On the platform of an old railway station I enter a dream 
And a couple are saying good-bye through the noise and the steam 
But it's just "Brief Encounter" my mind is trying to rerun 
And I wait for the poignant finale but the dream has moved on 

And the train has turned into a ship that is sailing away 
And the platform is a beach full of shells under silvery grey 
And the girl on the beach is an English Prime Minister's daughter 
And she watches the ship disappear at the edge of the water 
And it feels like the pain in her heart will be never-ending 
And everyone feels this way in the beginning 

And she watches the ship disappear for the length of a sigh 
And the maker of rhymes on the deck who is going to die 
In the corner of some foreign field that will make him so famous 
As a light temporarily shines to illumine his pages 

Then the scene has changed once again; now it's moonlight on wire 
And the night is disturbed by a sudden volcano of fire 
And a skull in a trench gazes up open-mouthed at the moon 
And the poets are now Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon 
And nobody talks anymore about losing and winning 
And everyone feels that way in the beginning 

And I'm up in the air looking down at a girl on a bed 
She's lying asleep on her side with a book at her head 
And it's someone who left long ago 
Was it something I said? 
And I hope that she's reading "King Lear", but it's "Twelfth Night" instead. 

Now the girl and the beach and the train and the ship are all gone 
And the calendar up on the wall says it's ninety years on 
I go out into the yard where the newspaper waits 
There's a man on the cover we all know, defying the fates 
And he seems very sure as he offers up his opinion 
Well everyone feels like this in the beginning 

When you feel that the pain in your heart will be unending 
Everyone feels this way in the beginning 

If you feel that the pain in your heart will be never-ending 
Well everyone feels that way in the beginning