Nutter Alert de Van Der Graaf Generator

It might come in a letter,
Darkness falls in a telephone call;
I await the unexpected
With one ear to the party wall.
Is it the pricking of the conscience,
Is it the itching of hair shirt,
Is it the dictionary definition
Of a precipice to skirt?
It's the nutter alert.

Though this face is familiar
Something in it has bred contempt;
I never asked for your opinion
Or your back-handed compliments.
Oh, but here comes that special nonsense
All the words out in a spurt,
The unhinging of the trolley
As the mouth begins to blurt...
It's the nutter alert

I can see we're in trouble
From that glint in the eye you've got;
There's no sense to the story,
Comprehensively lost, the plot.
And how contorted is that logic
You so forcefully exert:
You're a car crash in the making,
Head-on, that's a racing cert.
It's the nutter alert,
This is the nutter alert.