Grand Ilusion

This one works both ways. As I understand it, this song was written about the greed culture in America in the late 70's, nothings changed then! Various aspects of the spin machine are spending lots of time and money trying to persuade us to buy this or that to make our lives more complete. Our lives will never match up to the images on tv or in the magazines, because they are not real, they are an artist's impression. We can then easily get down on ourselves as we do not appear to match up to a perception of reality.

The other way of looking at it, in my opinion, is that we ourselves are living out a grand illusion. How often do we say "I'm fine" when asked "how are you?". How often do we actually mean either the answer, or the question? Also all too often we hear of someone who at face value has it made, who then admits loads of mistakes which had been well masked. If my life in action and words in public, do not match up with those in private, who am i fooling? The only person who will suffer in the long run is me, though others may be disappointed and feel let down.


Underneath we are all the same, whatever our skin colour, social status, or other man made dividing line. We are all made in God's image, and he sees through all our spin and pain. One day soon we'll stop and ponder, who the hell we are, and when we do hopefully God will reveal that we are his works of beauty, created to do his will.

Grand Illusion

Welcome to the Grand Illusion
Come on in and see what's happening
Pay the price, get your tickets for the show
The stage is set, the band starts playing
Suddenly your heart is pounding
Wishing secretly you were a star.

But don't be fooled by the radio
The TV or the magazines
They show you photographs of how your life should be
But they're just someone else's fantasy
So if you think your life is complete confusion
Because you never win the game
Just remember that it's a Grand illusion
And deep inside we're all the same.
We're all the same...

America spells competition, join us in our blind ambition
Get yourself a brand new motor car
Someday soon we'll stop to ponder what on Earth's this spell we're under
We made the grade and still we wonder who the hell we are


The following clip is again taken from the Return to Paradise tour of 1996.