Billy Bragg - Reaching To The Converted (2001) by Billy Bragg (보컬) on maniadb.com

Shirley
It's so exciting to be sleeping here in this new room
Shirley
You're my reason to get out of bed before noon

Shirley
You know when we sat out on the fire escape talking
Shirley
What did you say about running before we were walking?

Sometimes when we're as close as this
It's like we're in a dream
How can you lie there and think of England
When you don't even know who's in the team?

Shirley
Your sexual politics have left me all of a muddle
Shirley
We're joined in the ideological cuddle

I'm celebrating my love to you
With a pint of beer and a new tattoo
And if you haven't noticed yet
I'm more impressionable when my cement is wet

Politics and pregnancy are debated as we empty our glasses
And how I love those evening classes

Shirley
You really know how to make a young man angry
Shirley
Can we get through the night without mentioning family?

The people from the church agree
It's not much of a career
Trying the handles of parked cars
Whoops there goes another year
Whoops there goes another pint of beer

Here we are in our summer years
Living on ice cream and chocolate kisses
And would leaves fall from the trees
If I was your old man and you was my missus?

Shirley
Give my greetings to the new brunette

If you hate me, why don't you go?
And if you love me, why don't you let me know?
But you just won't give me an inch, so
You just sulk

Why do I want to hide whenever you show up?
You know your moods just make me want to throw up
Why don't you just bloody well grow up?
You just sulk

All of the time,
Why don't you pick me up or throw me a line?
All over the place,
Why don't you tell me what you think?
Come on and tell me to my face

If you love me, why don't you show it?
If you hate me, why don't you let me know it?
Why don't you just pick up something and throw it?
You just sulk

If you want to bend my arm,
Well you could do it with a little more charm,
But you just couldn't bear to do me any harm
So you just sulk

And you tell me that you want to quit
And then you treat me like a piece of shit
And when I ask you, what's that got to do with it?
You just sulk

Ad lib, and fade

WORDS: Billy Bragg - MUSIC: Billy Bragg & Cara Tivey

I've always been impressed with a girl
Who could sing for her supper and get breakfast as well
That's the way I am, heaven help me
He said, "We don't like peace camapigners 'round here"
As he nailed another one to the wall
And that's what gets me in trouble, heaven help me

Goodbye and good luck to all the rubbish that you've spoken
Goodbye and good luck to all the promises
you've broken
Your life has lost its dignity, its beauty and its passion
You're an accident waiting to happen

There you are standing at the bar
And you're giving me grief about the DDR
And that chip on your choulder gets bigger as you
get older
One of these night you're gonna get caught,
It'll give you a pregnant pause for thought
You're a dedicated swallower of fascism

Time up and time out
For all the liberties you've taken
Time up and time out for all the friends that
you've foresaken
If you choose to waste away like death is back in fashion
You're an accident waiting to happen

And my sins are so unoriginal
I have all the self-loathing of a wolf in sheep's clothing
In this carnival of carnivores,
Heaven help me

The Boy Done Good


Strange as it may seem, I once had my football dreams
But I was always the last one, the last to get chosen
When my classmates picked their teams

I guess that was the way it stayed in every game I played
Life just tripped me and clattered and kicked me
Till you picked me from the parade

Now I feel like I've won the cup every time that we
make love
Forty-five minutes each way, at halftime I hear a brass
band play

The boy done good, the girl done better,
The seasons turn and we're still together,
The sky is still blue and tomorrow is another day

You weren't that kind of a girl who likes her studs to
be covered in mud
Taking you to the pictures was a regular fixture
For one of life's eternal subs

I tried hard acting tough, but I just can't stand the
taste of that stuff
Like some macho park player I got in the way of
In some grudge match against his club
But I'm happier how I am today now I've put my
boots away
I guess I'll never get picked to play my song on Match
of the Day

I have a letter from her
When she worked for the "Woman's Realm"
And all the things she promised me
She promised herself as well
She said, "I want my freedom"
And ran off along the beach
It's hard to love a girl so near
Yet so far out of reach

She came back when the tide came in
And introduced her friend to me
She said, "Don't ring while he is here"
And gave me back my poetry
She expected me to understand
As she's always done this before
And now she asks me
"Why don't you send me poems anymore?"

And she steals more than she buys
You can see it in her eyes
And she'll come back as soon as she's ready
She's a bad penny

Then she comes back and asks me
To sing all her favourite songs
As if she's never been away
As if she's done nothing wrong
But I've come to the conclusion
That she doesn't realise a thing
And she probably still thinks I love her
And she doesn't know that it's a sin

Music: lookofsky/sansome/calilli

The wind sways the trees and the raindrops on the leaves
Tumble down, down my neck in the breeze

Yes, it's true I hid out in the shadow of your doubt,
And this medal that I wear is not for bravery, I'm afraid

And we're both going to have to accept
That this might be as good as it gets
As our love for each other respects
Neither rule nor reason

The Queen on her throne plays Shirley Bassey
records when she's all on her own
And she looks out the window
And cries

What should I do? Scratch off all of my tattoos?
And forget those girls' names?
But you're not about to let me do that, are you?

And we're both going to have to accept
That this might be as bad as it gets
As our love for each other respects
Neither rule nor reason

And we're both going to have to accept
That this might be as big as it gets
As our love for each other respects
Neither rule nor reason

The party that became so powerful by sinking
foreign boats
Is dreaming up new promises because promises
win votes
And being resolute in conference with the
ad man's expertise
The majority by their silence shall pay for days like these

The right to build communities is back behind
closed doors
'Tween government and people stands the right arm
of the law
And shame upon the patriot when the mark of the
Bulldog Breed
Is a family without a home and a pensioner in need

Those whose lives are ruled by dogma are waiting
for a sign
The Better Dead Than Red Brigade are listening on the line
And the liberal, with a small L cries in front of the TV
And another demonstration passes on to history
Peace, bread, work, and freedom is the best we
can achieve
And wearing badges is not enough in days like these

On Monday I wished it was Tuesday night
So I could wish for the weekend to come
On Tuesday I wished that the night would pass
So I could call you on the phone
Now a man can spend a lot of time
Wondering what was on Jack Ruby's mind
And time is all I have without you here

On Wednesday when you hung up
It was as much as I could do
To stop from wishing Thursday
Would pass so quickly too
They're out there making history
In the Lenin Shipyards today
And here I am in the Hammersmith Hotel
Wishing the days away

There's always room for one more soul
Down in the Human Zoo
I don't want you to come here though
I want to come home to you
Somebody's knocking at the door
Its later than I think
And its time to put on these stinking clothes
And get out there and stink

On Friday I wished there was something more
To be seen in the letters you send
On Saturday I wished it was Sunday
Oh will this torment ever end
Sometimes I get a notion to put a torch
To the tools of my trade
Here I am in the Hammersmith Hotel
Wishing the days away

Whenever you find a man
That loves every woman he sees
There's always some kind of woman
That's putting him up a tree

Well that kind of man he ain't got
As much sense as a mule
You know every woman don't love you
They're just playing you for a fool

Ooh, oh no
It's not hard for you to understand
True love can be such a sweet harmony
If you do the best that you can

If you marry the wrong kind of woman
And you get where you can't agree
Well you just as well forget your plan
Let that woman be

But a man ought to make a good husband
And quit trying to lead a fast life
Going around dressing up other women
Won't put clothes on his own wife

Ooh, oh no
It's not hard for you to understand
True love can be such a sweet harmony
If you do the best that you can

Well there's lots of good women want to marry
And they want to live well at home
But they're 'fraid they might get hold of some rowdy man
Can't let other women alone

And there's lots of good men want to marry
And they want to live well at home
But everytime they turn their back there's a man there
Asking, "Darling, is he gone?"

Ooh, oh no
It's not hard for you to understand
True love can be such a sweet harmony
If you do the best that you can

True love can be such a sweet harmony
If you do the best that you can