blake
Music by Chris Foster & Leon Rosselson
Album: Intruders [1995]
Presented on Intruders as a coda to provide a positive ending to the album, "All That is Different" was one of two songs originally written for Chris Foster's A Sting in the Tale stage show. Based on a line from William Blake's book, America A Prophesy, the song looks at the world of the future and revolves around a question: does it have to be that way? (Leon set more of Blake's lines to music in the 1960s - the poem, "The Garden of Love" - later recording it for Love Loneliness Laundry (1977).
This song was recorded separately from the rest of the album, with Leon not present (it features just Chris Foster and Sianed Jones). We might therefore speculate that it was originally intended for release as a Chris Foster recording, for whom it was originally written (No Chris Foster release is known to this reviewer).