Timeless Skies

Album: Time Passages (1978)
Play Video
  • While travelling northwards
    On a back country lane
    I came on the village
    Where first I grew
    And stopped to climb up
    The hill once again
    Looking down from the tracks
    To the grey slate roofs

    I watched the village moving
    As the day went slowly by
    In the field we lay here
    Lovers' footsteps went by
    In the fields we lay here
    My very first love and I
    Under timeless arcadian skies
    Under timeless arcadian skies

    The old canal lies
    Sleeping under the sky
    The barges are gone to a lost decade
    On overgrown banks here
    Lovers' footsteps went by
    Long before ever the roads were made
    And in our turn we passed here
    And carved our names on trees
    As the days washed by like
    Waves of an endless sea
    Under timeless arcadian skies
    Under timeless arcadian skies

    Time runs through your fingers
    You never hold at all till its gone
    Some fragments just linger with you
    Like snow in the spring hanging on

    I left the village behind in the night
    To fade like a sail in the darkening seas
    The shifts and changes in the patterns of life
    Will weather it more that the centuries
    And in another village in a far off foreign land
    The new day breaks out opening up its hand
    And the sun has the moon in his eyes
    As he wanders the timeless skies Writer/s: AL STEWART
    Publisher: Spirit Music Group
    Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Comments: 2

  • Mavis from Upper Great LakesSomehow Al Stewart has created a song that actually sounds like the English countryside. The only other song that holds this distinction is Peter Gabriel's "Solsbury Hill."
  • Sparrow from Somewhere East Of Nowhere OregonFor some reason all chroniclers mess up the text in line 30, although Al Stewart sings it quite clearly in this legendary song. Please do correct this omission. The line should read:

    You never hold at all till its gone
see more comments

Editor's Picks

Songs in Famous Movie Scenes: '80s Edition

Songs in Famous Movie Scenes: '80s EditionMusic Quiz

You know the scenes - Tom Cruise in his own pants-off dance off, Molly Ringwald celebrating her birthday - but do you remember what song is playing?

History Of Rock

History Of RockSong Writing

An interview with Dr. John Covach, music professor at the University of Rochester whose free online courses have become wildly popular.

Don Brewer of Grand Funk

Don Brewer of Grand FunkSongwriter Interviews

The drummer and one of the primary songwriters in Grand Funk talks rock stardom and Todd Rundgren.

Tim Butler of The Psychedelic Furs

Tim Butler of The Psychedelic FursSongwriter Interviews

Tim and his brother Richard are the Furs' foundation; Tim explains how they write and tells the story of "Pretty In Pink."

Paul Williams

Paul WilliamsSongwriter Interviews

He's a singer and an actor, but as a songwriter Paul helped make Kermit a cultured frog, turned a bank commercial into a huge hit and made love both "exciting and new" and "soft as an easy chair."

Experience Nirvana with Sub Pop Founder Bruce Pavitt

Experience Nirvana with Sub Pop Founder Bruce PavittSong Writing

The man who ran Nirvana's first label gets beyond the sensationalism (drugs, Courtney) to discuss their musical and cultural triumphs in the years before Nevermind.