The Black Swan

Too hot to move, too hot to think
American sailors
Falling over you
Goodbye little boy
Bottle of love
The spinning top song
Butterflies into worms
The clown prince
Good fortune rose
New year's greetings
One mechanic town
Blackeyed susan
Fairytale love  
   

TOO HOT TO MOVE, TOO HOT TO THINK

I can hear the timer ringing
I can hear the whistle blow
I can hear the customers, they're saying
"Yes, it's time to go home"

Everything has been delivered
Everyone has called it a day
There's the doorman checking in his pocket

for his weekly pay

Chorus :
And from this window, I can see the street below
I can hear the hit parade on the radio
There's dirty dishes piling up in the sink
But it's too hot to move, and it's too hot to think

Outside the dog is growling
In a dark and hollow tone
He'll be going out tonight, there's nothing here
to make him stay at home

I can hear the baby crying
Listen... Mama's crying too
No-one gets much sleeping done
till they've been crying through and through

Chorus


  AMERICAN SAILORS

American sailors are in town
My sisters wear their thin summer frocks

And dance with anyone
Bathing their shoulders in the night air
Kisses on the lawn

FALLING OVER YOU

I was always... I was always... stop!
- wait a minute. I'll remember...I think it was September...
Taking off time, taking off clothes
Taking more than I needed I suppose
Taking rides in strangers' cars

Handsome lips, topless bars
Falling down the stairs in a white wedding dress
Looking like a mess, just like I never close
Off somebody's balcony, I suppose
Falling out the window into the warm wet night
You gave me such a thrill then you gave me such a fright
...yes I remember that particular night

I was always falling over you

All that summer long one night ran into another
I was falling over you when I didn't know your number
I was always...I was always...stop!
- wait a minute. I'll remember...it was really December...

I was always falling over you

 
  GOODBYE LITTLE BOY

Said you didn't need me
Said you had to leave me
So I helped you pack your bags

And I showed you to the door

Thought I heard a cab door
Just before I hit the cold floor

But I woke up in the morning
And I drank a little more


You said I cramped your style
I didn't make you smile
And all my sweet nothings

Came to nothing in the end

Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye little boy


Phone rang in the night
I woke up with a fright

You crying "Something isn't right"
And you were coming home again

You said you'd changed your mind
You'd been thinking 'bout the good times

How we should always be together
And forever you'll be mine


Why don't you leave for good this time
Do me a favour, stop wasting my time
I'm tired of drinking, fighting and crying

Why don't you leave for good this time

Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye little boy

(Don't hold your breath, read my lips

I've got a million other suckers to get my kicks
Do me a favour, stop, wasting my time
I'm so tired, I'm so fucking tired)

BOTTLE OF LOVE

I' m a little man
but I need more love than the next man
I'm a starving man
I take all that I can
Oh, from the bottle of love

I'm a broken heel
but it takes more than that to make me cry
Really I'm as hard as steel
I just got something caught in my eye
Oh, from the bottle of love

I'll fall for anything stronger than myself
I will heal physician, heal myself

(Hush me up, and rock me slow)

Well nothing happens here
Not too much gets done
But you get to like it
You get to like the drinking and the swimming around
Oh, passing around the bottle of love
 


  THE SPINNING TOP SONG

Well I made goot time but took some bad advice
I got lost in the salt lakes maybe once or twice

Days went missing, weeks they folded in two

I lost track of them. I don't pine for you


You're either on my arm or under my heel

Hurt me all you can, you don't know how good I feel
Everything I touch turns to purple and gold
I keep on living like this. I know I'll never get old

Chorus :
I'm a spinning top, I'm a catherine wheel
I'm a sideshow freak, I'm a ribbon of steel
Listen good buddy to the words of my song
I never fade out cos I'm already gone, yoo-hoo

yeah yeah yeah, yodelay-hee-ho...

I'm an open cut I take too much dirt

I never close up I drink an ocean of hurt
I am a topless bar I make you feel alright
Flashing neon sign says "Open All Night"

(chorus)

Well I'm cold and hungry but don't hold me tight

I just shake cos I'm living at the speed of light


(chorus)


BUTTERFLIES INTO WORMS

All you daughters, all you sons

Learn your lesson from what I've done
I threw away the gift of love
between every line I've ever sung

A thousand times I looked you in the eye
And every time I mixed the truth with lies
But it seemed so good and it seemed so right
Singing gospel in the yellow evening light

Chorus :
Yesterday the world was mine

And every trick I learned
The only trick I remember now
Is turning butterflies into worms

Don't put no net down below
Don't call for my hand or try to see me down slow

As I turn away from the morning sun
To the bottle upon the shelf
So tell me who to turn to baby,
who to turn to now, when you're with somebody else

(chorus)


 
  THE CLOWN PRINCE

"Principe, principe
¿quien te robo la corona?"

Little clown prince, you thief of frowns,

saddest face, most open heart of all the clowns
Your graceful wife, your weightless jest
condems to shadows all the rest
Oh wooden saint, oh wondrous boy, so strange and so sweet,
the marque lights slip beneath your feet

How high and well you waltz and dip!
Nimble step upon the wire, hand on dandy hip

With crimson sash and pride unfuried
You float above this stinking world

You part our seas, you fill our cup
We laugh and cry untill we cry "Enough!"

You feign to fall and women tug their hair
They gasp in fear as you skip across the air
Let them weep, let them burn for you

Where were they when they could have learned from you?

Let them weep, let them burn for you

Where were they?

Little clown prince, you thief of frowns

Same dawn table every night, you knock them down

Friday night spreads out against the sky
Men and women drinking take-home pay
Fluorescent lights, a dab of powder, a splash of grease paint
The trash floats in, the scum floats out

They sweep under the bar what they can't kick out
This land of tears, such a secret place

This land of tears, such a secret place

Only a dollar for the prince of clowns, only a dollar
and he'll steal your frowns, only a dollar for his tinsel crown

Only a dollar for the prince of clowns

"No Llores mi nino
lagrimas, lagrimas en secretos ocultos"


GOOD FORTUNE ROSE

I've been looking for a free telephone
Thought I'd ring to say I was catching the 12.20 home
Out here (yeah yeah, shut the door)
I get so lonely
Out here I get so bored

This is my America this is the place I'm meant to be
With the many tiers of the building smiling down on me
That was my brother you know
Now leave him alone
Out here daddy sas summer's almost gone

Dream let me dream
I'm on that golden train
Rushing past porch lights
Under sheets of rain
Cos in my mind's eye
i can see my dreaming rise

From my window seat my home-coming looks so sweet
You say: "Now just mind the step at the doorway
While I reach the light"
Out here I call myself
Good Fortune Rose
Out here Good Fortune Rose

Out here I call myself
Good Fortune Rose
Out here Good Fortune Rose


  NEW YEAR'S GREETINGS (The Country Widower)

I've got a little place to myself up on Stony Ridge
I got it made in the shade
I sleep in the afternoon
Leave my bed unmade
No-one breathing down my neck, black coffee and a shave

I whistle a little of whatever AM radio plays
As for letters and provisions...
Well it's a long walk to the corner shop
In the January heat, it's a big decision

To either think of you, or not

Chorus :
I send you a New Year's Kiss
And I hope you will remember me like this

I got two good arms, one bent leg,
One weekly social security cheque
I can make an honest dollar, but to be quite honest

I can't keep track of where it went
I've got a good black dog, so I don't need a phone
He can smell bad weather coming in his old dog bones
I don't need no Eyewitness News, no Seven Eleven

No Southern Fried Chicken, no Man from Prudential
To give me good times on easy terms
No Eyewitness News

And in the evening when the skyline is cut in two
By a figure resembling you
Wet matches won't light, and I double take
Wind shuders to a halt, main roads are washed out
And all around, as far as the night can see

is just the gaping lack of you and me

I hear you're riding a new horse in the sun
Sure hope those Sydney shoeshine boys don't take you for a run

I still want you back, when it's all said and done

(chorus)

Let the sky roll back/Let the ground give way
The wind has turned around/The seasons upside down
To either think of you/Or not
To either think of you/Or not



ONE MECHANIC TOWN

She sank without a trace in a little one mechanic town
All the old folks shrugged their shoulders when I asked around
She was the spooky type who never made a sound
But who was always there when you turned around
She was always there when you turned around

Braided chestnut hair, skinny white legs
Is she swimming from the willow, is she swimming in the dregs?
Is this the late-night stretsch where she lost control?
Where her little white car wrapped itself around the pole?
Wrap her up, can't you see she's growing cold!

Where she want to run to? Why she want to go?

Now the white wax flowers frow covering the mound
Where she sank without trace in a little one mechanic town

Where she want to run to? Why she want to go?


  BLACK-EYED SUSAN

You my backdoor blackeyed susan
You my ship adrift

You my compass spinning dervish
Saint with broken teeth

You my drowning altar boy
You my thistle child

You my fallen Irish wake
Our appetites entwined


Dissolve so I may love you
Lie beside me, lie beside me

Lie beside me on the ground

You my cheap spent penny token
Useless currency

You my swinging plastic jesus
My star upon the sea


You and your bare shoulders
I have to hold them just to stop you, just to stop you
from coming apart


You my backdoor blackeyed susan
You my driving blind
Now you lay me down to sleep
Goodnight my love goodbye


Dissolve so I may love you
Lie beside me, lie beside me

lie beside me, lie beside me

for a while



  FAIRYTALE LOVE

In an earlier time, in a green land above
By the mill and the willows we made fairytale love
With the sky a warm blanket, and our backs to the rain
We thought that our pleasure would always remain

No blemish of lust, flesh unfreckled by sin
A heart made like clockwork, white marble for skin
Still waters green pastures, with one caress of your hand
I swear even the wild dog lies down with the lamb

We thought that our pleasure would always remain
Soft fairytale kisses again and again
The last moment we touched, by the river you shone
The black swan spread its wings and hissed
lo! the night came on

In an earlier time, in a green land above
By the mill and the willows we made fairytale love
With the sky a warm blanket, and our backs to the rain
We thought that our pleasure would always remain


Recorded September/October 1988 in The Justice Room, Cathanger, Somerset, England.