I've Been To A Marvellous Party

(Album: A Secret History... The Best Of The Divine Comedy - 1999)

I must say it's the most extraordinary experience not everybody I suppose it's something to do with the sun and all that but I wouldn't understand myself really and I'm not sure its even legal

You know quite for no reason I'm here for the season and high as a kite
Living in error with Maud at Cap Ferrar which couldn't be right
Everyone's here and frightfully gay nobody cares what people say
Though the Riviera seems really much queerer than Rome at its height
On Wednesday night I went to a marvellous party
With Nunu and Nada and Nell
It was in the fresh air and we went as we were and we stayed as we were which was hell
Poor Grace started singing at midnight and she didn't stop singing till four
We knew the excitement was bound to begin when Laura got blind on Dubonnet and Gin
And scratched her veneer with a Cartier pin, I couldn't have liked it more!

I couldn't have liked it more...

I've been to a marvellous party. We played a wonderful game
Maureen disappeared and came back in a beard and we all had to guess at her name
Cecil arrived wearing armour, some shells and a black feather boa
Poor Millicent wore a surrealist comb made of bits of mosaic from St Peters in Rome
But the weight was so great that she had to go home, well I couldn't have liked it more

I've been to a marvellous party. I must say the fun was intense
We all had to do what the people we knew might be doing 100 years hence
We talked about growing old gracefully and Elsie who's 74
Said a) it's a question of being sincere and b) if you're supple you've got nothing to fear
Then she swung upside down from a chandelier, and I couldn't have liked it more

It was the most fabulous excitement, I've never seen such a carry on obviously it couldn't happen anywhere else but on the Riviera it was most peculiar...
You know people's behaviour away from Belgravia would make you aghast. So much variety watching society scampering past... You know if you had any mind at all, Gibbons divine 'Decline and Fall' well it sounds pretty flimsy no more than a whimsy by way of contrast on Wednesday last...

I went to a marvellous party, we didn't sit down till ten
Y'know young Bobby Carr did a stunt at the bar with a lot of extraordinary men
And then Freda arrived with a turtle which shattered us all to the core
And then the Duchess passed out at a quarter to three and suddenly Cyril cried 'fiddle-de-de'
And he ripped off his trousers and jumped in the sea, I couldn't have liked it more

I've been to a marvellous party, Elise made an entrance with May
You'd never have guessed from her fisherman's vest that her bust had been whittled away
Poor Lulu got fried on chianti and talked about esprit de corps
Louise made a couple of passes at Gus and Freddy who hates any kind of a fuss
Did half the big apple and twisted his truss... Ha ha! I couldn't have liked it more