My Egyptian Couch - Al Stewart

Now here’s a book full of photographs

That my ancestors made some generations ago

They’re wearing the lastest clothes in a nautical way

The Suez Canal close behind is frozen in time

The deck crews star out of a mime

And they seem to be considering me

Here on my Egyptian couch

O the life on Edwardian steamships

Is measured and slow, while down below

There are fires that shudder and clang and thunder

And sweat-caked in smoke, and cauldrons to stoke

To send the ship on her way

Tasting the salt and the spray

And a century later I scan the equator

From my Egyptian couch

And the news every day brings

Contains the strangest of things

But with confident smilesw my forebears decline

To gaze into the wings

So they look from the photographs

And they’re curious now, wondering how we turned out

Let’s say like the Chinese adage

We’re living our lives in interesting times