When footlights dim in reverence to prescient passion forewarned 
 My audience leaves the stage, floating ahead perfumed shift 
 Within the stammering silence, the face that launched a thousand frames 
 Betrayed by a porcelain tear, a stained career 

You played this scene before, you played this scene before 
 I the mote in your eye, I the mote in your eye 
 misplaced reaction 

The darkroom unleashes imagination in pornographic images 
 In which you will always be the star, always be the star, untouchable 
 Unapproachable, constant in the darkness 
 Nursing an erection, a misplaced reaction 
 With no flower to place before this gravestone 
 And the walls [bad word] enticingly newspaper thin 
 But that would be developing the negative view 
 And you have to be exposed in voyeuristic colour 
 The public act, let you model your shame 
 On the mannequin catwalk, catwalk 
 Let the cats walk, and the cat walks 

I've played this scene before, I've played this scene before 
 I the mote in your eye, I the mote in your eye 
 misplaced reaction, satisfaction 

You can't [bad word] me under the carpet, you can't hide me under the stairs 
 The custodian of your private fears, your leading actor of yesteryear 
 Who as you crawled out of the alleys of obscurity 
 Sentenced to rejection in the morass of anonymity 
 You who I directed with lovers will, you who I let hypnotise the lens 
 You who I let bathe in the spotlights glare 
 You who wiped me from your memory like a greasepaint mask 
 Just like a greasepaint mask 

But now I'm the snake in the grass, the ghost of film reels past 
 I'm the producer of your nightmare and the performance has just begun 
 It's just begun 

Your perimeter of courtiers jerk like celluloid puppets 
 As you stutter paralysed with rabbits eyes, searing the shadows 
 Flooding the wings, to pluck elusive salvation from the understudy's lips 
 Retrieve the soliloquy, maintain the obituary 
 My cue line in the last act and you wait in silent solitude 
 Waiting for the prompt, waiting for the prompt 

You've played this scene before