Greatest Hits

(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)

If it's love
That would really explain it
How i feel like i'm covered in wool
If it's love
Then it's really exciting
And my diary's become very full
If it's love does it matter
If i'm thin or i'm fatter
If it's love then it feels like i've won the pools
If it's love
Then it needs some devotion
And i feel like i'm walking on air
If it's love
Then i feel like i'm floating
Through my world without knowing who's there
If it's love someone slap me
Is this me that's so happy
If it's love then i'm laughing like i don't care

If it's love then my teeth are clean for a change
If it's love then that's why i'm feeling so strange

If it's love
Then i need it forever
Like the beats that keep time in my heart
If it's love
Then i fall like a feather
I'm an egg in the teeth of a shark
If it's love i'm inspired
I'm up late, i'm not tired
If it's love my world is about to spark

If it's love love love love love love

(difford/tilbrook)

I feel like i'm pounding on a big door
No one can hear me knocking
I feel like i'm falling flat to the floor
No one can catch me from falling
The hourglass has no more grains of sand
My watch has stopped no more turning hands
The crew have abandoned ship
The lights are on but no one is in
Take it to the bridge
Throw it overboard
See if it can swim
Back up to the shore
No one's in the house
Everyone is out
All the lights are on
And the blinds are down

I feel like i'm calling on a telephone
No one can hear the ringing
I feel like i'm running up a steep hill
No one can stop me from running
The hourglass has no more grains of sand
My watch has stopped no more turning hands
The little hand shakes its fist
The face is hanging out on a spring

The hourglass has no more grains of sand
Little red grains of sand
My watch has stopped no more turning hands
Little green neon hands

i met her in a poolroom
Her name i didn't catch
She looked like something special
The kind who'd understand
The room was almost spinning
She pulled another smile
She had the grace like pleasure
She had a certain style

Sunlight on the lino
Woke me with a shake
I looked around to find her but she'd gone
Goodbye girl
Goodbye girl
Goodbye girl

She took me to her motel
The room on the second floor
A kettle and two coffees
Her number on the door
She said i hardly know you
Agreed we kissed goodnight
I knew that in the morning
Somehow i'd wake to find

Sunlight on the lino
Woke me with a shake
I looked around to find her but she'd gone
Goodbye girl
Goodbye girl
Goodbye girl

I lost my silver bracelet
My clubroom locker keys
The money in the billfold
It doesn't bother me
My wife has moved to boston
So luck is not the word
If you ever see her
Say hello goodbye girl

Sunlight on the lino
Woke me with a shake
I looked around to find her but she'd gone
Goodbye girl
Goodbye girl
Goodbye girl
Goodbye girl
Goodbye girl
Goodbye girl
Goodbye girl

(difford/tilbrook)

I never thought it would happen
With me and the girl from clapham
Out on a windy common
That night i ain't forgotten
When she dealt out the rations
With some or other passions
I said you are a lady
Perhaps she said i may be
We moved into a basement
With thoughts of our engagement
We stayed in by the telly
Although the room was smelly
We spent our time just kissing
The railway arms we're missing
But love had got us hooked up
And all our time it took up

I got a job with stanley
He said i'd come in handy
And started me on monday
So i had a bath on sunday
I worked eleven hours
And bought the girl some flowers
She said she'd seen a doctor
And nothing now could stop her

I worked all through the winter
The weather brass and bitter
I put away a tenner
Each week to make her better
And when the time was ready
We had to sell the telly
Late evenings by the fire
With little kicks inside her

This morning at 4:50
I took her rather nifty
Down to an incubator
Where thirty minutes later
She gave birth to a daughter
Within a year a walker
She looked just like her mother
If there could be another

And now she's two years older
Her mother's with a soldier
She left me when my drinking
Became a proper stinging
The devil came and took me
From bar to street to bookie
No more nights by the telly
No more nights nappies smelling

Alone here in the kitchen
I feel there's something missing
I'd beg for some forgiveness
But begging's not my business
And she won't write a letter
Although i always tell her
And so it's my assumption
I'm really up the junction

(difford/tilbrook)

She was frigid like a bible
When she met her boyfriend michael
He took her in his zephyr
They sat like salt and pepper
Looking out across the city
From lover's leap is pretty
The lights they flick and flutter
He told her how he loved her
Next night he called for her
But dad protected daughter
And told him she was poorly
A lie was told there surely
So michael felt rejected
This wasn't quite expected
He drove off to his local
Where he felt anti-social

She cried all night at missing
The boy she could be kissing
While he was falling over
He drunk himself back sober
And went home in a taxi
And crashed out in the back seat
He slept just like a baby
Which he hadn't done just lately
He saw her in the morning
Out with his sister pauline
She felt all shy and soppy
He acted cool and cocky
He said tonight at charlie's
There's going to be a party
I'll meet you at half seven
She visualised the heaven

If you ever change your mind
Which you do from time to time
Never chew a pickle
With a little slap and tickle
You have to throw the stone
To get the pool to ripple

That night they danced together
It looked like love forever
He put his hand on her leg
You should have heard what she said
He tried again much later
It seemed to aggravate her
He drove home in silence
Avoiding all violence
She said let's watch the city
From lover's leap is pretty
I think i need the fresh air
She put a comb through her hair
Then while she turned to kiss him
And very nearly missed him
She put her hand on his leg
He felt her tongue in his head

If you ever change your mind
Which you do from time to time
Never chew a pickle
With a little slap and tickle
You have to throw the stone
To get the pool to ripple

(difford/tilbrook)

There's a stain on my notebook
Where your coffee cup was
And there's ash in the pages
Now i've got myself lost
I was writing to tell you
That my feelings tonight
Are a stain on my notebook
That rings your goodbye
With the way that you left me
I can hardly contain
The hurt and the anger
And the joy of the pain
Now knowing i am single
They'll be fire in my eyes
And a stain on my notebook
For a new love tonight

From the lips without passion
To the lips with a kiss
There's nothing of your love
That i'll ever miss
The stain on my notebook
Remain all that's left
Of the memory of late nights
And coffee in bed

Now she's gone
And i'm back on the beat
A stain on my notebook
Says nothing to me
Now she's gone
And i'm out with a friend
With lips full of passion
And coffee in bed

(difford/tilbrook)

She left in the middle of the night with the kids
Wrapped in a blanket with a packet of crisps
Heading for her mothers on another estate
The kids looked up at the light and the rain
In the middle of the night such adventures made
For two little kids staying up late
It was rainy and windy as winter was bleak
At four in the morning on king george street
She couldn't get to sleep where on earth had he gone
The door opened wide and the light went on
He was drunk as a lord with a tyre mark hat
Falling in the hall on top of the cat
Singing viva espana to a crying wife
He took a swing at the shade on the light
They were knocking on the doors dressed like refugees
In the pouring rain on king george street

She won't have that behaviour in her house any more
He's got to sober up or get kicked out of the door
Down on the corner the kids at his feet
As daddy comes home on king george street

They stood around the kettle and watched as it brewed
Sneezing into hankies hands all blue
The next evening he came around to the house
With a bunch of flowers they locked him out
He peered through the window
Mouthed words through the air
Her lips to a cup she saw him out there
The kids came running but were they happy to see
Their daddy back home on king george street

(difford/tilbrook)

I'm faced with the facts
And a fist full of threats
I stand quite amused
At the end of the bed
I have no defense
For what i have said
As a handful of love
Whacks me right round the head
She's growling and stalking
And grabs from a pile
A book that she throws
And it missed by a mile
I'm holding a pillow
And as naked as sin
I'm backed to a corner
With a wastepaper bin
Then up on the mattress
There's no place to go
I'm guilty yes guilty
But there's no place like home

I rewind the hours
To see what went wrong
I plead for forgiveness
And i'm hit like a gong
It seems that i'm guilty
Of smiling too long
When recalling lovers
That now are long gone
I'm guilty you're guilty
So let me be stoned
The past is the present
When there's no place like home

Off with the shoes
And a whack round the head
Your ear rings like a phone
Some explanation
Might patch and mend
A love that's lost control
Now there's no place like home

(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.