I wouldn't say I was an old fool yet But a time arrives in the lives of men When a kindly mist enshrouds the holy past (We wouldn't make those mistakes again) The backward glance always a price to pay For who has lived that time has not battered? As we stand at the mercy of the sun No longer those whom the daylight flatters Sometimes the scent on a drifting breeze Draws us back to when all of our hands were clean When all the world seemed comprehensible What we had with all those simpler machines (And still we yearn for all those simpler machines) Shell shocked by the speed of life And nothing broken we know how to mend Bewildered by such perpetual delights We want to feel the wheels and architraves again And preciously, precariously Robust as porcelain figurines We take a bow and start to say goodnight Comrades for ever with all those simpler machines Locked into history with those simpler machines The scrapyard stars are glittering tonight The shards and smithereens No question, it is a sentimental sight Our toys and tools all of those simpler machines They'll break your heart alright, those simpler machines