Coil - Batwings (A Limnal Hymn)

(The key to joy is disobedience
There is no guilt and there is no shame)

A moon-piece to fetch up the golden cup
A snow-piece to avoid the great heat of the sun
Is kept in the night and by the light of the moon

An ice-piece so as they seem forever fallen
A night-piece of the dismal supper and strange entertainment
A rare chance-piece, a handsome piece of deformity
The skin of a snake bred out of the spinal marrow of a man

With stones and illegible inscriptions found about great ruins
Pictures of three remarkable steeples, or towers
Built purposely awry, so as they seem eternally tipping and falling

A transcendent perfume made of the richest odorates
Kept in a box of translucent scale

A glass of spirits made of ethereal salt, hermetically sealed up
Kept continually in quicksilver, of so volatile a nature
That it will scarcely endure the light
And therefore only shown in winter
Or by the light of a carbuncle, or a firefly

And batwings
And batwings
And batwings sing this limnal hymn
A wideness opening and closing to keep the darkness sealed within
To keep the darkness sealed within
To keep the darkness sealed within

To keep the darkness sealed within
A moon-piece to fetch up the golden cup

The singing that follows is not in English. When this song was played at John Balance's funeral service, Peter Christopherson described it as "a language that only he knows".