Art School Babe

(album: The Storyteller - 1998)

My art school babe with your palette-knives and brushes
Painted face, Egyptian eye-brows and bright red lips
Pale white make-up, tight black skirts like Juliette Greco
And there's me quoting pretentious chat up lines
From Marcel Proust, Jean Cocteau and Jean-Paul Sartre

Sitting by a gasfire in a drafty bedsit
The art school babe quotes William Blake and she rolls a joint
And I think "Oh oh, I've scored", start to make myself at home
But the room starts moving as she starts to get me stoned

I close my eyes and give in, the room goes in a spin
My lips are dry, I wander around with a ridiculous grin
I grovel on the floor, I think "Yeah I think I can make her"
Then I wake up and realize I've been kissing the refrigerator

Art school chaps with creative grand illusions
My sketch pad at the ready, my eager charcoal in my hand
Boring the world for hours with political theories
Just to impress anyone who listens while my art school babe
Just puts another inch of make-up on her face

And she says to me:
"Arty farty, you'll never fool your Auntie
Who knew you when you picked your nose and wet your pants"
How did she know that?
Arty farty, I try to throw a party
To impress my peers I struck a creative stance

Art school cat, ah, I was really on a mission
I made my play for my art school babe
By humming jazz tunes with words by Furlinghetti
I thought I was ever so cool
But I was really such an obvious, pretentious, irritating little fool
For my art school babe