Live At The Royal Albert Hall

(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)

I've come across the desert
To greet you with a smile
My camel looks so tired
It's hardly worth my while
To tell you of my travels
Across the golden east
I see your preparations
Invite me first to feast
Take me i'm yours
Because dreams are made of this
Forever there'll be
A heaven in your kiss

Amusing belly dancers
Distract me from my wine
Across tibetian mountains
Are memories of mine
I've stood some ghostly moments
With natives in the hills
Recorded here on paper
My chills and thrills and spills

It's really been some welcome
You never seem to change
A grape to tempt your leisure
Romantic gestures strange
My eagle flies tomorrow
It's a game i treasure dear
To seek the helpless future
My love at last i'm here

(difford/tilbrook)

A black and white photograph
Of me up the garden path
Wrapped up in my football scarf
It sits here in my hand
And there mother smothered me
And how she would mother me
She knew how to suffer me
Like all mothers can
Now she is everywhere
The comb that runs through my hair
My posture on a chair
But that's not who i am
He ran from the arguments
And sat on the garden fence
And lived in the passing tense
That fell from her lips
He tended the house so well
And each time she rang his bell
He'd climb back from where he fell
And gathered his wits
Now i fear the mold is mine
A vibration shakes my spine
As i walk the crooked line
Reality hits

So let me walk free from you
You know that you want me to
Let me try something new
Let me walk away

If it's not one thing it's your mother
How i love her
How i love her
How i love her
But it's not so easy to say
Please won't you let me walk away
Let me walk away
Let me walk away

So let me walk on my own
And finish my ice cream cone
If we are to make it home
Then all will be well
Look see i'm a father now
I'm raising my own eyebrow
And being in my own row
And making life hell
This is me, see here i am
Doing the best that i can
This life has a subtle plan
But you couldn't tell

(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)

She goes for her medical
She's passed, it's a miracle
She's up over the moon
She whistles nonsense tunes
She wants drinks for everyone
She's found a chord that she can strum
Emotions leaking out
Her paint's all over town
What's that she's playing?
(annie get your gun)
What's that she's taking?
(the song has to be sung)
She's gone electric
(annie wipe them out)
That's unexpected
(strum that thing and shout)
Don't pull that trigger
(annie get your gun)
Don't shoot that singer
(you're shooting number one)

He's not into miracles
Sees life all too cynical
The cat has got his tongue
Now she bangs on his drum
He says pull the other one
Bells ring, look what you have done
Emotions leaking out
Her paint's all over town