Many musicians look on their lyrics as poetry that reveals their inner depths. For Eno, though, the sound of the words in sequence is what matters. He reacts against the idea that the lyrics are the "meaning" of the song: in his view, the lyrics are just another component, along with the sound of the guitar or the rhythm of the piece.
That's one of the reasons why traditionally there was something of a piecemeal approach to lyrics here on the EnoWeb. We felt that it was better if they were left a little obscure. On the other hand, we got a lot of mail along the lines of "Hey you jerks! Why aren't all Eno's lyrics up on your site? You're useless!" So there was obviously some public interest in them being here. But when we replied to such correspondents, thanking them for their kind felicitations and enquiring whether they might consider helping us to bring the archive up to date, we seldom heard anything back from them. Odd, that.
We decided to adopt a different tack: instead of a jumble of lyric files, we
would present the lyrics from all the released songs (based on the versions
printed in More Dark Than Shark) in a friendly format, together with
detailed information and commentary from interviews with Eno where it exists.
And to keep the original obscure aspect, we decided to incorporate the lyrics
that people think they've heard, which often appear to be closer to the words
sung than More Dark Than Shark. Month by month, these pages build up
into an enchanting partwork heirloom that you will want to treasure and hand
down to your children (as quickly as possible).
Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy
Nerve Net (Advisory: contains the "F" word.)
Other miscellaneous lyrics
Both from Diamond Head, now available for purchase on CD from Phil Manzanera's site.