This Masquerade
Written by Leon Russell.
Released on the 1982 album All By Myself. Shirley Bassey performed this song live in the TV special A Special Lady in 1983.
This song is originally a sole vocal track from Leon Russell's 1972 album "Carney", but it became famous with George Benson's recording 1976 on his album "Breezin'". Benson received three Grammy Awards in 1977: "Record of the Year" for this song, "Best Pop instrumental Performance" for the album, and "Best engineered Recording (non-classical)" for the recording engineer. Benson reached number 10 in the pop singles charts with this song, and the album even climbed up to number one on the pop LP charts.
Leon Russell is the "ultimate rock and roll session man". He was born in 1942 as Claude Russell Bridges. He has worked with and for many famous names for example Jerry Lee Lewis, Phil Spector, the Rolling Stones, James Burton, Dorsey Burnette, Glen Campbell, George Harrison, B.B. King, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, and Willie Nelson. He also arranged classics like Ike and Tina Turner's monumental "River Deep, Mountain High", and worked on hits like the Byrds' "Mr. Tambourine Man," and Herb Alpert's "A Taste of Honey." He scored his first song writing hit with Joe Cocker's reading of "Delta Lady," and in 1970, upon founding his own Shelter Records imprint, he also organized Cocker's legendary Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour.
This song has also been performed by other artists
for example "The Carpenters" 1973.
Lyrics
Are we really happy with this lonely game we play
Looking for words to say
Searching but not finding, understanding anyway
We're lost in a masquerade
Both afraid to say we're just too far away
From being close together from the start
We tried to talk it over, but the words got in the way
We're lost inside this lonely game we play
Thoughts of leaving disappear every time I see your eyes
No matter how hard I try
To understand the reasons why we carry on this way
We're lost in a masquerade
Both afraid to say we're just too far away
From being close together from the start
We tried to talk it over, but the words got in the way
We're lost inside this lonely game we play
Thoughts of leaving disappear every time I see your eyes
No matter how hard I try
To understand the reasons why we carry on this way
We're lost in a masquerade
We're lost in a masquerade
We're lost in a masquerade
We're lost in a masquerade
Masquerade
Masquerade
Masquerade
Masquerade
(Transcribed by Roman)