Kate Tempest - The Mouse Hiding Out In The Lion's Hair lyrics

Truth is golden
It's not up to me to speak it
Each needs to seek it for
Themselves and keep the secrets
Me? I fall down beneath it saying
That all things are holy
And I'm not trying to show you
What nobody could show me
I'm just trying to reach out
And stop me feeling lonely
Cause nobody's alone and that will
Set your soul free
In fact
Come here I wanna hold hands
And stroll through the cold breeze
I wanna tell you about the time
I met this old man
Mouth full of gold teeth
Now he told me
His whole plan changed
When his homeland changed and
I was humbled and the thunder rumbled
And his laugh was like a
Tin can kicked down cobblestones
And they hear his voice in the treetops it
Sings at me when I'm on my own
He told me "Everybody needs
Everybody bleeds but you've got
To show peace
If you want to know peace"
It was rock 'n roll street beat poetry
I said "I weep for
The grief overloading me"
He said "All things happen as they happen
Child," he told at me
His words rang rings around me
Like I was Saturn
He was older
I was younger but we were openly discussing
I told him "I ain't going to
Stop at nothing" he smiled knowingly
He said "Child
You need to know something,"
He said "The fire in your belly
Will eventually be dampened
Your eyes will be broken windows
In abandoned houses
You will stand around
In the crowded precincts
Not even wondering
What made me sink into the sludge
I fought against for so long, every day
Will just be another day trying to hold on
You'll sit and get tearful, listening
To the old songs but you won't feel
The heat you'll only notice when
The cold's gone
"I was like"
Nah man not me, nothing's
Ever going to stop me "He said" fine
Remember that in due time
When you've bent your back
For ages trying to make changes
You'll realise trying to make
A change is dangerous "I said"
Change ain't dangerous man
Change is essential "He said"
Change don't come at the end
Of your pencil
Change comes in each mind that is ready
To embrace a new way of seeing things
A new way of being in this world"
It was me and him sat there in the fleeting wind

A couple minutes passed and we didn't speak
A thing and then he said "Don't you see?
One day you'll be old like me
And all the things that you hoped
You be won't even matter, deep water
Don't notice the little stone that disturbs its surface

Beneath the little ripples it's
Just surging on
I said "But man I was born with a thirst
And a purpose big enough to preserve
And my verse is strong, all I want to do
Is rouse souls with the words
I'm emerging from more detergent wrongs
Of these merchant slums
I don't pray to the no virgin sun
I pray to the burning sun, and
I don't suffer no fools who believe
That their learning's done
I believe the universe is one
And I know that my work is search
And run and keep moving
Ripping my chest with the lyrics
To step on my breath in the city
It tickles my flesh in the middle
Of this whole ridiculous mess
Trust they mellifluous yes I keep flowing
Cause me? I'm half priestess half circus freak
Bright eyes and the dirty teeth
Yes I'm weak and I'm nervous but
I will keep my feet on the kerb
I'm the geek who can work a beat
And we can speak till' the morning creeps
But you'll never stop me trying
To reach for them sprawling peaks
Cause I believe they are ours to find
"He was like"
Alright, now I know for sure
You've got the stars inside
Here's a little message for your
Heart's and mind for your heart's from mine
"He told me"
In this life of hypertense you must
Keep burning bright if your light's
Intense you must never lose sight
Of what you fight against
You must accept that you can never know
What your life has meant
And if you write to vent well that's fine
But you should write to set alight
Cement and change time"
He said "If you're the type with a
Light to share you need to know
It takes a mighty heart to try hard
In the lion's lair when everybody's
Out for the lion's share you need
To be like the mouse hiding
Out in the lion's hair
That's when he fixed me with a kind of stare
I never seen before and then he hobbled away
The night opened her mouth up
And swallowed the day
And I sat there on that bench feeling
Lost in the grey and I
Swore to myself I would honour every
Word he had offered my way