Bitter Suite

(album: Misplaced Childhood - 1985)

[I. Brief Encounter]

A spider wanders aimlessly within the warmth of a shadow
Not the regal creature of border caves
But the poor, misguided, directionless familiar
Of some obscure Scottish poet

The mist crawls from the canal
Like some primordial phantom of romance
To curl, under a cascade of neon pollen
While I sit tied to the phone like an expectant father
Your carnation will rot in a vase.

[II. Lost Weekend]

A train sleeps in a siding
The driver guzzles another can of lager
To wash away the memories of a Friday night down at the club

She was a wallflower at sixteen
She'll be a wallflower at thirty four
Her mother called her beautiful
Her daddy said, "A whore".

[III. Blue Angel]

The sky was Bible black in Lyon
When I met the Magdalene
She was paralysed in a streetlight
She refused to give her name

And a ring of violet bruises
They were pinned upon her arm.
Two hundred francs for sanctuary and she led me by the hand
To a room of dancing shadows where all the heartache disappears
And from glowing tongues of candles I heard her whisper in my ear
"'J'entend ton coeur"
I can hear your heart

[IV. Misplaced Rendezvous]

It's getting late, for scribbling and scratching on the paper
Something's gonna give under this pressure
And the cracks are already beginning to show
It's too late
The weekend career girl never boarded the plane
They said this could never happen again
So wrong, so wrong

This time it seems to be another misplaced rendezvous
This time, it's looking like another misplaced rendezvous
With you
The parallel of you, you

[V. Windswept Thumb]

On the outskirts of nowhere
On the ringroad to somewhere
On the verge of indecision
I'll always take the roundabout way
Waiting on the rain
For I was born with a habit, from a sign
The habit of a windswept thumb
And the sign of the rain
It's started raining