Del Amitri

So you want me to play the bleeding role
Just so he can know how I needed you.
Well that's okay with me, it's a part I think I know
God knows he won't need to suspend belief.

I know it's just a game and losing you's
How it just begins...ain't that a funny way to win

So I run around dragging people down
Holding my broken heart like a cheap cartoon
Just so he can see it's a sucker who
Does to you what you did to me

I know it's just a game and losing you's
How it just begins...ain't that a funny way to win

So if there's another need that I can still serve
I'm low on self esteem but I'm high on nerve

You sent greetings from Liverpool
and I took the next train
Passed by people putting flowers on graves and
We got delayed
When I arrived you had vanished like steam
and left me in a diesel day
So I walked around and spent ten pounds
in amusement arcades

Felt like I was in a field
looking for a pin

It's a kind of loneliness
It's a kind of emptiness
But I'm not trying I'm just rehearsing
For the perfect day

When I want you, I'll come looking for you
Yes I will, yes I will, yes I will.

I took a spoon to the swimming pool
to drain your trace away
And I changed my name so only my looks remain
And if looks could kill I'd need a license for my face
'Cos where his fists put bruises
A scheming smile now takes their place

Felt like I was in a field
looking for a pin

It's a kind of loneliness
It's a kind of emptiness
But I'm not trying I'm just rehearsing
For the perfect day

When I want you, I'll come looking for you
Yes I will, yes I will, yes I will.

I turned on a T.V. station and
Lip-read with the sound turned down
It was Pro-Celeb mouth-to-mouth resuscitation
With Esther Rantzen
Playing the one who's drowned

In a room next door a couple is fighting
But isn't that just one of love's charms
When moods change as fast as lightning
And fifteen minutes later you're
Lying in each other's arms

And you're gone

They say that it's better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all
But if you sit down and count the cost of
All those losses
There's no profit at all

This city gets crazy at Christmas
Glitter guards the crucifix all over the place
Its head gets too big for its body
And its mouth gets
Too big for its face

And you're gone

Never throw away an old newspaper
Everyday's rich with its current accounts
Prince visits Philippines and parliament debates it
Back page, column five
Somebody's wedding's announced

Sunday night's the night for loving
And squeezing out the weekend's last drops
Sunday night's the night for forgiving
maybe that's why
They shut the shops

And you're gone

One day you wake up
And all the pain you've given out gets returned
But I'm not sorry now
I've payed for what I've learned

And you're gone

I turned on a T.V. station and
Lip-read with the sound turned down
It was the Church of Christ playing the Price Is Right
Where everybody starves
While Leslie Crowther counts.

Everybody in the funhouse
Says they want out
But we’re taking our time
’Cos we’re in love with time
Whole generations thinking of themselves
As infidels and pop stars
While the bomb loses patience
We line up and just lean against the bar
Stone cold sober, looking for bottles of love.
Caught in the headlights
Wide-eyed and ready to receive
We are the dead life
Locked in dogfights, lost in disbelief
And these dark days
Make the nights seem brighter than they are
So while Fleet Street rolls and the moon glows
In the funhouse the fun starts
Stone cold sober, looking for bottles of love.
Born in the half-light
Of threats and bribes
In a hopeless porn parade
We get the dog’s life, tidbits train us
What to wear, what not to say
When you’re footloose but you just feel limbless
Life gets in the way
So we get loaded or totally legless
But stay the same
Stone cold sober, looking for bottles of love.

A struck match faded like a nervous laugh
Beyond the halo of a naked bulb
Your low voice mingles with your other half's;
School friends in second-hand clothes
Eventually your world will shrink within four walls
Of neglected debts and stolen stereos.

So move away jimmy blue
Before your small, small town turns around
And swallows you

A drunk mother was the cue
For the legendary things that you do
Behind a carnival tent with mud on your face
Behind the old glue factory too.

So move away jimmy blue
Before your small, small town turns around
And swallows you

Wet feet visit the same old places
Finding nothing new
It's a binful of tissues from made-up faces
In a townful of nothing to do
A love match with the moon
In a lay by, while insects hum and
You got put in the darkness of a woman's womb
Jimmy blue.

So move away, yeah,
Move away jimmy blue
Before your small, small town
Turns around and swallows you.

We could be away from here
By ten o'clock tonight
Pennies won't get us to heaven, I know
But a borrowed car just might
Look through my wallet
There's enough for a hotel room
But no, no, no, you say
"I wanna stay in and get wet with you".

Why do you take the opposite view?

We could be different people tonight
Who do you want to choose?
I'll book a table in a suit and tie
And you can wear your sister's shoes
Look through my wallet
Which cities will we travel through?
But no, no, no, you say "You just got paid,
Money's not for wasting it's for holding onto".

Why do you take the opposite view?

Is it something in your nature
That makes it hard to say, "Baby, I do".
You don't have to agree
When someone says they love you
But you don't have to take
The opposite view

We can walk on the roofs tonight
And watch the midnight traffic flow
Unscrew the lightbulbs babe,
And we'll throw them from the 14th floor
I say we're yellow
If we don't do something new
But you just laugh and start filling up my glass
As if it's not true.

Why do you take the opposite view?

Every precious second is a chance to change
The present tense is perfect baby,
Let's rearrange it.

it seems like weeks since you looked at me baby
without that look of distaste
i don't know why your feelings are changing
but i've seen it in your face
all those times when our lips were kissing
our tongues were telling lies
and all those signs that i've been missing
were right there in your eyes
so come on babe let's kiss this thing goodbye

i sometimes feel when we're together baby
everything has turned out wrong
and i know you feel exactly the same way
but still we carry on
i've been waiting up by the window
watching these cars go by
and i tell myself that i'll go through the motions
for the last time tonight

so come on babe let's kiss this thing goodbye

now i'm watching the fumes foul up the sunrise
i'm watching the light fade away
and i'm hoping tonight that i'll open the door
and you'll stand here and say

come on babe let's kiss this thing goodbye
better make it sooner than later
before it all turns sour
we'd better kiss this thing
goodbye

What I want is everything to clear
So let the clocks be wrong
Let the evening be longer let me drown in here
What I want gets clouded by the sun
I can't see beyond
The petty things that living here brings everyone.
So get lost with me, let the whole world wait
Make it always be too late

What I want is right before my eyes
So set me up a drink
Pull the shutters down on all those prying satellites
'Cos what I want is everything to be clear
So if you stop your watch
You might stop the morning's cruel hammer falling here

So get lost with me, let the whole world wait
Make it always be too late

Baby, hold it, just let me try
For just one minute be this other guy
Live his life
With my home and my faithful wife
And your pretty face to kiss some nights

Ain't I a lucky guy, I get what I want
Ain't I a lucky guy, unlucky for some.

Baby, I like it, it feels alright
Now that I see it through his cheating eyes
I can't stop smiling
How could I not be satisfied
So glad I ain't the one on the losing side

Ain't I a lucky guy, I get what I want
Ain't I a lucky guy, unlucky for some.

No need to feel guilty baby
I'm happy to be
The one that you come to babe, instead of me

So I don't know where tonight
Love will lead me but that's alright 'cos

Ain't I a lucky guy, I get what I want
Ain't I a lucky guy, unlucky for some.

People say you are a stand up guy
You'd never hurt no one and you'd never try
And you laugh and you cry
And you do all the things that anybody does to show they are alive.

Friends say you are a careful man
You always favour reason where you can
And you laugh and you cry
And you do all the things that anybody does to show they are alive.

But wherever you go, whatever you do
You know that they won't find a fool quite like you.

Yeah life is full (of easy choices)
Yeah life is full (of simple rules)
But when love comes you don't have no room
When life is full.

People say you are a patient guy
You'd never rush something if it ain't right
And you make those mistakes that everybody does
And you deal with them as you go
From tripping on a shoelace to falling in love
You keep things under control

Honey, sometimes those big blue eyes
Can make me fall out of bed in surprise
In the bright morning sun,
In the howling wind, in the shirt you sleep in,
You're the one

'Cos it's you, that I tried to find
Every day and every night through all that nothing

The hands of fate, couldn't have done it all
As if the rain ever cared where it falls
And there were times when I know that I
Just fell in love to give myself an alibi.

'Cos it's you I was waiting for
Every day and every night through all that nothing

So it's true now, I can see
All that nothing that I knew
Was so something like you'd
Come to me...

Through all that nothing.

Nobody's perfect
And that's something that I'm sure she'll know
'Cos trying to tell her lies from the truth at times
Is like trying to divide ice from snow
And when I knew it was over
I jumped into a taxi and said, "Just guess where to go"
And the driver turned about and said,
"Finding what you want is like
Trying to divide ice from snow"

So here I sit, rolling back to bed
Knowing love's a hazard that I'd never guessed
But from this side of the morning I couldn't care less
I couldn't care less

Nobody's helpless
Although I've never felt this helpless before
And trying to persuade myself not to think about her
Is like trying to tell the clouds not to pour
So I'll put down the bottle
While in my head time is collapsing and the currents run cold
So I'll curse her memory
But don't try telling me that she was not the emerald in a mountain of coal
Or there's a crock of cures for cancer at the end of the rainbow

So here I sit, rolling back to bed
Knowing love's a hazard that I'd never guessed
But from this side of the morning I couldn't care less
I couldn't care less

She's the kind of girl who won't forgive but will forget
So take me from this party, driver, put me back to bed
I wanted to be loved but just got laughed at instead
So if this taxi's for hire
I'll get in the back just to feel the friction of the tarmac and the tyres

So nobody's perfect
And that's something that I'm sure she'll know
But trying to persuade myself not to think about her is like
Trying to tell the cockerels not to crow
Or like trying to tell the striker not to think about the goal

So here I sit, rolling back to bed
Knowing love's a hazard that I'd never guessed
But from this side of the morning
Yeah, from this side of the morning
Yeah, from this side of the morning
I couldn't care less

Someone's opening up for business
The morning rings the same old way
But someone should've taught me forgiveness
Now I see it in the cruel light of day

Tell him he's done me a kindness
She was going to leave anyway
But love is such sweet blindness
'Til you see it in the cruel light of day

Last night was just a comedy
And I woke up like a walking tragedy
And it was right in front of me
But I just laughed and turned my eyes away.

So pour me another cup of coffee
I ain't ever seen the city look so grey
And those pretty little diamonds in the darkness
They ain't no jewels in the cruel light of day.

No I ain't some accessory
She can slip off from her back and just fold away
I don't need no one undressing me
When I wake up in the same suit everyday.

So someone's opening up for business
The shutters roll so familiarly
And out of darkness comes relief sing the witless
But I don't see it in the cruel light of day.

Well, I talk like a boy to my baby sometimes
And you talk like a baby when your boy is crying
You made something to love but I love what I am
No family man

So don't tell me you've got something better than me
Don't say that it's a great mystery
It's just making love what you want it to be,
That's why I am no family man

And that is why all that I have in the world
Is an ocean of time with this beautiful girl

Have you got something to prove with your own little you
Have I wasted my time, cut through the family line
In the race to life, I am an also-ran
But I've run enough to know
I'm no family man.
Yeah I've done enough to know I'm no family man.

Open up your eyes,
Everything is crying out this could be your time
She fell out of the sky,
Must every star been working on
Heavenly designs

A crooked line of lightning, a silent movie moon
Mother nature's writing to you

So button up your lip
You don't get many chances in the time between the tides.
The weather's rolling in
In a minute flat you'll be soaking wet
So kiss her while it's dry

A crooked line of lightning, a silent movie moon
Mother nature's writing to you

Little snow white, she is sleeping 24 hours a day
She's got a right to be lazy, flat out of reasons to breathe
And it's cold baby, yes it's cold
But everything is relative can't you see we're living in

High times, dig the new domain
Living through high times, just don't crash my spiritual plane

Little snow white, she was hungry
Told to go out and graft for it
At the end of the rainbow she was mind blown
To be staring at a crock of shit
And it's hard baby, yes it's hard
But with a little intuition you can shift position in the

High times, touch the magic stone
Living through high times, pick up that spiritual phone.

Frittering packs of refuseniks, too drunk to muster any contempt
10 ways to relax on a cruise ship, one way to cover the rent
I've whored myself around enough to know, baby
You don't come with the customers and smile when you're spoken to in

High times, catch the cosmic vibe.
Living through high times, hey, has Ginger Baker died?
Living through high times, my planet's all out of line
Living through high times, man, just like '69

You can find another country if you want
Somewhere you can hide yourself away
Find yourself another set of holes to haunt
Get yourself another debt that you can't pay

Yeah, you can try to run for cover everywhere
Add another letter to your name
Burn everything you ever used to wear
Get yourself another lover that looks the same

But sometimes it's the medicine itself that makes the pain

Well, you can always make another move again
Another set of keys, a different town
And you can try to lose yourself in them
'Till the truth it catches up and cuts you down

'Cos sometimes it's the medicine itself that makes the pain

And you can always hide the wreckage that you come from
But every new disguise is just another lie to run from.

You can only try to fool yourself so long
With any kind of measure you can find
'Cos every phony pleasure you've been on
Has lifted off and left the pain behind.

'Cos sometimes it's the medicine itself that makes the pain

I've been in this place many times before
With my baby's things among my shoes and strings and clothes
But just because I'm here
Don't mean I can't run out that door
Ain't that what those running shoes are for?

Baby likes to sleep on floor boards bare
And just to keep the peace, well I join her there
And she might say to me
'A better man I can't recall'
But what I think she sees ain't me at all

It ain't me at all to need somebody
Like some lovestruck casualty
It ain't me at all to feel so ready
To be what I think she sees

Baby claims I kiss like I really care
Well, I guess I'd say I don't but the truth ain't fair
And sometimes she looks at me and says
'Babe, my heart just stalled',
But what I think she sees ain't me at all.

So you say you are sick of love
Got a mind to give the damn thing up
Got a housefull of stuff your lovers left
Gonna take a bus to the city dump with it

So you want to throw away the old you
But the old you's old enough to know
It won't make it better

Sick of being a loser, so you say
Gonna go out and choose a new personality
Ain't gonna look at her pictures, lie awake all night
You're gonna dazzle the future with your inner light

So you want to throw away the old you
But the old you's old enough to know
It won't make it better

I've set out on that mission too
A little revolution to forget her
Trying to make it better

I must've had a million damn unlucky days
But there ain't no cloud that a bottle can't chase away
I've done my deal of living, ran from place to place
But when the roof comes in I don't wanna take it straight

They say with faith any soul can make it
But hell, why should I wait
'Til the clouds go rain on some other sucker's parade

I've had my share of heartaches, let downs and tricks
But the everyday blues is the one thing I can fix
I've heard those holy brethren muttering my name
But it ain't no sin to drink when you're suffering

Patience, they say, is a saintly virtue
But hell, why should I wait
'Til the clouds go rain on some other sucker's parade
When every heavy sky just empties on your fate
Sometimes keeping dry's something to celebrate

So if the road of sin is the one I'm taking
I ain't gonna stray
'Til the clouds go rain on some other sucker's parade