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A Forest (Early version two, live at La Bataclan 1979) Lyrics
Someone had to see,
And someone had to watch,
You really didn't lie, again.
????
You lied before
But no-one wants to know
What you are.
Staring at the ???
Your sister's on the ground
Of the nightclub.
And dance with the trollop
You don't ???? her name,
Gonna be ????
For a little while...
[One one example of several songs from late 1979 played to what would become the tune of "A Forest" and the second of two played at a gig at La Bataclan. Sometimes referred to as "At Night".]
And someone had to watch,
You really didn't lie, again.
????
You lied before
But no-one wants to know
What you are.
Your sister's on the ground
Of the nightclub.
And dance with the trollop
You don't ???? her name,
Gonna be ????
For a little while...
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There are several terribly confusing things about the pre-1980 versions of "A Forest". First is that at both the De Melkweg and Le Bataclan shows, they performed it twice. Apparently it is sort of like the reprise of "Seventeen Seconds" during encores on the Picture Tour, although the second versions of this tune are always a minute longer than the first. Another is the actual name of the song; For the first, no name is given, while for the second at De Melkweg, it is called "At Night", and, to make matters worse, has almost the same lyrics as the first version at La Bataclan! I can see the lyrical parallels with the later song, for example the "someone had to watch" line (it makes a lot more sense if you've read Kafka's vignette). Robert was probably working out the kinks with each performance, finally putting a particular set of lyrics to this tune (one of the earliest versions has very similar lyrics to the album version) and putting the "At Night" ones to a more fitting one.
i agree, robert knew what he wanted this song to be but it just couldn't come out right. plus they had so much in them at this time, the early period. the song names can get confusing because bootleggers were never really that concerned with getting names right, just getting the product out as soon as possible. it turned out to be a staple of any great cure set.