East Side Story

(difford/tilbrook)

I bought a toothbrush, some toothpaste
A flannel for my face
Pyjamas, a hairbrush
New shoes and a case
I said to my reflection
Let's get out of this place
Past the church and the steeple
The laundry on the hill
Billboards and the buildings
Memories of it still
Keep calling and calling
But forget it all
I know i will

Tempted by the fruit of another
Tempted but the truth is discovered
What's been going on
Now that you have gone
There's no other
Tempted by the fruit of another
Tempted but the truth is discovered

I'm at the car park, the airport
The baggage carousel
The people keep on crowding
I'm wishing i was well
I said it's no occasion
It's no story i could tell

At my bedside empty pocket
A foot without a sock
Your body gets much closer
I fumble for the clock
Alarmed by the seduction
I wish that it would stop

I bought a novel, some perfume
A fortune all for you
But it's not my conscience
That hates to be untrue
I asked of my reflection
Tell me what is there to do

(difford/tilbrook)

You've left my ring by the soap,
Now is that love?
You cleaned me out you could say broke,
Now is that love?
The better better better it gets
The more these girls forget
That that is love.
You won't get dressed you walk about,
Now is that, is that
A teasing glance has pushed me out,
Now is that, is that
The tougher tougher tougher it gets
The more my lips frequent
Now that is love.

Beat me up with your letters, your walk out notes,
Funny how you still find me right here at home.
Legs up with a book and a drink,
Now is that love that's making you think.

You've called my bluff i'm not so hot,
Now is that love
My assets froze while yours have dropped,
Now is that, is that
It's the cupid cupid cupid disguise
That more or less survived
Now that is love.

Beat me up with your letters, your walk out notes,
Funny how you still find me right here at home.
Legs up with a book and a drink,
Now is that love that's making you think.

You've made my bed the finger points
Now is that, is that love
The more you more you more you cool down
The easier love is found
Now that is love.

(difford/tilbrook)

I wrote her name on a bar mat
She had a peculiar bonnet,
But a youngish damsel figure
With her tongue tied to a trigger,
She seemed a total killer
Her face all filled with filler,
Her face a painting palette
I stomached all her habits,
Sipped her snow balls poshly like a judge
But left her lipstick traces on her mug.
We watched each other closely
She looks like bela lugosi,
She asked me for a ride home
I felt around for my comb,
And in the bar room mirror
I combed right through her figure,
She wiggled through the car park
Into the pit of my heart,
Sat herself beside me in my van
A ring on every finger of her hand.

She lived down by the river
A flat the council give her,
Wallpaper very scenic
Her outlook very beatnik,
We watched the close and weather
Then through the door he entered,
Short sleeves and arms of iron
And me with just my tie on,
She said the lodger's used to this by now
I'd handled all the bull but not the cow.

Behind her velvet sofa
I found myself back sober,
She kept an old acoustic
She never ever used it,
A gift for me with a capo
A six string with an f-hole,
We made the strangest couple
A laurel and hardy double,
I learnt to play her favourite country songs
With one or two chords always going wrong

(difford/tilbrook)

She's not a picture above somebody's fire
She sits in a towel with a purple hair dryer,
She waits to get even with me.
She hooks up her cupcakes and puts on her jumper
Explains that she'll be late to a worrying mother,
She meets me in piccadilly.
A begging folk singer stands tall by the entrance
His song relays worlds of most good intentions,
A fiver a ten p in his hat for collection.

She talks about office she talks about dresses
She's seen one she fancies her smile is impressing,
So maybe i'll treat her someday.
We queue among strangers and strange conversation
Love's on the lips of all forms of engagements,
All queuing to see tonight's play.

A man behind me talks to his young lady
He's happy that she is expecting his baby,
His wife won't be pleased but she's not been round lately.

The girl was so dreadful we left in a hurry
We escaped in the rain for an indian curry,
At the candle lit taj mahal.
My lips to a napkin i called for a taxi
The invite of eyes made it tense but relaxed me,
My mind took a devious role.

The cab took us home through a night i'd not noticed
The neon club lights of adult films and trini lopez,
My arm around love but my acting was her best.

We crept like two thieves from the kettle to the fire
We kissed to the sound of the silence that we'd hired,
Now captured, your love in my arms.
A door opened slightly a voice spoke in worry
Mum went to bed without wind of the curry,
Our secret love made its advance.

Like adam and eve we took bite on the apple
Loose change in my pocket it started to rattle,
Heart like a gun was just half of the battle.

(difford/tilbrook)

She left her school for the factory
From pocket money to a salary,
From a pac-a-mac to a compact case
And every morning she inspects her face.
She discovers pulling pints in pubs
That the good looks will never cover up for
Her dumbness in taking the stock
Sees her reflection in a butcher's shop.
She finds it all quite rare
That her meat's all vanity fair.

She has her eyes on medallion men
Who get her home on the dot at ten,
She combs her hair when she gets excused
The deal she wants always ends up screwed.
Paints her nails on the bathroom scales
Gargles her breath like a landed whale,
Her beauty is as deep as her skin
Keeps her eyebrows in a tobacco tin.
She poses foot on the chair
Coconut shy but vanity fair.

In her vanity case her compact case
In her compact case her eyes,
Not bad for a sister
But her vanity's fair and her sense of humour's dry.
She comes home late with another screw loose
She swears to have had just a pineapple juice,
Falls asleep fully clothed in her bed
With her makeup remover by her head.
And she might not be all there
But her dream's all vanity fair.

(difford/tilbrook)

She unscrews the top of a new whiskey bottle
And shuffles about in her candle lit hovel,
Like some kind of witch with blue fingers in mittens
She smells like the cat and the neighbours she sickens,
The black and white t.v. has long seen a picture
The cross on the wall is a permanent fixture,
The postman delivers the final reminders
She sells off her silver and poodles in china.
Drinks to remember, i me and myself
And winds up the clock
And knocks dust from the shelf
Home is a love that i miss very much
So the past has been bottled and labelled with love.

During the war time an american pilot
Made every air raid a time of excitement,
She moved to his prairie and married the texan
She learnt from a distance how love was a lesson,
He became drinker and she became mother
She knew that one day she'd be one or the other,
He ate himself older, drunk himself dizzy
Proud of her features, she kept herself pretty.

He like a cowboy died drunk in his slumber
Out on the porch in the middle of summer,
She crossed the ocean back home to her family
But they had retired to roads that were sandy,
She moved home alone without friends or relations
Lived in a world full of age reservation,
On moth eaten armchairs she'd say that she'd sod all
The friends who had left her to drink from the bottle.

(difford/tilbrook)

We talk about each other
On our wrap around couch,
And live out all the romance
In our little town house.
I never fit the shower
And she never sews the threads,
And so we find our feelings
In other people's beds.
And if the grass seems greener,
But it turns out to be blue
The garden of eden isn't quite the place for you.
Don't be surprised if i'm gone under the spell,
Of some other witches' wand
Ringing someone else's bell.

Meeting on the motorway
Your lover boy blue,
Steaming up the windows
With your last breath of youth.
Don't you think i see it
Your handbag's full of notes,
I'm feeling like the punch line
In someone's private joke.

Our eyes don't seem to contact
Never much to say,
Except perhaps excuse me
Or pass me the ashtray.
I see him waiting for you
As you go off to work,
I'm left to draw conclusions
While i button up my shirt.