Wasted
I wasted my youth
Worrying I was wasting away
Waiting for someone to say
You're number one
Under the carpet
Where most of my life was lived in darkness
Waiting for me to start to work it out

Twenty Three
I moved to town at twenty-three
And launched myself in society
From a squat in Archway N.19
Looking for a thrill.
I fell in love with ecstasy
Which seemed to fuel my vanity
I swore to write just poetry and live upon a hill.

It wasn't her my love it was me
Looking for another way to see
Looking for another place to be.

I sang my songs of Birmingham
How did you relate to them?
Did you dig the proletarian way I got it wrong?
I bet you never thought I'd dream of you
More than that I'd fall for you
Walk just to bump into you
Like you bumped into this song.

It wasn't her my love it was me
Looking for another way to see
Looking for another place to be.

And I'd betray my childhood,
Betray my class if I could
For a moment truly understood
A reason to believe.
In ornamental flower beds
There in blooms the memory
Of all those who can't come back to me
The love we have to leave.

It wasn't her my love it was me
Looking for another way to see
Looking for another place to be

The Family Coach
All aboard the family coach
It's leaving Bamville Road
Christmas 1968
The Christmas when it snowed.
Whilst on board the family coach
They were circling the moon
No one had been there before
And they'd be landing there in June (July I know)

Hey hey family coach
My family coach
You've got to make the most
The most of your family coach

Meanwhile on the family coach
The postillion quietly spoke
He said, "You can not leave your family coach
And this is not a joke
We must work out our differences
Though none of us may change
We all take different routes through life
But your coach will stay the same".

Back on board Apollo 8
They had gone behind
And the human family held its breath
And wondered what they'd find.
Our family coach can stay on earth
Or be a rocket ship
But wherever you may go
Your kin will share the trip.

Now it might well appear to you
That they were simpler days
The family coach is smaller now
Some have passed away
But there's never been a golden age
Nostalgia's for the lame
The best is always yet to come
It's that kind of game.

Hey hey family coach
My family coach
You've got to make the most
The most of your family coach.

The Laundry
Walk with me through the scrapyard
Passed yesterday's most wanted cars
Piled high in the daylight
Chicken skins in the dustbins
Fur coats in the wardrobe
Spare bed in the good night

Don't bother with the bills
Fly

Walk with me in the moonlight
Hear the freight trains roll
From another life
Remember your bedroom ceiling
Remember those old patterned curtains
When you were sleeping
Don't worry who will see
Cry

Nobody grows old
We just crease and fold
Like the laundry
Nobody will die
We're hung out to dry
In the garden.

Suburban Symphony
You lived in the Laburnums
Down avenues of ancient beech
Across a mile of parquet floor
To bitter kisses at your door
Like an advertisement for a motor car

In your suburban childhood
Did you fly on wild horses
From your bedroom
Out the backdoor
By the veranda?
In your suburban symphony
Did you play the side drum in the garden
Or the timpani
Boomy midnight
By the pylons?

With nothing on beneath your skirt
The wonders of this breathing earth
Days spent staring into space
Before the seasons start to race
Like a skier and a speedboat

In your suburban childhood
Did you fly on wild horses
From your bedroom
Out the backdoor
By the veranda?
In your suburban symphony
Did you play the side drum in the garden
Or the timpani
Boomy midnight
By the pylons?

You made me fly.
The bees were buzzing in your ears
To the rhythms of the shears
Time wasted trying to make sense
Of the threads of consequence
Like a Cartier on a skeleton

In your suburban childhood
Did you fly on wild horses
From your bedroom
Out the backdoor
By the veranda?
In your suburban reverie
Did you climb out the window
Just to meet me
In the darkness?
On the common ground of our childhood.

Notebooks
Mao badge and arts lab.
A cigarette on the bus
Bus to school
Comprehensive school.

Music and books before
Girlfriends and looks going,
Anaglypta in cinnamon.

Notebooks II
Back in 1975 when cupid saw me take a dive
I didn't think that I'd still be
Thinking of you now so wistfully.
You never took me through your hallway
Never led me up the stairs.
Past the years of useless longing
And where you used to say your prayers.

And it's hard for me to stay
Harder still to stay away.

The whisper of your mind
Ties the flowers to the rain.

Monks & drum machines
Transparent phrases
Fame & fortune future slogans
One magical truth
Please stay with me I still love you
Candle candle up a tree
We all need you please believe me
I saw you in a dream
We took a train
paperback book in my pocket
Destroyed on subway walls
the future the future tomorrow & the next day
dark eyes new clothes
Your white & scented mind.

I'm nowhere
No history forget
No heating
Just a t.v.
We cut our hair
We go to bed
We don't exaggerate
You're very well produced
Reveal your true self
Another beggar
Fantasy
Don't try so hard
Are we genuine?

A ballet of psychology
Leave me
This is my reich
My fears take me
Always expiry dates
Dazzling obscurity
Trying to be offensive.

I will climb every mountain
Every one before me placed
& I will climb up to the stars
For to the stars I'm not disgraced
Aztec moon.

When the streets were paved with poems
And a salary of song
When we never thought we'd have to work
Or anything could go wrong
Because there'd always be the old king cole
The sovereign of our loving
But the king was cut as was our luck
And now the week is working

Now the moral of this story is
Without them you have fun
I thought the wine and roses years
Had only just begun
But in their world life's to short for love
Money gives them pleasure
And without God they have marshaled time
Into but work or leisure

In my young life and I know something now.
I've never tried to create a wow
Wows are few frustration more common
Now I can feel it in my soul
That's why I gave the come on.

Kiss me with your mouth
Your love is better than wine
But wine is all I have
Will your love ever be mine?

Faces fall before my feet
Like blood onto a clean white sheet
When I grow old I won't forget
To innocence my only debt

Wow I feel so fresh today
Barefoot in the snow to make love in the hay
The stars are bright in the abyss
Now I can feel you in my arms
I explode inside your kiss.

Kiss me with your mouth
Your love is better than wine
But wine is all I have
Will your love ever be mine?

We didn't have much money then no hi-fi or t.v.
So we made love I'd sing her songs and she would read to me
But we were young I didn't know what love was all about
And when I slept with her best friend of course she threw me out.
And we cried and we cried and we cried.
She was so beautiful
17.

I was looking for a deal looking for a hit
The affectations of success the air that goes with it.
While she was looking for a man who didn't need a maid,
She modeled for an agency who made sure she got paid
When she smiled and she smiled and she smiled.
She was so beautiful
17.

I was an empty headed libertine

after the taxi had pulled away into the dark
I went and looked at
the traffic lights in the cold.
from red to green
through days and nights
the only thing to change in years.

They get their way most times
But you'll get your way this time
You cannot stay in this hole
You'll get away this time

Warm with wayward hope
Your kisses breathless
Your love divine
You left drama school
For shop floor
Restless not by design
You are tired of provincial boutique Sundays
You want the mythical New York and Champs Elysee

They get their way most times
But you'll get your way this time
You cannot stay in this hole
You'll get away this time

Will there be a war
And will she die or will she no
And find the pain of youth still shows?
Like Mary Tyler-Moore
She stares across the yawning tide
Out of love and terrified.

In the Sunday colour magazine
She reads a line and then she dreams
Of what she'll do when she leaves you again
She knows that home was once a wild unknown
As always her own chaperone
Catch the bus from wilderness or to.

Hold on tight
Catch that bus
Fares please
Ding ding ding.

She makes me quiver
I tried to make a joke
You didn't seem to listen
The cafe was full of smoke
And I was fiercely bitten
The wind outside could bite
But love for you was savage
Was my conversation trite
Or weighed down with luggage?

She's got a lot of problems
She makes me quiver

The soft suede of her boots
"You admit you are neurotic"
Your Maxfield Parrish suits
"Is style like a narcotic"
But if I can't be debonair
I'll just be gaunt and gothic

She's got a lot of problems
She makes me quiver

Icing on the cake
Baby let me make you a statue
To stand outside the council house
To stand as a reminder
Of what you are and what you want to be

I want to live with you
Want to sleep with you
In a house in a peaceful world
They want to take you
They want to break you
Don't let them make you unhappy

You are the icing on the cake
The party on the street
The love we cannot fake
The truth you cannot cheat

You were left on the doorstep
Of the social security
You were hoping for a future as someone
Not just a leisure refugee
I'd always saw you as a fighter and a winner
Not content to only write your name
Their right way is the wrong way
For what you are and what you were born to be

Born to be young and free
To be young and wise
Not to listen to all their lies
Don't let them take you
Don't let them break you
Don't let them make you unhappy

Here we come waltzing home
By the moon so bright
By the sea by the harbour wall
They want to take you
They want to break you
Shape you and make you unhappy

A lot of ink
I'm lying to myself
But I don't know if I'm prepared to listen
The answer is skin deep
Where can I find a simpler complexion?
Maybe I can, maybe I can't
Maybe a baby, or maybe a plant
I could buy a gun, a new pair of shoes
I'll make you unhappy so don't make me choose
Between the devil I know, the devil I don't
A lover who loves me, and a lover who won't
Accept that I'm so confused
About love and love I have refused

I'll get a lot of ink out of our affair
But baby I don't care

I want what I can't have
But if by chance I get it I don't want it
I want to hold your hand
But holding hands holds more demands than answers
Give me a kiss give me a break
Give me a miss for I won't stay awake
Beyond the flattery dash caught in a crush
A moment of pash before the pregnant hush
Is it two hearts or three shaken or stirred?
Give me an answer or give me the bird
Won't you tell me about the loves in your life?
You're nobody's fool and nobody's wife

I'll get a lot of ink out of our affair
Over the kitchen sink with flowers in our hair
But baby I don't care

You execute loves pas de deux
But you think you're just par for the course
And your kisses have no strings attached
And your love is always left on the latch
You're such a sweet thing
Not a catch phrase or a dance craze
But the nature of my success
Seems to make your tears
Jingles for singles

So I'll get a lot of ink out of our affair
Over the kitchen sink with flowers in our hair
For baby I don't care

Unkiss that kiss
You screw up your face when he kisses you
And when you make love it's not love for you
And when you cry he swears you're not the same
Where is the girl he would have died for?
Perhaps the girl has kissed the boy and never will

Unkiss that kiss
She never could
Untouch that touch
She never would
Unkiss that kiss
She never could
Untouch that touch

I went to St. Christopher's Place but it reminded me of you
Remainder our night on French bed linen
But don't expect me to
Unkiss that kiss

Blasted with ecstasy
Blasted with ecstasy
Don't fall out the tree
Blasted with Ecstasy
O woe is me

Love is a great gift like a precious flower

Well I must say if I was a young girl
I think it would have made quite an impression on me.
Whether it would have been the right impression,
Of course, I can't say.

Dream machine
Well yeah, I mean it's great that...
Get into my dream machine and make me come.
Get into the dream machine and touch me.
Get into the dream machine and go faster faster faster.
Peter Pan.
Edward Bear.
You are my neon love in the hot baths.
The film begins when you leave the cinema.
God is pooh bear.
Journey through time. Space.

Tannoy: Korean Airline flight 1. Departure for Seoul
departing from gate 35.

Oh God! I could be bounded in a nutshell,
and count myself king of infinite space,
were it not that I have bad dreams.

Before the silver microphone
in his snake suit
a reptile boy
disappearing in time
soft shoe dancing on the moon.

comedown
good night.
the world is waking up now baby
comedown.
is it all wearing off
now maybe you have got some sleep to do.

good night.
I know that I should call a cab
and go home.
I wonder will I find a light on there
with no more night to share.

was it good?
were we close?
but will our love be comatose by

sunrise?
the world is waking up now baby
comedown.
is it all wearing off
now maybe you have got some sleep to do.

In Iverna Gardens
Someone asking Are you there?
We've been here for so long
We knew we'd never feel the same.
Tuned in for a different song
Leave the shadows and the shade
And in the light be smothered.
Never going to hate again,
No one can be bothered.
Loving is easier.

I turned you on in Iverna Gardens
I turned you on.

The counterpane is moving
The television shimmers
The world's a brightly burning coal
The night rolls like a river
Lamplight shining through the years
Like astronauts romantic
We breathe the space where stars revolve
And won't give up our magic.
For loving is easier.

I turned you on in Iverna Gardens
I turned you on.

Loving is easier,
Nothing is easier.

Cover
Secure me by the back door with my lover
Her charcoal curves and convent greys in colour
The gilded English model girl
Who knows without surprise
She never wants to be alone
The one thing that she can't keep down is
Love and all it's silvered courses
A trifle hard for untrained horses
Ride away with me
Don't forget to tell the tale

A story of love and never a tale of woe
A story of love and never a tale of woe
Hold on
Do you know where we're going?
Hold on.

Return to yesterday
It was the day before the day before yesterday
When we thought everything would now go our way
We inherited a fortune of innocence
And they took it all away

We travel on the last bus from sanity
Through province town to cities of obscurity
And somewhere down the road it occurs to me
That I might have missed my stop

But I will not return to yesterday
Or smooth out the human clay1
We'll face this new England like we always have
In a fury of denial we'll go out dancing on the tiles
Help me down but don't take me back

I heard a lover calling to Saint Anthony
Sadly treating love like her property
Only battles can be lost and so it seems we do
But I'm hoping for a change

I left you at the bus stop in working town
Now the service has been cut renamed slumber down
I can see you on the bars of your brother's bicycle
Now I hope you're not alone

And all the politician creeps
I know they want them back
And the couturier weeps
She knows they won't come back
And the lovers who seldom speak
I know they want them back
And me falling back into your half term kisses

No I will not return to yesterday
Or smooth out the human clay
We'll face this new England like we always have
In a fury of denial we'll go out dancing on the tiles
Help me down but don't take me back.

Black velvet
Hide your feelings
Hide from the postman
Or the night spent falling down in the night
In Butcher town
The night spent crawling like a snail
On Black Velvet.

Found me a language
That talks without blackmail
Without words
I called for you without words
I called for you
And you answered like a kiss
On Black Velvet.

Bring me the sunshine
Bring me the ocean
To its knees
The ocean fell to its knees
And we walked softly
Like snow so silent under foot
Or Black Velvet.

Love becomes a savage
The light dissolves the darkness for sleepy she
The day unwraps the night ties and we can see
The sunbeam blinds the moonbeam and morning disagrees
With the panic before dream time overcome.

Your body lies before me goose pimplean
That shivers to my fingers
As I touch the hairs below your stomach
And slowly in between
How slowly can I stay here?
And never yet too much.

But If you get married
You'll find out that it's true
Love becomes a savage
Who's going to savage you

I want a farm of kisses on your lips
Planted with best wishes
A mouthful of sips
I know every crevice
And I know every kiss
And what tastes have been before me
And which ones you will miss.

But If you get married
You'll find out that it's true
Love becomes a savage
Who's going to savage you

The lost girl in the midnight sun
Spanish is the loving tongue
The lost girl in the midnight sun
Is lost and young
She comes as if from a dream
And asks me what does living mean?
I'm lost I'm lost

We build in sand before the tide
I understand that we can't hide

The revenge of suburban spite
They turn their backs upon the light
They're wrong they're wrong
The narrow minded who cannot learn
From bearded boys and lank haired girls
Who were right
Right on.

In the hours of idle dreaming
Ten gold leaves my blood is bleeding
We build in sand before the tide
I understand that we can't hide
And try to hide that we don't understand

Come and live out on the beach
Where new Victorian blackouts bleach
Oh come oh come
Reject their values and their fear
Money isn't worshipped here
Oh come oh come
There will be times of joy and sorrow
Don't put off life until tomorrow
The spark of human kindness catches
A little flame among the ashes
Truth will only come in snatches

Trinity
Calling card an ocean view
Her windswept hair and family Ford
Padlocked gates the red brick shade
Tall hedges of her green city

Out worn maps of consciousness
Sometimes have to be redrawn
Draw me in your arms to me
I don't know what to do about trinity.

Wait and see
Wait and see
How empty we can be
Wait and see

Hand in hand
Running like the sand
Hand in hand

And if the sound of waves
Becomes a lake of tears
Wait and see
How empty we can be

Oh your arcane lies are over now
Banaler now and older still
And your princeling siblings
Take their pills
Wear their thrills and younger than.

They spool on to the part
Where he takes her to the park
And they ride home in the dark
On a milk float
If they would not give in
To the sentimental spin
Of the juke box jive
They grew up with

Underground
I'm going underground
Over you
Bakerloo
I'm going home on you
Bakerloo

She kissed me with her eyes
While she told me lies
Wait and see
How empty we can be
Wait and see.

Madresfield
Pavilion in winter
The turnstile getting colder
The cricket ground is empty
And Madresfield is sleepy
Sleep beneath the snow

How come no one told me
That killing time is harmful
For time cannot recover
And soon the ground will offer
Sleep beneath the snow

These things I can remember
Like municipal ironwork
The hand me downs that clothe you
Are all that I know of you
Soon sleep beneath the snow
And in sleep we will know

Pavilions in winter
The turnstile getting colder
The cricket ground is empty
And Madresfield is sleepy
Sleep beneath the snow.

Fortunes
Fortunes left in the bank
For the tax man to take
And for no one to thank
I can't value my interest in you
Evaluate what I can do.
You are not really depressed
And I'm not obsessed by you
Never undressed with you
Who sins more sweetly than you
And so unashamedly too.

Girl in the choir and singing
How you inspire all this longing
There can't be a man who would damn you
So how come not one understands you?

Always I single you out
Your voice from the others
As if you were shouting
Or whispering into my ear
The unison I always hear
I see a girl in the choir
She sings the same harmony
Is part of the score with me
Follow her into the fire
In love with a girl in the choir.

Girl in the choir and singing
How you inspire all this longing
There can't be a man who would damn you
So how come not one understands you?

Galaxy
Like Jesus through the looking glass
To Geraldine I make this pass
Turn off the lights and come to bed
Forget all the dreadful things I've said
(I've said them all before for sure
to other girls, no less demure).

Tie my shoe lace help me walk
But this time please don't make me talk
There are things I dare not say
Of who I love and in what way
But Geraldine accepts me mute
For silence is a stronger suit.

The leaves have fallen soon will snow
On Geraldine and all those below
The passing years leave vapour trails
Or silver patterns like those of snails
I was quite sure when we passed here
But rain left sky and paving clear.

Love is such a fractured thing
Its splinters slither in our skin
We will never feel complete
With time we always will compete
These moments mirrored in your eyes
Will stay with me till this body dies.

So stay with me till this body dies
Stay with me till this body dies
This body dies.

The darkness of her eyes
The innocent smell lovely
The young and pure and ready
And I'm dancing in the darkness of her eyes
I'm privileged to smell you
You needn't hang around me
You've got all your life for pungent lies.

And I can't see beyond today
Can't think about what if the sun stays down
I believe it never has before
Though there may be less between us and the lord
Let nothing come between us.
Nothing, nothing, nothing.

You ask so many questions
And still expect an answer
But soon you will not listen anyway
Young enough to wonder
Old enough to wander
Fool enough to think he knows the way

And you sat on the Gate
In the London Sunday rain
And yesterday's face
And I cannot wait
For you to engulf me in your embrace.

And I can't see beyond today
Can't think about what if the sun stays down
I believe it never has before
Though there may be less between us and the lord
Let nothing come between us.
Nothing, nothing, nothing.

Sunshine's daughter
The qualities she invests in me
Run over me like rainwater
I'm lost in the desert and out to sea
By falling for sunshine's daughter.

Sunshine sunshine.

I walked with her by the crescent moon
The guardians of a secret
The only way we can live with each other
Is poetry and not logic
By poetry and not logic.

Sunshine, sunshine, be mine.

The more materialistic the world becomes
More angels I will paint for her
I've rechristened the statue of liberty
I'm calling her sunshine's daughter.

Sunshine, sunshine, be mine.
Sunshine, sunshine, sunshine.

She belongs to all
She belongs to all,
She talks as she undresses
The love that she expresses
When nothing can be said.
Pennies in a stream,
My love songs unrequited
And all the dicks you slighted
Are at your door.

I won't erase your teenage writings from my wall
Where you wrote
Love is all
You meant it you know you did.
Where others see the mother of another child
I still see your eyes ablaze and wild
Outside your faculty.

She belongs to all
Among the facts and fictions
The crutches and addictions of everyday.
Even in the grey solar energy is transmuted
The one thing that can't be disputed is on it's way.

I won't erase your teenage writings from my wall
Where you wrote
Love is all
You meant it you know you did.
Where others see the mother of another child
I still see your eyes ablaze and wild
Outside your faculty.

L'amour est tout, je te jour monsieur.

An ear for silent voices
An ear for silent voices
The words they hear
And random things recorded
That we endear
These random things recorded
The gogo years
The ghosts and benedictions
Entrepreneurs
The ghosts and benedictions
Evolutionary spark
The hydrogen and helium
Exploding in the dark
From hydrogen to helium
To incandescent gas
And long lost in the limelight
the souls that came to pass
Long lost like the limelight
Poisoned by the tide
Of our three minute culture
Loves young dream died
In our three minute culture
Infertility
No ears for silent voices
And all they can set free.

A Man Without A Star
It started to rain as I reached for your hand in the precinct
If you need reassurance I love you I need you
But don't be afraid if your life isn't going
The way that you want it

Then she turned and said
You're a dreamer
An underachiever
a might have been
Man without a star
Stunned by her outburst I let go her hand at the precinct
I tried very hard not to deceive you
I've written of love as it is as I know it
(So much for writing)

The threatening page the words of love in writing
Somehow they seem binding almost afraid
Man without a star

Ideas translated into music
Lost in translation & what I mean to say
The sentimental chastised dreamer sighs
Rubs his eyes
And casts his net again

I walked away and I started to dream of Elysium
Reality dwindled the real world escaped me
Who can relate to another mans fate
We're alone in our quandary

A vesper song swung out of the cloisters
Sliding down the banisters the mystery
Man without a star.

It Sparkles!
The advent calendars of her eyes
And she sparkles her surprise
The marvels of the milky way
Are but a candle to her
I kissed but she did not kiss back
Temptations of the saints
And though the leaves are falling fast
She still thinks she ain't
And she's going to blow my mind
This time

So we set out for the sun
A generation on the run
The ones who hid by moving trains
Pretending destinations
Now fighting everyone she knows
And some imaginary foes
My campus bride for whom truth slips
Beyond her finger tips.
And she's going to blow my mind
This time

I've been sitting on the corner of my street
waiting for her
waiting for her
And I don't know if she sparkles
when she speaks
If I could love her any more.

I won't deny that we had fun
More than I can say for some
With just so many years to live
In which nothing gives
Two courting birds wheeled away
Against the opalescent grey
My campus bride and I just sit
Certain this is it
And she's going to blow my mind
If she can find the time
And she's going to blow my mind
This time.

So Far Away.
When I was a young young man
back in the twentieth century.
The day the Berlin wall came down
and other days forgotten
nostalgia isn't what it was
farewell then Johnny Rotten
Brian Jones & Jackson Pollock Chairman Mao
see you later Allen Ginsberg
you changed the world somehow.
I've been looking for a way to be true
a way out of the blue
calling but I cant get through
to explain myself to you
the constant repetition
of details from the past
the painful human anguish
of why can't true love last?
whilst living in the wreckage
of all we've done

Oh God
I drew a peace sign on my baseball boots
July 1975
I was listening to the basement tapes
Happy to be alive
Drugs are for the rivh and strong
And they'll leave them weak and poor
For there are many years I can't recall
That left me sleeping on your floor
Give me something to believe in
Oh God something to believe in
And at the time I was a young young boy
Barely 42
I didn't know only love could break your heart
And I didn't know what love could do
So when the phone went dead in the living room
In the sunshine over Gramercy
And when the tears fell and the sky went dark
And on the peace march we wrote poetry
Give me something to believe in
Oh God something to believe in
Oh God something to believe in

Nothing Can Last.
I dare not say your name
I know you feel the same
And I fear I might say out loud
That I love you because I do if you are the answer
Then love is like cancer
It's killing me faster than time
I want to tell someone I hurt
Maybe I should tell you first
But I think you might be afraid
That I'm dying of you
If you are the partner
And loving gets harder
Pretend I'm a stranger as well
Don't drink tonight if you don't want us to fight
The moments of abuse
Should not be an excuse from moving on
Having fun
And being the only one
I know that you love me
and although I love you
we both know that nothing can last.

Bank Holiday Monday
Bank Holiday Monday
You don't have a lot to say
You're waiting for payday
You can't wait to get away
This boring town gets you down
There's no one to come around

Why wait in for someone
Who is not as good as you?

Railway station
Train on the eastbound track
Girls without make up
Keeping me coming back
When you're old you can't be told
That anywhere is paved with gold

Why wait in for something
That's not as good as you?

You must take heart
You're heading for the sky
You don't have to ask why
Wystan Hugh Auden
John Winston Ono Lennon
Left middle England
Where they suffocate everything
They got away and so could you
What else is there to do?

Why wait in for something
That's not as good as you?

May Day Bank Holiday Monday 2002

12 tones
Little get your coat we must leave
Get out on the street & in the breeze
Summer's over and night must fall
Cover me in 12 tones
I was just a lad still in my teens
I saved up all I had for leather jeans
They're bagged and broken at the seams
I had to hear the twelve tones
To fall in love's as simple as a song
that you hear but once & sing along
Marriage is a symphony
you've got to know your 12 tones.

1Auden: Letter to Lord Byron "To me Art's subject is the human clay"