Richard Hell releases his timely epitaph

Richard Hell and the Voidoids : Time

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"Only time can write a song that's really really real"

In April of 1980 Richard Hell released a seven inch EP which included some of his pre-Television work with Tom Verlaine in the Neon Boys as well as what may be his best Voidoids song, a ballad called "Time". Rolling Stone calls it "one hell of an epitaph". It is pretty much impossible to find.

I'm surprised to find no allusion to it in Hell's memoir I Dreamed I Was A Very Clean Tramp.

Time and time again I knew what I was doing and
Time and time again I just made things worse
It seems you see the most of what is really true when
You're stepping into your hearse
Only time can write a song that's really really real
The most a man can do is say the way its playing feels
And know he only knows as much as time to him reveals
And when I want to write a song that says it all at once
Like time sublimely silences the whys
I know that if I try I'm going to take a fall at once
And splatter there between my lies
Only time can write a song that's really really real
The most a man can do is say the way its playing feels
And know he only knows as much as time to him reveals
We are made of it and if we give submission
Among our chances there's a chance we can choose
And if we take it, by uncertainty's permission
Then it's impossible to lose
Only time can write a song that's really really real
The most a man can do is say the way its playing feels
And know he only knows as much as time to him reveals